Class 13: French Existentialism

“Enlightenment is totalitarian.”—Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment. HIST 271/HUMS 339: European Intellectual History since Nietzsche is a survey course designed to introduce students to the dominant trends in modern European intellectual history. The c ...  Show more

“. . .totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within. In this sense it eliminates the distance between the rulers and the ruled. . .” –Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism. HIST 271/HUMS 339: European Intellectual History since ...  Show more

Professor of philosophy Colin Bodayle joins Breht to dive into the profound, unique, and almost mystical philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. Together, they discuss the value of philosophy for all of us, Spinoza as a "philosopher's philosopher", his life and death in 17th century wester ...  Show more

Deleuze's Nietzsche & Philosophy is an exciting and controversial interpretation of Nietzsche which stands at the forefront of 20th Century Nietzsche scholarship.  In this episode, we visit the text and the concept of ressentiment and the theory of forces, both of whi ...

What does eternal recurrence mean in the historical sense? Nietzsche invites us to explore that question in his raising of the Problem of Science, and the notion of conflict as central to life. Today, in the penultimate episode of the season, we'll take a look into a section from ...  Show more

Breht listens to, reflects on, and critically engages with a public lecture by the late philosopher Michael Sugrue entitled "Nietzsche and the Death of God". He discusses the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, the poli ...