Universität Wien

180045 VO-L Time and Eternity within the Context of Indian Thought (2013S)

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 18 - Philosophie

Attention! The course starts in the second week of March!
Moodle

Details

Language: German

Examination dates

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Tuesday 05.03. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal III NIG Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 12.03. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal III NIG Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 19.03. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal III NIG Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 09.04. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal III NIG Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 16.04. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal III NIG Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 23.04. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal III NIG Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 30.04. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal III NIG Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 07.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal III NIG Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 14.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal III NIG Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 28.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal III NIG Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 04.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal III NIG Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 11.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal III NIG Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 18.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal III NIG Erdgeschoß
  • Tuesday 25.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal III NIG Erdgeschoß

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

This course will focus on the Myth of Eternal Return (See: Eliade, Mircea, The Myth of Eternal Return, Or Cosmos and History, Princeton University Press: Princeton 1954) While a western thinker like Kant claims that time has just one dimension, since several times do not take place at the same time, but one after another, the Myth of Eternal Return assumes that time is fundamentally structured in a cyclic fashion. Only the regular repetition of certain characters like the regular change between day and night, being awake and being asleep, come into being and pass away generates a kind of selfawarness of time, movement, becoming, being-here according to such a theory. Stable structures therefore just seem to be stable. They owe their stability the power to be repeated over and over again within the chaosmos of becoming (Deleuze). This implies a chance for change: The freedom to repeat or not repeat them anymore. A concept of freedom that reminds us strongly to contemporary post-structuralist's conceptions of the relation between time, repetition and alteration (iteration), which we found in Nietzsche, Derrida and Butler.

Assessment and permitted materials

At the end of the semester, there will be a written examination. The exact date will be announced at the beginning of June. About 13 students can also give a presentation (10 minutes) during the seminar that repeats the main points of the unit before. Those students must submit, in addition, a written version of their presentations (about 7 pages). The dates for these presentations will be fixed during the first meeting.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

1. Introduction into Indian Philosophies.
2. Comparison between cyclic conceptions of time in Indian Philosophies and poststructuralist philosophies (Nietzsche, Derrida, Butler)
3. Deconstruction of the Myth of the eternal recurrence of the same within indian and poststructrualist philosophies.

At the end of this course the students should be in a position to problematize the relation between time, rituell practices and the force to break with the simple repetition of stabilized structures.

Examination topics

Lecture of the seminar holder. Every meeting will start with a student presentation (up to 10 minutes) that reviews the main points of the last meeting. Though the course is a lecture, there will be space for discussion.

You will find the literature that will be discussed in each meeting on our moodle internet plattform so that you can prepare yourself before the course takes place by reading the relevant texts in advance. (Moodle administration: Margarethe Urbanowicz-Luczynska <margarethe.luczynska@gmx.net>)

Reading list

Eliade, Mircea: Kosmos und Geschichte. Der Mythos der ewigen Wiederkehr, Insel Verlag: Frankfurt am Main 2007.
Eliade, Mircea: Yoga. Unsterblichkeit und Freiheit, Suhrkamp Verlag: Frankfurt am Main 1985.
Klossowski, Pierre: Nietzsche and the Vidious Circle, The University of Chicago Press: Chicago/London 1997
Michalski, Krzysztof: The Flame of Eternity, Princeton University Press: Princeton 2012
Derrida, Jacques: Limited Inc., Passagen Verlag: Wien 2001.
Butler, Judith: Hass spricht! Politiken des Performativen, Berlin Verlag: Berlin 1998.

Association in the course directory

BA M 8.2, MA M2, MA (alt:) M 4, MA (neu): M2 und M3 (E), EC 1.2, EC 3.3

Last modified: Mo 07.09.2020 15:36