An abbreviated guide to the study of continental philosophy
Continental philosophy can be unfriendly to the newcomer. Before reading something it’s hard to have an idea of what you need to know beforehand and to what extent. Well, not anymore. I have single handedly cracked continental philosophy so you don’t have to waste your time.
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Key
(F): Familiarity, a couple of surveys or monographies are enough.
(G): Good understanding, more specialized secondary sources plus some important selections of the primary sources are needed.
(E): Excellent understanding, a great deal of primary sources with the aid of studies and commentaries are needed.
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Classical Phenomenology
Previous requirements: History of modern philosophy (F), British empiricism (G), Kant (G), Aristotelian logic (F).
Focus: Husserl
Also: Scheler.
Late phenomenology
Previous requirements: classical phenomenology (E), ancient philosophy (F), christian theology (F).
Focus: Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty.
Also: Stein, Levinas, Simondon.
Kyoto School
Previous requirements: Kant (G), Hegel (G), late phenomenology (G), zen buddhist philosophy (E).
Focus: Nishida
Also: Nishitani, Tanabe.
Existentialism
Previous requirements: late phenomenology (F), Kierkegaard (F).
Focus: Sartre
Also: Camus, Marcel, Beauvoir.
Phenomenological Hermeneutics
Previous requirements: post-heideggerian phenomenology (G), ancient philosophy (G)
Focus: Gadamer.
Also: Ricoeur, Grondin, Vattimo.
Western marxism/ Frankfurt School
Previous requirements: classical sociology (F), psychoanalysis (F), Kant (G), Hegel (G), Marx’s sociology/philosophy (E), Marx’s economic thought (F).
Focus:, Benjamin, Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse.
Also: Lukács, Habermas, Honneth, Davis.
Post-structuralism
Previous requirements: structuralism (F), late phenomenology (G), psychoanalysis (G), Western marxism (F).
Focus: Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze.
Also: Barthes, Lacan, Althusser, Butler, Nancy.
French feminism
Previous requirements: western marxism (F), post-structuralism (G), Lacan (F).
Focus: Kristeva, Cixous, Irigaray
Contemporary Post-marxism
Previous requirements: western marxism (F), post-structuralism (G), Lacan (G).
Focus: Badiou*, Zizek**, Agamben, Ranciere.
Also: Mouffe, Laclau.
* Requires to know set theory.
** Requieres to watch every Hollywood film ever made.
New / Speculative realism [pending]
