This is the home page for Philosophy 442/542, Phenomenology, which was last taught in the Spring semester of 2009 by Professor Ron McClamrock of the University at Albany Department of Philosophy.

The course is now over; much of the material has been taken down. I expect the course will be offered again in 2011.

There’s a copy of the course syllabus available here

If you have questions about the site or the course, please e-mail me at ron at albany dot edu.

Course Description

This course examines the historical and conceptual development of phenomenology in the 20th century, starting with Husserl’s “presuppositionless and purely descriptive science of the structures of consciousness”, and including works by Sartre, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. We’ll emphasize (a) the idea of a presuppositionless account of consciousness; (b) the motivations for and nature of the “existential turn”, and (c) connections between phenomenology and both analytic philosophy and scientific psychology.