Philosophy at Community College

[sodapopinski51]

I'm off to teach my General Philosophy class in about half an hour. I am growing tired of teaching Plato, Kant, Aquinas and other olde-tyme philosophers (as I call them)... Is it appropriate to teach Foucault, Deleuze, or Marx to an introductory philosophy class

Comments

[anfalicious]

I'm doing Nietzsche with high school kids along with Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kuhn and Popper... I guess it depends what you're trying to achieve in introductory general philosophy. You don't want to turn them off by giving something too dense or hard to follow. I think you'd be fine with Marx, as you can relate it to real world experience to keep your student engagement. I'd be worried that Foucault or Deluze as focii would mean that a small portion of students would get really in to pomo continental philosophy, but that most of them will turn off and never step into another philosophy class. Your #1 job with an intro course is to engage students so they keep doing philosophy. If you think you can really get kids into it, then go for it, but I'd be dubious (although you know Foucault and Deleuze better than me

[seasontoseason]

i agree with the other comment... it could happen but might be difficult. In the end what philosophy departments teach (at least in universities in the US and the UK-- not sure where you are) is not continental philosophy... it just isn't. That is all relegated to the english/other lit departments. And, so, it really doesn't make too much sense to have a foucault or a deleuze pop up in intro phil.

On the other hand, there's no harm in mentioning them and sort of mapping out for your students this "divergent" (from classical/analytic philosophy)strain of thought that is continental philosophy or, more specifically (if you really want to do foucault and deleuze) 20th cen french 'pomo' theory (as anafalicious calls it before me).