Current Students: Undergraduate

Module Guide: Aesthetics and Kant (PI21001)

Module Title	Module Convenor	Module Lecturer(s)
PI21001 Aesthetics and Kant Level 2	Dr Todd Mei t.s.mei@dundee.ac.uk Room 3.9	Dr Todd Mei Professor Nicholas Davey

Module Title

Module Convenor

Module Lecturer(s)

PI21001

Aesthetics and Kant

Level 2

Dr Todd Mei
t.s.mei@dundee.ac.uk
Room 3.9

Dr Todd Mei
Professor Nicholas Davey

Credit Rating

There are 20 credits available for this module.

Module Content

Kant: Are there any universal moral rules, or do we make moral judgments on a case-by-case basis? Do we have a moral duty to do anything? Are we ever justified in going against our moral principles? How do ethics relate to reason, freedom, and society? In this course we will address these questions through a critical reading of Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant (1724-1804) is one of the most important philosophers in the Western tradition, and this is one of his most accessible and engaging works. In it, he argues that to be virtuous we must think for ourselves and act from our own reason - we must be rational and autonomous. Our moral judgments, then, are based on rules that we set for ourselves but this does not mean that we can do whatever we like. Kant thinks we ought to act as if our own rules could be universalised, or applied to everyone in the same situation. Does this doctrine lead to problems of its own? Our examination of Kant, and some of his critics, will help us to answer that question.

Aesthetics: How can philosophy be used to think critically about music, film, literature, and art? What makes a song, a film, or a novel “good” or “bad”? Are there any objective judgments about the value of works of art, or is it all subjective? Who decides what artworks mean – the creator, the audience, or both? Aesthetics takes in all these questions and more, and we will explore them by looking at specific examples of music, film, literature, and painting. We will read a variety of historical and contemporary thinkers and critically evaluate them with respect to the films, songs, books, and artworks that we have experienced.

Teaching

The course consists of 22 lectures and 11 tutorials. These two ways of teaching complement each other. The lectures are the key medium for the delivery of the course's philosophical content. Tutorials are more informal. They are designed to give you a small, friendly forum in which you feel comfortable talking about the issues raised in the lectures.This module is supported by the Blackboard Virtual Learning Environment called My Dundee. Here you will find a wealth of information designed to help you successfully complete the course.