What is Philosophy

Some say that philosophy is the art of asking questions. Some say that we do not even know how to ask questions. Others argue that philosophy is the love of knowledge, while others argue that philosophy is the tools by which knowledge can be acquired.

This course will examine a few philosophical texts. We will read Gilles Deleuze’s What is Philosophy; Donna Haraway’s “Manifest for Cyborg;” Bruno Latour’s “We’ve never Been Modern;” Graham Herman’s Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything; and the Marquis de Sade’s “Philosophy in the Bedroom.” In so doing, we will try to understand the desire we have to understand, to learn about and to know what something is.  And ask, along with Nietzsche, whether the will to know is philosophical or merely exhibits our desire for control.