Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Synopsis Intellectuals of one kind or another have always played a crucial role in politics, but perhaps no more so than in the ideological battles, revolutions and totalitarian movements of this century. Unfortunately, all too often they have lent themselves to the worst of political excesses. When it comes to the absurdities and fanaticisms of our time, as George Orwell, himself an intellectual, puts it, "it takes an intellectual to believe something like this." This course will look at this problem in two ways: firstly in general terms by reference to a number of theories of the role of intellectuals in politics; secondly by undertaking a number of individual case studies of the political involvement of some of the leading thinkers of this century. We will concentrate particularly on the politics of the celebrated philosophers Heidegger, Lukacs, Gentile, Wittgenstein, Sartre and Foucault.
Assessment Essay (6000 words): 50% + Examination (3 hours): 50%