Martin Halbert (8/98)
The following are teaching and study guides to authors significant in recent developments of the philosophy of communication. These guides were prepared in the course of my directed study on this topic in the Summer of 1998. In addition to the philosophy of communication, they highlight elements of my research topic of the transformation of scholarly communication systems.
These guides were designed to collectively serve as a teaching plan
for a one semester course on the philosophy of communication. They are
meant to be used as both lecture notes and guides for study of these works.
Readings are approximately 100 pages per week.
The course is divided into two broad topical sections. These sections do not have hard boundaries intellectually, but will hopefully lend some structure to the progression in the discussion.
Key topics: The central activity of many philosophers since the Enlightenment has been epistemology, the search for the foundations of knowledge and truth. Another major philosophical activity which has often been contrasted with epistemology is hermeneutics, or interpretation of writings. This section introduces various themes of epistemology and hermeneutics, as well as some of the recent work which questions the premises of these activities. These topics form the background to the current debates in the philosophy of communication.
CLASSES 1 & 2
Dewey, John. The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of
Knowledge and Action.
New York: Minton, Balch & Co., 1929.
CLASS 3
Ricoeur, Paul. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus
of Meaning.
Fort Worth, Texas: Texas Christian University Press, 1976.
CLASS 4
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Reason in the Age of Science.
Translated by Frederick G. Lawrence. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press,
1981.
CLASS 5
Habermas, Jürgen. Communication and the Evolution of Society.
Translated by Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press, 1979.
CLASS 6
Bernstein, Richard J. Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science,
Hermeneutics, and Praxis.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.
CLASSES 7 & 8
Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.
Princeton University Press, 1979.
Key topics: Once we have embraced the therapeutics of Rorty and Bernstein, where do we go? By studying the effects of media on our Postmodern culture we may begin to find ways to nurture healthy communication and communities.
CLASS 9
Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.
London: Routledge, 1982.
CLASS 10
Baudrillard, Jean. The Ecstasy of Communication.
Translated by Bernard and Caroline Schutze, and edited by Sylvère
Lotringer New York: Semiotext(e), 1988.
CLASS 11 & 12
McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic
Man.
University of Toronto Press, 1962.
CLASS 13
Rorty, Richard. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity.
Cambridge University Press, 1989.
CLASS 14
Review major themes, catch up, integrate course material.