Thinking the End in/through Continental Philosophy

Terrence Thomson, Ryan Moore

SUNDAYS, weekly, February 16 to April 6, 2025.
 12:30-2:30 PM Eastern US Time. See time zone converter if you’re in a different location to make sure you get the time right.
 A Zoom link will be provided on registration.
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COURSE DESCRIPTION

The world seems to be teetering on the brink. From the climate crisis, to the threat of nuclear annihilation, the takeover of artificial intelligence, or even visitors from other galaxies, everywhere we look we find allusions to the end of the world—or, at least, of our world. But we need not solely direct our attention to events charged with a sense of the apocalyptic.

Indeed, it was not so long ago that Francis Fukuyama was making declarations about “the end of history”—that is, the end of a political evolution that began in ancient Greece and culminated in the universalization of Western democratic ideals. And even though we have learned to become wary and skeptical of such statements, more recent speculations on the end of humanity proliferate, whether by way of “accelerationism” or, more broadly, transhumanist approaches. 

In this course, we take a step back to ask some much needed questions concerning the end. While calling upon a variety of disciplinary registers, whether they be religious, existential or political, we are inevitably led back to a more fundamentally philosophical and, indeed, overlooked question: what does it mean to think the end in the first place? That is, does this term, “end” ask us to confront a transition to what is completely other—a rapture? Or, rather, does it force us to confront an unfathomable limit—a rupture, or even an eruption in thought itself? These questions mark our point of departure.

We will approach these questions in and through continental philosophy. And yet, here we are prompted to ask what it means to think the end in/through continental philosophy? (To think the end in and/or through, to think the end in and thereforeto think it through). This is how the title of this course sounds; for it is already a site of puzzlement, an  enigma ripe for unpacking collectively, in a collaborative setting and in the company of three key thinkers in the history of continental philosophy: Immanuel Kant, Martin Heidegger and Alexandre Kojève.

Traversing these immense names together, we will attempt to think the end in and/or through them, by inquiring into whether there are differences or resonances at stake when we are called upon to think the end in a variety of ways: the end of one’s life (death), the end of all things (extinction), the end of history (completion), even the end of philosophy itself (satisfaction). Reflecting on these themes will guide us towards the more general problem of thinking the end as such; a problem that, moreover, should be understood alongside and within continental philosophy as a practice that is constantly confronting its own limit.

We invite you to join us in this 8-week intensive course wherein we will explore all of these problems and questions together. Whether you are already familiar with the murky waters of continental philosophy or if you are about to dip your toes in it for the first time, all are welcome to join us! 

SCHEDULE

February 16: Introduction to the idea of “the end” in continental thought
February 23: Kant and the thought of the end. Part I: Ende (reading: “Das Ende aller Dinge” [1794])
March 2: Kant and the thought of the end. Part II: Zweck (Canon of Pure Reason in the Critique of Pure Reason alongside excerpts from the Anthropology)
March 9: Heidegger and Endlichkeit. Part I: Sein-zum-Ende (excerpts from Being and Time)
March 16: Heidegger and Endlichkeit. Part II: Overcoming Metaphysics (excerpts from The End of Philosophy)
March 23: Kojève and the end of history. Part I: Political writings
March30. Kojève and the end of history. Part II: Philosophical writings
April 6: Conclusion with contemporary reception (Derrida, Baudrillard, Laruelle, etc.)

Facilitators: Kyle Moore is a postdoctoral researcher at LUISS Guido Carli. His main research interests include 20th century French and German thought, political theology, and political philosophy. He holds a PhD in philosophy from Kingston University as well as a PhD in Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam. Terrence Thomson: I earned a BA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins in 2010, after which I took a break from academia to work in London bookshops for a number of years. I earned my MA in Modern European Philosophy at CRMEP, Kingston University in 2017 and my PhD at the same university in 2022. I’ve published in a number of peer-review journals (e.g., Angelaki, Cosmos and History, Epoché, Idealistic Studies) with articles on Kant, German Idealism, Schelling and Adorno. My book,Metaphysics of Nature and Failure in Kant’s Opus postumumdue to be released by Bloomsbury Academic in Feb 2025. More recently, I have written on Heidegger and Derrida, and their inheritance of Kant. I am founder of the continental philosophy substack,kosmotheoros.