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PHILOSOPHY 268H1S Philosophy and Social Criticism: Time and Justice

Dr. William Paris
Winter 2022
MW 10-11:30 AM
Contact: Email [email protected]
Office Hours: Tuesdays 10:30-11:30, Fridays 11:00-12:00 or by appt.

Texts on Reserve
Kant, I., & Wood, A. (2009). Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. In A. Rorty
& J. Schmidt (Eds.), Kant's Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan
Aim (Cambridge Critical Guides, pp. 9-23). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
doi:10.1017/CBO9780511581434.002
Hägglund, Martin, This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom (2019). New York: Anchor
Books. 3-39.
Sartre, Jean-Paul, Search for a Method (1968). New York: Vintage Books. 3-35.
Adorno, Theodor W. “Free Time” in Critical Models (2005). New York: Columbia University
Press. 167-177
Al-Saji, Alia. Fall 2020. “Weariness, Dismembered Time, Colonialism, Pandemics” in
Philosophy Today 64 (4): 821-826.
Ngo, Helen. 2019. “‘Get Over It?’: Racialised Temporalities and Bodily Orientations in Time” in
Journal of Intercultural Studies 40 (2): 239-253.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. March 2018. “Anthropocene Time” in History and Theory 57 (1): 5-32.
Hayek, F. A. “The Common Sense of Progress” in The Constitution of Liberty (2011). Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press. 91-107.
Hayek, F. A. “Freedom, Reason, and Tradition” in The Constitution of Liberty (2011). Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press. 107-133.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Second Essay: ‘Guilt,’ ‘Bad Conscience,’ and Related Matters” from On
the Genealogy of Morality (2017). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 36-69.
Lazzarato, Maurizio. “The Genealogy of Debt and Debtor” in The Making of the Indebted Man
(2012). Amsterdam: Semiotext(e). 37-89.
Arendt, Hannah. “The Revolutionary Tradition and its Lost Treasure” from The Portable
Hannah Arendt (2000). New York: Penguin Books. 508-543.
de Beauvoir, Simone. “The Present and the Future” from The Ethics of Ambiguity (1976). New
York: Citadel Press. 115-128.
Engels, Friedrich. “Socialism: Scientific and Utopian” from The Marx-Engels Reader, Second
Edition (1978). New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 683-718.
Gordon, Lewis. “Disaster, Ruin, and Permanent Catastrophe” from Freedom, Justice, and
Decolonization (2021). New York: Routledge. 107-127.
Mbembe, Achille. “The Becoming Black of the World” from Critique of Black Reason (2017).
Durham: Duke University Press. 1-10 and 179-185
Mbembe, Achille. “There is Only One World” from Critique of Black Reason (2017). Durham:
Duke University Press. 179-185.
Mbembe, Achille. “Planetary Entanglement” from Out of the Dark Night: Essays on
Decolonization (2021). New York: Columbia University Press. 7-42.
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Ricoeur, Paul. “Introductory Lecture” from Lectures on Ideology and Utopia (1986). New York:
Columbia University Press. 1-21.
Whyte, Kyle. Fall 2017. “Indigenous Climate Change Studies: Indigenizing Futures,
Decolonizing the Anthropocene” in English Language Notes 55 (1-2): 153-162.
Whyte, Kyle. 2018. “Settler Colonialism, Ecology, and Environmental Injustice” in Environment
and Society 9: 125-144.
Nixon, Rob. “Introduction” in Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (2011).
Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1-44.
Fritsch, Matthias. September 2015. “Democracy, Climate, Environmental Justice” in Mosaic: An
Interdisciplinary Critical Journal 48 (3): 27-45.

Course Format: This course is a mid-level philosophy course on social and political philosophy.
It is not necessary, but it is advised that you have taken an introductory philosophy course before
this one.

Course Description: Time is a fundamental aspect of human experience, social life, and
political arrangements. Nevertheless, we should not assume that we immediately understand our
various relationships to time. Our relationships to time include how we understand leisure, the
composition of political history, the emergence of social identities, or our democratic duties to
future generations, just to name a few. This course takes students through a variety of historical
and contemporary philosophers and examines the various analyses they produce to help us better
understand the complexity of time in our social and political lives. Figures include Theodor
Adorno, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as contemporary
scholars like Alia Al-Saji, Achille Mbembe, Kyle Whyte, and Lewis Gordon. Students will come
away with the understanding of arguments made in phenomenological, Marxist, liberal,
decolonial, and Indigenous philosophies.

Course Goals:
 To introduce students to a wide range of philosophical readings concerning time and
justice
 To develop students’ reading and writing abilities

Course Requirements:
1) Preparation, Attendance, Discussion, Review. There are four key steps you should follow
for understanding the often very challenging material in this course. The first step is to come to
class prepared, having done the reading in advance. This reading must be active and not
passive, and must ask questions about the key concepts, main theses, and arguments of the text.
The second step is to attend lecture and, again, actively listen and ask questions, if not out
loud, in your notes. The third step is to contribute to discussion, either in lecture, in breakout
room activities, or in office hours. The fourth step is to review and re-read the material in the
light of lecture attendance and discussion. No one, including your instructors, is able to fully
understand challenging philosophical material without taking some such steps. Students who do
not take these four steps are likely to get lost in the material, feel alienated from their learning,
and have a less successful experience in the course. Note that this aspect of the class is graded
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(under the heading “Participation”) below; doing well is a matter of quality participation
(informed by the four steps). Finally, you should try to minimize unexcused absences. (An
excused absence consists of a class missed for a religious holiday, illness, or something of
comparable gravity; all other absences are unexcused).

2) Quizzes. Every two weeks you will be required to complete a quiz question on Quercus. The
quizzes must be completed by midnight on each Sunday night. Since quizzes are written after
only the first step to understanding our readings has been taken, the quizzes are meant to test
only whether you have achieved a basic understanding after your first active reading of the
texts. There are no quiz exemptions, extensions, or re-writes (students with academic
accommodations may constitute an exception).

3) Essays. There will be two short essays of 800-1000 words (~2-3 double spaced pages).
These essays briefly and clearly explain some content from the course – an argument, the
interpretation of a passage, the significance of some philosophical thesis – and gives a brief but
clear indication of a critical perspective on that content. Topics will be provided one week in
advance. The papers are due on 1/28 and 3/5 by 7 PM.

4) Term Paper. There will be a final term paper of 1500-1700 words (5-6 double spaced
pages). The final term paper should build on the skills developed in the response papers but
should not only indicate but pursue a critical perspective. Paper topics will be distributed
approximately two weeks in advance of the due date. The paper is due on Friday, April 8th, at
7pm.

Paper Submission Policy:

Please note that this course operates as a No Late Coursework course which means that no late
assignments are accepted without prior approval.

The University requires the following message to posted on syllabi for courses that uses a
Plagiarism Detection Tool (Ouriginal):

“Normally, students will be required to submit their course essays to the University’s plagiarism
detection tool for a review of textual similarity and detection of possible plagiarism. In doing so,
students will allow their essays to be included as source documents in the tool’s reference
database, where they will be used solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism. The terms that
apply to the University’s use of this tool are described on the Centre for Teaching Support &
Innovation web site  (https://uoft.me/pdt-faq).”

Grading: The assignments will carry the following weight in grading:

Quizzes 15%
Essay 1 25%
Essay 2 25%
Term Paper 35%
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Course Expectations: Careful and thorough preparation, attendance, and active, thoughtful,
considerate participation in the discussions is expected from all members of the course.

Learning Styles and Resources: Students with diverse learning styles and needs are welcome in
this course. There are also various forms of support available to all students. For more
information, see these resources.

Academic Integrity: Academic integrity is essential to the pursuit of learning and scholarship
in a university, and to ensuring that a degree from the University of Toronto is a strong signal
of each student’s individual academic achievement. As a result, University of Toronto treats
cases of cheating and plagiarism very seriously.

All suspected cases of academic dishonesty will be investigated following procedures outlined
in the Code of Behavior on Academic Matters. Please review carefully. If you have questions
or concerns about what constitutes appropriate academic behaviour or appropriate research and
citation methods, you are expected to seek out additional information on academic integrity
from your instructor or from other resources.

Philosophical work is collaborative, but you take responsibility for contributing to that common
conversation. Any use of published or posted materials other than assigned readings must be
properly cited.

SCHEDULE OF READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Date Reading
Unit I: Time and the Critique of the Present
M 1/10 1) Introduction and Syllabus

W 1/12 1) Martin Hägglund, “Introduction” from

This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual
Freedom, 3-39

M 1/17 1) Theodor Adorno, “Free Time”

W 1/19 1) Alia Al-Saji, “Weariness, Dismembered

Time, Colonialism, Pandemics”
2) Helen Ngo, “‘Get Over It?: Racialised
Temporalities and Bodily Orientations in
Time”

M 1/24 1) Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism and

Marxism” from Search for a Method, 3-35
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W 1/26 1) Dipesh Chakrabarty, “Anthropocene

Time”
Essay 1 due on Friday (1/28) by 7 PM

Unit II: Experience, History, and Injustice

M 1/31 1) Immanuel Kant, “Idea for a Universal

History with a Cosmopolitan Aim”

W 2/2 1) F. A. Hayek, “The Common Sense of

Progress” from The Constitution of Liberty,
91-107

M 2/7 1) F. A. Hayek, “Freedom, Reason, and

Tradition” from The Constitution of Liberty,
107-133

W 2/9 1) Friedrich Nietzsche, “‘Guilt,’ ‘Bad

Conscience,’ and Related Matters” from On
the Genealogy of Morality, 36-52

M 2/14 1) Friedrich Nietzsche, “‘Guilt,’ ‘Bad

Conscience,’ and Related Matters” from On
the Genealogy of Morality, 52-69

W 2/16 1) Mauricio Lazzarato, “The Genealogy of

Debt and Debtor” in The Making of the
Indebted Man, 37-61

M 2/21 No Class (Family Day)

W 2/23 No Class (Spring Reading Week)

M 2/28 1) Mauricio Lazzarato, “The Genealogy of

Debt and Debtor” in The Making of the
Indebted Man, 61-89

W 3/2 1) Olufemi Taiwo, “Reconsidering World

History” from Reconsidering Reparations
Essay 2 due Friday (3/5) by 7 PM
Unit III: Philosophy and the Problems of Our Future
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M 3/7 1) Hannah Arendt, “The Revolutionary

Tradition and its Lost Treasure” from The
Portable Hannah Arendt, 508-543

W 3/9 1) Simone de Beauvoir, “The Present and

the Future” from The Ethics of Ambiguity,
115-128

M 3/14 1) Rob Nixon, “Introduction” in Slow

Violence and the Environmentalism of the
Poor, 1-44

W 3/16 1) Kyle Whyte, “Indigenous Climate

Change Studies: Indigenizing Futures,
Decolonizing the Anthropocene”, 153-162
2) Kyle Whyte, “Settler Colonialism,
Ecology, and Environmental Injustice”, 125-
144

M 3/21 1) Matthias Fritsch, “Democracy, Climate,

Environmental Justice”, 27-45

W 3/23 1) Friedrich Engels, “Socialism: Scientific

and Utopian” from The Marx-Engels
Reader, 683-718

M 3/28 1) Paul Ricoeur, “Introductory Lecture”

from Lectures on Ideology and Utopia, 1-21

W 3/30 1) Achille Mbembe, “The Becoming Black

of the World” and “There is Only One
World” from Critique of Black Reason, 1-10
and 179-185
2) Achille Mbembe, “Planetary
Entanglement” from Out of the Dark Night:
Essays on Decolonization, 7-42

M 4/4 1) Lewis Gordon, “Disaster, Ruin, and

Permanent Catastrophe” from Freedom,
Justice, and Decolonization, 107-127

W 4/6 Last Day of Class (No Reading)

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Essay 3 due on 4/8 by 7 PM