A Continental Guide to Philosophy

What is real? How can we know what is real? How might we live a real life? These 3 fundamental questions cover the traditional and interrelated philosophical branches of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Here they are explored through readings of 3 pairs of authors and texts: Plato's Sophist and Ren Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy (what is real?), David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Immanuel Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (how can we know what is real?), and Friedrich Nietzsche's essay "Schopenhauer as Educator" and Hannah Arendt's essay "Labor, Work, and Action." (how might we live a real life?). Each chapter introduces basic philosophical problems, concepts and methods of philosophical inquiry, orienting readers to key philosophical texts and making those texts transparent, so that they can answer the three questions for themselves.