E-Seminar: A Philosophy of Home and Homecoming

Description 

“Philosophy is really homesickness: the desire to be at home everywhere” – Novalis

In this famous saying by the early German idealist, Novalis (1772-1801), two realities are brought together: on the one hand there is the experience of home – what it means to have a home, or to be at home – and on the other hand there is the desire to have a home or to come home. According to Novalis, philosophy brings together these two aspects so that philosophy is per implication both the attempt to understand what home is, and the quest for, or the journey to arrive home. According to this understanding, a philosophical life is therefore an expression of the response to what has in many traditions throughout the history of the world in one way or another been understood as the invitation to a spiritual journey.

Having said that, it must be realised that much of modern and contemporary philosophy could be understood as precisely a rejection of such a relation between philosophy and home. Postmodern philosophy is often wary of the claim to have a “home-base” from where to think, as this is associated with parochialism, essentialism and fascism. It could therefore be argued that much of contemporary philosophy is much more at home with being homeless, nomadic and in pursuit of ever diversifying lines of flight.

This seminar provides an introduction to philosophical questions regarding the experience of home and the possibility of using this experience as an entryway to an examination of the human condition. After also considering the experience of homelessness, the ethical and political possibilities of the imagining of home and the practice of becoming familiar with (coming home to) ever widening circles of concern are explored.

Objectives

1. Lead students to appreciate the question of home as an important possible point of entry into the philosophical life.
2. Accompany students as they apply philosophical methods (primarily phenomenological and hermeneutical methods) to the question of home, homelessness and homecoming.
3. Guide students to engage with some philosophers from the tradition of Western philosophy that have used the notion of home in their work.

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge

1. Of some of the notable instances in Western intellectual history (myth, theology, philosophy) where “home” and/or “homecoming” played a role.
2. Of the intrinsic link between the epoch of modernity and philosophical homelessness.
3. Of the Stoic and classical Greek idea of oikeiosis.

Competence

1. To put forward the aspects of a phenomenological analysis of the experience of home.
2. To interpret modernity, capitalism and colonialism in terms of ontological homelessness.
3. To make an argument regarding the merit or undesirability of the notion of home in philosophy.