Philosophy of Fascism in the work of Adorno, Arendt and Benjamin Was the previous US administration fascist? Was it comparable to 20th century European fascism? Upon finding refuge in America, several German-Jewish philosophers sought to understand the terms fascism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism. They focused on morality, participation and subjectivity rather than the figure of the dictator. They asked if this could happen in America. We will begin with a survey of contemporary debates and then read selections from Adorno/Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality (1950), and Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). We will conclude with Benjamin’s Thesis on the Philosophy of History (1940).

Introduction to the Western Philosophical Tradition This course will introduce students to fundamental philosophical issues concerning the nature of reality (metaphysics), the possibility of knowledge (epistemology), and the nature of value (ethical theory) through a reading of a number of important primary texts of thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard, Mill, Nietzsche, and Freud. Cannot be taken by students with credit for PHIL 0151.

Eric Jacobson

This is not a course i recommend to anyone. the entire classes readings were focused on Arendt, so if you are not familiar with her definitely do not even consider taking this course. Even if you are interested in aren't, it is not a great class to take. he is an extremely tough grader, and the entire grade is based on 1 paper. not a great class to take, I would not recommend it to anyone. 

Very monotonous class with boring readings. Had no work, just a paper (final draft was 70% of the grade). He was the toughest grader I have had. Worst class I have taken at Midd. If you have an extreme interest in Arendt, then maybe its for you. The entire month of readings was just Atendt. 

I found this class very interesting and prof Jacobson definitely helped with that. He really made the class interesting and made me want to do the readings. We had two short papers, a presentation and a final ~3 page paper as the only assignments, but there was lots of readings. I did find writing papers on philosophy to be challenging so I would recommend going to office hours in order to get an idea of how the prof wants you to write. Overall though i did enjoy the class and would definitely recommend taking a class with Jacobson to anyone.