Yes, many philosophers have conducted investigations into different concepts or themes other than those investigated by Foucault. Lad Sessions, for example, has done a good book on the concept of faith, outlining philosophically significant different notions of faith and, more recently, he has looked at the concept of honor (the book is called Honor For Us and is published by Continuum), Douglas Hedley has done some great work on the idea of the imagination, and the like. I am in the midst of being the co-editor with Chad Meister, The History of Evil with Acumen Press, a six volume work involving about 100 scholars who will look at "the history and changes of a concept," namely the concept of evil. Alas, it will probably not come out to 2014, but this might be something of interest.

Thank you for these interesting reflections! As for your first point, there are a number of philosophers who address radical skepticism (e.g. can any of us know with certainty that we are not, as we seem to be, wide awake and acting in the world rather than, say, dreaming?) in the way you suggest. Arguably, life may continue just as it appears until one's death and yet there would be no decisive reason to rule out the possibility one was merely a brain in a vat. And because of this, some philosophers think that such radical skeptical hypotheses are idle or nonsensical or of no interest. I am somewhat of the other mind: I think we can imagine radical hypothetical states of affairs in which we are indeed systematically mistaken in almost all our beliefs about ourselves in the world (in brief, I think it conceivable that we might be in the matrix). While this does not have awesome practical consequences, I think it should humble us in our knowledge claims. As for the second point, Quine set out to...

Good question! German idealism is so complex, but in general it may be said that phenomenology (as established by Edmund Husserl) was more bound to the study of appearances than, say, Hegel, even in his Phenomenology of Spirit. Hegel is prepared to think quite abstractly about being and nothingness, the rational and the real, and the dialectical movement of history (which we see Marx re-formatting), whereas Husserl's Cartesian Meditations is far more (for lack of a better word) experiential and involving the first-person. But interpreting Husserl and Hegel is not easy, and Husserl's book Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy (1913) has been interpreted (I believe wrongly) as a traditional form of idealism. One minor point about your excellent question: some phenomenologists do not despair about the "thing-in-itself." There are what are known as phenomenological realists like Deitrich von Hildebrand who are committed to claims about the nature of the world (and the...

As you probably know, the title "Ph.D." is (technically or literally) a Doctor of Philosophy so someone with a Ph.D. in mathematics is not exactly completely free of philosophy. I mention this because mathematics as well as what we would today call sciences were often practiced by those known as philosophers. Pythagorus (who may have been the first person called a philosopher) was also someone we would call today a mathematician. So, my first response is that those known as "philosophers" (Greek for lovers of wisdom) were those who sought wisdom in all areas, including mathematics and carried out investigations into the nature of the world and values. Early philosophers like Plato may sound to us as silly, but I urge you to put yourself in Plato's position. Athens had just been defeated in a major war. His teacher, Socrates, a veteran of a defeated army raised questions about what is justice, courage, friendship...what is good? And Socrates was executed for raising such questions (and perhaps...

Actually Emerson sort of beat Nietzsche to the punch on one point. Nietzsche is famous for having proclaimed "God is dead," but Emerson came up with that line earlier. You are right that Emerson is not on everyone's list as an outstanding philosopher, though I bet that any anthology of American philosophy will include some of his work --probably his essay "Nature." Some philosophers have given him close attention. such as Stanley Cavell of Harvard University (incidently, the building that houses the philosophy department at Harvard is named after Emerson, Emerson Hall). I suspect that he has not had more influence due to the obscurity of some of his work (his transcendental idealism is very difficult to cleary state and assess) and the simplicity of his other work. By the latter, I am not being negative. Some of hessays like "The American Scholar" are simple but brilliant --that essay is a compelling statement of what it is to think independently and to give primacy to experience over against...

Good question! There is actually quite a bit of controversy over Heidegger's position, and some decent books address this. See, for example: http://www.amazon.com/Heideggers-Atheism-Refusal-Theological-Voice/dp/0268030588 In Being and Time, it seems as though the existence or non-existence of God is not relevant to the way Heidegger conceives of his project, though there is a fascinating remark about divine being and primordial temporality in a footnote. I don't pretend to be able to unpack that for you, however! His later work, some of which has only recently been published in English translation contains far more of an engagement with God than many scholars anticipated. If Heidegger did, in the end, accept some concept of God, it is doubtful that this would be along classical theistic lines, but perhaps more in line with the Protestant theologian Paul Tillich's notion of God as the ground of being. While Tillich remained a self-identified Christian, he seemed more enthralled with what might...

Heidegger describes authentic living in his masterpiece Being and Time. He believes that living authentically involves living without self-deception or living in light of merely what society (the "they self") wants. Ultimately, it means coming to terms with your temporality and eventual death. He sums up the latter point by claiming that authentic living involves anticipatory resoluteness toward one's own death. Heidegger does not acknowledge the influence of Kierkegaard on his work and treatment of authenticity, but I suggest that (in the words of the Kierkegaard scholar Stephen Evans) Being and Time is inconceivable without prior awareness of Kierkegaard, whose influence is evident throughout. You might therefore check out a bit of Kierkegaard (start with Either/Or) and then move to Heidegger for further exploration of authenticity.

Thank you for this question! A minor point at the outset: I think a great deal of the best teaching of philosophy involves the practice of philosophy. There are perhaps some philosophy teachers who simply teach what Plato etc thought, and expect students to master certain texts with critical skills. But I think most do not stop there, but seek to engage students in thinking through the great themes of philosophy about values, moral obligations, virtues, political theory, the nature of the world, the limits of knowledge, the nature and value of human and nonhuman animal life, the possible existence of God, and so on. But getting to your broader question, more professional philosophers are applying themselves to issues such as global justice, practical ethical and political positions, medical ethics, economic fairness, and the like. Granted, these are sometimes in textbooks designed for university / college courses, but sometimes it is through education that political change arises. After all, it was...

When I was at Harvard, there was no course on existentialism, but perhaps things have changed! In any case, I encourage your reading of Husserl independently. In defense of your introductory class and the average text dedicated to existentialism, Husserl is more closely linked to phenomenology than existentialism. A reading of Husserl can enhance one's reading of Heidegger (who was quite ambivalent about being classified as an existentialist), but I am not sure it is essential for appreciating and engaging the work of Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, and you can certainly have a full go at the work of Kierkegaard (whom Sartre once billed as the father of existentialism) without Husserl. One other factor to consider on behalf of your philosophy instructor: you mentioned that your course was "introductory." Husserl is VERY VERY difficult. Sartre and company are far more easy to engage and attract newcomers. If you set off one morning to read Husserl's "The way to the...

You are right that, in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein claims that the world is the totality of facts. And it is also plausable to think that the experience of red (seeing red) may be difficult to express informatively in words, especially if you were to try to convey what it is like to see red to someone who is color blind or completely blind from birth. But I don't think Wittgenstein needs to deny this. I believe that, for Wittgenstein, the term 'fact' means something like 'state of affairs' and so one may speak similarly of the fact of you seeing red now and the state of affairs of you seeing red now, without this implying any difference between what you refer to as the fact that red exists and the actuality of red.