Germany

Berlin is an inspiring metropolis, a place of attraction for creative people and art and culture professionals from Germany and all over the world. Artists of all kinds, designers (including fashion), and technology experts are just as much a part of it as publishers, galleries, the music industry, or the film industry. Berlin is a focal mirror, a projection surface and a platform for a "creative class" (Richard Florida) and at the same time an urban-cultural incubator of a new lifestyle, of creative working practices of aesthetic capitalism. This seminar provides an overview of the creative industries in Berlin - their diverse fields, individual industries and players, and their self-image.

Metaphysics is one of the central areas of philosophy. Historically, it has been referred to as the study of ”being qua being” and as ”first philosophy'” but has also been rejected as mere speculation or nonsense. Today, one might say that metaphysics is the systematic reflection on certain fundamental structures of reality and our place in it. The seminar introduces students to contemporary (analytic) metaphysics, focusing on a selection of six topics: free will; possibilities and possible worlds; laws of nature; ontology or ”what there is”; properties, universals and realism; and the aims and possibility of metaphysics. The course reads and discusses classic texts from the 20th century as well as some very recent work. Each topic is addressed by two texts which take opposing stances, thus giving students an idea of the central debates. Many (but not all) texts are taken from Helen Beebee + Julian Dodd, ”READING METAPHYSICS: SELECTED TEXTS WITH INTERACTIVE COMMENTARY,” Blackwell 2007.