Postgraduate Module Descriptor

PHLM014: Philosophy and Psychedelics

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Module content may vary annually as new developments take on new levels of importance, but generally the following content will apply. A number of guest lecturers are expected to participate in this module due to their relevant skill sets. The key text will be Philosophy and Psychedelics, eds. Hauskeller and Sjöstedt-Hughes (Bloomsbury, forthcoming).

 

  • Overview of the relation of psychedelics to philosophy
  • Psychedelics and the phenomenology and philosophy of mind
  • Indigenous epistemologies and
  • Biopiracy
  • Psychedelic aesthetics: the sublime, the beautiful, the strange, and the ineffable
  • Medicalization, inculcation, and global power relations
  • Cognitive liberty: rights to exploration, recreation, and risk
  • The metaphysics of psychedelics: Spinoza, Whitehead, Bergson, James
  • Psychedelic nature connectedness and the ecological crisis

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching ActivitiesGuided independent studyPlacement / study abroad
262740

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

CategoryHours of study timeDescription
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities2211 x 2 hour taught sessions - 30-minute lectures and 1.5 hour seminar discussion of readings for each 2-hour session.
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities42 x 2-hour facilitated tutorial with student presentations.
Guided Independent Study26Analyse one course reading and write a succinct summary of the key arguments of the text.
Guided Independent Study76Reading of the module texts for each week
Guided Independent Study44Prepare a presentation on the topic for essay and the key arguments from the literature in a dedicated course session.
Guided Independent Study128Writing independent research essay. Conduct guided and independent research on a theme from the course; write a scholarly essay to be submitted after the end of term.

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Key text: Hauskeller, C., & Sjöstedt-Hughes, P. (forthcoming) Philosophy and Psychedelics (London: Bloomsbury)

 

Baier, K. (forthcoming) High Mysticism: On the interplay between the psychedelic movement and academic study of mysticism

Benjamin, W. (1927–34) On Hashish

Boothroyd, D. (2006) Culture on Drugs: Narco-cultural Studies of High Modernity

De Quincey, T. (1821) Confession of an English Opium Eater

Hofmann, A. (1979) LSD: My Problem Child

Huxley, A. (1956) Heaven and Hell

James, W. (1902) The Varieties of Religious Experience

James, W. (1897) Note to ‘On Some Hegelisms’, in: The Will to Believe

Jay, M. (2019) Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic

Lundborg, P. (2014) Note Towards a Definition of a Psychedelic Philosophy

Partridge, C. (2018) High Culture: Drugs, Mysticism, and the Pursuit of Transcendence in the Modern World

Shanon, B. (2002) The Antipodes of the Mind

Shulgin, A. & Shulgin, A. (1990) Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story

Suzuki, D. T. (1971) Religion and Drugs

Thompson, S. J. (2014) From ‘Rausch’ to Rebellion: Walter Benjamin’s On Hashish and the Aesthetic Dimensions of Prohibitionist Realism

Ustinova, Y. (2018) Divine Mania: Alterations of Consciousness in Ancient Greece

Zaehner, R. C. (1972) Zen, Drugs, and Mysticism