General Course Description:
Based on a series of recorded lectures by some of the world’s best professors in the field, this two-part course offers a solid foundation in philosophy. Students should be aware that lectures are presented from a secular perspective.
The first lecture series, “Great Ideas of Philosophy” is an overview of the overall topic. It may be waived for certain students, based on prior studies.
Table of Content
From the Upanishads to Homer
Philosophy—Did the Greeks Invent It?
Pythagoras and the Divinity of Number
What Is There?
The Greek Tragedians on Man's Fate
Herodotus and the Lamp of History
Socrates on the Examined Life
Plato's Search for Truth
Can Virtue Be Taught?
Plato's Republic —Man Writ Large
Hippocrates and the Science of Life
Aristotle on the Knowable
Aristotle on Friendship
Aristotle on the Perfect Life
Rome, the Stoics, and the Rule of Law
The Stoic Bridge to Christianity
Roman Law—Making a City of the Once-Wide World
The Light Within—Augustine on Human Nature
Islam
Secular Knowledge—The Idea of University
The Reappearance of Experimental Science
Scholasticism and the Theory of Natural Law
The Renaissance—Was There One?
Let Us Burn the Witches to Save Them
Francis Bacon and the Authority of Experience
Descartes and the Authority of Reason
Newton—The Saint of Science
Hobbes and the Social Machine
Locke's Newtonian Science of the Mind
No matter? Never mind! The Challenge of Materialism
Hume and the Pursuit of Happiness
Thomas Reid and the Scottish School
France and the Philosophes
The Federalist Papers and the Great Experiment
What Is Enlightenment? Kant on Freedom
Moral Science and the Natural World
Phrenology—A Science of the Mind
The Idea of Freedom
The Hegelians and History
The Aesthetic Movement—Genius
Nietzsche at the Twilight
The Liberal Tradition—J.S. Mill
Darwin and Nature's “Purposes”
Marxism—Dead but Not Forgotten
The Freudian World
The Radical William James
William James's Pragmatism
Wittgenstein and the Discursive Turn
Alan Turing in the Forest of Wisdom
Four Theories of the Good Life
Ontology—What There "Really" Is
Philosophy of Science—The Last Word?
Philosophy of Psychology and Related Confusions
Philosophy of Mind, If There Is One
What makes a Problem "Moral"
Medicine and the Value of Life
On the Nature of Law
Justice and Just Wars
Aesthetics—Beauty Without Observers
God—Really?
The second lecture series provides an in-depth introduction to Greek Philosophy:
Table of Contents
A Dialectical Approach to Greek Philosophy
From Myth to Philosophy—Hesiod and Thales
The Milesians and the Quest for Being
The Great Intrusion—Heraclitus
Parmenides—The Champion of Being
Reconciling Heraclitus and Parmenides
The Sophists—Protagoras, the First "Humanist"
Socrates
An Introduction to Plato's Dialogues
Plato versus the Sophists, I
Plato versus the Sophists, II
Plato's Forms, I
Plato's Forms, II
Plato versus the Presocratics
The Republic —The Political Implications of the Forms
Final Reflections on Plato
Aristotle—"The" Philosopher
Aristotle's Physics —What is Nature?
Aristotle's Physics —The Four Causes
Why Plants Have Souls
Aristotle's Hierarchical Cosmos
Aristotle's Teleological Politics
Aristotle's Teleological Ethics
The Philosophical Life
Course Objectives:
The objective of the course is for the student to acquire a solid foundation in:
- General Philosophy: themes, ideas and thinkers
- Greek Philosophy
Course Outcomes:
Upon completion of this course, the student is expected to able to:
to acquire a solid foundation in:
- General Philosophy: themes, ideas and thinkers
- Greek Philosophy
Required Readings and Resources:
- Great Ideas of Philosophy
(Teaching Company)
May be available from Euclid Library
Taught by Daniel N. Robinson
http://www.teach12.com/
- Introduction to Greek Philosophy (DVD version is recommended)
(Teaching Company)
May be available from Euclid Library
Taught by David Roochnik
http://www.teach12.com/
Supplemental Readings and Resources:
- Plato, Socrates, and the Dialogues
Taught by Michael Sugrue
http://www.teach12.com/ |