The specific availability for this course is not currently known. If you would like to know if this course will be offered during your session, please contact us.
In this seminar we shall explore and discuss 5 key moments in the history of Ethics. For the sake of symmetry, two pre-Christian texts centering on Epicureanism (Epicurus' Letters and Maxims, and Lucretius' The Way Things Are) will be followed by two Christian period works (Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and selected Essays of Montaigne) and the heavyweight post-Christian Genealogy of Morals by Nietzsche. Boethius wrote his Consolation while in prison waiting to be ground to death in a giant morter, the charge being treason. Epicurus founded a philosophical community and school called the Garden and died from kidney stones at the ripe old age of 70. Nietzsche's incredibly lucid mind snapped when he was 44 and he spent the remaining 12 years of his life in bed (and insane) before dying of apoplexy. The nagging dialectic of divine transcendance and temporally human moral issues in the Ancient, Medieval, and Modern periods will thus underlie and spark the readings for this class.
I. READING LISTEpicurus - Letter to Herodotus, Letter to Menoeceus, Fragments and MaximsLucretius - The Way Things AreBoethius - The Consolation of PhilosophyMontaigne - selected EssaysNietzsche - On the Genealogy of MoralsMichel Onfray -- Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam
II. COURSE REQUIREMENTSReadings, active participation and attendance are essential. * Attendance will be taken regularly and your preparation for class meetings will compose a significant part of your final grade. This is not a lecture class and its success very much depends on everyone coming to class prepared and ready to contribute to the discussion. * Course readings are obligatory and will be checked randomly in class meetings.* Active participation in the classroom is required to receive 40% credit toward the final grade.*Writing Assignments and Midterm will count for 40% of the final grade. Students are responsible for:* two papers (5 to 7 pages each) one due toward mid-term, the other before the end of the term.* There will be a final exam which counts as 20% of the final grade.
Download course description here in Acrobat PDF Format Adobe Acrobat Reader is needed to download this file
