Class Schedule:
T 8/22: Introduction & Expectations
- “They’re Made Out of Meat”
- Hannah Arendt, Eichmann In Jerusalem (P 277-279)
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust (P 153)
Who, What, Are We (Made Of)?
R 8/24: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1094a-1103a11 (P 3-22)
T 8/29: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1177a13-1181b25 (P 192-201)
R 8/31: Epictetus, The Handbook (The Encheiridion) (P 11-29)
T 9/5: René Descartes, Meditations, Dedication, Preface, Synopsis, and First Meditation (P 3-17)
R 9/7: René Descartes, Meditations, Second and Fourth Meditations (P 17-24 and 38-45)
T 9/12: John Locke, “Of identity and diversity” (Book II, chapter xxvii) in Essay Concerning Human Understanding (P 133-150)
R 9/14: David Hume, “Of personal identity” (Book I, Part 6, sect. 6) in A Treatise of Human Nature (P 164-171)
T 9/19: Friedrich Nietzsche, Zarathustra’s Prologue; On the Three Metamorphoses; On the Thousand and One Goals; On the Bestowing Virtue in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (P 3-17, 42-44, 55-59)
R 9/21: Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Blessed Isles; On the Pitying; On Priests; On the Tarantulas; On the Famous Wise Men; On Redemption; The Stillest Hour in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (P 65-71, 76-81, 109-112, 115-117)
T 9 /26: Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Vision and the Riddle; On the Spirit of Gravity; On Old and New Tablets; The Convalescent; On Great Longing; The Seven Seals (Or: the Yes and Amen Song) in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (P 123-127, 153-181, 184-187)
Freedom + Morality + Responsibility
R 9/28: Harry Frankfurt, “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person” in The Journal of Philosophy 68.1 (P 5-20)
T 10/3: P.F. Strawson, “Freedom and Resentment” in Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays (P1-28)
R 10/5: Galen Strawson, “The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility” in Philosophical Studies 75.1/2 (P 5-24)
T 10/10: NO CLASS – FALL BREAK
R 10/12: Gary Watson, “Responsibility and the Limits of Evil” in Responsibility and Answerability (P 219-258)
Film, week of 10/15: MARGARET
T 10/17: Hannah Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations: A Lecture” in Social Research 38.3 (P 417-446)
R 10/19: Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism (P 17-36)
T 10/24: Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism (P 37-54)
R 10/26: Simone de Beauvoir, “Personal Freedom and Others” in The Ethics of Ambiguity (P 46-73)
T 10/31: Lewis R. Gordon, “Existential Dynamics of Theorizing Black Invisibility” in Existence In Black (P 69-79)
Selves + World + Time
R 11/2: Andy Clark & David Chalmers, “The Extended Mind” in Analysis 58.1 (P 7-19)
Also: listen to the Philosophy Bites podcast episode with Andy Clark
T 11/7: Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The World Of Perception 1-4 (P 31-60)
R 11/9: Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The World Of Perception 5-7 (P 61-83)
Film, week of 11/13: EX MACHINA
T 11/14: Thomas Nagel, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” in The Philosophical Review 83.4 (P 435-450)
R 11/16: L.A. Paul, “Life Choices” in Transformative Experience (P 52-104)
TR 11/21-23: NO CLASS – THANKSGIVING BREAK
T 11/28: Samuel Scheffler, “Lecture 1: The Afterlife (Part I)” in Death and the Afterlife (P 15-50)
R 11/30: Herbert Marcuse, “New Forms of Control” in One-Dimensional Man (P 1-18)
T 12/5: Wrap-up