Winter 2008:
God and Universe
Greg Watkins and Jeremy Sabol
Time: Monday evenings, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Location: Building 200, Room 203
Website: http://sophia.stanford.edu
Email: gwatkins@stanford.edu (Greg); jsabol@stanford.edu (Jeremy)
Overall Course Description
The Examined Life is a three-quarter sequence introducing the philosophical tradition in the West, from its first full articulation by Plato up to trends in contemporary philosophy. Drawing on primary texts from important thinkers in the tradition, we will study the central questions of philosophy as they evolve over time: metaphysics (who are we and where are we?); epistemology (what can we know and how can we know it?); and ethics (how should we live?). Since Socrates, these questions have been deeply interrelated; we will focus particularly on how metaphysical and epistemological concerns provide the framework for theories of how we should live.
Winter Quarter Course Description
This course takes as its starting point the powerful convergence of Platonic philosophy and early Christianity. How did the philosophy of the early Common Era mix with the messages of the Gospels and the growing Christian movement? What would the role of reason be in the Christian idea of the good life? We will examine the work of Augustine and trace over the centuries the constantly evolving dialogue between philosophy and Christianity in the West, up through the new systematic vision of Aquinas, and finally into the radically new approaches of Descartes and the rationalists who follow him. These new approaches, beginning in the Renaissance and extending into the modern era, still had a place for God, but their very nature nonetheless signaled the end of God's centrality to the project of philosophy. Readings include texts by Augustine, Aquinas, Bacon, Descartes, Locke, Hume and others.
Requirements
We expect that you will come to class having read the material and prepared to discuss it. You are also invited to submit questions about the readings, as well as short reflections on the readings, posted on our website by Sunday evening at midnight. If you are taking the course for a letter grade, you will arrange additional work with us individually; such work generally is in the form of a final paper, the topic of which we should decide together.
Readings
The primary text for the course is:
Cahn, Stephen M., Classics of Western Philosophy (Hackett, 2007).
It should be available now in the Stanford Bookstore. We apologize in advance for how big the book is; the advantage is that it is the only text for all three quarters of this sequence.
We will at times supplement this text with handouts. For the most part, these will be handed out in class a week before we discuss them; they will also be posted online here.
Calendar
1/07/08 Session 1 Introduction; Augustine's Confessions
Readings: Augustine, Confessions, Books I-II, XI
(Books I-II are here as a printable PDF. Book XI is printed in the Cahn book. The entire text is available here as a web page and here as a PDF)
1/14/08 Session 2 Augustine to Anselm
Readings: Augustine, On the Free Choice of the Will (Cahn, pp. 357-372); Anselm, selections (Cahn, pp. 411-433)
1/21/08 Holiday break – no class
1/28/08 Session 3 Thomas Aquinas
Readings: Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (Cahn, pp. 440-461)
2/4/08 Session 4 After Aquinas: Ockham & Duns Scotus
Readings: Ockham, Summa Logicae (Cahn, pp. 473-481); Duns Scotus, selections (photocopies and/or online soon)
2/11/08 Session 5 Bacon and Montaigne
2/18/08 Holiday break – no class
2/25/08 Session 6 Descartes
Readings: Descartes, Meditations (Cahn, pp. 482-516)
3/3/08 Session 7 Rationalists: Leibniz and Spinoza
3/10/08 Session 8 Locke
3/17/08 Session 9 Hume