Offered fall and spring. 4 sh Ethical practice is a foundation course exploring ways to act wisely and effectively in our life with others. Drawing on the philosophical tradition and on critical examination of life situations, students engage such topics as personal integrity, sensitivity and fairness to others, and conditions for collaborative and respectful living. Offered fall and spring. This study of the origins of Western philosophy concentrates on the Golden Age of Greece, including such topics as Socrates, his predecessors and his great successors, Plato and Aristotle.
Students consider what it means to live a human life in a humane and liberating communal context.
Offered at least once every two years. Special topics include Bernard and Abelard, Averroes and Maimonides, Hildegard and Mechtild, Aquinas and Bonaventure, Dante and Eckhart. Specific attention is given to far-reaching changes in philosophical methods, theory of knowledge, new senses of self and world, and thinkers such as Descartes, Hume and Kant. Offered at least once every two years. Political Philosophy is a study of the roots of modern political thought, including such key 17th and 18th century developments as the case for sovereignty in the modern nation state, the rise of individual rights and the rationale for modern democracy.