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Schedule

Lectures
Part I (From the Pre-Socratics to Thomas Aquinas)
Part II (From the Late Middle Ages to German Idealism)
Part III (Themes in Recent Modern Philosophy)

Examinations
Midterm Review and Examination
Final Review and Examination

Essay Scheduling
Outline Due and Returned
First Draft Due and Returned
Final Version Due

Schedule Oddities
AAR Meeting
Fall Recess

Note: Readings follow the section numbers in from Helm, ed., Faith and Reason (eg. "FR 12" refers to the sixth reading in the book, on Plotinus) or on reserve in the Theology Library ("Library"). Required readings are marked by the abbreviation "REQ". Optional readings (abbreviated "OPT") are to be interpreted as recommended for those especially interested or for more philosophically advanced students; they are usually but not always provided in one of the above sources.

9/2 Introduction

PART I: From the Pre-Socratics to Thomas Aquinas

Pre-Socratics and Plato

9/7 Pre-Socratics
REQ Phaedo (72c-82e on the soul; 112e-end on Socrates' vision of the afterlife and his death; available on the web here)
OPT Read the rest of the Phaedo
9/9,14 Plato (427-347 BCE)
REQ FR 1-3
OPT Read freely in Republic, get the book anywhere you can

Aristotle

9/16,21 Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
REQ FR 4-6
OPT Nicomachean Ethics selections from book VII; get the book wherever you can

Hellenistic Philosophy

9/23 Epicurus (341-270 BCE)
REQ
OPT  
Epictetus (c.50-c.130 CE)
REQ
OPT  

Mystical Theology

9/28 Plotinus (204-270)
Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite (c. 500)
John Scotus Eriugena (810-877)
Nicholas Cusanas (1401-1464)
Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
REQ
OPT  

Early Middle Ages

9/30 Augustine (354-430)
REQ FR 20-22
OPT Confessions, get the book anywhere you can
Boethius (c.480-c.524)
OPT FR 23

High Middle Ages

10/5 Anselm (1033-1109)
REQ
OPT  
Moses Maimonides (1135-1204)
OPT  
10/7 Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
REQ
OPT  

PART II: From the Late Middle Ages to German Idealism

The Late Middle Ages (The Problem of Universals)

10/12 John Duns Scotus (1265-1308)
REQ
William of Ockham (1285-1349)
REQ
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
OPT  

Midterm Events

10/14 Midterm Review
10/19 Midterm Examination

Continental Rationalism (Descartes)

10/21 René Descartes (1596-1650)
REQ
OPT  
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
OPT  
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)
OPT  
Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716)
OPT  

British Empiricism (Locke)

10/26 Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
OPT  
John Locke (1632-1704)
REQ
OPT  
George Berkeley (1685-1753), a big part of the British debate, and so included here, even though he is not an empiricist but an idealist
OPT  
David Hume (1711-1776)
OPT  
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
OPT  

German Idealism (Kant and Hegel)

10/28 Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
REQ Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Introduction and Preamble, PC 824-838
OPT Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, "First Part of the Transcendental Problem" on pure mathematics and "Second Part of the Transcendental Problem" on pure natural science, PC 838-864
11/2 REQ Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, "Third Part of the Main Transcendental Problem" on metaphysics, Conclusion, and Scholia, PC 864-889
OPT Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, appendices, PC 889-896
11/4 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
REQ
OPT  

PART III: Themes in Recent Modern Philosophy

Religion From New Perspectives (Feuerbach and Marx)

11/9 OUTLINE OF ESSAY DUE IN CLASS
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872)
REQ
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
REQ
OPT  
Émile Durkheim (1858-1917)
OPT Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, Library
Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923)
OPT Dogmatics of the History of Religions School, Library
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
OPT The Future of an Illusion, Library

Profound Atheism (Nietzsche)

11/11 OUTLINE OF ESSAY RETURNED IN CLASS
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
REQ
OPT  

Existentialism (Kierkegaard)

11/16 FIRST DRAFT OF ESSAY DUE IN CLASS
Sřren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
REQ
OPT  
Martin Buber (1878-1965)
OPT Between Man and Man, Library
Paul Tillich (1886-1965)
OPT The Courage to Be, Library
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
OPT Being and Nothingness, Library

Hermeneutics and Phenomenology (Heidegger)

11/18 FIRST DRAFT OF ESSAY RETURNED IN CLASS
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)
OPT Hermeneutics, Library
Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911)
REQ
Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)
OPT  
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
OPT  
Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-)
REQ

Fall Recess

11/23 No Class: Annual American Academy of Religion meeting
11/25 No Class: Fall Recess

Linguistic Philosophy and Positivism (Ayer, Wittgenstein)

11/30 Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
OPT
Alfred Jules Ayer (1910-1989)
REQ
Antony Flew (1923-)
REQ
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
OPT Lectures on Religious Belief, Library

Naturalism and Pragmatism (James)

12/2 William James (1842-1910)
OPT What Pragmatism Means, Library
OPT The Will To Believe, Library
OPT Varieties of Religious Experience, Library
John Dewey (1859-1952)
OPT Reconstruction in Philosophy, Library
Robert Neville (1939-)
OPT The Highroad Around Modernism, Library

Process Philosophy (Whitehead)

12/7 Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
REQ
Charles Hartshorne (1897-)
OPT The Divine Relativity, Library

Undesignated Topic

12/12 Surprise!

End-of-Term Events

12/14 FINAL VERSION OF ESSAY DUE IN CLASS
Conclusion and Final Review
12/15 Study Period
12/17 Final Exam Period Begins

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