# 22
Philosophy Through the Ages

Thursdays – 10:00 A.M.                                                                    Winter Term
Coordinator: Frank Morton                                                  2012 (14 weeks)

Course Description
What better way to search for a personal philosophy of life not as a set of obscure precepts but as something you could learn by examining the lives of noted philosophers?  How did they live their lives?  How did they develop their own personal philosophy?  Did they live moral lives?  What did they do right?  Where do they fail?   How did they change philosophy?  Can we learn from their example? “The unexamined life is not worth living” said the famous Greek philosopher Socrates.  (“Philosophy” means “love of wisdom” in ancient Greek.  The goal of philosophy is not this truth or that truth, but “The Truth” – that truth that applies to all people at all times – Wisdom.  Philosophy address the “big questions” which do not fall into other disciplines:  how we should act (ethics), what exists (metaphysics), how we know what we know (epistemology), and how we should reason (logic).  This SDG examines, and lets us benefit from, the search for wisdom by some of the greatest western minds.
Topics
Introduction
Socrates
Plato
Diogenes the Cynic
Aristotle,
Seneca
Augustine
Montaigne
Descartes
Rousseau
Kant
Emerson
Nietzsche
Husserl or Peter Singer (or take your pick)

Core Book or suggested Bibliography:  “Examined Lives”; James Miller (from Socrates to Nietzsche)
Additional Reading:  “From Socrates to Sarte”; T.Z. Lavine
Pre meeting:  Thursday, Dec. 15th, 10:00 A.M.