Descartes: Discourse on Method,(Part I-IV)
Text available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59/59-h/59-h.htm
Journals due on March 25
Questions for reading guidance:
What’s Descartes’ criterion for truth and knowledge?
What’s Descartes’ method to get such knowledge?
Do you think his method can guarantee the truth?
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Augustine: Confessions
Read Book XI
text available at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.xiv.html
guidance questions
1. How can we perceive past, present and future?
2. Why is it difficult to describe time?
3. What's the relationship between God and time?
Journals due on March 15.
text available at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.xiv.html
guidance questions
1. How can we perceive past, present and future?
2. Why is it difficult to describe time?
3. What's the relationship between God and time?
Journals due on March 15.
Midterm Paper
Format
This paper is due on March 25, 2009 in class. Late papers will be severely downgraded. No email submission is accepted. It will comprise 20% of your grade for the course. You should select one of the questions from below and write a paper, 3-5 pages double-spaced, 1 inch margins, 12 point font. Answers should draw on the readings and class lectures; you may use outside sources, but it is not required. Citations should be made according to appropriate academic format.
Grading
This paper aims to test the students’ capability of making sound philosophical arguments. Therefore the following aspects will be considered during grading: overall structure, depth of text understanding, plausibility of argumentation, clarity of expression.
Questions
1. Socrates claimed that he became the wisest man by knowing that he knows nothing. How do you think about his view of wisdom?
2. What’s justice? Is it a skill of ruling? Is it an agreement among people? Or anything else? What have you learned from the related discussions in Republic?
3. Aristotle says that contemplation is the happiest life of human beings, but he also points out that the happiness of a community is higher than the happiness of an individual, is he contradicting himself? How to understand the relationship between contemplation and political good?
This paper is due on March 25, 2009 in class. Late papers will be severely downgraded. No email submission is accepted. It will comprise 20% of your grade for the course. You should select one of the questions from below and write a paper, 3-5 pages double-spaced, 1 inch margins, 12 point font. Answers should draw on the readings and class lectures; you may use outside sources, but it is not required. Citations should be made according to appropriate academic format.
Grading
This paper aims to test the students’ capability of making sound philosophical arguments. Therefore the following aspects will be considered during grading: overall structure, depth of text understanding, plausibility of argumentation, clarity of expression.
Questions
1. Socrates claimed that he became the wisest man by knowing that he knows nothing. How do you think about his view of wisdom?
2. What’s justice? Is it a skill of ruling? Is it an agreement among people? Or anything else? What have you learned from the related discussions in Republic?
3. Aristotle says that contemplation is the happiest life of human beings, but he also points out that the happiness of a community is higher than the happiness of an individual, is he contradicting himself? How to understand the relationship between contemplation and political good?
Monday, March 1, 2010
Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics II
Read Book X
text available at: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html
Guidance question: Why contemplation is the best life? (Relate it to Book I)
journals due on March 4.
text available at: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html
Guidance question: Why contemplation is the best life? (Relate it to Book I)
journals due on March 4.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics I
Read Book I
text available at: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html
journals due on Mar. 1.
Guidance questions:
1. what are people pursuing in the end?
2. what are the criteria of happiness?
3. What is the function of man?
text available at: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html
journals due on Mar. 1.
Guidance questions:
1. what are people pursuing in the end?
2. what are the criteria of happiness?
3. What is the function of man?
Monday, February 22, 2010
Announcement for this Thursday class
After consideration, I decide to continue discussion on Republic this Thursday.
Please review Book II from Adeimantos' speech to the end and Book VII "cave allegory". no journal for Thursday.
Yang
Please review Book II from Adeimantos' speech to the end and Book VII "cave allegory". no journal for Thursday.
Yang
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Plato: Republic Book II
read the whole Book II and the allegory of cave in Book VII
text available at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html
Journals due on Feb. 18
guidance questions:
1. Glaukon mentioned three kinds of good, to which does justice belong?
2. Which problem did Adeimantos find in poems and religion? What does he want Socrates to prove?
3. What's the requirement of guardians in the proposed city?
text available at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html
Journals due on Feb. 18
guidance questions:
1. Glaukon mentioned three kinds of good, to which does justice belong?
2. Which problem did Adeimantos find in poems and religion? What does he want Socrates to prove?
3. What's the requirement of guardians in the proposed city?
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