How ought I to act and why? How should we organize our political institutions? What is reality really like? Is it all just atoms in the void, or is there some transcendent reality? Ultimately, what is the nature of the human person? These are questions of ethics, politics, metaphysics, and human nature. The world’s greatest minds – – philosophers, literary authors, theologians – – have left us a patrimony, as it were, of thinking about these questions.
The goal of this seminar series is to explore this patrimony and ask the question: What does this have to do with me and how I ought to live? In the Fall semester, we will explore texts from Antiquity and in the Spring, we will look at texts from Modernity, both broadly understood. We will focus the academic year on one question and address other questions and texts from Antiquity and Modernity in future years.
For the Fall 2021-Spring 2022 our focus will be on love, especially romantic love. We’ll begin with reflections from the Song of Songs or Song of Solomon from the Hebrew Bible. Then we’ll dive into the accounts of the nature of romantic love offered by Plato and Aristotle. Next, we’ll look at Augustine’s philosophically sophisticated account of his own experiences of love. Finally, we’ll end the series with excerpts from Dante Alighieri’s masterpiece, the Divine Comedy. In the Spring we’ll be reading authors from Modernity on similar themes.
Meets Tuesdays, 8/31, 9/7, 9/14, 9/28, 10/5, 6:30pm -7:45pm
No meeting on Tues. 9/21
Led by Victor Saenz, PhD, Executive Director, The Houston Institute
Email vs15@rice.edu for more information
