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. Continuing our series from last semester, this Spring we’ll begin with reflections from Shakespeare (1564-1616). Then we’ll dive into portrayals of love and desire in Mozart and Da Ponte’s Don Giovanni (1787). We’ll then read from the influential Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and from the existentialists Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). Finally, we’ll finish with some reflections from the late Sir Roger Scruton (1944-2020) and Charles Taylor (1931-). Come join the conversation!
Meets on Tuesday evenings: 1/25, 2/1, 2/8, 2/15, 2/22
