This is a philosophy course! ◊ Description: The course is designed to be part lecture and part discussion. The course is designed to promote student interaction and discourse; however, the quantity and quality of discussion will largely depend on group size, group age, and the interests of the students themselves. Students can expect to read 4-5 page excerpts of Plato’s Republic every week, usually together as a class. This is the first of two parts on Plato's Republic. The Republic is a large and important book, and it cannot possibly be covered in depth in 6-weeks. Instead, we will discuss one topic from each of the first five books/chapters of the Republic. ◊ Required reading: Excerpts from Plato's Republic (reading material will be provided for student).

This is a philosophy course! ◊ Description: The course is designed to be part lecture and part discussion. The course is designed to promote student interaction and discourse; however, the quantity and quality of discussion will largely depend on group size, group age, and the interests of the students themselves. Students can expect to read 1-2 pages of Plato’s Euthyphro every week, usually together as a class. We will follow Euthyphro and Socrates’ dialogue as they attempt to understand what “piety” is. We will take some time to analyze the various philosophical claims and arguments made through the dialogue. Among the many arguments presented, one of the arguments has to do with Euthyphro’s claim that piety is “what all the gods love”. Socrates finds this argument untenable. We will try to determine why or why not the argument works, and what its implications are for Socrates (and for Euthyphro’s father). ◊ Required reading: Plato’s Euthyphro (Purchase of reading materials are not required.) ◊ Supplemental reading may include: Selected excerpts from Plato’s Apology, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Aeschylus’s Oresteia: Eumenides, Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

This is a philosophy course! ◊ Description: The course is designed to be part lecture and part discussion. The course is designed to promote student interaction and discourse; however, the quantity and quality of discussion will largely depend on group size, group age, and the interests of the students themselves. Students will read selected readings every week, usually together as a class. As we progress, we will discover the similarities and differences between the way of tragedy and the way of philosophy. Each week will come with its own selection of readings. We can expect to begin with selections from Greek antiquity, and progress into more contemporary works. ◊ Required reading: Selected excerpts from Homer’s Iliad, Hesiod’s Theogony, Herodotus’ Histories, Aeschylus’s Persians, Gunnel Ekroth’s Castration, Cult, and Agriculture, Aristophanes’s The Clouds, Plato’s Symposium, Plato’s Apology, Plato’s Republic, Aeschylus’s Oresteia. (Purchase of reading materials are not required.) ◊ Supplemental reading may include: Selected excerpts from Heinrich von Kleist’s Penthesilea, Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem, Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, and Sean Kelly’s All Things Shining

We will read Plato's Euthyphro together as a class every week. We will follow Euthyphro and Socrates dialogue as they discuss what "piety" is, and try to analyze their claims and arguments. Euthyphro claims that piety is "what all the gods love". But Socrates finds this argument untenable. We will try to determine why or why not the argument works, and what its implications are for Socrates.