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Courses are available from time to time in both Distance Learning and NYC In-Person formats. Both formats provide access to a 24/7 online class discussion board in which the instructor participates. NYC In-Person courses also admit Distance Learners. Special courses can be designed upon request to address a particular area of interest of a group of five or more persons in the case of In-Person Sections or of three or more persons in the case of Distance Sections. Please enquire.
PHIL 101 Introduction to the History of Philosophy I Examines the foundations of Western philosophy and science in ancient Greece. Traces the development of philosophy during the Roman republic and the empire. Studies the impact of the triumph of Christianity on western thought from the late classical period through the high middle ages. The course begins with readings in the works of the Presocratics, Plato, and Aristotle. Then the class will study the dominant philosophies of the late Roman republic, Stoicism and Epicureanism. The thinking of Plotinus, the greatest of the Neoplatonists of the imperial period, will be compared with that of his predecessors and with that of the Christian convert Augustine, who was destined to shape a millennium or more of subsequent western thought. Finally, the class will read selections from the writings of the thirteenth century Thomas Aquinas whose deep originality of thought set the stage for much of modernity. 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 102 Introduction to the History of Philosophy II Examines the foundation of modern philosophy and its divergence from ancient and medieval thought. Explores the modern notions of self, society, world, and God. The course culminates in a comparative analysis of American pragmatism and atheistic existentialism. Readings in the works of Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Emerson, Peirce, Dewey, and Sartre. 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 201 American Philosophy While studying the rise and development of classical American thought, this course will explore the following issues: When philosophy crossed the Atlantic in what way did it significantly depart from -- while advancing -- modern European consciousness? What is the significance of the fact that C.S. Peirce, the founder of American pragmatism, thinks more highly of medieval scholastic philosophy than he does of the Cartesian philosophy at the foundation of modern thought? What is the distinctive contribution of American philosophy to the history of philosophy? Centrally, what is the American philosophical conception of the relation of the person and the community? How might it be construed to have prepared the way for a new global consciousness? These and related questions will be addressed through readings in the writings of Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, C.S. Peirce, Wm. James, and John Dewey. 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 202 Existentialism Through readings in the primary philosophical texts, this course examines the history and nature of existentialism. Among the questions asked are the following: how did Hegel’s synthesis of Reason and Revelation set the conditions for the existentialist reaction of Soren Kierkegaard? What points of contact and divergence exist between the latter’s concept of religious anxiety, Heidegger’s disclosure of the primordial possibility of Angst, and Sartre’s study of the reflective nature of anguish. How are freedom, nothingness, anxiety, and responsibility related? The class will read Hegel’s Logic, Heidegger’s Being and Time, Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments and The Concept of Anxiety, and Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 300 Introduction to the New Testament A close reading and exegesis of the New Testament in the light of the thinking now occurring for the first time. The Four Gospels: Mark: the imperative to bear fruit out of season. Matthew: the imperative to obey the law through and through. What’s new in the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus as the teacher whose message is his person. Luke: the imperative to universal love. John: the imperative to unity with the Father in and through the Incarnate Word. Jesus’ claim to identity with the Father in the Gospel of John. The offensive nature of this claim and the equally offensive nature of his teaching that the consumption of his body and blood is prerequisite for eternal life. The outworking of the Gospel proclamation and these themes in the Acts of the Apostles. A reading of the Letters of Paul and others, centering on a study of the theology of Paul. In addition to the relation of faith and law, sin and grace, a special focus on the centrality of the Body of Christ in Paul’s thought. The course closes with a reading of John’s Apocalypse and an examination of the nature and properties of the New Jerusalem that comes at the end from where God lives. The question how these themes—those of the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, Paul, the other letter writers, and the Apocalypse—are understood for the first time in light of the thinking now occurring will be dealt with concomitantly with their explication. In this connection reference will be made from time to time to the instructor’s works: Novitas Mundi: Perception of the History of Being (1980 and 1994), Foundation: Matter the Body Itself (1996), Faith and Philosophy: The Historical Impact (2003), and Beyond Sovereignty: A New Global Ethics and Morality (ms. pending publication). 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 305 Major Texts in the History of Christian Thought Through close readings in the primary sources the course will trace the major developments in Christian thought from classical times to the late modern era. The ancient Christian understanding of the Trinity will be approached through reading Augustine's The Trinity. The pinnacle of medieval Christian thought on the content of faith will be studied in Aquinas' Summa Contra Gentiles Book Four: Salvation. The class will then examine the theology of the reformers as presented in Luther's Preface to Romans and Lectures on Romans, and Calvin's The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Romans and to the Thessalonians. Finally the twentieth century radical neo-orthodox thinking of Karl Barth will be entered upon by reading his The Epistle to the Romans. 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 306 Contemporary Christian Thought Readings in some of the major Christian texts of the contemporary world: Barth's Church Dogmatics Vol. II, Part 2, Rahner's Spirit in the World, Balthasar's A Theology of History, Gutierrez' A Theology of Liberation, and Altizer's The Genesis of God. The class will also read Leahy's Faith and Philosophy: The Historical Impact. 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 307 Existentialism & Modern Religious Thought The foundations of existentialism are explored through a reading of Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. Then the twentieth century development of existentialism is examined in Heidegger's Being and Time and Sartre's Notebooks for an Ethics. The impact of existentialism on religious thought is studied through reading Bultmann's Interpreting Faith for the Modern Era and Barth's Church Dogmatics III.3 The Doctrine of Creation. Finally the class will explore Levinas' metaphysical ethics and his notion of the Infinite in his magnum opus Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence. 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 310 Introduction to Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas distinguished between truth accessible to human reason and truth inaccessible to reason but revealed by God. This course will examine the relationship between faith and knowledge in Aquinas’ thought. In what way is he an Aristotelian? How is he related to Augustine? In what does Thomas’ originality as a thinker consist? How does his faith inform & shape his reason in a way unprecedented in the history of thought? What is Thomas’ understanding of the Divine nature? How can God be known? What is the analogy of being? How does Aquinas understand creation? What is the inherent importance of the distinction between esse and essentia? What is the historical importance of this distinction? How does Thomas understand man’s nature and place in creation? What is the relation between God’s providence and free will? How does faith understand the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Last Judgment? The class will explore these questions and others by reading and discussing the Summa Contra Gentiles, Books I-IV (God, Creation, Providence, and Salvation). 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 320 Introduction to Hegel For Hegel all reality is the outworking of the eternal history of Absolute Spirit. Hegel understands this Spirit to be the Aristotelian Nous “more deeply determined.” The seminar will explore the nature and contours of this “deeper determination.” What is the place of Hegel’s thinking in the history of thought? How does this thinking come about in that history? What is the significance of the dialectic? What is the relation of Hegel’s thought to Christianity? to the philosophies of Kant, Schelling and Fichte? How is it that Hegel’s synthesis gives rise to such diverse figures as Kierkegaard, Marx, Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre? These and related questions will be addressed through readings in Hegel's writings, including Phenomenology of Mind, Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, Part I: Logic, Part III: Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Right, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, and selections from History of Philosophy. 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 330 Introduction to Kierkegaard For Kierkegaard everything hinged on the distinction between the objective and subjective definitions of what a Christian is. The course examines Kierkegaard’s notion of the “absolute paradox” through close readings of two of his major works: Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 335 Introduction to Heidegger The class first will read Heidegger’s Being and Time. Topics include: the question of the meaning of Being, the ontological structure of Da-sein, Being-in-the-world in general, the worldliness of the world, being-with and being a self, the “They”, Care as the being of Da-sein, temporality, disclosedness and truth, being-toward-death, authenticity and resoluteness, and historicity. The class then will read Heidegger’s posthumously published Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning). Topics include: Enowning and history, the powerlessness of thinking, inceptual thinking, enthinking Be-ing and language, decision, history of Be-ing and abandonment of being, machination, nihilism, science, playing-forth, first beginning and other beginning, crossing, Idealism, the Leap, the essential sway of Be-ing, Be-ing and nothing, essential sway of truth, time-space as ab-ground, the ones to come, and the last god. 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 390 Introduction to Novitas Mundi A close reading of Novitas Mundi: Perception of the History of Being. Examines the revolution in the form of human thought effected by the Incarnation. Using Aristotle as the touchstone, traces the reshaping of western thought in Augustine and Aquinas. Descartes' appropriation of the transcendental form of natural reason. The ideal of the history of being in Leibniz. The infinite practical in Kant and Hegel. Kierkegaard's faithful but absurd opposition to Hegel. The clarification of the absolute in Husserl and Heidegger. The course culminates in an intensive study of the thinking now occurring for the first time: the thought of existence itself absolute. 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 391 Introduction to Foundation I This course will consist in a close reading of Foundation: Matter the Body Itself, Sections I, II and III.1-2. The course begins with the formal critique of historical materialism in light of the thinking now occurring. Thought beyond Nietzsche. The absolute measure of the magnitude of being. Critique of Derrida's la différance. Critique of Altizer's death of God theology. The law of absolute unity in the form of real trinary logic. Comparison to Boole and Peirce. The logic as foundation for the division in extreme and mean ratio and the geometric and arithmetic series of ordinary mathematics. 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 392 Introduction to Foundation II This course will consist in a close reading of Foundation: Matter the Body Itself, Sections III.3-7, IV and V. The course begins with an examination of certain theorems pertaining to structural rigidity and the natural numbers. The transformation of world consciousness. American thought and the new world order. The beginning of the absolutely unconditioned body. The course culminates in a study of the relation of the thinking now occurring to the American pragmatists, Peirce, James and Dewey, including the alternative inversions of pragmatism in Altizer's theology and McDermott's philosophy. The new beginning beyond the post-modern nothingness. 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 393 Introduction to Faith and Philosophy A close reading of Faith and Philosophy: The Historical Impact. The question is: how has Christian faith impacted the notion of Nous or divine mind in Western thought up to and including the present? Augustine is seen to have effected a synthesis of the Aristotelian and Plotinian notions. The relationship between Descartes' cogito and Thomas' transcendental form of natural reason is examined. Then Kant's Critique of Pure Reason as response to Descartes' 'foremost argument' for the existence of God. Central to the understanding of the history of thought is Hegel's 'unprecedented synthesis of revelation and divine self-knowledge'. Then the 'strenuous' thinking of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Levinas is contrasted with the 'disarming' thought of Jefferson, Emerson, and C.S. Peirce. The latter's thinking is contrasted with Hegel's, and the precise relationship of both thinkers to the new world thinking now beginning to exist is delineated at the most fundamental level. The course ends with a reading of the Appendix to the book: "Thinking in the Third Millennium: Looking Without the Looking Glass." 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 400 Quaestiones Quaelibet The course will consider any questions members of the class may wish to ask concerning the thinking now occurring for the first time. Each week a new question formulated in advance by the members of the class will be addressed. The instructor will begin each class by addressing the question of the week. Discussion will follow. Each member of the class will be responsible to prepare comments or subsidiary questions related to the week’s topic. The course assumes a general familiarity with the thinking now occurring and its relation to historical and contemporary thought. Primary reference texts will be D.G. Leahy’s works to date, Novitas Mundi, Foundation, Faith and Philosophy, and Beyond Sovereignty (the last in typescript pending publication). 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 410 Philosophy of Religion In the modern period, religion, where positively received philosophically, comes to be identified, in diverse ways, with morality and/or reason, as, for example, in the works of Kant and Hegel. In the 1840’s, in the writings of Feuerbach and Kierkegaard, this identification undergoes a radical re-examination. The course will study the respective critiques offered by these two thinkers, and examine the alternative response given by American pragmatism, particularly in the thinking of Wm. James. It will then explore the effect of the original critiques upon the thinking of Karl Barth, the major twentieth century Protestant theologian, and that of his Catholic counterpart, Karl Rahner, both of whom will in the meantime have been importantly shaped by the phenomenological and existentialist currents let loose by Husserl and Heidegger. The class will read Feuerbach’s Essence of Christianity, Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript, James’ The Will to Believe, selections from Barth’s The Epistle to the Romans and Church Dogmatics, Rahner's Hearer of the Word, and conclude with a reading of John Paul II’s understanding of the relation of faith and reason, Fides et Ratio. 24/7 discussion board. PHIL 420 Philosophy of the Body When one thinks of philosophy one naturally thinks of the mind. But what of the body? How is the body related to the world? What is the body? How is body related to soul or psyche? How are body and soul related to mind? This course examines the changing answers to these and related questions in ancient, medieval, and modern philosophy. Ancient and medieval understandings of the body will be approached through readings in Plato’s Timaeus and Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima. Descartes’ foundational influence on the modern notion of the body will be examined. The class will read Descartes’ Meditations, Treatise on Man, Description of the Human Body, and The Passions of the Soul. The phenomenological understanding of the body in 20th century philosophy will be studied in the following works: Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations, Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, and Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception. 24/7 discussion board.
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