Philosophy
309/Medieval Philosophy
4
Hours Weekly
Dr. James Hatley
Phone: 677-5072 (O); 443-614-8030 (H)
Office: Philosophy House, 103
Office Hours: 3:00-5:00 pm on Tueseday and
Thursday Afternoons
Course Description:
This course will treat a representative selection of Pagan, Islamic, Jewish and Christian thinkers running from the Late Ancient through most of the Medieval Period (300 CE-1300 CE). This particular span of time marks the collapse of Pagan culture and the rise of Christianity and Islam, as well as the reconstitution of Judaism in its Diaspora. Yet, even as Paganism founders, its notion and practice of Philosophy are appropriated by all three of the Abrahamic religious traditions. It can be even argued that Christianity only comes into its own through this appropriation. In the case of all three traditions, understanding the role of Philosophy as a mode of illuminating and being illuminated by one's religious faith was and continues to remain of utmost importance. Among the themes to be treated in our readings of thinkers from this time of a cataclysmic reorientation in culture and thought are: a) the reconciliation of religious faith with human reason, b) the transcendence of G-d, c) the nature of humans and their spiritual vocation, d) making sense of evil, e) making sense of creation, f) the eschatological dimensions of worldly existence. The course will also function to introduce students to many key religious and philosophical concepts of the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. We will also strive to understand how these concepts might still be at work in contemporary questions concerning the nature of human beings and the significance of earthly existence.
Texts:
Medieval Philosophy (MP),
by Forrest Baird and Walter Kaufmann
Western Philosophy: From Antiquity to the Middle Ages (WP), by
James Jordan
“To
the Other” (TO) by Emanuel Levinas. TEXT
Polishing a Dirty Mirror” (PDM), from TheTexture of the Divine by Aaron Hughes “. TEXT
Wandering Joy: Meister
Eckhart's Mystical Philosophy (WJ), by
Reiner Schurmann
Grading:
Response Paper
1 15%
Response Paper
2 15%
Contemporary
Response I 15%
Contemporary
Response II 15%
11 Weekly
Reading Questions 22%
Expert
Question 1 05%
Expert
Question 2 05%
Group
Discussion Question 05%
Class
Participation 03%
Response Papers ask you to develop an analysis of a particular question raised by a thinker or thinkers during the Medieval Period. You will be required to characterize the question, explicate the thinker's or thinkers' treatment of the question and then give your reaction to the thinker's or thinkers' handling of the question.
Weekly
Reading Questions will be turned in
by the students at least seven times during the semester. This assignment
requires that you respond in short essays totaling at least a typewritten page
in length to questions given the week before about a reading we will be discussing
that day in class. Your short essays must be turned in on a Monday at the
beginning of the class in which the reading is to be discussed. You should
bring two copies of this assignment to class--one to turn in and the other to
help with your notes and to share with the class, if called upon. If you turn in reading questions after the
day they are due, the best grade you can receive is a C.
Expert
ALL TAKE-HOME ASSIGNMENTS ARE TO BE TYPEWRITTEN!
OVERVIEW OF CLASS
Weekly
Reading Questions (
WEEK ONE 1/30: An Overview of Pagan and Judeo-Christian World Views. MP, pp. 1-10, Sermon on the Mount
WEEK TWO 2/6: Transcendence and Worldly Existence in late Pagan Thought—Plotinus
Weekly EXPERT Reading Question:
WEEK THREE 2/13: Plotinus on the Nature of Beauty and the Destiny of the Soul.
Weekly EXPERT Reading Question:
WEEK
FOUR 2/20: Philo, Talmud and the Two Paths of Biblical Interpretation/ The Troubling Issue of Philosophy for Christianity
Weekly EXPERT Reading Question:
WEEK
FIVE 2/27: Reading Talmud in the 20th
Century: Levinas on Teaching and Forgiveness (“To the
Other”).
TEXT
Weekly EXPERT
Reading Question:
WEEK SIX 3/5: Augustine's Appropriation and Transformation of Neoplatonism/Trinitarian Account of the Soul/Goodness of Creation
Weekly EXPERT Reading Question:
WEEK SEVEN 3/12: Augustine's Account of Time/of Evil/of Fallen Existence
Weekly EXPERT Reading Question:
DUE: Contemporary Response Paper I: Levinas speaks of the Day
of Atonement, of the ritualized work of repentance and forgiveness as anything
but “magical” (p. 15). What do you think
might be meant by a notion of forgiveness that is non-magical? Discuss how appeasement is crucial to Levinas’ non-magical account of repentance and
forgiveness. What dangers are raised in
appeasement that demand one be especially careful in bringing it about?
Finally, why does Levinas adopt what he calls a
“paradigmatic method” (p. 21) in working out his ideas on forgiveness? Three pages typewritten.
Make sure to use and comment on quotations from Levinas’
article in working out your thoughts on this issue.
SPRING BREAK: 3/19-23
WEEK EIGHT 3/26: Review
Review Questions: Go to Review Questions
DUE: RESPONSE PAPER I:
Consider the following excerpt from the “Book
of Memory (Book X)” of Augustine’s Confessions:
And what is this [which I love, when I love my G-d]? I asked the earth, and it answered me, “I am not He.” And whatsoever are in [the earth], confessed the same. I asked the sea and the deeps, and the living creeping things. And they answered, “We are not thy G-d, seek above us.” These things did my inner man know by the ministry of the outer: I the inner knew them; I the mind, through the senses of my body. I asked the whole frame of the world about my G-d; and it answered me, “I am not He, but He made me.” What then do I love, when I love my G-d?...By my very soul I will ascend to Him.
First, discuss the meaning of this passage using Augustine’s notions of free will, the inner and outer Man, the Trinitarian structure of the soul, and the notions of invenire (“nvention” or “coming into”), capex dei (being “capable of G-d”) and imago dei (being the “image of G-d”). Then, compare and contrast how Plotinus would understand the same passage. Finally, consider which understanding of the human situation in regard to G-d would you prefer and why.
A copy of the full passage from the Book of Memory can be found at: Augustine's Confessions.
WEEK NINE 4/2:
Islamic Philosophy on the Nature of the Soul--Avicenna, Algazi
and Averroes.
Weekly
EXPERT Reading Question:
The Ornament of the World (Historical Background)
Articles on Avicenna, Averroes and Maimonides
WEEK TEN 4/9: Jewish Philosophy
on the Nature of our Knowledge of G-d: Maimonides.
Weekly EXPERT Reading Question:
WEEK ELEVEN 4/16: Christian Philosophy on the Nature of our Knowledge of G-d and the Substantiality of the Human Soul: Aquinas
Weekly
EXPERT Reading Question: 
Notes
on Aquinas and the Names of G-d
WEEK TWELVE 4/23: The Work of Imagination in Arabic and Jewish
Philosophy: “Polishing a Dirty Mirror” TEXT
Weekly EXPERT Reading Question:
WEEK THIRTEEN 4/30: Meister Eckhart I: A G-d
who Unmakes G-d?
Weekly EXPERT Reading Question
DUE: Response
Paper II: Beginning with Aquinas' critique of Maimonides, explain how Aquinas
comes to argue for an analogical and positive conception of the attributes of
G-d. In setting out this argument take a
position in regard to it: Do you agree
more with Maimonides' or Aquinas' approach and why? Make sure to pay attention to the strengths,
as well as the weaknesses, of each approach.
WEEK FOURTEEN: Meister Eckhart II 5/7: Gelassenheit, or
Discernment that inspires “Releasement.”
Weekly EXPERT
Reading Question:
FINAL PAPER:
DUE: Contemporary Response Paper II, Midnight 05/15
Schurmann argues how for Eckhardt,
"the fundamental determination of existence is 'operative
identity'." For Eckhardt, being is verbal rather than nominal, energetic
rather than substantive. In the metaphysics
of substance, Schurmann argues, "otherness
remains the first inescapable fact of any relation." In Eckhardt's
"symbolic" approach to metaphysics, "strict and simple
difference, without primitive identity, cannot be thought."
Using Schurmann's
concept of operative identity, characterize an event in being in which you have
participated, whether it be playing a musical instrument, caring for another
human being, reading a book or engaging in a philosophical conversation (or
whatever else might come to mind from your life). In working out this characterization, make
use of concepts from Schurmann's analysis of Eckhardt appropriate to your situation: combustion,
anonymity, gelassenheit (releasement),
living without (or beyond) a why, etc.
In the last part of your
paper discuss how Eckhardt would argue that your
characterization of a human event of operative identity cannot rest in itself
but necessarily suggests G-d, which is to say, the G-d (G-ttheit)
beyond G-d (G-tt).
Do you agree with Eckhardt on his
position? Why or why not?
At least
3 pages typewritten. Hard copy due at the
Philosophy House by 5 pm on 12/13.
You can put it in my mailbox.
