Date: Sat, 19 Oct 1996 12:04:54 -0400 From: John Young <jya-AT-pipeline.com> Subject: Home or Auto Didact The Economist, 19 October 1996, p. 91. _________________________________________________________ The Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Moses, Jesus, Marcus Aurelius, Augustine, Aquinas, More, Machiavelli, Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Newton, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Smith, Rousseau, Kant, Burke, Montesquieu, Hegel, Marx, Mill, Kierkegaard, Darwin, Freud, Nietzsche, James, Ayers, Quine, Wittgenstein, Weber, Habermas, Kuhn, Rorty, Foucault, Rawls, Levi-Strauss. etc.) ...taught by 6 widely acclaimed lecture professors on audio and video cassettes _________________________________________________________ [Photo] Darren Staloff, Ph.D., City College of New York [Photo] Michael Sugrue, Ph.D., Princeton University [Photo] Dennis Dalton, Ph.D. Barnard College/Columbia University [Photo] Alan Charles Kors, Ph. D., University of Pennsylvania The Superstar Faculty Also Includes: Robert Oden, Ph.D., President, Kenyon College Elizabeth McNamer, Ph.D., Rocky Mountain College _________________________________________________________ WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE? What is the best *kind* of life? Who or what is God? What is the essence of justice? When is it legitimate for one person to have power over others? Can any of these questions be answered? These are basic riddles of human experience that thoughtful men and women have pondered since the dawn of civilization. You too must have asked yourself questions like these many times. And perhaps you once vowed that some day you would plow through *all* the great thinkers of the Western world and find your own answers. But you know you never will. Frankly, it would require a minimum of several years of withdrawal from active life, and devotion to intense effort and concentration. Now, at last, here is a feasible way to enjoy the *intellectual adventure of a lifetime*. A way you can comfortably grasp the *essence* and *consequence* of each thinker's greatness, in leisure moments in your home or car. That is the extraordinary opportunity now offered by this unprecedented new audio-video lecture series -- *The Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition*. The series is composed of 70 lectures, covering more than 40 of the great minds of the Western world. Each lecture is accompanied by an outline and reading list as an aid, if you wish, to mastering and further exploring the subject. Over half of the lectures are delivered by Professors Darren Staloff and Michael Sugrue, who for several years electrified students at Columbia University with their sweeping canvas of Western intellectual development. Then to round out the series, there are guest lecturers from the growing Teaching Company treasury of audio and video recordings of America's SuperStar Teachers. The result is a definitive survey of Western thought by an all-star teaching team with no equal in lecturing skill at any single college campus anywhere else in the world. With these video or audio recordings of six of America's most widely acclaimed college lecture professors as your guides, you can now follow down through the centuries of mankind's great debate over the meaning of life, and how the ideas put forth shaped and developed our Western civilization of today. Just listening to these lectures -- whether you decide to supplement them by browsing through the texts of the works discussed or not -- will give you a grasp of the intellectual history of the Western world possessed by as few as one out of every thousand Americans. _________________________________________________________ The Curriculum _________________________________________________________ PART I: Ancient Philosophy and Faith: From Athens to Jerusalem Introduction to the Problems & Scope of Philosophy; The Old Testament; The Gospels of Mark & Matthew; Paul: His World; Presocratics: Ionian Speculation & Eliatic Metaphysics; Republic I: Justice, Power & Knowledge; Republic II-V: Soul & City; Republic VI-X: The Architecture of Reality; Aristotle's Metaphysical Views; Aristotle's Politics: The Golden Mean & Just Rule; Marcus Aurelius' *Meditations. The Stoic Ideal; Augustine's *City of God*: Grace, Original Sin & Theodicy Course No. 401. Video or Audio _________________________________________________________ PART II: The Age of Faith to The Age of Reason Aquinas' *Summa Theologica*: The Thomist Synthesis & Its Political & Social Content; More's *Utopia*: Reason & Social Justice; Machiavelli's *The Prince*: Political Realism, Political Science & the Renaissance; Bacon's *New Organon*: The Call for a New Science; Descartes' Epistemology & the Mind-Body Problem; Hobbes' *Leviathan: Of Man*; Hobbes' *Leviathan: Of the Common-wealth*; Spinoza's Ethics: Metaphysics & the Path to Salvation; The Newtonian Revolution; The Early Enlightenment & the Search for the Laws of History: Vico's *New Science of History*; Pascal's *Pensees*; The Philosophy of G.W. Liebniz Course No. 402. Video or Audio _________________________________________________________ PART III: The Enlightenment and Its Critics Locke's Theory of Knowledge; Locke's Political Theory; Montesquieu & the Beginnings of Political Science; Berkeley's Idealism & the Critique of Materialism; Hume's Epistemology; Hume's Theory of Morality; Smith's *Wealth of Nations*; Rousseau's Dissent: The Challenge to the Idea of Progress; Kant's "Copernican Revolution": Epistemology & the Critique of Metaphysics; Kant's Moral Philosophy; Burke & the Birth of Enlightened Conservatism; Naturalism & Materialism: The Boundaries of the Enlightenment Course No. 403. Video or Audio _________________________________________________________ PART IV: Philosophy in the Epoch of Ideology Comte & the Origins of Sociology; Hegel: The Phenomenology of Geist; Hegel's Philosophy of History; Marx & the Problem of Alienation & Ideology; Marx's Historical Materialism; Kierkegaard's Christian Existentialism; Schopenhauer: The World as Will & Idea; The Classical Doctrine of Liberal Democracy: John Stuart Mill's *On Liberty & Utilitarianism*; The Darwinian Revolution in Social Thought: William Graham Sumner; Weber's Historical Sociology; Freud & Philosophy Course No. 404. Video or Audio _________________________________________________________ PART V: Modernism and the Age of Analysis: Beginnings Nietzsche's Critique of Christianity: The Genealogy of Morals; Nietzsche's Perspectivalism & Critique of Philosophy; James' Pragmatism; Gadamer Hermeneutics & the Human Sciences; Bergson's Elan Vital & Vitalism; John Dewey's *Reconstruction in Philosophy*; The Pragmatic Critique of Traditional Philosophy; Levi-Strauss: Structuralist Anthropology; Husserl: Phenomenology & the Life-World; Heidegger Being & Time; A. J. Ayer's Language, Truth & Logic; The Latter Wittgenstein: The Philosophy of Language; The Frankfurt School Course No. 405. Video or Audio _________________________________________________________ PART VI: Modernism and the Age of Analysis: Conclusions Kuhn's Paradigm Paradigm; Habermas' Critical Theory; Barthes, Semiotics & the Revolt Against Structuralism; Social Justice & Social Democracy in Contemporary Times: *A Theory of Justice* by John Rawls; Alvin Gouldner's *Dark Side of the Dialectic*: Social Theory; Renegade Sociology & Outlaw Marxism; Foucault: Power, Knowledge & Post-Structuralism; Quines Ontological Relativism & the End of"Philosophy"; Rorty's Neo-Pragmatism; Jean-Francois Lyotard: the Post-Modern Condition; Conclusion: The Theory of Knowledge & Language; Conclusion: Political, Social & Cultural Criticism & Theory Course No. 406. Video or Audio _________________________________________________________ To order, mail coupon or call 1-800-TEACH-12 (1-800-832-2412) please refer to offer Code 4025 or FAX 703-912-7756 "No Risk" Money-Back Guarantee! _________________________________________________________ Save up to $100 on entire course! _________________________________________________________ [Torch of learning image] The Teaching Company 7405 Alban Station Court, Suite A107 Springfield, VA 22150-2318 Offer Code 4025 Please send me the following Parts from Great Minds, each consisting of 11-12, 45-minute lectures on audio or video cassettes in handsome storage cases. [ ] ALL SIX [ ] Part I [ ] Part II [ ] Part III [ ] Part IV [ ] Part V [ ] Part VI (please check desired format) [ ] Video*: SALE: Entire six-part course, $449.95 (reg. price $549.95) plus $20 S&H. One part, $149.95 plus $5 ea. S&H. [ ] Audio*: SALE: Entire six-part course, $299.95 (reg. price $349.95) plus $20 S&H. One part, $89.95 plus $5 ea. S&H. * Note: Virginia residents please add 4.5% sales tax. [ ] Check or Money Order enclosed [ ] VISA [ ] MC [ ] AMEX [ ] Disc. [ ] Please send me a free copy of your complete catalog of over 80 courses (no purchase necessary) _________________________________________________________ Account Number _________________________________________________________ Signature Exp. Date _________________________________________________________ Name (Please Print) _________________________________________________________ Mailing Address _________________________________________________________ City/State/Zip _________________________________________________________ Phone (If we have questions regarding your order) --- from list avant-garde-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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