Graduate Institute
Annapolis Fall 2007 Preceptorials
Preceptorials are scheduled to meet on Thursdays, 7:30-9:30 p.m. beginning Thursday, August 23, 2007
- "Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world and never will."
Mark Twain
Introduction to Ancient Greek
Our goal will be an acquaintance with the basic forms and syntax of ancient Greek sufficient to enable students to continue the learning of that splendid and difficult language on their own. Especially in the early stages, much will depend on memorization and the frequent working through of exercises.
The text will be Mollin and Williamson's An Introduction to Ancient Greek, which was written with a view to the purposes of the undergraduate language tutorials at St. John's. Although the learning of the Greek language will be our paramount object, the preceptorial will never lose sight of the other two goals of the language tutorial: reflection on the role of grammatical structure in conveying meaning in our own language as well as in Greek, and a deepened appreciation of the program authors through detailed analysis of selected passages, mostly from Plato's dialogues.
- Text: An Introduction to Ancient Greek by Alfred Mollin and Robert Williamson (University Press of America, rev. 1997).
- First Assignment: Study Lesson One.
- Tutor: Ms. Elizabeth Blettner
This preceptorial applies both to the Literature segment and to the Mathematics and Natural Science segment.
Tragedy: Sophocles, Shakespeare, Checkov, O'Neill
We will examine tragic poetry as it exhibits itself in different times and places.
- Sophocles: Ajax
- Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida
- Chekhov: The Cherry Orchard
- O'Neill: Mourning Becomes Electra
- First Assignment: We will spend our first three nights talking about the Ajax. Please read the entire play prior to the first class meeting.
- Tutor: Mr. Jonathan Badger
This preceptorial applies to the Literature segment.
Kant, Critique of Judgment
What allows us to say that a human being is beautiful and good? What allows us to say this about an animal, or a plant, or an artifact? Kant's analysis of the character and limits of our power of judging is divided into two parts. The first examines what we mean when we call something beautiful; the second examines what we mean when we speak of natural purposes. We will read the whole work, with particular attention to what Kant's Critique teaches us about the place of teleological judgments in modern natural science.
Text: Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment. Including the First Introduction. Translated, with an Introduction, by Werner S. Pluhar. With a Foreward by Mary J. Gregor. (Indianapolis: Hackaett Publishing Company, 1987.)
First Assignment: Preface, Introduction I to VI.
Tutor: Mr. Jeffrey Black
This preceptorial applies to the Mathematics and Natural Science segment.
Apology, Clouds, Phaedo
This preceptorial will explore Socrates’ interest in natural science and the relation of that interest to his founding of moral and political philosophy. We will begin with a close reading of Aristophanes’ Clouds to examine the great poet’s critique of Socrates. Then, after a brief examination of Socrates’ account in the Phaedo of his youthful interest in natural science, we will turn to a study of the main text for the semester—Plato’s Apology. We will pay special attention to the literary character of the dialogue form and the interpretive challenges it poses.
Texts: Four texts on Socrates by West and West (Cornell University Press), contains both Clouds and the Apology
First Assignment:Clouds, 1-411
Tutor: Mr. Robert Goldberg
This preceptorial applies both to the Literature segment and to the Mathematics and Natural Science segment.
Euclid, The Optics and Goethe, Theory of Colors
This preceptorial will mainly study two attempts to make intelligible our experience of our sense of sight, Euclid’s Optics and Goethe’s Theory of Colours. The course will investigate the nature of sight broadly, considering such questions as the proper objects of sight, the meaning of visual size, the nature of visual clarity, and the effect of position upon vision. We will also consider many particular aspects of sight, such as what happens when a specific color is situated next to another specific color in a specific manner. The contrast between the geometrical approach of Euclid and the phenomenological approach of Goethe will also raise fundamental questions, raised to some degree explicitly in Goethe’s text, about just what science is or can be and how it should be pursued.
First Assignment: Optics, Definition and first fourteen propositions.
Tutor: Mr. Michael Grenke
This preceptorial applies to the Mathematics and Natural Science segment.
Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Book II, and Descartes’ Passions of the Soul
How and why are human beings moved in one way or another? We will attempt a study of the passions and the motions through a reading of Aristotle’s Rhetoricem>, Book II, which tries to give a complete exposition of the pathe (affections) of everyday life, and Descartes’ Passions of the Soul, in which description seems to go together with psycho-physiological explanation. This will allow us to compare an ancient and a modern way of trying to understand this fundamental aspect of human life. Here we will be concerned
with continuity as well as with contrast. Among our more specific interests will be the relationship between the passions and the virtues, and the relation that description has to explanation.
Texts: Any unabridged version of Aristotle, On Rhetoric. I will use either Aristotle, On Rhetoric, tr. Geo. Kennedy, Oxford Univ. Press, ppb., or the bilingual Loeb.
Rene Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, tr. Stephen Voss, Hackett ppb.
First Assignment: Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Book I, Ch. 1 and Ch. 2 in part – Bekker numbers 1354a1-1357a14.
Tutor: Mr. Jon Lenkowski
This preceptorial applies both to the Literature segment and to the Mathematics and Natural Science segment.
Tolstoy: War and Peace
Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace has been called the 19th century equivalent of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey combined. That’s not a bad one-sentence description!& The story is laid out in 15 sections plus a philosophic Epilogue. The reading assignments for our 16 sessions together are, accordingly, one chapter of ca. 100 pages per session, except that we shall, toward the end of the semester, combine sections 13 and 14, and sections 15 and the Epilogue.
To promote our getting to know one another, please write a little essay of no more than two double-spaced pages about some one character, or issue, or paragraph in Chapter 1. Print out copies for me, yourself, and two other members of the preceptorial. (This will be the regular routine).
Michael Comenetz has filed his opinions about translations of War and Peace in a folder in the bookstore. Consult this folder.
Text: To Be Announced.
First Assignment: Part I (approximately 100 pages) of War and Peace, Modern Library Edition. Please write a little essay of no more than two doublspaced pages about some one character, issue, or paragraph in Chapter 1. Print out copies for tutor, yourself, and two other members of the preceptorial. (This will be the regular routine.)
Tutor: Mrs. Chaninah Maschler
This preceptorial applies to the Literature segment.
Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov
Concerning his last and greatest novel, Dostoevsky wrote: “The chief problem dealt with throughout this particular work is the very one which has, my whole life long, tormented my conscious and unconscious being: the question of the existence of God.” The story of four brothers involved in the murder of their father, The Brothers Karamazov explores profound questions of good and evil, faith and intellect, suffering and joy, life and death.
Text: Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. The Pevear and Volkhonsky translation is suggested.
First Assignment: The Brothers Karamazov, Part I, Books 1 and 2.
Tutor: Ms. Joan Silver
This preceptorial applies to the Literature segment.
Einstein: Relativity
We will approach relativity using a popular work of Einstein’s which assumes no prior knowledge of physics or mathematics. We will hope for time to reach the account of the General Theory and “curved spacetime.”
Text: Albert Einstein, Relativity, The Special and the General Theory
First Assignment: Chapters One and Two
Tutor: Mr. Malcolm Wyatt
This preceptorial applies to the Mathematics and Natural Science segment.