Academic Program
Annapolis Preceptorial
PRECEPTORIAL LIST 2007-2008
Cervantes: Don Quixote in Spanish and English
Mr. Andre Barbera
Philosophical Pragmatism
Mr. Joseph Cohen
Beginning in the latter half of the 19th century in America and continuing into the 21st, there developed a philosophical movement of great persuasive power and comprehensiveness known as Pragmatism. Among the major figures of this movement are Charles Peirce (1839-1914), William James (1842-1910), John Dewey 1859-1952), and the late Richard Rorty (1932-2007).
Based on selected readings from these authors, the preceptorial will attempt to understand:
- the pragmatists' leading ideas and philosophical aims;
- their reasons for turning away from the concerns and assumptions of much of traditional philosophy;
- the effect of pragmatic thinking on such core philosophic conceptions as Knowledge, Truth, Transcendence, degrees of Being, and Language as the representation of Reality;
- the main objections to the pragmatists' views and their replies.
Kant: Critique of Pure Reason
Mr. William Braithwaite
Albert Einstein: The 1905 Papers
Mr. Dylan Casey
Kant: Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone
Mr. Matthew Caswell
- Part I: Concerning the indwelling of the evil principle with the good, or, of radical evil in human nature.
- Part I: Concerning the struggle of the good with the evil principle for dominion over the human being.
- Part III: Concerning the victory of the good over the evil principle and the founding of a Kingdom of God on earth.
- Part IV: Concerning service and pseudo-service under the dominion of the good principle, or, Of Religion and Clericalism.
Husserl's Phenomenology
Mr. Robert Druecker
In the first three classes, we would consider many examples provided by Don Ihde's Experimental Phenomenology to gain some concrete sense of what a phenomenologist does as well as to familiarize ourselves with the basic terminology that is used in phenomenology. Then we would read selections from Husserl's works on the transcendental reduction, the nature of pre-reflective experience, the arising of reflective thought, and the genesis of the objects of the mathematical-logical and physical sciences. Should there be a class available at the end, it would be devoted to a critique by Heidegger of Husserl's approach to phenomenology.
Aristophanes: Plays
Ms. Mera Flaumenhaft
We'll discuss five or six plays depicting women, war, empire, philosophy, and poetry in the Athenian polis and the place of comedy in the Athenian festival of Dionysus. As the poet says in the Frogs, he aims "to say many humorous things and many serious things and to win the prize by playfulness and mockery, in a manner worthy of your festival."
Shakespeare: Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest
Ms. Catherine Haigney
Aristotle: De Anima
Ms. Katherine Heines
Dostoyevsky: Notes from the Underground and The Idiot
Ms. Marilyn Higuera
Notes is a short novel with an anonymous narrator who is bitter, misanthropic, and alienated from society. Though he stresses the human desire for free will, he is unable to make decisions due to his "excessive consciousness" of the multiplicity of motives informing every decision. The hero of The Idiot, on the other hand, is Dostoyevsky's depiction of "the positively good man." The novel describes what happens to such a man in society, where his innocence and humility make him ridiculous. In both novels, Dostoyevsky's psychological concerns are woven together with strands of philosophical and theological thought.
Rousseau: Emile
Mr. Christian Holland
Plato: Symposium and Phaedrus
Mr. Samuel Kutler
Tocqueville: Democracy in America
Ms. Anita Kronsberg
Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain
Ms. Emily Langston
Agape
Mr. Paul Ludwig
In Paul and the Johannine corpus, possibly with some later interpretations such as those of Augustine and Aquinas. We will occasionally look at Greek or Latin words but will not do any prepared translating. Part of our aim will be to compare this new love to the classical loves, erôs and philia.
Leonardo da Vinci
Mr. Thomas May
Paintings, drawing, and notebooks (selections), with reference to Mitchell Gallery exhibition of working models of some of his machines.
Kepler: selections from Mysterium Cosmographicum, Astronomia Nova, and Epitome of Copernican Astronomy
Mr. Louis Petrich
This preceptorial is for those who wanted the Copernican Revolution to offer more in the way of revolution. We shall follow Kepler's thinking as it led him from theology and mathematics into physics, to the discovery of elliptical orbits and the area law, and to the founding of modern astronomy.
Henrik Ibsen: Plays
Ms. Deborah Renaut
Ibsen (1828-1902) was a Norwegian playwright. He combined an interest in new forms of drama with an interest in Norwegian nationalism and social reform. We will begin by considering how he combines these and how satisfying the results are, as arguments and as plays.
Hans Jonas: The Phenomenon of Life
Mr. Jeffrey Smith
Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex
Mr. David Stephenson
Nietzsche: On the Genealogy of Morals
Mr. Jason Tipton
The Poetry and Printing of William Blake
Mr. David Townsend
We will read Songs of Innocence and Experience, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and selectionsfrom the prophetic books, attending to Blake's engraved presentations of these poems. We shall seek to pursue Reason, with Urizen and Los, as faras possible into the Jerusalem of beauty, feeling, image and sensation.
Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus (in Greek)
Mr. Jonathan Tuck
Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations
Mr. John Verdi
Aristotle: Metaphysics
Mr. John White
Akira Kurosawa: Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Throne of Blood, Ikiru, Ran
Mr. Cordell Yee