Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature pairs central texts from Western philosophical tradition (including works by Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Hobbes, Kant, Mill, Rawls, and Nozick) with recent findings in cognitive science and related fields. The course is structured around three intertwined sets of topics: Happiness and Flourishing; Morality and Justice; and Political Legitimacy and Social Structures.

This course explores the nature of love through works of philosophy, literature, film, poetry, and individual experience. It investigates the distinction among eros, philia, and agape. Students discuss ideas of love as a feeling, an action, a species of ‘knowing someone,’ or a way to give or take. Authors studied include Plato, Kant, Buber, D. H. Lawrence, Rumi, and Aristotle.
This course is part of the Concourse program at MIT.

This lesson provides some background on Plato's text, Phaedrus, situating it within the history of rhetoric and communication and the arguments between Plato/Socrates and the Sophists. It includes links to several versions of Phaedrus (including free audio versions) and features a rap battle assignment.

This book is a lucid and accessible companion to Plato’s Republic, throwing light upon the text’s arguments and main themes, placing them in the wider context of the text’s structure. In its illumination of the philosophical ideas underpinning the work, it provides readers with an understanding and appreciation of the complexity and literary artistry of Plato’s Republic. McAleer not only unpacks the key overarching questions of the text – What is justice? And Is a just life happier than an unjust life? – but also highlights some fascinating, overlooked passages which contribute to our understanding of Plato’s philosophical thought.

Plato’s 'Republic': An Introduction offers a rigorous and thought-provoking analysis of the text, helping readers navigate one of the world’s most influential works of philosophy and political theory. With its approachable tone and clear presentation, it constitutes a welcome contribution to the field, and will be an indispensable resource for philosophy students and teachers, as well as general readers new to, or returning to, the text.

This is a module framework. It can be viewed online or downloaded as a zip file.

As taught Autumn Semester 2010/2011.

This module introduces students to the ideas of key thinkers in the history of western political thought. We look carefully at the canonical works of five thinkers in the history of political thought: Plato, Aristotle, Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. The module considers the impact of these thinkers on ancient and modern political thought and practices, with reference to the different contexts in which they wrote. We consider the way in which these thinkers have approached the ‘big’ questions and ideas that lie behind everyday political life.

The module examines questions such as: What is justice? What is the purpose of government? What is the best form of government? Is the state ever entitled to restrict our freedom to do what we want? Why should we obey the state? When is it right to have a revolution?

Module Code and Credits: M11001 (10 credits) M11151 (15 credits)

Suitable for study at: Undergraduate level 1

Dr David Stevens, School of Politics and International Relations

Dr Stevens' research is focussed primarily within the area of contemporary normative political philosophy. Specifically, he is concerned with issues of socio-economic justice within liberal democratic societies.

Modules taught: Social Justice (level 3); War and Massacre (level 2); Justice Beyond Borders: Theories of International and Intergenerational Justice (level D).

Areas of Research Supervision: Social justice; educational; justice; Rawlsian political philosophy. In particular, David Stevens encourages applications for PhD topics in the following areas: Social justice and schooling; State education and the rights of minority cultures. Political liberalism and the creation of civic virtue; Reflective equilibrium/moral constructivism.

This multidisciplinary lecture / workshop engages students in a variety of approaches to the study and practice of performance as an area of aesthetic and social interaction. Special attention is paid to the use of diverse media in performance. Interdisciplinary approaches to study encourage students to seek out material histories of performance and practice.

This multidisciplinary lecture / workshop engages students in a variety of approaches to the study and practice of performance as an area of aesthetic and social interaction. Special attention is paid to the use of diverse media in performance. Interdisciplinary approaches to study encourage students to seek out material histories of performance and practice.

This subject traces the evolution of ideas about nature, and how best to study and explain natural phenomena, beginning in ancient times and continuing through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. A central theme of the subject is the intertwining of conceptual and institutional relations within diverse areas of inquiry: cosmology, natural history, physics, mathematics, and medicine.

“Tragedy” is a name originally applied to a particular kind of dramatic art and subsequently to other literary forms; it has also been applied to particular events, often implying thereby a particular view of life. Throughout the history of Western literature it has sustained this double reference. Uniquely and insistently, the realm of the tragic encompasses both literature and life.
Through careful, critical reading of literary texts, this subject will examine three aspects of the tragic experience:    

the scapegoat
the tragic hero
the ethical crisis

These aspects of the tragic will be pursued in readings that range in the reference of their materials from the warfare of the ancient world to the experience of the modern extermination camps.

This book contains 14 lectures on the topic of Global Hermeneutics. It can be used in philosophy classes to discuss the concept of the self, as it showcases different theoretical avenues of how the self is conceived. The synopsis reads as follows:

Why do human beings interpret their overall experience in terms of selfhood? How was the notion and sense of self shaped at different times and in different cultures? What sort of problems or paradoxes did these constructions face? These lectures address these and related questions by sketching a roadmap of possible theoretical avenues for conceiving of the self, bringing to the foreground its soteriological implications, while also testing this theoretical outlook against insights offered by various disciplines. Exploring the crosscultural spectrum of possible ways of conceiving of the self invites the more existential question of whether any of these possibilities might offer resources for dealing with the tragedies of today’s world, or maybe even saving it from some of them.

Taught by William Flesch at Brandeis University, this course offers a survey of some of the greatest and most influential works on Western literature, philosophy and culture, from Homer through Milton. Part of the through line is that every writer covered in the course wrote in a context inherited from the earlier ones, so we look at affiliations between them all. The course used the Lattimore translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and the Hollander translations of Dante. For the other works, any translation or edition is fine.