Antiquitas saeculi juventus mundi.
-----Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning (Bk. I, v, 8) 1605
("The age of antiquity was the youth of the world.")
In this “Cranks and Sages” course, some of the thinkers we’ll be engaging
with (and I DO mean “really engaging with,” and not “mechanically reading”)
come off as cranky, others as sagacious—and maybe some as neither, or as both.
They all thought that there was something importantly wrong with the thinking
dominant in their culture—the very situation in which some of you may find
yourselves.
The philosophers we will be reading this semester have long been dead, or
long buried, or long burned, but chances are good that at least some of them
were better thinkers than many of us will ever be. They may not have been able
to build laser beams or watch cat videos, but they knew with lasting brilliance
how to examine lasting questions like "What is knowledge and how can we
tell the true from the false?" and "What is the best way to set up
society?" Accordingly, we will be looking at these thinkers not as pickled
and glassed curiosities in an intellectual museum, but as vital participants in
the current discussion of these same enriching questions. When Huck Finn tells
us that "...I don't take no stock in dead people," he is displaying
either the naïveté of the young or the arrogance of the living. We will avoid
both these extremes, and will invite antiquity, through its writings, to join
our conversations.
And these conversations will be a primary concern of the course. That is,
because studying philosophy is the development of a certain skill and not so
much the memorization of a body of knowledge, students will need to engage
themselves with the reading and class material. To engage oneself in this sense
is not merely to pay attention to the material, but to be able to discuss, to
explain, to support, or to criticize. For this reason, regular attendance and
participation in class is necessary. It will be impossible to do well in this
course without regular attendance, and very difficult without regular
participation.
I aim to help you see:
· that
lots of smart and creative thinkers are from long ago and far away;
· that
(and how) many of those thinkers contributed to ways of thinking that are
present in the 21st century;
· that
(and how) people from a very different intellectual and cultural context from
our own could come up with some views surprisingly similar to our own—and
others, very different from our own.
Student learning outcomes
By the end of the course, students will demonstrate the ability to:
1.
situate how Ancient Greek and Roman thinkers were
responding to other thinkers;
2.
apply views of Ancient Greek and Roman thinkers to issues
of continuing relevance;
3.
demonstrate effective written communication of ideas in
Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy;
4.
demonstrate effective oral communication of ideas in
Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy;
5.
construct a critique of the reasoning used for various
arguments in Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy;
6.
construct appropriate responses to anticipated objections
to one's reasoning on topics in Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy;
7.
ground claims about Ancient Greek and Roman thinkers in
primary sources.
Land acknowledgment pledge:
We acknowledge that the land on which we are learning,
working, and gathering today is the ancestral home of the Yacocomico and
Piscataway Peoples. We also acknowledge that St. Mary’s City was partly built
and sustained by enslaved people of African descent. Through this
acknowledgment, we recognize these communities and all those who have been
displaced and enslaved through colonization.
The goal of the land acknowledgment pledge is not only to
respect and honor the contributions of Indigenous Peoples and enslaved people
of African descent, but to support and learn from all diverse communities in
order to build a more sustainable future.
Send me mail:
mstaber at smcm dot edu
Go to Michael Taber's home page.
Go to the SMCM home page.