HONORS INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS I: PURPOSE
FALL SEMESTER 2004

PROFESSORS
Dr. Blake Hestir
Reed 223
257-6374
MW 2-3, and by appt.
B.Hestir@tcu.edu

Dr. Brent Plate
Beasley Hall 222
257-6444 MW 10-11, and by appt.
B.Plate@tcu.edu

TEACHING ASSISTANT: Jeff Sebo, office hours, TTR 11-12, Honors Conference Room.

REQUIRED TEXTS
Matthews and Platt, The Western Humanities (Mayfield 2001).
Online readings: www.phil.tcu.edu, then follow the links.
Plate readings online (see below).
Handouts available as semester progresses.

COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will introduce the student to the basic idea of purpose, conceived in terms of natural function, divine plan, or human convention, and how this idea informed the worldviews of various cultures and influenced the direction of intellectual development in the arts and sciences from the ancient Greeks through the early modern period.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Two four-page analytical papers (30%); response papers (15%); one conference with either instructor before the first or second paper (10%); two exams (30%) and one final exam (15%).

COURSE POLICY
You must submit every assignment on time to pass this class. In cases of documented medical emergency, extensions of one week may be granted on papers if you contact the instructors in advance. Late papers that have not been cleared in advance will not be accepted, and you will receive an F for the assignment.

ATTENDANCE POLICY
We do not take attendance, though you will find it difficult to do well when you miss class.

POLICY ON PLAGIARISM
Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use of others’ ideas, words or sentences in your own writing. Passing off words, sentences or paragraphs from a book, article, or Cliff’s Notes as your own, submitting another person’s writing as your paper, or using a prepared paper from a website are absolutely unacceptable actions. Like all cheating, plagiarism is a serious form of academic misconduct and carries heavy consequences. If we discover plagiarism in your writing, we will give you a grade of zero on the assignment and recommend to the Dean that you receive an F in the course. Please consult the student handbook’s policy on academic misconduct (3.4) for further information.

COURSE SCHEDULE
Week One
8/25: Drs. Hestir and Plate, Introduction
8/27: Drs. Hestir and Plate, Purpose, Order, Change
Reading: Matthews and Platt, ch. 2.

Week Two
8/30: Dr. Enos, Orality and Literacy in Ancient Greece
9/1: Dr. Enos, Homer and the Emergence of Writing
Reading: Handout: Odyssey IX
9/3: Dr. Enos, The Rhetoric of Homer
First response paper due

Week Three
9/6: Labor Day, no class
9/8: Dr. Hestir, Ancient Conceptions of Purpose, Order, and Change
Reading: WEB: Heraclitus and Parmenides
9/10: Dr. Hestir, The Teleology of Reality and Goodness
Reading: WEB: Plato’s Republic, Books VI-VII (Sun/Line Analogies, Allegory of the Cave)
Second response paper due

Week Four
9/13: Dr. Hestir, The Danger of Art and Language: The Sophists versus the Philosophers
Reading: WEB: Plato’s Republic, Book X, Gorgias, “In Praise of Helen”
9/15: Dr. Hestir, The Socio-Political Paradigm: The “Republic”
Reading: WEB: Plato’s Republic, Books II-IV (excerpted)
9/17: Dr. Hestir, The Teleology of Nature
Reading: WEB: Aristotle, Generation of Animals, Physics
Third Response paper due

Week Five
9/20: Dr. Hestir, The Biology of the Soul
Reading: WEB: Aristotle, On the Soul
9/22: Dr. Hestir, Human Flourishing and Virtue
Reading: WEB, Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
9/24: Dr. Hestir: General discussion of the ancient Greek conception of purpose

Week Six
9/27: EXAM I
9/29: Dr. Middleton, The Books of Ruth and Jonah
Reading: Bibles available from Honors office.
10/1: Dr. Middleton, The Books of Ruth and Jonah
Fourth response paper due

Week Seven
10/4: Dr. Plate, Introduction to Islam, the Quran
Reading: Karen Armstrong, Islam, pp. 3-23
10/6: Dr. Plate, Quran and Calligraphy
Reading: WEB: http://enterprise.is.tcu.edu/~bplate/callig.htm
FIRST PAPER DUE
10/8: Fall break, no class

Week Eight
10/11: Dr. Plate, The Islamic Empire, Damascus and Baghdad
Reading: Karen Armstrong, Islam, pp. 41-65 (handout)
10/13: Dr. Plate, The Islamic Empire, cont.
Reading: Karen Armstrong, Islam, pp. 41-65 (handout)
10/15: Dr. Plate, Islam in Spain
Fifth response paper due

Week Nine
10/18: Dr. Plate, Islam in Spain
Reading: from María Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World (selections, TBA)
10/20: Dr. Plate, Islam in Spain
Reading: from María Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World (selections, TBA)
10/22: Dr. Duke, Martin Luther
Reading: WEB: The Heidelberg Catechism
Sixth response paper due

Week Ten
10/25: Dr. Duke, Introduction to the Reformation
10/27: Dr. Duke, The English Reformation
Reading: Matthews and Platt, Ch. 13
10/29: Dr. Bohn, Art and Religion in Early Modern Italy
Reading, Matthews and Platt, chs. 12, 14.

Week Eleven
11/1: TEST II
11/3: Dr. Bohn, Caravaggio and the Counter-Reformation
11/5: Dr. Bohn, Caravaggio and Artemesia Gentileschi
Seventh response paper due

Week Twelve: Recalibrating Protagoras: Humanism, Science and the Purpose of Man in the
Renaissance
11/8: Dr. Spiller, Renaissance Humanism and Man as the Author of His World
Reading: Dante and Vespucci
11/10: Dr. Spiller, Measuring the World in the New Science
Reading: Galileo and John Donne
11/12: Dr. Spiller, Setting Boundaries in an Infinite World
Reading: Hooke and Milton
Eighth response paper due

Week Thirteen
11/15: Dr. Plate, Architecture and Ordered Space
Reading: TBA
11/17: Dr. Plate, Architecture and Ordered Space
Reading: TBA
11/19: Discussion
Ninth response paper due

Week Fourteen
11/22: Film and Discussion
11/24: Dr. Blackwell, Early Modern Medicine
11/26: Thanksgiving Holiday

Week Fifteen
11/29: Dr. Franzwa, Early Modern Philosophy
Reading: TBA
12/1: Dr. Franzwa, Early Modern Philosophy
12/3: Dr. Franzwa, Early Modern Philosophy
SECOND PAPER DUE