Great Philosophers

L30 Phil 125C

Instructor: Nick Schuster, nick.j.schuster@gmail.com

Course Description

What is it to be human? In which respects, if any, are we all the same? How do we differ, and which differences matter? What makes a society just? And how can we learn to live well with each other? By critically engaging with three major texts—Plato's Republic, Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and W. E. B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk—students in this course will grapple with foundational philosophical questions about human difference, education, and justice.

Schedule of Readings

(full syllabus here)

Plato: The Republic

  • Book I

  • Book II

  • Book III

  • Book IV

  • Book V

  • ASSIGNMENT 1; Book VI

  • Book VII

  • Book VIII

  • Book IX

  • Book X

Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

  • I. The Rights and Involved Duties of Mankind Considered; II. The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed; III. The Same Subject Continued

  • ASSIGNMENT 2; IV. Observations on the State of Degradation to Which Woman Is Reduced by Various Causes

  • V. Animadversions on Some of the Writers Who Have Rendered Women Objects of Pity, Bordering on Contempt

  • VI. The Effect Which an Early Association of Ideas Has upon the Character; VII. Modesty. - Comprehensively Considered, and Not as a Sexual Virtue; VIII. Morality Undermined by Sexual Notions of the Importance of a Good Reputation

  • IX. Of the Pernicious Effects Which Arise from the Unnatural Distinctions Established in Society; X. Parental Affection; XI. Duty to Parents

  • XII. On National Education

  • XIII. Some Instances of the Folly Which the Ignorance of Women Generates; with Concluding Reflections on the Moral Improvement That a Revolution in Female Manners Might Naturally Be Expected to Produce

W.E.B. Du Bois: The Souls of Black Folk

  • The Forethought; I. Of Our Spiritual Strivings; II. Of the Dawn of Freedom

  • III. Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others; IV. Of the Meaning of Progress; V. Of the Wings of Atlanta

  • ASSIGNMENT 3; VI. Of the Training of Black Men; VII. Of the Black Belt

  • VIII. Of the Quest of the Golden Fleece; IX. Of the Sons of Master and Man

  • X. Of the Faith of the Fathers; XI. Of the Passing of the First Born; XII. Of Alexander Crummell

  • XIII. Of the Coming of John; XIV. The Sorrow Songs; The Afterthought

  • ASSIGNMENT 4