Appropriate for First Year students.

TimeDaysLocationInstructorGERCreditOPUS Class NumberSyllabus (Tentative)
2:00pm-3:15pm
MW
Callaway Center C101
Robert Bartlett. HAP. 413112 TBA.

January 13, 2010- April 26, 2010

Catalog Description: Beginnings of the Western political heritage as shaped by such great political thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, and Xenophon.

Semester Details:

This course will examine the idea central to classical political philosophy and, as it happens, to human life: what is virtue? What, in other words, are the qualities or characteristics that mark off both an excellent community and an excellent human being from bad or base ones? We will examine in staggering detail Plato's answer to the question of the virtuous community in his Laws, a book much more practical or "realistic" than his fantastic Republic. We will then turn to the writing of Plato's best student, Aristotle, that deals most directly with the question of what individual excellence or virtue consists in, namely, the Nicomachean Ethics.  

Required Textbooks, Articles, and Resources

  1. Plato. 1988. The Laws (Ed. & Translation Thomas l. Pangle).
    ISBN: 9780226671109.
    Chicago: University of Chicago Press
  2. William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White. 1999. Elements of Style.
    ISBN: 9780205309023.
    4th Edition, Allyn and Bacon
  3. Emory University Custom Course Packet.

Grading

Assignment/ExamDetails% of Total Grade
3 Papers, weekly quizzes, attendance and participation.NAUnknown%
Final ExaminationNAUnknown%

The schedule of courses on O.P.U.S. is the official listing of courses, including days and times they meet and the General Education Requirements they satisfy. Students should use course descriptions as general guidelines. Course requirements, grading details, book lists, and syllabi are subject to change.