What is the nature of reality? How are we supposed to live? What is the blueprint for the best kind of society? What is at the heart of human nature? How should we set up a government, if we set one up at all? Can we be certain of anything we think we know? These questions and more drive the deepest inquiries of major philosophers and theorists all over the world. In the Western world, these questions - and the ideas that thinkers have generated to them - define our history and the world we live in to this day.

In this course, we will undertake a high-level survey of some of the seminal ideas from a handful of the most influential philosophers and thinkers in the Western canon. These include Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Locke, Nietzsche, Rawls and more. As we review these ideas, we will come to appreciate the ways in which great thinkers have been plumbing the depths of the human condition for as long as we’ve been here, forever pushing to understand life as we know and experience it, and to create within it its best possibilities.

Twelve-Week Course Schedule | Thursdays
Sept 14 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Sept 21 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Sept 28 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Oct 05 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Oct 12 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Oct 19 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Oct 26 - No Class
Nov 02 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Nov 09 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Nov 16 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Nov 23 - No Class
Nov 30 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Dec 07 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Dec 14 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

This class will be held in-person at WIH and simulcast via Zoom