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1. We begin in Ancient Greece, with the author of the "The Symposium". Taking place at a drinking party, a group of Athenian thinkers reflect on the meaning of Eros, or desire. A famous speech by Socrates conveys that the greatest reason for love is philosophy. Who wrote this dialogue on the different viewpoints of these men?
2. Your second required reading is a series of letters written by a man who served as an adviser to emperor Nero. Whose "Letters from a Stoic" have been highly influential to those seeking to live by the principles of Stoicism?
3. Christianity gained a lot of power after the fall of the Roman Empire. Written in the 5th century AD, St. Augustine's "The City of God" posed what revolutionary argument about church-state relations?
4. Thomas Aquinas was another devout philosopher who had a big impact on Medieval thought. What was the name of his book that famously presented five arguments for the existence of God?
5. After the Middle Ages, philosophers began to take a more scientific approach to explaining the world. Which 17th century author of "Ethics" helped spark the Enlightenment by dehumanizing God and equating Him with nature?
6. A psychological approach to philosophy began with David Hume, whose ideas are usually attributed (unfairly) to Kant. In what book did he propose that causality lies only in the mind of the perceiver and not in the world of events?
7. In "The World as Will and Representation", Arthur Schopenhauer agreed with Hume and Kant about the subjectivity of appearances, but a key difference was that he called for the "universal will", which meant that the truth about appearances could only be inferred by looking deep within oneself. Where did he draw his ideas about the "universal will" from?
8. In the 20th century, Absurdism developed as a reaction to Existentialism. Which writer explored this school of thought in works like the "The Myth of Sisyphus" and "The Stranger"?
9. Your next required reading is so difficult that it may drive you mad. What did "The Great Confinement" mean in Michel Foucault's 1961 treatise "Madness and Civilization"?
10. Deconstruction is the idea that every word in a written language can only be understood in a system of differences (for example, good cannot be understood without evil). Which French philosopher elaborated on this idea in works like "Of Grammatology" and "Writing and Difference"?
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albert11
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