Themes and Texts for the Four Required Courses

The first requirement is our introductory course, Ancient Philosophy and Literature, or an approved equivalent. This course introduces students to some of the greatest works of ancient Greece, the cradle of the ideal of political liberty, or republicanism, and likewise of the ideal of the liberty of the mind, embodied in the daring and unprecedented enterprise of philosophy, which sought to find guidance for life in unassisted human reason. Common elements in this course will be at least one work of classical epic or tragedy and at least one dialogue of Plato, through which students will study the political and moral thought of Socrates, the philosopher who in Cicero’s words “brought philosophy down from the heavens and forced it to attend to political things.” Major themes of this course will be the Greeks’ rich articulations of the relative merits and dangers of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy; the theme of “enlightenment” or the question of how far political life can be guided by human reason and what place religion should have in a healthy polity; and the theme of “autonomy” or individual self-determination, resting on knowledge of oneself and human nature. In addition to Plato, authors studied may include Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Thucydides, Xenophon, Aristotle, Plutarch, Epicurus, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Tacitus, and other ancient thinkers, both Western and Eastern. 

The second requirement is a course in fundamental texts of world religions, especially the Bible. Several courses are available to fulfill this requirement. In each of them students will reflect on the fundamental ethical and theological teachings of the texts and the different ways they have been interpreted and applied by the communities they have inspired. In addition to the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, readings may include the Qur'an, the Bhagavad Gita, Buddhist writings, and scriptures of other religions.

The third requirement is a course in the history of political thought, focusing on the ongoing dialogue in Western thought about rights, political legitimacy, the proper functions and limits of government, and the principles that should govern international relations. Common texts for this course will be Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics or Politics; Thomas Aquinas’ political writings; at least one foundational text of modern liberalism, such as Locke’s Second Treatise of Government; and at least one late modern critic of liberal enlightenment principles. Other authors typically studied include Plato, Augustine, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Mill, and Nietzsche; Eastern authors may be included as well.

The fourth requirement is a course on America’s constitutional principles, including the ideas of equality and liberty, individual rights, and the proper ends and limits of governmental power. Common readings for this course will be the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, and Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Other readings may include writings by the Puritans, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Washington, the anti-Federalists, presidential speeches, and supreme court cases. One version of this course will give special attention to the problems of slavery, segregation,  and civil rights, as well as the writings of leading African Americans such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, and Martin Luther King.

In designing the four required courses for our program, we have sought to strike a balance between two important pedagogical aims: first, exposing students to a number of the authors and schools of thought that have had an especially powerful influence in shaping our own world; and second, encouraging the innovation and intellectual excitement that can happen only when gifted teachers have significant freedom to teach the books they find most compelling and to do so in their own way. Thus the prescribed elements for each course are only starting points; in each course the instructor will make selections from the designated authors’ works and will make different additions to them.