The word "philosophy" means "love of wisdom" and, since its origin among the
ancient Greeks, philosophy has claimed to be a way of life, or to have
implications for how one lives.  What is wisdom, and what would it be like
to live in love with wisdom?  Can such a life be lived  by anyone, or is it
exclusively for a gifted elite?  Furthermore, what is the value of such a
life?  Socrates famously said that the unexamined life is not worth living,
but is this true?  To be sure, the reflective life of philosophy has its
costs: as Socrates himself learned, societies and states resent the ways in
which philosophers question and criticize traditional beliefs and values,
and philosophers have found themselves persecuted, even sentenced to death,
by their fellow-citizens.  In response, they have developed a rich variety
of conceptions of the individual's complex relation to society, and a rich
variety of ways of living and writing in the face of resentment.

We will examine the thought and lives of four important philosophers, drawn
from a variety of historical periods and cultures. The list of four will
include some of the following: Socrates, Descartes, Hume, Rousseau, Emerson,
Thoreau, Mill, Russell, Beauvoir.  Each of these philosophers had  - and
continues to have - an enormous influence on the world around them, not only
through their ideas, but also through their lives.  As philosophers, they
were concerned with a variety of philosophical problems, such as life after
death, civil disobedience, the possibility and limits of certain knowledge,
the overcoming of skeptical doubt, the nature of the mind, the best
political order, the value of the arts, the significance of gender
differences, and the possibility of individual autonomy within society.  We
will investigate what they have to say about these problems, and we will
situate their philosophizing within the context of their lives and their
responses to the hostility they provoked through their questioning.  We will
try to understand them not only as thinkers but also as people.

In this course, students will be introduced to some central philosophical
personalities, texts, problems and methods.  They will learn to discern
philosophy in dialogues, plays, letters, treatises and movies, and they will
be invited to draw on their own creative talents in order to explore whether
philosophical lives might be lived here and now, and what such lives might
be like.  What are the unexamined assumptions of the society in which we
live?  How might we question those assumptions and might our conclusions
challenge society's foundations?  What role might philosophical questioning
play in a contemporary democracy?  Could we lead examined lives today?
There will be 2 short papers, some brief homework, a midterm and a final.