Season 4
Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil
Spinoza: Ethics
Aristotle: Nichomachean Ethics
Season 2
Comparing These Thinkers
Alfred Whitehead
Immanuel Kant
Gottfried Leibniz
Thomas Aquinas
Aristotle Metaphysics
Season 1
What is the "tyrannical impulse" of philosophy according to Nietzsche? How does Nietzsche characterize the "free spirit"? Why does Nietzsche find the idea of a "God amongst men" problematic? Friedrich Nietzsche's challenges traditional moral values explores the nature of knowledge, truth, and morality. Nietzsche criticizes philosophers for focusing on the search for truth and argues that "truth" is a construct and not an absolute reality.
Spinoza's text on Ethics is heavily focused on God. Ultimately, Spinoza suggests that the highest human endeavor is to attain knowledge of God through reason, a process that leads to intellectual love and a sense of peace.
What is Aristotle's definition of moral virtue? What are the two supreme forms of goodness of intellect, and how are they distinct? How does habituation contribute to the development of virtue? Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, explores the concept of happiness (eudaimonia) as the ultimate goal of human life. Aristotle views happiness as rooted in human action and virtue, and that the state is essential for cultivating these virtues.
From Aristotle to Whitehead, how do these metaphysical ideas compare?
Flipping previous metaphysicians on their heads Whitehead suggests a process metaphysics. What distinguishes an 'enduring object' from an ordinary physical object in Whitehead's process philosophy? How does Whitehead describe the 'satisfaction' of an actual entity? What is the role of eternal objects in defining a society in Whitehead's philosophy? What are the three stages involved in the process of feeling according to Whitehead?
What is the difference between analytic and synthetic judgments? What is Kant's distinction between appearances and things in themselves? What is the role of the categories in Kant's epistemology?
According to Leibniz, what distinguishes God's will from his understanding? How does Leibniz address the argument that God's creation is not utterly perfect? What is the distinction between "ordinary" and "extraordinary" events in Leibniz's view? How does Leibniz differentiate between God's actions and the actions of created beings? What is the principle of "inesse," and how does it apply to the nature of an individual substance?
Thomas Aquinas was a great Catholic theologian and philosopher. His metaphysics is a response to Aristotle. What are the two senses of "being" that Aquinas distinguishes? Why does Aquinas argue that the essence of a composite substance cannot be just its form Why does Aquinas believe that intelligences (angels) do not have matter? What does Aquinas mean when he says that the existence of an intelligence is its actuality? How does the human soul differ from other intellectual substances according to Aquinas? Stay tuned and subscribe for a bonus season diving deeper into Aquinas' philosophy
This season will tackle the philosophical enquiry into being and becoming, metaphysics. We will start with Aristotle's text Metaphysics. Why is the study of being considered the most divine and honorable science? Why does Aristotle reject the idea of unity or being as a single, highest genus? What is Aristotle's concept of "actuality." How does it differ from "potentiality"?
In the season finale on an introduction to political thought a discussion of the six different theorists and how their ideas relate and differ.