Dr. V. Bradley Lewis

 

Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (2 volumes, 1835, 1840) has been described as the greatest book ever written on democracy and the greatest book ever written on America. In it, Tocqueville perceives nearly all of the important issues related to modern liberal democracies and contextualizes them in his interpretation of the American experience. The book was written to convince Europeans that democracy was inevitable and to prepare them for it so that the transition might be peaceful, moderate and just. Among the issues treated are the rule of law, the relationship between church and state, the activities of civil associations and local government, and the importance of culture and institutions in political life. This course will take Tocqueville’s book as its text in order to develop Tocquevillian themes related to politics and society today.

 

Dr. V. Bradley Lewis. Ph.D. Government and International Studies, University of Notre Dame. M.A., Government and International Studies, University of Notre Dame. B.A., Government and Politics, University of Maryland. Associate Professor at the School of Philosophy of The Catholic University of America. Associate Editor of The American Journal of Jurisprudence.

 

Mechanics of this in-person Notre Dame course. This course will meet in-person Monday through Friday at the University of Notre Dame for 1 hour and 45 minutes for the duration of the course (4 weeks). Upon its satisfactory completion, students will be able to request a transcript with the details of their participation from the Office of the Registrar of the University of Notre Dame.

 

Dr. Clinton Brand

 

What do ancient myth-making and medieval cosmology have to do with modern science fiction and stories of space travel and alien civilizations? Well, quite a lot, if you are to appreciate the Space Trilogy of C. S. Lewis. Though not as well known or widely read as his popular Chronicles of Narnia, or the fantasy fiction of his friend J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Lewis’s Space Trilogy ranks as one of the most probing accomplishments of twentieth-century speculative and mythopoeic fiction with antecedents in the world-making imaginations of Dante and Milton. These three novels (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength) also offer an intriguing survey of the range and variety of Lewis’s intellectual vitality as a writer, storyteller, literary critic, moral philosopher, and Christian apologist. In this class, we will explore Lewis’s Space Trilogy in relation to his study of the integrated worldview of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, as outlined in The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, as well as in the context of his pioneering work of moral and educational philosophy, The Abolition of Man. Then we will voyage to Mars in the narrative of Out of the Silent Planet, before another space flight to Venus in Perelandra. Finally, we come back to Earth in That Hideous Strength for Lewis’s dystopian tale of a world beset by scientific materialism and resurgent gnosticism and a novel that offers a searching critique of social engineering and the quest for human perfectibility. Along the way, we will discuss a number of philosophical problems and theological mysteries, including the relationships between language and reality, metaphysics and ethics, fall and redemption, nature and grace, incarnation and atonement, flesh and spirit, sin and charity, morality and politics, science and imagination, among others. The Space Trilogy will take us from the “outer space” of modern science fiction to the “Deep Heaven” of classical and medieval cosmology and then to “this pendent world,” the Earth, as the scene for a drama of academic intrigue and eschatological warfare. 

 

 

Dr. Diego I. Rosales

 

“Who am I?” is the big question that everyone faces sooner or later. Such a question isn’t meant to be answered by the simple pronunciation of the name we were given at birth. This is a question that rises in all its depth and importance when experiences of love, freedom, suffering, beauty and evil, become evident and undeniable. This was the question that Augustine of Hippo posed for the first time in a philosophical key, developing the very first philosophy of the person. In contrast, it is significant that Ancient Greeks did not conceive themselves as ‘persons’ but only as ‘human beings’. They understood each other as a singular case of a general nature or essence, as just one concrete instance of the human species. Hence, we must ask why the Christian experience allowed humanity to conceive human beings as persons. To answer this question, Augustine’s testimony is a vital source within the Western Tradition. With him, the notion of “person” emerged as a concrete reality, irreducible to a case of a species or to a universal essence, characterized by inwardness and intimacy. This course will follow Augustine’s itinerary as a means to understand how the notion of “person” became a philosophical one, leading towards the fundamental consequences that such a notion had in Modernity. Reading materials will include Augustine’s Confessions and selected short texts from The Free Choice of the Will and The City of God.

 

Dr. Diego I. Rosales. Ph.D. Philosophy, Comillas Pontifical University. M.A., Philosophy, National Autonomous University of Mexico. B.A., Philosophy, Panamerican University.

 

Mechanics of this hybrid Phoenix Institute course. Students will meet with the professor and their classmates online two or three times a week (depending on the week). Additionally, students work through online content designed by the professor (with specific weekly deadlines that the students have to meet). Once a week, students will participate in an in-person tutorial session. Upon the successful completion of the course, students will be able to request a certificate with the details of their participation from the Phoenix Institute.