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221 Foundations of Western Thought: Ancient and Medieval
One of two seminars on major Western texts and the fundamental questions they raise. This semester covers ancient Greece through the Middle Ages. Works to be studied will include Homer's Iliad, Plato's Meno, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Vergil's Aeneid, Lucretius's On the Nature of Things, Augustine's Confessions, and Dante's Inferno.
222 Foundations of Western Thought: Renaissance to Modern
One of two seminars on major Western texts and the fundamental questions they raise. This semester covers the Renaissance to the twentieth century. Works to be studied will include some of these, among others: Machiavelli's Prince, Luther's The Liberty of a Christian Man, Shakespeare's Macbeth, Moliere's The Misanthrope, Locke's Second Treatise, Rousseau's Second Discourse, Freud's Civilization and its Discontents, and Woolf's A Room of One's Own.
231 Foundations of American Thought
An introduction to major American texts. Works to be studied will include some of these, among others: Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, the Federalist Papers, Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk, Cather's My Antonia.
242 Foundations of Mathematical Thought
This course examines the development of Western mathematical thought from its origins in Ancient Greece through the modern era. Special attention will be paid to the development of ideas such as geometry, logic, coordinate systems and algebra, calculus, non-Euclidean geometry, infinity, and proof theory. Works to be studied include selections from Euclid, Aristotle, Descartes, Newton, Lobachevski, Cantor, Boole, and G�del. (Sophomore standing required.)
241 Foundations of the Natural Sciences
This course examines the development of Western scientific thought from its origins in Greece through the modern era. Special attention will be paid to the development of ideas such as the nature of matter, descriptions of motion, heredity, the relationship between experiment and theory as well as the standards natural scientists themselves hold of scientific truth. Works to be studied include selections from: Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Harvey, Lavoisier, Dalton, Mendel, Darwin, Einstein, Watson and Crick and others. (Sophomore standing required.)
400 Senior Seminar
Under the guidance of Great Ideas faculty, students write a thesis whose primary focus is the interpretation of a major Western text or texts. (Senior standing required.)
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