Future offerings: To be announced. Please see the school's schedule for other sections offered by other instructors. Check here for sections offered by Joe.
The Fall 2012 Syllabus can be found at this link.
In this course we will be working with a few ~simple~ questions! What is History? What is the past? How does History impact the present? How does the present impact History? What do philosophers think the role of history has been in human events? What are historical methods? Does history study the past or an archive? Does it study the inputs to the present and the causes of things the way they are? How has the practice of interpreting historical evidence changed over time? What is the role of narrative? When did History begin? Did the beginnings of so called "civilization" have anything to do with agriculture, stone houses, bathing conventions and hair fashions? Or can we draw any of those kinds of boundary lines with confidence? Is history inside us, the living interpreters? Is human conscious experience a form of history? When we understand THIS view of history, is it cyclical, progressive, objective? When does history begin if we think it is inside us?
If the prospects of answering these types of questions sound like fun, this course is for you! Along the way to understanding some of the many Philosophies of History, we will survey the history of world philosophy. There will be a textbook and a collection of excerpts from the work of earlier students (some as distant as five thousand years ago) who have worked on these problems before us. And who knows? Maybe YOU will solve one or more of these problems and get your own chapter in a future philosophy textbook!
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