Professor Jim Vernon
jvernon@yorku.ca
Office Location:  S427 Ross Building
Phone Number:  (416) 736-2100 Ext. 33519
Office Hours:  TBA

What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of my life? Do pain, suffering and death rob life of its meaning, or render it absurd? Or, to the contrary, do suffering and death make life more meaningful? What is the best, or most authentic way, to live my life? This class treats a variety of philosophical approaches–both historical and contemporary–to the interconnection of life, death, and meaning. It also offers an introduction to Western philosophy through an investigation of questions concerning the nature and meaning of life. The first half of the course will deal with texts from the ancient world, while the latter half will treat philosophers from the 20^th century. Thinkers we will cover include Socrates/Plato, Epicurus, Simone de Beauvoir, and Martin Luther King.

Because this is a course that concerns some of the most profound and difficult problems of human existence, the readings we will consider will touch upon topics that can be quite discomforting. This fact should be kept in mind as we all work to ensure respectful dialogue about them throughout the term.

Lectures will be online and asynchronous (that is, they will be recorded on video). The lectures for each week will be uploaded to eClass by midnight of the Friday preceding that week. Tutorials will be in-class, on campus, as listed in the course calendar.

Tests will be held in tutorials, and during those weeks there will be no lecture, to allow students to focus on preparing for the test. There will, however, be two optional, one hour review classes before each test (exact timing TBA, but one will be on the Monday for students in the Tuesday tutorials and the other on the Wednesday for those in the Thursday ones), during which students can ask me any questions they have about the material.

Tutorial participation will be graded in three ways: 1) attendance (1 mark for each non-test week attended, max of 10%); 2) the submission of written questions for discussion (1 mark for each substantial question concerning the reading/lecture for the week, submitted to your TA at least 24 hours before tutorial, max of 10%); participation in class discussion (graded by your TA, max of 10%).

All material will be available online.

In-Tutorial Tests – 20% each (40% total)

Term Paper – 30%

Tutorial attendance/participation – 30%

Lecture/Reading Schedule:

Week 1

Intro. to Course; “The Dispute Between a Man and his Ba”; “The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, Spell 125”; “The Story of Sinuhe”.

Week 2

Plato, Apology

Week 3

Plato, Crito

Week 4

Epictetus, selections from The Handbook (The Enchiridion)

Week 5

Epicurus, “Letter to Menoeceus”; “The Principal Doctrine”.

Week 6

No tutorials/lecture (reading week)

Week 7

Test #1 (no lecture, quiz written in tutorial).

Week 8

Thomas Nagel, “The Absurd”.

Week 9

Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism.

Week 10

Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism (continued)

Week 11

de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, (Chapter 1: Ambiguity and Freedom)

Week 12

Martin Luther King, “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life”; “The Drum Major Instinct”

Essays Due

Week 13

Test #2 (no lecture, quiz written in tutorial)

The primary objective of the course is to familiarize students with some of central ideas of in different Western philosophical traditions concerning life, death, and meaning. Student will also learn how to scrutinize texts for arguments that support a central thesis, as well as construct their own strong arguments for their position concerning questions of deep philosophical import.