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Course Description: (Two Week Video Class)

THE STUDY OF PSYCHOLOGY is the fundamental and correct starting point for the study of politics and the social question. If we do not know what a human being is, we will not be able to develop or critique the social structures we make to serve his human development; society will work against man if it cannot properly define who he is.

Thus in this course, we will endeavor to acquire and adequate and well developed definition of man using both empirical science and philosophical deduction to reach demonstrated conclusions pertaining to the human body and soul and their working together as a composite unit.

Of special importance will be the comparative study of primate and human language development, the relationship of sign language and symbolic language to various types of thinking including sense based memory and imagination and the various spiritual dimensions of rational thought, which distinguishes human beings from all other animals.  In the process, w e will discover clearly demonstrated differences of kind, which make human beings a unique species. Central to this study is an attempt to understand the human soul, the various reasons its existence is necessary and reasons why it is understood to be a spiritual substance capable of separate existence form the body.

In this research, we are indebted to the pioneering work of Greatest Books authors: Aristotle, Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint John Paul II.

 

         

TOPIC 2:
WHAT IS MAN?: THE PERENNIAL GREEK  PERSPECTIVE

Topic 2: Lecture I.

Topic 2: Lecture II.  Aristotle on the Soul

Topic 2: Lecture III.  Aristotle versus Darwin

Topic 2: Lecture IV.  Human Thinking and The Power of Language

Topic 2: Discussion with Anne Lasiter and James O'Brian

 

Readings for Topic 2

Aristotle:
The Soul

Nicomachean Ethics

Darwin:
The Origin of Species
Chapter 3: The Struggle for Existence
Chapter 4: Natural Selection

The Descent of Man
Chapter 3: Comparison of Mental Powers
Chapter 4: Comparison of Mental Powers Cont.

Chesterton:
Everlasting Man
Chapters 1: On the Creature Called Man
Chapter 2: Professor's and Prehistoric Men

Maritain:
What is Man? 

Marzak
Sample Trinitarian Humanism E-Book
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