Human Discourse and the Sense of Community II: Faith and Reason

Course Syllabus:

First Triad: Choosing a Path

Week 1 - Departure

Guiding Question: Who am I? From whence have I come? What do I seek?

Required Reading: "Week 1" in the Study Guide;The Quest of the Holy Grail (1225), pp. 31-53; Notes on the Eleusinian Mysteries; Bhagavad Gita (100-300 BC).

Homework:
1) Answer the following questions (common to practically every Arthurian tale): Who am I? From whence have I come? What do I seek?
Limit your combined answers to 1-3 pages and paste it in the conference area.
2) You are also required to make regular entries in the online journal which show your reflections on the reading and the ways the reading may apply to you personally.

Week 2 - Logos, The Shield of Faith, Sword of Reason (Foundations of Reason)

Guiding Question: How was reason born out of faith?

Required Reading: "Week 2" in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 53-71; Heraclitus: Fragments ; Parmenides: On Nature; The Myth of Psyche.

Homework:
Write a short paper (3-5 pages) on the relationship between logos and the soul (Psyche). Share you papers in the appropriate conference.

Week 3 - The Castle of the Maidens (From Plato to Aristotle and the Dawn of Metaphysics) and The Hero's Confession (Ontology and Theology)
Guiding Question: How is what we think of as "real" affected by our values? Could reason have helped Lancelot?
Required Reading:
Week 3A and 3B in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 71-94; Plato: Phaedrus; Plato: "The Analogy of the Cave" in the Republic; Aristotle: Logic; Nicholas of Cusa: On Learned Ignorance, Books I-III; Rene Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy

Homework:
Write your thoughts in your online journal concerning the differences and similarities between Plato's ideal forms and literary metaphors.


Compare and contrast Descartes' thought experiment with his demon in
Meditations on First Philosophy and Lancelot's difficulties in the Quest. Write your thoughts in your online journal.

Second Triad: Ascension

Week 4 - The Youthful Folly of Sir Perceval

Guiding Question: Can wisdom, that can help you at home or work, be accessed randomly?

Required Reading: "Week 5" in the Study Guide;The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 94-134; I Ching (1150 BC), Jung's "Forward, Wilhem's "Introduction," Hexagram 4, "Meng/Youthful Folly."

Homework:
Use the coin method, described on pages 723-724 and the chart on the inside of the back cover of the Wilhelm edition of the I Ching, while thinking of a question requiring a complex answer. Copy "The Judgment," "The Image" and the appropriate moving lines into your online journal and write your own short response to them.

Week 5 - The Slow Ascent (The Formation of Methodologies)

Guiding Question: Does "science only improve?"

Required Reading: "Week 6" in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 134-161; Galileo Galilei: Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World (1632); John Locke: Essay on Human Understanding Book IV; David Hume: Selections from A Treatise of Human Nature Book I (1740).

Homework:
Discuss reasons for a preference for thinking of the stars, moon and planets as material objects or as divine personalities. Enter your thoughts in this week's conference and in your online journal.

Week 6 - Sir Gawain and Hector Warned in a Vision (Kant and the Uncertainty of "Knowledge")

Guiding Question: Is Gawain unethical from a Kantian perspective?

Required Reading: "Week 7" in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 162-175; Immanuel Kant: Selections from Critique of Pure Reason Intoduction and Doctrine of Method(1787).

Homework:
Write a brief summary of Kant's requirements for a universal system of ethics and send this to the instructor's email address. Use your summary to evaluate the business practices in your environment. Log your observations in your online journal.

Week 7 - Trials and Temptations of Sir Bors (The Challenge)
Guiding Question: What questions remain unaddressed by science?

Required Reading: "Week 8" in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 175-207. Bertrand Russell: Why I am not a Christian; Stephen Hawking: the final chapter of A Brief History of Time (alternative reading); Albert Einstein: Ideas and Opinions Reader chooses selections (alternative reading).

Homework:
Make a list of questions you consider unaddressed by science. Post these in this week's conference. The class will choose four of the questions accumulated and four new conferences will be constructed to discuss each of the four.

Third Triad: Navigating Through the Middle to Arrival 

Week 8 - The Miraculous Ship

Guiding Question: How can we act without acting? How could this be applied to work?

Required Reading: "Week 9" in the Study Guide;The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 207-221; Lao Tsu: Tao Te Ching (479-438 BC); Fisher, Ury, Patton: Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving in (alternative excerpt).

Homework:
1) Choose a chapter/poem from the
Tao Te Ching that seems particularly meaningful to you and copy it into your online journal.
2) Compare and contrast the management styles recommended in the
Tao Te Ching and Getting to Yes (alternative excerpt).

Week 9 - Adventure of the Companions

Guiding Question: Is Galahad a saint or a psychopath?

Required Reading: "Week 10" in the Study Guide;The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 235-251; William James: Selections from The Varieties of Religious Experience Lectures I - XV (1902).

Homework:
1) Although you are only required to read from the chapter entitled "Saintliness" to the end of the book,
TheVarieties of Religious Experience, it is recommended that you read the entire work.
2) Please add your own brief psychological analyses of the principle characters in the Quest to your online journal.
3) Also, please explore your own unconscious by adding descriptions of your dreams to your online journal.

Week 10 - In the Presence of Thou and The Holy Grail

Guiding Question: Who is Black Elk's "Thou?"

Required Reading: "Week 11" in the Study Guide;The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 253-268; John G. Neidhardt and Black Elk: Black Elk Speaks (1932); Martin Buber: I and Thou (1958) .

Homework: Please read Martin Buber's I and Thou and then use the ideas learned from this work to analyze the clash of world views described in Black Elk Speaks. Keep a log of your analysis in you online journal, making notes as you are able to find correlations between the texts.

Week 11 - The Holy Grail

Guiding Question: Is the Grail empty?

Required Reading: "
Week 12" in the Study Guide;The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 269-284; Jean-Paul Sartre: Being and Nothingness (1956), Part One: Chapter One: Section V "The Origin of Nothingness"; D. T. Suzuki: Manual of Zen Buddhism (texts from 406 CE - 1768 CE); Mandukya Upanishadand KarikaUpanishad (600 BC).

Week 12 - Conference and Feedback Period.  Term ends at conclusion of Week 12. Final Paper due.