The Birth of Reason

Full course description

The first course will take you on a journey of discovery from Antiquity to early Modernity. You will study and contextualize the amazing world views of leading thinkers of Antiquity (the Pre-Socratics, Sophocles, and ‘the big three’, viz. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle), the Middle Ages (among others Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham) and Early Modernity (featuring Machiavelli).

Emphasis will be on what triggered their ideas and how these ideas contributed to today’s rationalised, disenchanted and anthropocentric world view. Finally, we will discuss some conspicuous aspects of the Western intellectual inheritance with regard to environment, human rights, political (non-)inclusivity, (in)equality, animals’ rights.