The Self and its Limits: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives

This is an Enduring Question course and is open to FRESHMEN only. You must take both CLAS1706 and PHIL1727. What is the relationship between the individual self and its social roles? These paired courses examine what factors make us free individuals and how that freedom has historically been removed from certain people. One course will explore the nature of the self in historical and contemporary perspectives from East and West to look at the nature of self-consciousness and personhood. The other will investigate how ancient Greeks and Romans justified the enslavement of individuals for material gain and how ancient slavery influenced American society both in terms of its use of slave-labor and in the arguments made for abolition.