Five Greats on the Good Life

Course Summary

A critical discussion of some key ideas from five classic texts:

• Plato, Republic (c. 380 BC), in which he advances his famous account of the three parts of the soul – Reason, Spirit, and Appetite – among which Reason ought to be in charge.
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (c. 330 BC), giving his celebrated account of moral virtue as a mean between deficiency and excess.
• Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1887), where he yearns for ‘a new type of philosopher and commander’, who will dismiss ‘herd morality’.
• Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism (1946), in which he stresses human freedom of choice and the ‘anguish’ it involves.
• Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (1967), in which she holds that moral value and correct judgements are discerned by applying the appropriate kind of attention.

Notes will be sent by email, prior to each class.  No purchases are required.  

Delivered by: Dr Douglas Adeney

Doug lectured in philosophy for many years at Melbourne State College and then the University of Melbourne. Since 2011 he has greatly enjoyed teaching numerous CAE philosophy courses.