Why is Intellectual Heritage a required course? Some students, teachers, and administrators see IH as a conserving or even conservative institution, one that is meant to hand down the cultural, intellectual, and moral traditions of Western civilization to you. On this view, the aim of IH is to encourage your understanding and support of the ideas that animate our political, social, moral, aesthetic and scientific lives. I see this course differently. The aim of IH is, I believe, three kinds of intellectual and personal liberation. It aims, first, at liberation from the cultural, intellectual, and moral traditions of Western civilization. In saying this, I do not mean to suggest that our aim is to reject Western civilization. Rather, my point is that we can neither accept nor reject the ideas that shape our lives in a critical and intellectually serious way unless we first come to understand what those ideas are and why someone might find then acceptable unacceptable. We are so embedded in and shaped by Western traditions that we cannot hope to subject them to critical analysis unless we initially bring the presuppositions, claims, and arguments contained in these traditions to light. One way to do this is to look back to the moments at which these traditions were created. Once a political and moral tradition is created, the fundamental presuppositions that define it are often taken for granted by those who live within it. But, those who seek to create a new way of life must explicitly make the case for their way of looking at the world while, at the same time, giving their followers reasons to reject other, different ways of life. Given the difficulty of creating an innovative way of looking at the world and living within it, it is no accident that only men and women of genius—some of whom may have had divine assistance—have been able to accomplish this task. Thus it is no surprise that the texts that define these traditions of life and thought are classic works of brilliance and depth. And this is why IH is oriented to the study of these classic texts. Another way to make the presuppositions, claims, and arguments contained in a way of thought explicit is to compare one tradition with another. For one tradition may call into question a set of ideas taken for granted by another tradition. And this is why the approach of IH is to compare and contrast a number of ways of thought and life.
IH aims, second, at liberation from falsehood. IH addresses the deepest and most serious questions any human being must answer about the meaning and purpose of our individual and collective lives and about the moral rules and practices we should follow. And it presupposes that it is at least possible that right and wrong answers can be given to these questions. In saying this, I do not mean to suggest that our aim is to reach the single, correct conclusions to these questions. Rather, my point is that we will not take the works we read seriously unless we are open to the possibility that the views they put forward are right or wrong. And, given the potentially disastrous consequences of coming to the wrong answers to these questions, it is of the greatest importance that we are open to the possibility that the answers we have accepted without question are mistaken.
Finally, IH aims at liberation from our limited skills and capacities. Reading, discussing and writing about difficult works of philosophy, religion, literature, and science is the best way to improve our abilities to think clearly and understand the world around us. In saying this, I do not mean to suggest that students required to take IH are entirely lacking in these skills and abilities. Rather, my point is that it is always possible to develop these capacities to a higher level. By helping you recognize both the practical benefits and great joy to be had in developing these skills and abilities—and in reading classic texts—IH hopes to encourage you to keep expanding your horizons by continuing to study great works of philosophy, religion, literature, and science.
IH51 introduces us to some of the founding texts of Western civilization. In studying these texts, we will focus on two central issues. The first is the nature of human morality—and especially virtue—and its role in living a good life. The second is the relationship between the good of the individual and the good of the community as a whole. We will examine two aspects of morality that philosophers call the good and the right. When we talk about the good, or the human good, we are concerned with understanding what a fulfilling, flourishing, and happy life would be. A moral tradition that focuses on this first kind of moral argument will hold that, by living an ethical life, human beings will also be living a life that is good, in that it is fulfilling, flourishing, and happy. Such a tradition typically will also claim that, in living a good life, human beings will be benefiting the community as well. In talking about what makes for a good life, writers usually point to the impact of chance or fortune or, on some views, divine providence on our ability to live a good life. So we shall see that a recurrent theme in the course is how human beings can best deal with the uncertainties of life. When we talk about the right, we are concerned with the duties or obligations human beings have. A moral tradition that focuses on this second kind of moral argument will explain what we owe others or God and why we have such obligations. Such a tradition typically will also claim that what we owe our community should take precedence our own concerns.
More then one great philosopher has said that the distinctive features of Western civilization have arisen because the West has two, very different, sources. One begins is Athens, the other is Jerusalem. IH 51, Ancient Foundations, starts with the two beginnings of Western civilization. The first part of the course focuses on the first beginning, which took place in Ancient Greece. A central concern for the Ancient Greeks is the role of virtue and fate in allowing human beings to live a good life. We first look at Thucydides’s portrayal of a funeral speech by Pericles, the most prominent of the democracy in Athens. Looking at this speech enables us to grasp the Athenian view that best life for human beings is found in devotion to the political community. Next we turn back to the poet Homer, whose epic, The Iliad, portrays and criticizes an older understanding of virtue. Then we study one of the founders of Western philosophy, Plato. We shall see that the life of the philosopher Socrates, as portrayed in Plato’s The Apology of Socrates argues for the centrality of philosophy in living a good life while, at the same time, raising difficult questions about the relationship between philosophy and the political community.
In the second part of the course, we turn to the second beginning of Western civilization in the Biblical religions that are all shaped by the Hebrew Bible. We will see that while Biblical religion shares some ideas with the Ancient Greeks, it has a fundamentally different view of human morality, one rests on a proper understanding of our obligations to each other and to God. We will see how this conception of human morality is tied to a cosmological conception of a universe ordered by an omnipotent and good God. And we will also see how these basic ideas have been developed in a variety of ways in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Qur’an.
While Western civilization began thousands of years ago, it took a decisive turn in the period beginning almost five hundred years ago. In the third part of the course, we jump ahead to the Renaissance and to the humanist foundations of Western civilization. While many people today adhere to ideas developed in Ancient times, our public lives and our relationship to the natural world are decisively shaped by this new turn of thought. Galileo presents to us an understanding of the natural world that is dramatically different from earlier thought and that eventually leads to modern natural science. Similarly, Machiavelli presents an understanding of morality and the relationship between individual and common good that is vastly different from that of either Athens or Jerusalem. And, finally, we shall read a play by Shakespeare, Othello. In this work, Shakespeare helps us sum up the course by pointing to some of the differences between the first two foundings of Western civilization and the third. And he does this while, at the same time, raising profound questions about human nature and morality and about political and social life as well.