PONTIFEX UNIVERSITY SYLLABUS

Course Number:

Course Title: Psychological Foundations of Education

Instructors:

Eduardo Bernot:

Email: [email protected]

Phone:

Peter A. Redpath

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 718-208-3710

 

Welcoming Letter:

Dear Students,

Welcome to this course on the “Psychological Foundations of Education”! As indicated immediately above, the Instructors for this course will be Drs. Peter Redpath and Eduardo Bernot.

We look forward to working with you in this important and extremely relevant course.

Best wishes,

Dr. Redpath/Dr. Bernot

Proprietary Interest Policy:

Faculty are permitted to refer to notable past work and achievements (including publications and educational activities not offered by Pontifex University, and even those offered for personal profit) in their published biography on the Pontifex website and course promotions. In the context of educational activities undertaken for Pontifex University, including videos, live or recorded, teachers, can recommend or bring to the attention such work for students (even if for personal profit, for example, books or podcasts) but only with approval by Pontifex University and when it is related to the teaching purpose of the class.  An instructor’s related work will be noted in the syllabus as appropriate.  Instructors may use their own materials as required in their courses and learning events as long as the materials are appropriate for the particular learning event.

 

Failure to comply with this policy will result in a warning or administration modification of course materials. Violations of this policy should be reported to the Provost.

The course is offered asynchronously on our LMS, NEO.  To access the course and complete it successfully, you will need an internet capable device with sound and a current internet browser: either the current or the previous release of Chrome, Firefox and Safari, or Internet Explorer 11+ (for Windows 8 and previous versions), and Microsoft Edge (for Windows 10+) to run the LMS.  In addition, courses require the use of, a PDF viewer, word-processing software compatible with Microsoft Office suite and a current email address. For help with the NEO platform see the Help Center in the LMS, found by clicking on the “?” in the upper right hand corner after you have logged in.  For log in questions, registration questions, or problems with missing content or content malfunctions, contact the teaching assistant, Elizabeth Froula at [email protected].

A. COURSE DESCRIPTION:

As a philosophy course chiefly designed to study the nature of human education in light of the philosophical foundations, or first principles, of St. Thomas Aquinas, to do so we will follow the practice of St. Thomas and start the study of our subject matter by defining this generically and specifically—that is, by defining (identifying the genus and species) of that about which are chiefly talking and not chiefly talking by: (1) psychology, (2) foundations, and (3) education.

(1) By psychology, generically-considered we are talking about a trans-generational, individual and cultural, habit of the intellectual soul of a human being (a habit of individual human persons as historically-existing, social beings, mainly located within the individual human souls of those persons, and, simultaneously within cultural/civilizational history existing within civilizational and cultural wisdom traditions, and educational and other social institutions [such as political organizations, religions, business organizations, and so on] that essentially foster the work of these traditions). Generically considered, we understand psychology considered as a science to be mainly a species of transgenerational, individual and civilizational/cultural behavioral and organizational habits of wondering: a transgenerational individual and historical enterprise of wondering about organizational wholes and their essential principles, or causes. We also understand psychology understood as a science that habitually wonders about foundations, or principles/causes of anything and everything to be identical with philosophy. We understand philosophy properly understood to be identical with science. We do not understand philosophy to be, as is often the case today, chiefly a species of logic, or systematic logic. We understand it to be chiefly a species of organizational psychology.

Specifically and precisely, we understand philosophy to be a kind of organizational behavioral psychology, a psychological habit of wondering about the essential and proximate principles that cause organizational wholes to come into being and go out of being, become united and divided, and incline to exist or not exist; and when they exist, to behave the way they do. By this we are not talking about that philosophy as a logical study of abstract essences. Instead, we are talking about philosophy as: (1) a species of classical behavioral psychology such as practiced by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in Greek antiquity (not contemporary Pavlovian or Skinnerian behavioral psychology) and (2) a social science/historical habit of wondering about organizational wholes and why and how they tend to behave the way they do. In addition, once again, we understand philosophy to be identical with science, properly conceived. Briefly put, we understand philosophy to be an individual and civilizational/cultural psychological and habitual enterprise of wondering about operational organizations and their chief causes.

In addition, we reject as false the modern and contemporary claim that science first came into existence in Western Europe around the seventeenth century. And, among other reasons, we do so because no human activity (like the modern and contemporary one started by René Descartes) that intentionally separates human knowing from the chief aim of pursuing and achieving human wisdom can possibly be human, or any other kind, of science. Philosophy/science can only come into existence, survive, and flourish within a culture and civilization that is first psychologically inclined to encourage its population to wonder about organizational wholes and their existence, operations, and causes and to do so for the chief aim of making this population prudent and wise.

(2) Regarding foundations, we consider these to be principles in the sense of essential causes. Generically we use the term principles chiefly to refer to the starting points, mainly causes, of being, becoming, and knowing anything that essentially contributes to the application of these starting points. Generically, we do not mainly use it to refer to logical premises. And specifically, by philosophical or scientific principles, we are mainly talking about psychological habits of wondering (qualitatively different ways of wondering) about qualitatively different organizational wholes; and the way they are united, divided, exist, and operate that is unique to different psychological ways of sensing, imagining, inducing, conceiving, understanding, and reasoning, utilized by different professional philosophical/scientific investigators.

(3) Generically, by education we are chiefly talking about a way of improving (making qualitatively better, more perfect) the psychological knowing faculties of some animal. This being the case, by human education, which is the subject of concern of this course, chiefly we are talking about a specific way of improving (making qualitatively better, more perfect) the psychological knowing faculties of a rational (not non-rational) animal: that is, the external and internal human sense faculties, including imagining, sense and intellectual memory, human emotions/passions, the human will intellect, inducing ability, and reasoning of individual human persons. Hence, we do not reduce human education to reasoning or rote memorization. And we do not maintain that the chief aim of human education is simply to improve human reasoning ability. More. We do not maintain that most learning mistakes start with bad reasoning habits or abstract, logical contradictions.

On the contrary, we understand the greatest of human educational mistakes to be the behavioral contradiction, absurdity, of not precisely understanding what is a human being (what psychological knowing faculties a healthy human being naturally possesses) and not precisely understanding what we are studying and the way it is able to be studied by us in general or in the here and now. As Sir Francis Bacon recognized centuries ago, far worse than asking the wrong questions and bad reasoning habits are bad induction habits: not knowing precisely who we are when asking a question and not knowing precisely what we are talking about (what is the subject about which we are talking and reasoning). The chief reason this claim is true is that intelligible human communication essentially involves talking about the same thing (subject/subject genus/organizational whole) in more or less the same way. To put this problem in contemporary colloquial terms, people can only engage in profitable conversations when they “are on the same page.” Whenever we engage in human conversation, we always do so in relation to locating (specifying) parts/species, individuals, in relation to some organizational whole (real or logical genus).

Because human education essentially involves the psychological ability to improve human knowing faculties and behavioral abilities, human education essentially involves behavioral modification: knowing something about human good and evil and causing human knowledge and behavior to become more or less perfect as an organizational whole—that is, knowing something about the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly. For this reason, every art and science essentially studies contrary opposites. For example, the medical doctor studies health and disease. The economist studies wealth and poverty. And the politician studies war and peace. And each art, science, does so for the chief aim of causing one (for example, health, wealth, peace) and preventing, and if possible, totally annihilating, the other (for example, disease, poverty, war); and to do so as completely, perfectly, intensely well (beautifully), as possible. For this reason, human education (which is chiefly education as art, science) is essentially inculcating psychological excellence in knowing about the human good and bad, the beautiful and ugly.

Considered as such, human education is always and essentially a study of intellectual habits/virtues (wisdom, science understanding), moral habits/virtues (prudence, justice, courage, temperance) and productive (artistic) habits/virtues and vices. And teaching human beings to become educators is always essentially training them to become behavioral psychologists capable of inculcating habits of intellectual, moral, and productive virtues within other human beings.

As St. Thomas Aquinas tells us, education is like second, spiritual generation (see Puer Jesus, pars 3: sicut pater te genuit corporaliter, ita magister genuit te spiritualiter). In Super Sent. IV, d. 26 q. 1 a. 1 co.), he explains that human nature does more than tend to the generation of offspring. Being educated and instructed (educari et instrui) consists in “leading and promoting [offspring] to the perfect state of a human being insofar as a human being is a human being, which is the state of virtue” (ad […] traductionem, et promotionem usque ad perfectum statum hominis, inquantum homo est, qui est virtutis status). The reason for this (which he gives in d. 39 q. 1 a. 2 co.) is that each thing intends for its effect naturally to lead to the perfect state (quaelibet res intendit effectum suum naturaliter perducere ad perfectum statum). Of course, the perfect state is a maximum good, a maximum virtue. Therefore, a human being is educated when he or she is prepared to execute all kinds of good operations (see Super II Tim., cap. 3 l. 3: homo est perfectus, quando est instructus, id est, paratus, ad omne opus bonum, non solum ad ea quae sunt de necessitate salutis, sed etiam ad ea quae sunt supererogationis).

Finally, since education of a human being consists in the communication of that which is good for the nature of a human being, the principle of education, like that of any good, is Goodness Itself (see SCG I, c. 37 n. 5: Communicatio esse et bonitatis ex bonitate procedit. Quod quidem patet et ex ipsa natura boni, et ex eius ratione. Naturaliter enim bonum uniuscuiusque est actus et perfectio eius. Unumquodque autem ex hoc agit quod actu est. Agendo autem esse et bonitatem in alia diffundit. Unde et signum perfectionis est alicuius quod simile possit producere […]. Ratio vero boni est ex hoc quod est appetibile. Quod est finis. Qui etiam movet agentem ad agendum. Propter quod dicitur bonum esse diffusivum sui et esse.)

 

B.LESSON PLAN:

 

While in Week 1, Video 1 A) link below, Dr. Redpath says that this course will likely consist of 6 Parts, 4 of which will be repeated weekly (including online Instructor-led discussion and a second student-led discussion), the asynchronous design of this program prevent us from conducting the course in this way. Hence, instead, each week, this course will be conducted asynchronously, in 3 parts.

Part I involves students listening to video recordings each week. Part 2 involves students doing required readings (including that of transcript pages) each week related to the content of the videos. Part 3 consists in completing weekly writing assignments that students will: 1) compose written assignments related to the videos and required readings and 2), after listening asynchronously to the weekly videos and doing required readings, and writing an assignment, emailing this assignment by the reception due date and time to Drs. Redpath and Bernot.

Added to these 3 parts will be 2 more parts: 1) an end-of-semester syntopical paper; and 2) a final oral exam, which might be waivable in some cases. (See “4. Course Requirements” below.)

C. ENVISIONED LEARNING OUTCOMES:

Among other things, students will demonstrate an improved understanding of St. Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysical and moral teaching about the good, bad, beautiful, and ugly and how this teaching relates to his metaphysical teachings about, being and non-being, truth and falsity, and the one and the many and to the nature of education in general.

As part of their personal “outcomes assessment,” before they start listening to the videos for this course, students will compose several paragraphs in which they will indicate what they think is the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas about the chief topics of this class that we have listed in the above paragraph. After they finish this class, they are asked to revisit these initial thoughts they had about St. Thomas’s teachings about these topics and email this outcomes assessment to the instructors. Doing so, should give students a measure of how much, if anything, they have learned from engaging in this study.

D. COURSE SCHEDULE AND WEEKLY TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THE VIDEOS AND REQUIRED READINGS:

Week 1) Topics related to the created universes as an organizational whole, much like an contemporary business corporation, and God as its chief cause or CEO: An introduction to explain the method of study used in this course; first discussion topic about the duty of those who seek wisdom to know the good and the true; God’s goodness as the highest good, cause of existence, unity, goodness, and beauty in all other things, and chief end of all created beings; divine goodness as the ultimate end and remote efficient cause of the existence, diversity, and all action and movement in the created order; the goodness of creation (different kinds of finite good and their opposites); the causes of plurality and diversity in all genera of things

Process:

1. Watch Video Lecture 1
2.  Required readings for Week 1.

Required readings*: Summa contra gentiles, Bk 1, chs. 1, 28–29, 37–41; Bk. 3, chs. 16–21; Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, Bk. 1, Lectures 1 and 2; Summa theologiae, 1, 5; 1, 42, 1 and 1–2, 52, 1 respondeo; Compendium of Theology, Pt. 1, chs. 71–73, 101–103; Commentary on the de Trinitate of Boethius, 4, 1, reply and 2, reply; Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, Bk. 1, l. 7, n. 123; Bk. 5, l. 18, nn. 1036–1038. Redpath’s article Why, Through Application of Its Educational Principles, the New World Order can Never Generate Higher Education.

*NOTE: All required readings, and some helpful aids, are available online for download from the following websites:

https://isidore.co/aquinas/

https://www.corpusthomisticum.org/

https://aquinas-in-english.neocities.org/

http://www.aquinasonline.com/Texts/

https://thomistica.net/news/2017/12/11/a-new-approach-to-accessing-aquinas-online

• Check out the following site as a great resource tool: Library Genesis

You can download scholarly works to your computer, bookmark them, read them from the computer, send them to a printer, etc.

For example, immediately below are offerings related to Mortimer J. Adler and St. Thomas Aquinas:

Adler offerings:

http://gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=Mortimer%20J.%20Adler&column[]=author

Aquinas offerings:

http://gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=aquinas&open=0&res=25&view=simple&phrase=1&column=def

Suggested additional readings:

• A recently-published book of Dr. Redpath covers in detail the topics discussed in this course. This work is entitled The Moral Psychology of St. Thomas Aquinas: An Introduction to Ragamuffin Ethics. Information about how to obtain this book is contained on this site:

http://enroutebooksandmedia.com/academic-books/

Curtis L Hancock (with a Foreword by Peter A. Redpath) Recovering a Philosophy of Elementary Education (Mt. Pocono, Pa.: Newman House Press, 2005).

Mortimer J. Adler, Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind, ed. Geraldine Van Doren (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company and London, United Kingdom, Collier Macmillan Publishers), 1988).

 

3. After listening to video lectures and reading and required readings, each week, email instructor a minimum 1000-word commentary on the video lecture in which you summarize at least 3 topics discussed in the video lectures. Email instructors your commentary so that they receives it by midnight, Wednesday evening, Arizona, USA, time, of the following week. Do not email the commentary as an attachment! Put it into the body of the email. In the “Subject line” of the email, put your Name, course number, lecture number, and type of commentary (for example, John Doe, Phil 501, Week 3, Instructor video commentary).

 

Week 2) topics related to the way God uses sound or “right” reason/rules/measures intellectually and volitionally to govern the created order like a prudent/wise CEO : Divine providence (God’s prudence); the order of goodness in divine rule of things; how every agent acts for an end that is good; how evil in things is not intended; how God rules the created order as a good governor, using higher beings to rule over lower ones; existence and nature of good and evil; good and evil considered in relation to being and non-being; the twofold good existing within the universe; the nature of order within the universe; whether good and being are identical; the meaning of good and evil in things; that evil has a foundation in good just as in a subject; good and evil considered as an end; good and evil considered in relation to the one and the many; good considered as a composite, or organizational, whole, harmony, and unity of opposites; good and evil as specific differences and contraries; evil as a defect within a potency; separability and inseparability of created goodness; evil as a defect in goodness; impossibility of a totally evil nature and of essential or supreme evil; evil desired under the aspect of good; the nature of good considered in general; why the universe has a twofold good; existence of two kinds of evil; three kinds of action and the evil of sin; the evil of punishment; the nature of punishment as opposed to the will; the perfection of the first man and the precepts given to him in the state of original justice; the state of original justice and the place that the first man held within it; the tree of knowledge of good and evil; Satan’s seduction of Eve and Eve’s sin; Adam’s sin; punishment regarding the necessity of dying; evils affecting the intellect and will

Process:

1. Watch Video Lecture 2
2. Read the required readings for Lecture 2.
3. Repeat Section D, Process division 3 done for Week 1.

Required readings: Compendium of Theology, Pt. 1, chs. 102, 111–112, 114–128; Pt. 2, chs. 183–193; Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, Bk. 1, l. 1, n. 71; Bk. 1, l. 7, n. 123; Bk. 12. l. 7, 2519–2529; Bk. 12, l. 1, nns. 2627–2637, and 2663; Summa contra gentiles, Bk. 3, chs. 2–6, 10–13, 16–22; Summa theologiae, 1–2, 27, 1; Commentary on the Physics of Aristotle, Bk. 1, l. 10, n. 78; Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, Bk. 1, l. 1, n. 10; Bk. 4, l. 13, n. 808

Suggested additional reading:

• Thomas Aquinas, De malo (On Evil), 1. 1–5

 

Week 3) topics related to the human good, the philosophical psychology that acts as the interior and proximate principle of all moral psychology, and the moral psychology that acts as an interior and proximate principle of moral activity

Process:

1. Watch Video Lecture 3.
2. Read required readings for Lecture 3.
3. Repeat Section D, Process division 3 done for Week 1.

            Required readings: Summa theologiae, 1, 77–83

 

Week 4) topics related to how being created in the image of God (being an interior principle, cause, of moral activity) is fitting for man; created form as a secondary cause and self-maturing image of God—an organizational whole becoming completely, perfectly itself by, as perfectly, beautifully, as possible, harmonizing the cooperative activity of its parts: the form is the organizational whole moving through harmonization of its parts to become completely perfectly, what it first imperfectly is; how the unity of an organizational whole chiefly exists in the harmony of its internal parts in relation to effecting, realizing, a chief organizational aim: becoming a perfectly operational, organizational whole; general interior principles of moral activity considered as means of achieving human happiness as the summum bonum, chief organizational aim, of human nature absolutely considered and circumstances and consequences of moral action

Process:

1. Watch Video Lecture 4.
2. Read required readings for Lecture 4
3. Repeat step 4 done for Video Lecture 1 A).

Required reading: Summa theologiae, Prologue to 1–2, and 1 through 21

Suggested additional reading:

• Peter A. Redpath, The Moral Wisdom of St. Thomas (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1983)
• Mortimer J. Adler, The Time of Our Lives: The Ethics of Common Sense (New York, Fordham University Press, 1996)
• Vernon J. Bourke, Ethics: A Textbook in Moral Philosophy (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1951)
• Henry B. Veatch, Rational Man: A Modern Interpretation of Aristotelian Ethics (Indianapolis, Ind., Liberty Fund, 2003)
• Richard Gerarghty. The Object of Moral Philosophy according to St. Thomas Aquinas (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1983)
• Piotr Jaroszyński and Matt Anderson, The Drama of the Moral Life (Staten Island, NY: Alba House, 2003)

 

Week 5) topics related to the human emotions considered in general and individually, how they differ from each other, their objects, causes, and effects, and as general interior principles of moral activity

Process:

1. Watch Video Lecture 5.
2. Read required readings for Lecture 5.
3. Repeat Section D, Process division 3 done for Week 1.

Required readings: Summa theologiae, 1–2, 22 through 48

 

Week 6) topics related to particular interior principles of moral activity: habits, virtues, and vices considered as such and as particular interior principles of moral activity; dangerous implications that follow from denying the reality of human emotions of hope and fear; the crucial importance for living a happy life of properly understanding of the human person and the meaning of habit, habitus and virtue, virtus, as virtual quantities; the substance of habits, their subject, the cause of their generation, augmentation, diminution, and corruption, and how they are distinguished from one another; particular exterior principles of moral activity: God, the Devil, and law, especially natural law and its insufficiency

Process:

1. Watch Video Lecture 6.
2. Read required readings for Lecture 6.
3. Repeat Section D, Process division 3 done for Week 1.

Required readings: Summa theologiae, Prologue to 1–2, 49 and 49 through 65. Prologue to 1–2, q. 90 (which speaks about God and the Devil as the general exterior principles of good and evil in creation) and 1–2, questions 90–98, and 107

            Suggested additional reading:

• Peter A. Redpath, “Classifying the Moral Teaching of St. Thomas,” in The Medieval Tradition of Natural Law, ed. Harold J. Johnson, Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1987), pp. 137–148
• Peter A. Redpath, “Why Double Effect and Proportionality are not Moral Principles for St. Thomas,” in Vera Lex (Winter, 2004), pp. 25–42.

 

Week 7) topics related to human happiness considered as the summum bonum of living the good earthly life; the difference of ends; happiness as the summum bonum of human nature; the two parts of the soul [rational and irrational], how sciences are differentiated and why this is crucial for the wise man to know; the nature of causes and how they impact on organizations; virtue; and attempting to define happiness

Process:

1. Watch Video Lecture 7.
2. Read required readings for Lecture 7.
3. Repeat Section D, Process division 3 done for Week 1.

Required reading: St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle: Bk. 1

            Suggested additional reading:

• Mortimer J. Adler, The Time of Our Lives: The Common Sense of Ethics (Fordham University Press, 1996)
• Henry B. Veatch, Rational Man: A Modern Interpretation of Aristotelian Ethics (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1962).

 

Week 8) topics related to human happiness considered as the summum bonum of living the good earthly life, including moral virtue considered in general, its essence; and as a means between extremes; the contrary opposition between vice and virtue; directions for acquiring the mean between vice and virtue

Process:

1. Watch Video Lecture 8.
2. Read required readings for Lecture 8.
3. Repeat Section D, Process division 3 done for Week 1.

Required reading: St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle: Bk. 2

 

Week 9) more topics related to human happiness considered as the summum bonum of living the good earthly life: Voluntary action, things consequent to voluntary action; fortitude and temperance; their species and extremes

Process:

1. Watch Video Lecture 9.
2. ead required readings for Lecture 9.
3. Repeat Section D, Process division 3 done for Week 1.

Required reading: St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle: Bk. 3

 

Week 10) still more topics related to human happiness considered as the summum bonum of living the good earthly life: Other moral virtues: liberality, magnanimity, magnificence, desire of moderate honors, meekness, affability, veracity, pleasantness, shame and their contrary opposites

Process:

1. Watch Video Lecture 10.
2. Read required readings for Lecture 10.
3. Repeat Section D, Process division 3 done for Week 1.

Required reading: St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle: Bk. 4

 

Week 11) topic of the cardinal moral virtue of justice related to human happiness considered as the summum bonum of living the good earthly life

Process:

1. Watch Video Lecture 11.
2. Read required readings for Lecture 11.
3. Repeat Section D, Process division 3 done for Week 1.

Required reading: St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle: Bk. 5

 

Week 12) topic of the intellectual virtues related to human happiness considered as the summum bonum of living the good earthly life

Process:

1. Watch Video Lecture 12.
2. Read required readings for Lecture 12.
3. Repeat Section D, Process division 3 done for Week 1.

Required readings: St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle: Bk. 6

 

Week 13) topics of continence and incontinence related to human happiness considered as the summum bonum of living the good earthly life:

Process:

1. Watch Video Lecture 13.
2. Read required readings for Lecture 13.
3. Repeat Section D, Process division 3 done for Week 1.

 

Required readings: St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle: Bk. 7

 

Week 14) topic of how friendship is related to human happiness considered as the summum bonum of living the good earthly life

Process:

1. Watch Video Lecture 14.
2. Read required readings for Lecture 14.
3. Repeat Section D, Process division 3 done for Week 1.

Required readings:  St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle: Bks. 8 and 9

 

Week 15) topic of how pleasure is related to human happiness considered as the summum bonum of living the good earthly life; and course review

Process:

1. Watch Video Lecture 15.
2. Review “Transcripts of Weekly Topics of Discussion” and required readings for Lectures 1 through 15.
3. Repeat Section D, Process division 3 done for Week 1.

Required readings:  St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle: Bk. 10.

            Suggested additional reading:

• Peter A. Redpath, Why, Through Application of Its Educational Principles, the New World Order Can Never Generate Higher Education
• Peter A. Redpath, How to Reverse the Widespread Global Disorder Nonsensical Principles of Utopian Socialism/Marxism are Currently Causing

 

            FINAL EXAM WEEK Oral exam and syntopical paper due.

 

4. COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING

• Completion of weekly course required readings and assignments: 60%
• Completion of 1 syntopical research paper of no less than 25 pages (double-spaced, no larger than 12-point type face and no wider than 1 inch top, bottom, and side margins) comparing and contrasting St. Thomas Aquinas’s teaching on 1 or more of the topics covered in these course lectures (for example, St. Thomas’s teaching about the nature of happiness) to the teaching of any other major Great Books thinker in 1 or more of their works: 20%
• Final 1-hour Oral Exam: 20%

5. SOME INFORMATION ABOUT REQUIRED READINGS AND VIDEOS:

• Selections from Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas as listed in above weekly Lecture Required Readings are all available for download from the above-listed online websites.
• As indicated above, the video URLs are posted above in this syllabus.

6. ANOTHER SUGGESTED RESOURCE:

Students might wish to supplement the above readings by viewing a video of a talk Dr. Redpath gave at the Catholic Information Center, in Washington, D.C. related to volume 1 of a book he authored entitled A Not-So-Elementary Christian Metaphysics: Written in the Hope of Ending the Centuries-old Separation between Philosophy and Science and Science and Wisdom

.

7. EVALUATION

Basis of evaluation with explanation regarding the nature of the assignment and the percentage of the grade related to each item is given below).

GRADING SCALE:

A 94-100; A- 90-93; B+ 87-89; B 84-86; B- 80-83; C+ 77-79; C 74-76; C- 70-73 D 60-69; F 59 and below

8. ABOUT YOUR INSTRUCTORS

 

Peter A. Redpath

Dr. Redpath was Professor of Philosophy at St. John’s University from 1979 to 2011. Author/editor of 15 philosophical books (10 authored and 5 edited/or co-edited) and many dozens of articles and book reviews, Dr. Redpath has delivered over 200 invited guest lectures nationally and internationally. He is presently: CEO of the Aquinas School of Leadership, Management, and Organizational Development, LLC; Adler-Aquinas Institute Rector, Senior Fellow; Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas; Chair of the Holy Apostles College and Seminary St. John Paul II Graduate Concentration in Christian Wisdom; co-founder of the Gilson Society (GS, USA); co-founder and president of The International Étienne Gilson Society (IEGS); and member of the editorial board of the Philosophy and Religion (PAR) Series for Brill Publishing. He is, also, former vice-president of the American Maritain Association; Founding Chairman of the Board of the Angelicum Academy; Member of the Board of the Great Books Academy; member Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Philosophic Research; member of Board and Executive Committee of the Catholic Education Foundation; Academician of The Catholic Academy of Sciences (USA); former executive editor of Value Inquiry Book Series (VIBS); former editor of the Studies in the History of Western Philosophy (SHWP), former editor of the Gilson Studies (GS) special series for Editions Rodopi, B. V.; former editor of Gilson Studies (GS) special series for Brill publishing; current member of the editorial board of the Philosophy and Religion special series for Brill publishing; member of the scientific council of the philosophical journal Studia Gilsoniana; former associate editor of the journal Contemporary Philosophy; recipient of St. John’s University’s Outstanding Achievement Award, and Socratic Fellowship Award from the Great Books Academy; former member of the New York Press Club; inaugural inductee as distinguished alumnus of Xaverian High School; and former Graduate Fellow of SUNY at Buffalo. In 2011 Dr. Redpath moved to Cave Creek, AZ in part to devote his time to teaching for and other philosophical projects. For more information about Dr. Redpath visit his website at: http://www.aquinasschoolofleadership.com/

 

 

 

Eduardo Bernot

Eduardo Bernot received his doctorate degree with highest honors from Abat Oliba CEU University (Barcelona, Spain). He has taught at the undergraduate level at the Interdisciplinary Center for Research in the Humanities (Autonomous University of the State of Morelos, Mexico), and presently teaches courses in the Thomistic Studies Online Graduate Concentration in Christian Wisdom at Holy Apostles College and Seminary. He is a member of the Aquinas School of Leadership and of the International Association for Ontology and its Applications.

 

Proprietary Interest Policy:

Faculty are permitted to refer to notable past work and achievements (including publications and educational activities not offered by Pontifex University, and even those offered for personal profit) in their published biography on the Pontifex website and course promotions. In the context of educational activities undertaken for Pontifex University, including videos, live or recorded, teachers, can recommend or bring to the attention such work for students (even if for personal profit, for example, books or podcasts) but only with approval by Pontifex University and when it is related to the teaching purpose of the class.  An instructor’s related work will be noted in the syllabus as appropriate.  Instructors may use their own materials as required in their courses and learning events as long as the materials are appropriate for the particular learning event.

 

Failure to comply with this policy will result in a warning or administration modification of course materials. Violations of this policy should be reported to the Provost.