General Information

COAS TOPICS E103

Two Ways to Wisdom

Instructors

    Paul Eisenberg, Philosophy                                                              Robert Eno, East Asian Languages and Cultures

    Sycamore Hall 124                                                                         Goodbody Hall 327

    Tel. 5-7774; E-mail: eisenber@indiana.com                                     Tel. 5-5373; E-mail: eno@indiana.edu

    OH:                                                                                                OH:   M 11:30 - 12:00, R 2:00 - 3:00

Associate Instructor

     Brian Burkhart

    Sycamore Hall

    E-mail: baburkha@indiana.edu

    OH:

Meeting Times & Classrooms

Lecture Meetings:

MW 10:10 - 11:00         Ballantine Hall 347

Friday Sections:

0083    12:20-1:10      Ballantine 135
0084    1:25-2:15       Ballantine 144
0085    10:10-11:00   Sycamore 003
0086    11:15-12:05   Woodburn 109

Course Description

Is there one single set of truths how the universe is structured and how people should respond
to it or can there be many Truths and many paths to understand Truth?  Is there one "master
wisdom," or are there many different, perhaps even contradictory, kinds of wisdom?     Is Reason a
single method of thinking, or may there be different ways of valid thinking?

Two Ways to Wisdom will examine questions such as these by exploring the earliest awakenings of
philosophical thought in two of the greatest cultures of ancient times: Greece and China during
the period 500-200 B.C.  We will examine, through their own writings in translation, the very
different ways in which thinkers such as Plato and Heraclitus in Greece, and Confucius and Lao-zi
in China approached the great questions of the nature of the world and the nature of human
beings.  We will ask also whether these perspectives from an early point in human cultural history
may refresh our own views of ourselves and our world.

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