Now you can learn the basics of jazz and its history in a course as free-flowing and original as jazz itself. Taught by Professor Bill Messenger of the Peabody Institute, the lectures in this course are a must for music lovers. They will have you reaching deep into your own music collection and going straight out to a music store to add to it. Professor Messenger has spent his life in music as student, teacher, and professional musician. He has studied and lectured at the famed Peabody Institute and written an acclaimed book on music activities aimed at older adults. And as a pianist, he has: Played in ragtime ensembles, swing bands, Dixieland bands, and modern jazz groups Been a successful studio musician in the early days of rock 'n' roll Accompanied performers as renowned as Lou Rawls and Mama Cass Elliot Opened for Bill Haley and the Comets. So it is no wonder that the course he has created is so thorough and enjoyable. Lectures, Piano, and Guest Performers It's a rich mix of jazz, its elements, era, and practitioners. Professor Messenger frequently turns to his piano to illustrate his musical points, often with the help of guest performance artists and lots of original music. The lectures follow the story of jazz in its many shapes, including: Ragtime The blues The swing music of the big band era Boogie-woogie Big band blues The rise of modern jazz forms: bebop, cool, modal, free, and fusion. Cakewalks, Vaudeville, and Swing Beginning with the music and dance of the antebellum plantation, Professor Messenger reveals how the "cakewalks" of slave culture gave birth to a dance craze at the 19th century's end that was ignorant of its own humble roots. He considers how minstrel shows, deriving from Southern beliefs that held black culture to be decidedly inferior, eventually created a musical industry that African American musicians would dominate for decades to come. You will learn how and why jazz, a difficult genre to define, was central to the music they created. Roots in Ragtime Professor Messenger explains how jazz was born-or conceived-in the ragtime piano tunes of turn-of-the-century America. Together with the Dixieland funeral music of New Orleans, this new, "syncopated" music popularized a sound that took America's vaudeville establishments by storm. Professor Messenger notes that ragtime's most popular composer, Scott Joplin, at first resisted the new craze. But after becoming intrigued by that "ragged" sound at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, he became the writer of the most memorable rags ever, including "Maple Leaf Rag" and "The Entertainer." Drawing on the blues, an emotional but harmonically simple music, jazz was ensconced as a popular genre in the American psyche by the 1920s. The Surprising Origin of the "St. Louis Blues" One interesting story about the blues covered in the course concerns W. C. Handy, a man often referred to as the "father of the blues." As Professor Messenger reveals that, in truth, Handy didn't like the blues very much and wasn't convinced the public would buy it. It was only after he saw a band of blues players literally showered with money after a performance that he began writing the music in earnest. Handy was at the same World's Fair Joplin attended, and he heard a song he later arranged into what became the famous "St. Louis Blues." Professor Messenger points out, nothing about the song was original; it was a melting pot of many influences. The blues is, in his words, the "emotional germ of jazz." It is the place jazz always returns to when it veers too far into the abstract or academic. An Innovation that Changed Jazz Forever One of the most important events in the history of jazz, and all performance, was the invention of the microphone in 1924. Before the microphone, singers needed big voices to project their voices across large music halls, and the booming styles of performers such as Bessie Smith and Al Jolson met those requirements admirably. After the microphone, though, things were very different. The new invention did more than simply allow for the use of quieter instruments like the guitar and string bass. It also brought smaller-voiced singers-Bing Crosby, Mel Torme, Frank Sinatra, for instance-into the limelight. Into the 1930s and 40s, popular music became heavily arranged for bigger and bigger bands. By the time the swing era of America's big bands took hold around World War II, jazz had reached new popular heights. You will learn why swing became so popular-the syncopation and improvisation of early jazz, in the context of careful arrangements, combined planning and spontaneity in a unique way. Though not to be confused with the sound of competing society bands, swing music gave talents like Benny Goodman a chance to improvise within the framework of Top 40 hits.More than Swing The development of jazz into swing electrified popular music. You learn: How boogie-woogie, a precursor of rock 'n' roll that was primed with a heavy-handed, highly rhythmic style, found widespread success in the 1940s until its ubiquity forced it out of fashion How big band blues, where the simplicity of the blues standard was overlaid on the pop song, fused the worlds of folk art and high art How bebop-an austere, anxious music whose success was blazed by the genius of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker-worked against the commercial spread of swing How modern jazz spans everything-from the cool jazz of the 1950s to the fusion jazz of the 1990s, with several stops in between. Music for Today In recent decades many forms of modern jazz-including cool, modal, free, and fusion-have had their devoted following. All serve to prove that jazz is a generic music that comprises many varieties. True to its name, jazz has defied definition, category, and stagnation. And this course-in toe-tapping, finger-snapping ways-will feed your intellectual curiosity and appreciation.

    Our language even has a word—Machiavellian—that encapsulates the images those responses conjure up: An indistinct figure quietly making his way through the darkest corridors of power, hatching plots to play one rival against another A cold-blooded political liar, ready to justify any duplicity undertaken in the name of a noble end that will ultimately justify the most malignant means A coolly practical leader—amoral at best—willing to do whatever is necessary in a world governed not by ideas of right or wrong, but by solutions dictated by realpolitik.But does the Machiavelli most of us think we know bear any resemblance to the Machiavelli who lived, pondered, and wrote?According to Professor William R. Cook, a reading of Machiavelli that considers only those qualities that we today call "Machiavellian" is incomplete, and Machiavelli himself "certainly would not recognize" such sinister interpretations or caricatures of his writings and beliefs. Indeed, The Prince—on the pages of which so much of this image was built—was not even published in his lifetime.In the 24 lectures that make up Machiavelli in Context, Professor Cook offers the opportunity to meet an extraordinarily thoughtful and sincere student of history and its lessons, and to learn that there is far more to him than can be gleaned from any reading of The Prince, no matter how thorough.Although The Prince is the work by which most of us think we know Machiavelli, and although some have indeed called it the first and most important book of political science ever written, it was not, according to Professor Cook, either Machiavelli's most important work or the one most representative of his beliefs. Those distinctions belong, instead, to his Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy, a longer work started at about the same time and which would, like The Prince, not be published until well after his death."Everyone who has seriously studied the works of Machiavelli agrees that he ... believed in the superiority of a republican form of government, defined as a mixed constitution with elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy."Once we recover the context of the writing of The Prince, and analyze it along with the Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy, it will be clear how The Prince can be read as a book designed to guide leaders in the creation—for Machiavelli, restoration—of republican government in Italy."Ultimately, Machiavelli's goal wasn't much different from ours. It was to live in a free and equal participatory society, because he believed that was the greatest way in which human beings could live and flourish."In fact, says Professor Cook, "Machiavelli's republican thought influenced the development of institutions and values both in Europe and in America."To present a complete and well-rounded picture of Machiavelli's ideas on how human societies should be organized and governed, Professor Cook sets aside much of Machiavelli's written output—which included the political work The Art of War, a biography, many letters, and even some plays—to focus on The Prince, the Discourses, and, more briefly, his Florentine Histories.In doing so, Professor Cook draws on the same qualities so evident in his previous courses for The Teaching Company: Tocqueville and the American Experience, Dante's Divine Comedy, Francis of Assisi, and St. Augustine's Confessions.Teaching in the relaxed and informal style of those courses, Professor Cook moves easily among the different disciplines so pertinent to an understanding of Machiavelli's ideas, including history, philosophy, government, and the elements of leadership. He is unfailingly clear, always provides any definitions needed to understand the material at hand, and is always ready with a touch of wit whenever that is appropriate.Because so much of our contemporary misunderstanding of Machiavelli's ideas comes from a lack of context, Professor Cook carefully sets the stage for a complete perspective of Machiavelli's world.Long before he turns to the works themselves, you'll have learned about Florence and its political history, both before and during Machiavelli's lifetime; the developing Renaissance culture of Machiavelli's time, especially as it bears on the use of ancient political thought by writers and political leaders; and Machiavelli's own life story, including his education, service to the Florentine Republic, years spent in exile south of Florence, and the ways each period of his life affected his writings.The result is a thorough grounding in the information one needs to understand and appreciate this stunningly original thinker.You'll learn, for example, what Machiavelli means when he discusses the important ideas of virtù and Fortuna.Though these are today invariably translated as virtue and fortune, Machiavelli's meanings can involve much more. Though he sometimes uses virtù in the sense we would understand today, he often uses the word—which comes from the classical Latin word for Man—as a means of describing the way one practices successful statecraft: aggressively, with no reluctance to use lies, deceit, and cruelty that may be required to maintain power, and hence the stability the people deserve.In a similar way Machiavelli uses Fortuna in a different sense than might have been used by, say, Dante when he describes the vagaries of fate over which we have no control.Instead, Machiavelli uses the adage, "Fortune is like a river." Though we cannot control fortune, which may well choose to make the river flood, a good ruler, practicing virtù, can indeed prepare for it, and thus modify its effects.You'll see how Machiavelli first became exposed to history and one of its earliest great practitioners—the Roman historian, Livy—through his own experience of Fortuna.Though printed books such as Livy's Early History of Rome were too expensive for a family like the young Machiavelli's in the 15th century, his father did own a copy. He had written the index, and a copy of the book had been part of his payment. Thus Machiavelli grew up with the volumes about which he would one day write his own most important work, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy.You'll be introduced to Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI and the man regarded as Machiavelli's model for The Prince, especially in the way his actions embodied the virtù so important to Machiavelli.Professor Cook brings this out in a shocking story of Borgia's use of a tough and merciless Spaniard—Ramiro d'Orco—to impose order and stability on the area of north central Italy known as the Romagna that had come under Borgia's rule and was beset by crime and violence.D'Orco's brutal methods had the desired effect. And when the job was completed, the local people emerged from their homes one morning to find the two halves of Ramiro d'Orco's body on opposite sides of the town square of Cesana, because d'Orco had been too tough, and Cesare Borgia needed a way to advertise further his concern for the people whose loyalty he wanted.The story also embodies, for Machiavelli, the idea that cruelty can be "well-used," just as being merciful—withholding such cruelty when a leader deems it needed—may be less than merciful in its long-term impact.Finally, you will get to see, throughout these lectures, the development of Machiavelli's reliance on history for its lessons, his role as a Renaissance Humanist thinker, and the emergence of his republican views, which still have tremendous influence today as we ask how republics start, grow, succeed, or fail.As Professor Cook notes, we are not going to agree with all of Machiavelli's answers. But his commitment to asking the right questions—to thinking, reflecting, and learning everything history has to teach us about the best ways to govern and safeguard the future—was total.

    The Great Ideas of Classical Physics 2. Describing MotionA Break from Aristotle 3. Describing Ever More Complex Motion 4. Astronomy as a Bridge to Modern Physics 5. Isaac NewtonThe Dawn of Classical Physics 6. Newton QuantifiedForce and Acceleration 7. Newton and the Connections to Astronomy 8. Universal Gravitation 9. Newton's Third Law 10. Conservation of Momentum 11. Beyond NewtonWork and Energy 12. Power and the Newtonian Synthesis 13. Further DevelopmentsStatic Electricity 14. Electricity, Magnetism, and Force Fields 15. Electrical Currents and Voltage 16. The Origin of Electric and Magnetic Fields 17. Unification IMaxwell's Equations 18. Unification IIElectromagnetism and Light 19. Vibrations and Waves 20. Sound Waves and Light Waves 21. The Atomic Hypothesis 22. Energy in SystemsHeat and Thermodynamics 23. Heat and the Second Law of Thermodynamics 24. The Grand Picture of Classical Physics

    Every night we surrender it gratefully, only to get it back in the morning. We recognize that we have it, but we can never be sure anyone else does. Consciousness, this unique and perplexing mental state, has been the subject of debate for philosophers and scientists for millennia. And while it is widely agreed within contemporary philosophy that consciousness is a problem whose solutions are likely to determine the fate of any number of other problems, there is no settled position on the ultimate nature of consciousness.What is the most promising way to study this subject? What are the implications that arise from the fact that we have consciousness? What are the ethical and moral issues raised by its presence—or its absence? Questions like these are at the heart of Consciousness and Its Implications, 12 thought-provoking lectures delivered by distinguished philosopher and psychologist Daniel N. Robinson. Rather than merely explain away consciousness, or hide behind such convenient slogans as "it's all in your brain," Professor Robinson reviews some of the special problems that philosophers, psychologists, scientists, and doctors face when taking on such a vexing topic.What Is Consciousness? Much of what we do every day is done without our being directly conscious of the steps taken to complete the task: riding a bicycle, taking a walk, humming a tune. But as natural as this state is, it stands as a very serious threat to any number of core convictions and assumptions in both philosophy and science. One of the overarching goals of this intriguing course is to make clear just what about consciousness serves as such a challenge to these convictions and assumptions.But what makes Consciousness and Its Implications so engaging is more than just the nature of the questions it poses and the issues it tackles. It's the way in which Professor Robinson, the consummate teacher and scholar, conveys this goal in four main points, each of which you explore in depth in these lectures.Consciousness seems to require, for its full understanding, a science not yet available. What distinguishes consciousness from all else is its phenomenology—that is, the act of being conscious is different from all other facts of nature. Conscious awareness is a power that, at times, can be so strong as to greatly affect our senses. The powers of consciousness vary over the course of a lifetime; as such, they can become subject to disease and defect.Throughout the course, Professor Robinson brings this riveting topic vividly to life with real-world examples and striking anecdotes. Review the case of Deep Blue, the IBM computer that in 1997 shocked the world by defeating a human, the chess grand master Garry Kasparov. Does Deep Blue's ability to "outsmart" a human being constitute a kind of consciousness? Or is it a reflection of the human minds that created this complex computer? Consider the case of the sleepwalker, who moves around with purpose and mimics behaviors we see in everyday life, but can remember nothing upon awakening. How does this mental state relate to human consciousness? What would be lost if we lived our entire lives as sleepwalkers?Study the case of a comatose patient who lives in an unbroken sleep state but, after a miraculous recovery, recalls having heard doctors speak about her. How do we interpret this patient's ability to perceive the surrounding world while in a coma? Does the patient's experience reflect some in-between mental state we've yet to define? Look at the case of a child with autism who can perform complicated mental tasks but lacks the most basic human attribute: empathy. How does this inability to imagine other minds affect the child's capacity to enjoy the full experience of human consciousness? Using compelling examples such as these, Professor Robinson weaves a riveting tale of the human condition that will change the way you think about your own mind.Professor Robinson also draws on the wisdom of the world's greatest thinkers—from the ancient Greeks to today's top scientists—to shed light on some of the ethical debates involved in any examination of consciousness. These include John Locke, whose famous "Prince and the Cobbler" hypothesis raised questions about the relationship between one's personal identity and one's body; Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose "Beetle in a Box" scenario holds implications for how we define consciousness both inside and outside ourselves; and Aristotle, who led a pointed discussion on the relationship between the physical world and what he referred to as "real being."You also enter the lab and explore the impact of modern physics and medicine on our understanding of the self. Pondering questions ranging from the most fundamental—"Why are we here?"—to contemporary quandaries about artificial intelligence and the medical decision to prolong life, you'll gain new insights into the complexity of how great minds define consciousness.Consciousness and Its Implications is a chance for you to view this deep and profound subject from all angles. A distinguished scholar in philosophy and neuropsychology, Professor Robinson incorporates many disciplines—psychology, physics, philosophy, medicine—to explore these abiding questions. So embark on a challenging and wholly satisfying exploration of this unique, mysterious, and essential mental faculty. The knowledge you'll gain in this course is not only intriguing—it is crucial to understanding the nature of humanity and the social and ethical obligations that define us all.

    Despite the papacy's enormous influence, how much do you really know about this ancient and powerful institution? Catholics and non-Catholics alike will enjoy these 24 illuminating lectures about this remarkable institution. Professor Noble gives you priceless insights into the dramatic history of the papal office and the lives of the men who represented it. You'll follow four critical strands of papal history over 2,000 years: the history of the "Petrine" idea; the history of an institution; the history of popes and antipopes; the history of Western civilization; and you'll look inside the Vatican's doors and discover fresh views on the institution's people, ideas, traditions, and routines, as well as the important roles played by organizations like the Curia and the Secretariat of State. You'll investigate the mechanisms by which the church not only ministers to its worldwide flock but also deals with the practical realities of its administration. Filled with interesting stories and remarkable insights, this course promises to educate, enlighten, and entertain you.Course Lecture Titles:1. What Is Papal History? When Did It Begin?2. The Rise of the Petrine Idea3. Popes, Byzantines, and Barbarians4. The Popes in the Age of Charlemagne5. Rome, the Popes, and the Papal Government6. The "Age of Iron"7. The Investiture Controversy8. The Papal Monarchy-Institutions9. The Papal Monarchy-Politics10. The Popes at Avignon11. The Great Schism12. The Renaissance Papacy-Politics13. The Renaissance Papacy-Culture14. The Challenge of Reform-Protestantism15. Catholic Reform and Counter Reform16. Absolutism, Enlightenment, and Revolution17. Pius IX-Prisoner of the Vatican18. The Challenge of Modernism19. The Troubled Pontificate of Pius XII20. The Age of Vatican II21. The Transitional Pontificate of Paul VI22. The Vatican and What It Does23. John Paul II-"The Great"?24. Benedict XVI, the Future, and the Past

    Publius Cornelius Scipio 2. Hannibal 3. Gaius Flaminius 4. Quintus Fabius Maximus 5. Scipio Africanus the Elder 6. Scipio the Younger 7. Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus 8. Crassus 9. Gaius Julius Caesar 10. Caesar and Vercingetorix 11. Pompey the Great 12. Cato the Younger 13. Brutus and the Opposition to Caesar 14. Cicero 15. Augustus 16. Vergil 17. Claudius 18. Nero 19. Trajan 20. Hadrian 21. Epictetus 22. Apuleius 23. Plutarch, Suetonius, and Tacitus 24. Marcus Aurelius

    The issues Professor Dalton addresses in these lectures - and in Western political theory generally - fall into three sets of fundamental questions you'll get to unpack. The first set involves the essential characteristics of human nature and the good society. The second focuses on the intricate relationship between the individual and society. And the final set of questions involves theories about change.Through these lectures and their historical case studies, you'll be able to identify the fundamental questions and concerns that shape classical and modern political theory:Describe the influence of one's understanding of human nature upon one's vision of the good society.Compare and contrast the views of theorists regarding the purpose of the state, the relationship between politics and ethics, and the qualifications for exercising political power.Discuss views of leading political theorists regarding the meaning of freedom, the sources of legitimate political authority, and the obligations of individuals to the state or society, and more.

    Is Earth Warming? 2. Butterflies, Glaciers, and Hurricanes 3. Ice Ages and Beyond 4. In the Greenhouse 5. A Tale of Three Planets 6. Global Recycling 7. The Human Factor 8. Computing the Future 9. Impacts of Climate Change 10. Energy and Climate 11. EnergyResources and Alternatives 12. Sustainable Futures?

    

    A series of 24 lectures comprising a course on comparative religion presented by Charles Kimball, director of the Religious Studies Program at the University of Oklahoma.

    24 Lectures / 30 minutes per lecture.1. Why the Middle Ages?2. Demography and the Commercial Revolution3. Those Who Fought—The Nobles4. The Chivalric Code5. Feudalism6. Those Who Worked—The Peasants7. Those Who Worked—The Townspeople8. Women in Medieval Society9. Those Who Prayed—The Monks10. Francis of Assisi and the Franciscan Movement11. Heretics and Heresy12. The Medieval Inquisitions13. Jews and Christians14. The Origins of Scholasticism15. Aquinas and the Problem of Aristotle16. The First Universities17. The People's Crusade18. The Conquest of Jerusalem19. The Norman Conquest20. Philip II of France21. Magna Carta22. Empire versus Papacy23. Emperor Frederick II24. Looking Back, Looking Forward

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    Introduction 2. The Sources 3. Pre-Roman Italy and the Etruscans 4. The Foundation of Rome 5. The Kings of Rome 6. Regal Society 7. The Beginnings of the Republic 8. The Struggle of the Orders 9. Roman Expansion in Italy 10. The Roman Confederation in Italy 11. The International Scene on the Eve of Roman Expansion 12. Carthage and the First Punic War 13. The Second Punic (or Hannibalic) War 14. Rome in the Eastern Mediterranean 15. Explaining the Rise of the Roman Empire 16. "The Captured Conqueror"-Rome and Hellenism 17. Governing the Roman Republic, Part I-Senate and Magistrates 18. Governing the Roman Republic, Part II-Popular Assemblies and Provincial Administration 19. The Pressures of Empire 20. The Gracchi Brothers 21. Marius and Sulla 22. "The Royal Rule of Sulla" 23. Sulla's Reforms Undone 24. Pompey and Crassus 25. The First Triumvirate 26. Pompey and Caesar 27. "The Domination of Caesar" 28. Social and Cultural Life in the Late Republic 29. Antony and Octavian 30. The Second Triumvirate 31. Octavian Emerges Supreme 32. The New Order of Augustus 33. The Imperial Succession 34. The Julio-Claudian Dynasty 35. The Emperor in the Roman World 36. The Third-Century Crisis 37. The Shape of Roman Society 38. Roman Slavery 39. The Family 40. Women in Roman Society 41. An Empire of Cities 42. Public Entertainment, Part I-The Roman Baths and Chariot Racing 43. Public Entertainment, Part II-Gladiatorial Games 44. Roman Paganism 45. The Rise of Christianity 46. The Restoration of Order 47. Constantine and the Late Empire 48. Thoughts on the "Fall" of the Roman Empire

    More than 2,500 years later, the issues they pondered continue to challenge, fascinate, and instruct us. Is reality stable and permanent or is it always changing? Are ethical values like justice and courage relative? Or are values "absolute"—simply and forever right and true? What is justice? What is happiness? How shall we best live our lives?An Introduction to Greek Philosophy beckons you to join this eternal discussion. For that is what this subject truly is: a conversation among thinkers that has continued through the centuries and remains accessible to us today. You find it constantly stimulating, sometimes controversial, and nearly always remarkably relevant.A Hunger for Reasons, not Myths or BeliefsProfessor David Roochnik has organized this series of 24 lectures as a "dialectical" approach (the word comes from the Greek dialegesthai: to converse). The philosophers are presented as if they were participating in a conversation. In this way, the course unfolds in a manner similar to the actual development of Greek philosophy.In this course, you study the development of Greek philosophy, meet its major thinkers, and explore the issues and ideas that concerned them. For example the first real philosophers were the Presocratics—literally, the philosophers who lived before Socrates. They included Thales of Miletus (585 B.C.E.–?), Anaximander (610–546), Anaximenes (approx. 550), Xenophanes (approx. 570) and Pythagoras (approx. 570–500).The Presocratics rejected myth and divine inspiration—such as had been embodied in the works of Homer and in Hesiod's creation story, the Theogony—as valid explanations of reality. Instead, they insisted that true understanding always requires a logos, a rational explanation (hence such English words as "psychology" and "biology").The Presocratics were concerned with issues such as identifying the arche or "Being": the thing that is the origin of all other things. They also introduced sophistic relativism, the notion that truth, goodness, and all other values were relative, depending entirely on the person or group that held them. This concept would become a major point of debate for the Greeks and for the ages.Are We Footnotes to Plato?The heroes of this course, and certainly of Greek philosophy, are Plato (429–347 B.C.E.) and his student, Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.). Unlike the Presocratics, who wrote too little, Plato and Aristotle were prolific authors. Both argued against relativism and instead were staunch objectivists who believed that certain important values were absolutely and universally true. And both left a staggering mark on history.Alfred North Whitehead, the great 20th-century British philosopher, said, "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." In the Middle Ages, Aristotle was held in such high esteem that he was simply known as "the philosopher."Among Plato's many contributions to philosophy is his ingenious device for the examination of ideas: his written dialogues. In them, Plato never uses his own voice. Instead, the dialogues take place among a changing cast of characters, and Socrates is the most notable among them. The effect is to invite us to take part in the conversation and, ultimately, to become philosophers.You study Plato's dialogues as well as his notion of the Forms. This was his response to relativism and proposed that every virtue and value has an absolute and perfect Form, which humans understand even before birth.Greek philosophy can be said to culminate with Aristotle, who wrote treatises on a breathtaking range of subjects. He is said to be the first to view knowledge as being divided into specific disciplines such as biology or astronomy. The university was later modeled on this approach. More than any other philosopher, Aristotle synthesized the views that preceded him.For Aristotle, one value was foremost and was contained in everything, from the tiniest organisms to the phenomena of fire to human beings: purpose. Everything has a purpose that can be recognized and objectively defined, and that gives meaning to life. You explore the details and rationale of Aristotle's teleological—or purposive—world-view, one of the most significant in history.An Invitation to ThinkIn this course, you not only learn about Greek philosophy but, to some extent, how to do it. Professor Roochnik emphasizes that Greek philosophy is ultimately not about facts or answers but about the give-and-take of ideas.By the end of these lectures, you will understand how Greek philosophy still heavily influences our view of life. We live today, Professor Roochnik maintains, at a time that is shaped by Presocratic, relativistic philosophy. Contemporary thinkers, and often the average person, have great difficulty finding objective truth or meaning in life.What have we lost in turning away from the world of Plato and Aristotle—a world where everything has a place and a purpose and life is saturated with value and meaning?On the other hand, what would we lose if we returned to that world?These are a few of the many questions that will give you ample food for thought. For the Greeks, that was the greatest feast of all.

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