PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

Course Objectives: This course aims to guide students in thinking about how life and living itself becomes a philosophical issue. During the course, we will consider questions that at least some of us visit as we live our lives: What is the goal and meaning of life? What is a good life? Is any form of life better than the other? What is the role of happiness, pleasure, freedom, pain, and utility in life? How do reason and passion affect our life? What are freedom and alienation? What is the meaning of death in relation to life? Within the long course of the Western philosophical tradition, various responses to these questions have been suggested. Whereas Ancient Greeks viewed happiness as the ultimate aim of life, in the modern era, the good life is equated with the life of reason and capacity for rational self-determination. The course introduces these questions and aims to equip the student with the necessary tools for critically evaluating different answers given to these questions.

Course Content: This course aims to inquire and discuss these different approaches regarding life and living within the Western philosophical canon. We will be looking into Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Kant, Mill, Marx, Russell, Simon de Beauvoir, and Sartre. At the end of the course, we will examine one last question raised by feminist thinkers: Is philosophical thinking on what constitutes (good) life gendered?