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Ancient Philosophy: Plato & His Successors

What is philosophy?  How does it differ from science, religion, and other modes of human discourse?  This course traces the origins of philosophy in the Western tradition in the thinkers of Ancient Greece.  We begin with the Presocratic natural philosophers who were active in Ionia in the 6th century BCE and are also credited with being the first scientists.  Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximines made bold proposals about the ultimate constituents of reality, while Heraclitus insisted that there is an underlying order to the changing world.  Parmenides of Elea formulated a powerful objection to all these proposals, while later Greek theorists (such as Anaxagoras and the atomist Democritus) attempted to answer that objection.  In fifth-century Athens, Socrates insisted on the importance of the fundamental ethical question—“How shall I live?”—and his pupil, Plato, and Plato’s pupil, Aristotle, developed elaborate philosophical systems to explain the nature of reality, knowledge, and human happiness.  After the death of Aristotle, in the Hellenistic period, Epicureans and Stoics developed and transformed that earlier tradition.  We will study the major doctrines of all these thinkers.  Part I will cover Plato and his predecessors.  Part II will cover Aristotle and his successors.    

The Power of Macroeconomics: Economic Principles in the Real World

In this course, you will learn all of the major principles of macroeconomics normally taught in a quarter or semester course to college undergraduates or MBA students.  Perhaps more importantly, you will also learn how to apply these principles to a wide variety of situations in both your personal and professional lives. In this way, the Power of Macroeconomics will help you prosper in an increasingly competitive and globalized environment.
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