World Philosophies contributes to a project that is at the core of Jesuit education and its intellectual tradition: global conversations on the meaning of human existence. This course will introduce students to global philosophical accounts of the human person. Exploring diverse philosophical approaches also presses students to engage their own thinking in dialogue with a variety of views. By embarking on the quest to understand what it means to be human, around the world and across history, students take up a heritage that they share with past and future generations and their contemporaries across the globe: they will learn to reflect critically on their own culture, assumptions, and responsibility.
This course is concerned with foundational topics in philosophy, particularly: what does it mean to be a human person? Such a question is inevitably personal and at the same time vast in scope. This question has been taken up and addressed in some form or another by a wide range of thinkers from around the globe and across human history. The course will be organized around an investigation of the philosophical foundations for living, loving, and dying well.
In search for answers to these questions, we will review how they are addressed in the western philosophical tradition, as well as a broad sampling of wisdom from around the world, including Indigenous philosophy, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Chinese philosophy. We will discuss the role of feminism in reshaping the ancient question of the human person, which has been for centuries predominantly answered by male voices. Particular attention will be paid to the Jesuit tradition and its focus on justice and reconciliation. Ultimately, the course will press students to reconsider their own human personhood in light of this global collection of movements and ideas.
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