Havergal's Uncalendar, 2019-20 Academic Year

HZT4U – Philosophy: Questions and Theories, Grade 12, University Preparation 1 CREDIT Charles Schultz, the creator of the enduring comic strip Peanuts , once had his beloved worrier Charlie Brown tell his reader to: “never lie in bed at night asking yourself questions you can’t answer.” That the comedic impossibility of this request should strike the reader with surprise is assured— Peanuts is one of the most philosophic works of art of the 20th century. In other words, the philosopher knows this command to be unacceptable, when the very purpose of life is to ask unanswerable questions. Who am I? What do I strive for? From where and out of what material did everything come from? How can I be good? How can I be sure about my most fundamental beliefs? How can I even be sure that I exist at all, or that this isn’t just a dream? These are just some of the questions that might keep us up at night. For this reason, we will draw them out into the daylight and interrogate them on their own grounds in our course. Together we will explore a diverse syllabus of philosophers and their theories across 2500 years of intellectual history—from existentialism to Hellenistic ethics, from the Pre-Socratics up until the social and political theory of our day. Through the tasks of close reading, reflection and discussion, we will test the limits of our knowledge and break new ground of philosophical discovery together in HZT4U. Students need not have taken HZB3M in order to take this course. Prerequisite: Any University or University/College Preparation course in Social Sciences and Humanities, English or Canadian and World Studies

40  HAVERGAL COLLEGE | Uncalendar 2019–20