USEM Catholicism & the Disciplines

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

In his classic book "Philosophy as a Way of Life," the French philosopher Pierre Hadot argued that ancient Mediterranean "philosophia" – the pursuit of wisdom – entailed not merely a body of knowledge or a narrow set of intellectual methods but an entire “way of life.” In a similar vein, we might ask what constitutes an “intellectual life,” a life that takes the pursuit of truth as a central and salient orientation. What features, structures, and practices characterize such a life? Does an intellectual life require withdrawal to a solitary, monastic existence in libraries and quiet contemplation? Or can it be lived alongside raising children and working a typical job? If so, how? Further, what, if anything, demarcates a particularly Catholic intellectual life, and how might one cultivate such a life? This course aims to help students grapple with these questions by reading and discussing authors, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, whose lives and work can inform our understanding of the intellectual life. Yet the course is not merely theoretical: students will be challenged, and indeed required, to test and weigh ideas from the course by putting them into practice and reflecting upon them. Our goal, ultimately, is not to learn about the intellectual life but to begin to foster that life ourselves.