Philosophy of Love & Pleaure

[owl_of_minerva]

A non f-locked post, just for fun.

This summer I'm teaching an introductory freshman course on philosophy; it's a required core course, so I have a lot of non-majors. I've taught this course a number of times before, and I've decided to totally revamp the syllabus. Instead of focusing on the nature of the soul & freedom, I'm going to focus on love & pleasure.

So far, I have the following (mostly in excerpts): Plato, Phaedrus and Symposium; some Biblical bits from OT & NT; Augustine in excerpt (any specific recommendations are good!) ; Aquinas in excerpt on the nature of love & friendship (already know which bits I'll use); Descartes in excerpt from Passions of the Soul; a little Freud (from Civilization & its Discontents?); Kierkegaard excerpts from Diary of a Seducer and Works of Love.  Anything obvious I'm leaving out?  Any further suggestions?   Keep in mind this is a very very very intro-level course, and since it's only over 5 weeks, students don't have that much time to absorb.   Given the heavy Christian emphasis (which is inevitable given I'm required to include medieval philosophy), any commentary on love from non-Christian sources would be great, too. Is there any Buddhist stuff on love or pleasure that would be fun?

Comments

[owl-of-minerva.livejournal.com]

hahaha. dig it. I've not read DDC (that's on christian doctrine, right?). I will have to spend some quality time with Augustine this summer; he and I have not hung out since my conversion.

[didymus3000.livejournal.com]

yeah, that's "on christian teaching." it's probably a good thing you haven't spent much time with the b of hippo since the conversion. he might turn you into a reformed anglican.

haha.

[owl-of-minerva.livejournal.com]

I just want to see if some of the stuff that I thought made no sense whatsoever makes some sense now. Or if it still utterly doesn't.