PHL 3305 Lecture 1

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Course Description

• Foundations of a Catholic Liberal Education
• Logic and Nature
  • Jesus, the incarnate Word, and
  • Mary, the perfect creature

(Aristotelian) Logic

• The "art of arts" and "rational science" according to St. Thomas Aquinas
• art vs science?
  • both are types of knowledge
  • different ends:
    • science is contemplation (knowledge for knowledge's sake)
    • art is oriented toward product (creative)
  • Geometry is also an art and science
    • "construct an equilateral triangle from this line.
  • Logic creates knowledge from existing premises
• Why the "art of arts"
  • purity and simplicity
  • all other disciplines lean on logic for foundation
• Prerequisite: Grammar
• "Liberal arts" are useful?
  • it "frees you"

• Aristotle begins with the existence of knowledge (this is not a given, but not the subject of our course)
  • simple apprehension
  • judgement, or composition and division
  • discursive reasoning: conclusion

Nature

• the natural world
• Aristotle's Physics (fundamentals)