November 28, 2018
Welcome back to the High School Corner!
This semester, the high school guides organized a philosophy class to complement our world history studies and further prepare us for our trip to Greece and Italy. Each Wednesday, we drive to the University of St. Thomas to attend our class taught by Dr. John Hittinger, a professor at UST.
With Dr. Hittinger, we learned about the ideals of three monumental philosophers: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. As we familiarized ourselves more with philosophy as a whole, we explored the connections between faith and reason by discussing their compatibility. In addition, we read and discussed The Apology of Socrates by Plato, which presents the speech of legal self-defense that Socrates gave at his trial for impiety and corruption. We learned about the status of the Athenian democracy during Socrates’ time and how society would have viewed him.
More recently, we have had the opportunity to dive into some fascinating moral quandaries with Ms. Catherine Langley, an adjunct professor of philosophy at UST. Under Ms. Langley’s guidance, we dissected sections from The Republic by Plato such as the “Analogy of the Divided Line” and “The Allegory of the Cave.” Reading these works gave us ample opportunity to reflect on questions such as “Is it better to commit an injustice or suffer an injustice?” and “What is ultimate happiness?”
This class has certainly helped further our critical thinking and analysis skills while also adding another dimension to our historical and theological worldview, and we are sad that it is coming to an end. We are beyond excited to see the world we have been reading about in philosophy come to life when we visit Athens, and we hope to have many similar opportunities in the future!
Thank you for reading, and we will be back next week!