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Word Gems
self-knowledge, authentic living, full humanity, continual awakening
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Great Books
Summary and Review
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Aristotle
Nicomachean Ethics – Explores the nature of virtue and the path to human flourishing.
Politics – Examines justice, governance, and the organization of society.
Metaphysics – Investigates the fundamental nature of reality, causality, and being.
De Anima (On the Soul) – Analyzes life, perception, and the powers of the human soul.
Categories – Classifies all things and concepts to reveal how we understand the world.
Prior Analytics – Introduces formal logic and the structure of valid reasoning.
Poetics – Explains the principles of literary art, especially tragedy and imitation.
Rhetoric – Studies the art of persuasion and effective communication in civic life.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spoke Zarathustra - a prophet challenges humanity to go beyond comfort and old morals and strive for transcendence
Plato
Apology - Socrates on trial, his defense of truth and the examined life, even at death’s door.
Charmides - What is self-control? Socrates probes whether true temperance lies in self-knowledge rather than mere restraint.
Crito - Socrates’ friend pleads for his escape the death, and a debate on civil law as morally obligatory.
Euthydemus - A comic duel of logic: Socrates exposes sophists who win arguments through verbal tricks rather than truth.
Euthyphro - A debate on whether religious rightness is defined by deity or by reason.
Gorgias - What is human greatness? and the question of what it means to truly live well.
Ion - Do poets possess knowledge, or divine madness? Socrates suggests artistic brilliance flows from inspiration rather than understanding.
Laches - What is courage? Soldiers and philosophers struggle to define the virtue that stands firm in danger and uncertainty.
Laws - Plato’s final vision of society: detailed laws and institutions designed to guide imperfect humans toward virtue and order.
Meno - An exploration of whether virtue can be taught, and the mysterious nature of knowledge itself.
Parmenides - A devastating critique of Plato’s own Theory of Forms, pushing metaphysics to its most difficult and abstract limits.
Phaedo - Socrates’ final conversation: the immortality of the soul and the philosopher’s readiness for death.
Phaedrus - A dialogue on love, the soul, and the art of rhetoric as a path to truth.
Philebus - Is the good life pleasure or wisdom? Plato argues that the highest life harmonizes intelligence with measured pleasure.
Protagoras - A debate on whether virtue is innate, teachable, or a matter of practice.
The Republic - An inquiry into justice, society, and the possibility of whether an ideal society might be constructed.
Sophist - What separates the philosopher from the sophist? Plato investigates truth, deception, and the strange reality of non-being.
Statesman - Who truly deserves to rule? Plato searches for the genuine statesman amid the confusion of power, expertise, and political illusion.
Symposium - Love as transformative force toward wisdom and ultimate Beauty.
Theaetetus - What is knowledge? Plato examines perception, belief, and reason in one of philosophy’s deepest epistemological investigations.
Timaeus - A cosmological vision of the universe, blending reason, nature, and divine craftsmanship.
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