04 September 2007

My First Reading Assignments

Tomorrow is my first day of classes here, and I have assignments to work on for almost every class already tonight. Welcome to grad school, I suppose.

For my German class, which meets at 8:00 tomorrow, I thankfully do not have any preparatory work. For Political Philosophy, my next class, I have begun to read Plato's republic. Socrates has already had a delightful exchange with a young interlocutor who proposes that "justice" is giving to each his due (a correct proposition in my own opinion).

I resume in the afternoon with Natural Philosophy, for which I have read a chapter of Josef Pieper in which he discusses our increasing inability to really see things as they are. For the same class I have also read two excerpts from Jean Henri Fabre (my first encounter with him) on his observations of processionary caterpillars and of grey crickets. After that comes Ecclesiology: The City of God, in which we are reading, naturally enough, St. Augustine's City of God. I have just finished the introduction, and, after an orientation meeting to which I must run off, I shall also read book one.

Wish me luck!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, John

Once again, I envy you the opportunity to wrap your brain around some really interesting stuff.

Which Pieper are you reading for Natural Philosophy? I am instantly intrigued. . .

And we did miss you at the wedding Sat. I helped sing the Te Deum for the bridal procession; you'd have been proud. . .

Unknown said...

Craig!
It's like old times again! Unfortunately, it's only one chapter of Pieper photocopied in a course packet, rather than a whole book.

The chapter is entitled, "Learning How to See Again," and it's from a book called, "Only the Lover Sings."

If I might judge a book by one chapter, I'd say it's a title worth picking up. I at least hope to read it in full eventually.

Pax!