One of the deepest and most lasting legacies of Descartes’ philosophy is his thesis that mind and body are really distinct—a thesis now called “mind-body dualism.” He reaches this conclusion by arguing that the nature of the mind (that is, a thinking, non-extended thing) is completely different from that of the body (that is, an extended, non-thinking thing), and therefore it is possible for one to exist without the other.
This argument gives rise to the famous problem of mind-body causal interaction still debated today: how can the mind cause some of our bodily limbs to move (for example, raising one’s hand to ask a question), and how can the body’s sense organs cause sensations in the mind when their natures are completely different?
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Sign up for our online course and learn about Greek Tragedy
What is this online course about?
This online course is all about Greek tragedies. They were a form of theatre written and performed in 5th Century B.C. Greece to honour the God Dionysius.
The playwrights behind the tragedy
The three most famous playwrights were Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus who competed in and won competitions every year. Traditionally, Greek tragedies were trilogies, with each play ending in a moment of catharsis experienced by the protagonist. Unfortunately, except for one, no complete trilogy has survived. The tragedies included in this Online Interest Course are The Agamemnon, Medea, Sophocles’ Electra and the classic Sophocles’ play Antigone.
Sign up for our online interest course in Virgil’s Aeneid
What is this online course about?
The Aeneid by the Roman poet Virgil is an epic poem in 12 books that tells the story of the foundation of Rome from the ashes of Troy. It was probably written down in Rome from 30-19 BC during the period of the Emperor Augustus.
The poem is named after the Trojan hero Aeneas, the son of Venus (Aphrodite in Greek mythology) and Anchises, a Trojan aristocrat. Aeneas leads the survivors from the sack of Troy through the Mediterranean, and ultimately to the site of (future) Rome. The Aeneid is therefore a classic foundation narrative.
As with other ancient epics, our hero has to remain resolute in the face of significant divine hostility. Juno, queen of heaven and goddess of marriage, despises the Trojans because she lost a divine beauty contest known as the Judgement of Paris. Venus wins the Judgement by giving a bribe to Paris, a Trojan prince who acts as judge. The bribe is in the form of Helen of Sparta, the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris prefers this bribe to the bribes of the other two contestants – Juno and Minerva.
Sign up for our online course in Ethics and Moral Philosophy
What is this online course about?
This short Online Interest Course covers the main arguments within Philosophy with a key focus on the Ethics side. It covers a range of key thinkers famous in this subject ranging from Aristotle and St Thomas Aquinas all the way up to more recent thinkers like Hobbes and Kant. There is an element of where one’s own pleasure is limited by its impact on other people and how we can avoid damaging others in pursuit of our own goals. Is it more ethical to pursue the greatest good for the greatest number of people?
Sign up for our online interest course in Personhood
What is this online course about?
Who am I? Outside of philosophy, ‘personal identity’ usually refers to properties to which we feel a special sense of attachment or ownership. Someone’s personal identity in this sense consists of those properties she takes to “define her as a person” or “make her the person she is”, and which distinguish her from others.
Personhood. What is it to be a person, as opposed to a nonperson? What have we people got that nonpeople haven’t got? More specifically, we can ask at what point in our development from a fertilized egg there comes to be a person, or what it would take for a chimpanzee or a Martian or an electronic computer to be a person, if they could ever be.
