Ten Books
- Plato’s Dialogues
- Aristotle’s Psychology and Ethics
- Plotinus’ Fifth Ennead
- Augustine’s Confessions
- Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
- Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death
- Buber’s I and Thou
- Taylor’s Sources of the Self
- Bible/Tao te Ching/Sutras
- The Brothers Karamazov
Turning the Soul
A 21st CE curriculum focused on developing the concern for something greater than oneself.
I believe that a systematic approach to reading is necessary. Reading books without their context is not worth one’s time and can possibly harm the uninitiated by coming to endorse whacky and bizarre ideas. The smattering approach found within liberal arts curricula can confuse more than it can clarify. While the smattering approach follows the ballooning of the population throughout the 19th and 20th CE and the belief that no system can capture the whole, there is such a thing as a sufficient general education, which should precede any technical training.
The following sequence is only the material for an education that aims to at holistic development of mind, body and spirit and thereby the emergence of virtue, and thus critical thinking paired with gratitude and compassion. As to the mind, training in language and logic; as to the body, general movement for our sedentary times; as to the spirit, refer to pieces on contemplation generally.
Year 1
10 courses general education
Year 2
10 courses general education
Ten Stories
- Soul
- The Great Debaters
- Brave New World