02/09/09

dictionaries

extra credit

final paper quotations

form for short papers

syllabus

topics and readings

writing guidelines

PHI 101, the Quest for Wisdom, is an introductory philosophy course required of all graduates of Saint Leo University. First, we will focus on the question "What is philosophy?" After we have given an answer (not "the answer") and developed it at length together, we will address two "philosophies of personal responsibility": Stoicism and Zen Buddhism. Toward the end of the course, we will address the questions of free will and responsibility, drawing on the insights of the defining philosophy of the twentieth century, existentialism.

For class, you will need "The Yellow Book" (TYB) -- available from the Campus Bookstore -- which will contain the necessary course materials: the syllabus, a daily schedule and list of topics and readings, the University Honor Code, etc. The links to the left will take you to similar course materials that will answer many questions about the class. The online course materials are not "official." When they differ from the materials in TYB, it is correct.

If you want to contact me, call my home [352.588.4734] or email me.

Ernie Williams

    THE ORACLE OF DELPHI

This painting of Pythia, priestess at Delphi, is by John Collier. Ms. Shannon Greer, your Philosophy and Writing Coach, brought this stunning work to my attention.

Ms. Greer also supplied the following:

The Background Story

 Gaia, sometimes called Mother Earth, appointed a monstrous snake named Python to guard the oracle at Delphi. Some say the serpent was born out of the rotting slime left over after the Great Deluge. After Apollo, Greek god of prophecy, music, medicine, and poetry, and sometimes associated with the sun, killed Python with one of his arrows, he claimed the oracle for his own. Python lay rotting at the bottom of the crevasse, her intoxicating fumes of decay rising into the cave.

Collier's Painting

Pythia was the high priestess at Delphi, one of many priests and priestesses devoted to Apollo. Collier paints the mysterious Pythia draped in scarlet, seated on her tripod. She holds a bronze bowl of water taken from the pool of Castalia in her right hand. She uses this bowl of water to scry the oracle. In her left hand, she holds a branch of laurel, the leaves of which she chewed. These are suspected to have produced a hallucinogenic effect, and together with the rotten vapors seeping from the omphalos (defined literally, “navel of the earth”), likely fumes of methane, ethanol, and carbon dioxide, Pythia entered a mildly anoxic, trance-like state, read from the bowl of water, and delivered her message to the waiting querist. One theory suggests this was accomplished only through a mediating priest of Apollo who translated her unintelligible uttering.

http://www.theoi.com/Ther/DrakainaPython.html

http://www.goddess.org/vortices/notes/delphi.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/aticle611319.ece

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This site was last updated 02/09/09