Phil 43811:  Chesterton

Freddoso

Malloy 304/631-7327

E-mail: afreddos@nd.edu

Home page: http://www.nd.edu/~afreddos

Purpose----Texts----Requirements---- Syllabus----Presentation-----Term Paper----On-line texts, notes, and papers----Presentation Assignments


Purpose of Course:  Though Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was not a 'trained philosopher', a trained philosophical eye can see that he is nonetheless a deep and insightful philosopher.  Perhaps the best Catholic apologist of his time, he anticipated as early as 1908 the turn from modernism to post-modernism in the late 20th century, found interesting and creative ways to propound Catholic doctrine, and developed many provocative criticisms of the contemporary alternatives to Catholicism. What's more, mirabile dictu, he did all of this with literary elegance, panache, and humor--a combination that is both hard to beat and not often encountered in philosophy courses for majors. This course will feature Chesterton's two greatest philosophical works, Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man, in addition to his semi-biographical work on the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas.  (Also featured will be "The Arena," Chesterton's poem about Notre Dame football and, time permitting, the Father Brown short story "Queer Feet.")  The course will be a genuine seminar coupled with moral edification for the students -- when there are class presentations, the instructor will have his mouth taped for the first 45 minutes of the class, thus exhibiting a truly heroic example of self-restraint that the students can learn from.  :-)

Prerequisites:  Even though there are no formal prerequisites for this course, students who have already taken both Phil 30301 and Phil 30302 will, ceteris paribus, get the most out of the course.

Texts: I have ordered the following texts for the course, even though Orthodoxy, The Everlasting Man, and St. Thomas Aquinas are all available on the web:

  • G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Ignatius Press)
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  • G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (Ignatius Press)
  • G. K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas/St. Francis of Assisi (Ignatius Press)

Requirements:
  • Presentations. During the course of the semester each student will be expected to prepare one brief (15-20 minute/5-page) presentation for the class.  A copy should be provided electronically for each student on the day before the presentation is to be given.  See below for more details (30% of grade).
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  • Class Participation (20% of course grade).  This includes submitting a question about the reading for each day to the instructor by email by 11:00 AM on that day.
     
  • Term Paper. You are required to write a 12-15 page paper, worth 50% of the course grade. A 2-3 page proposal, plus outline, is to be submitted for approval on or before November 12; the paper itself is to be handed in on or before the last class day, December 10. See below for more details.

Tentative Syllabus:
  • Week 2 (9/3 and 9/5):  The critique of modernism and postmodernism
    • Orthodoxy, chaps. 1-3
    • The Everlasting Man, appendix II
  • Week 3 (9/10 and 9/12):  The elfish alternative to modernism and postmodernism
    • Orthodoxy, chaps. 4-5
  • Week 4 (9/17 and 9/19):  Christianity, paradox, and revolution
    • Orthodoxy, chaps. 6-7
  • Week 5 (9/24 and 9/26):  Romance and authority
    • Orthodoxy, chaps. 8-9
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  • Week 6 (10/1 and 10/3): Cavemen and professors
    • The Everlasting Man, Introduction and Part I, chaps. 1-3
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  • Week 7 (10/8 and 10/10): Religious pluralism, Chesterton-style
    • The Everlasting Man, Part I, chaps. 4-6
       
  • Week 8 (10/15 and 10/17): Good and bad paganism, and their demise in the Arena 
    • The Everlasting Man, Part I, chaps. 7-8
    • "The Arena"  (poem about Notre Dame football, contrasting bad pagan 'entertainment' with Christian entertainment)
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  • Week 9 (10/29 and 10/31): The Cave-God and the Gospels as you've never seen them before 
    • The Everlasting Man, Part II, chaps. 1-2

  • Week 10 (11/5 and 11/7): Strangeness and heretics 
    • The Everlasting Man, Part II, chaps. 3-4
  • Week 11 (11/12 and 11/14): Good paganism redivivus and the resiliency of the Faith 
    • The Everlasting Man, Part II, chaps. 5-6 and conclusion
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  • Week 12 (11/19 and 11/21): The runaway abbot ignites the Aristotelian revolution 
    • St. Thomas Aquinas, Introductory Note and chaps. 1-3
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  • Week 13 (11/26 and 11/28): Manicheanism and St. Thomas 
    • St. Thomas Aquinas, chaps. 4-5
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  • Week 14 (12/3 and 12/5):  Philosophia perennis 
    • St. Thomas Aquinas, chaps. 6-8

  • Week 15 (12/10):  A short story for fun
The Presentation
Each presentation will occupy a class period, i.e., 75 minutes.  The paper you write for the presentation should be about 5 pages, double-spaced in a 12 pt. font with one-inch margins.  This paper must be distributed electronically to the instructor and the class by at least 12:00 noon on the day before the presentation is scheduled.  During the class time devoted to your presentation, you may use no more than 30 minutes to present your paper.  Even though you have a right to assume that everyone has read both the material from St. Thomas and your paper, you may nonetheless simply read your paper.   Other options are just to point out the highlights or points you find interesting or problematic or obscure, etc. You are in charge of the class during your 75 minutes (give or take a few minutes for magisterial teaching).  How you do this is up to you, though you are obligated to take and answer (or try to answer) questions from others in the seminar. 

As for the content of the paper, you are not obligated to discuss every point Chesterton makes in the material you are presenting, though you must be prepared to answer all questions based on the text.  You are expected to cover the important points.  You do not have to present the material in the exact order in which Chesterton presents it.  In fact, you should try to find ways of re-ordering the material so as to make the big picture more evident to others in the seminar -- who have, of course, already read the material (and your paper) with extreme care.  After all, this preparation is part of the class participation component of the grade.  (Yes, I can tell whether you've prepared well or not.  A few well-aimed questions are sufficient.)


The Term Paper
The main project for this course is a 12-15 page paper which is to be submitted on or before the last class day (December 10); a 2-3 page proposal is due on or before November 12. In what follows I will try to give you some clear indication of what I am looking for in both the paper and the proposal.
  • Comments about the paper:
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    •  The topic of the paper should be connected in some fairly recognizable way with our readings and discussions.  You may try a deeper discussion of some point discussed in class.  You might pick out another work of Chesterton's and zero in on some topic that is prominent in that work.  There are other possibilities as well.
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    • The paper is a fairly long one, and so you will have to plan it carefully. I expect the paper to move forward at well-marked junctures instead of merely talking around one or another point in order to fill space. I especially do not want a paper consisting primarily of loosely connected observations about some topic. Further, every paper must begin with an introduction that tells the reader exactly what you mean to do in the paper and how each section of the paper is related in general to your topic.
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    •  I expect the paper to be stylistically and grammatically beyond reproach. I will take off for sloppy sentence-structure, misspellings, dangling participles, etc. Proofreading is absolutely essential.

  • Comments about the proposal:
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    • The proposal should contain two parts, viz., a narrative and an outline. The narrative should be a two-page (or so) description of the thesis or interpretation you wish to defend and of the steps by which you will defend it. In order to write this sort of narrative you already have to have a fairly detailed idea of what you want to do and the series of steps by which you propose to do it. In general, your strategy must be to construct a logical sequence of steps which will correspond to the main divisions of the paper. Here is one possible example of what I have in mind: (i) exposition of a given author's view on such-and-such, (ii) three criticisms, (iii) objections to the criticisms, (iv) reply to the objections. There are numerous other possibilities as well; the main thing is to order your paper in a coherent and logical sequence.
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    • The outline that accompanies the narrative should make graphically clear the main divisions and subdivisions in the text. This outline should include more than just the three or four main headings; I want to see some subheadings within each of those main divisions, so that I will have a reasonably clear idea of how the paper is supposed to progress.
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      I encourage you to try your ideas out on one another and I also encourage you to consult with me before the proposal deadline if you think it will be helpful--either after class or by making an appointment to see me at some other time.