Using the course texts as a basis for your discussion, write a thesis-driven essay that answers the to either of
the following questions:
A. Develop the relevance of the course texts to the “background practices” that make up your own, personal
being-in-the-world (Links to an external site.). If a course text no longer speaks to our background practices,
explain why.
“The task of the craftsperson in not to generate the meaning (of the world; a significant life), but rather to
cultivate in one’s self the skill for discerning the meanings that are already there (in the world).” (All Things
Shining. 209. My edit.)
Suggested themes of still relevant background practices reflected in the texts:
• Homer: moods, shared great events, remembrance of greatness of tales told/remembered.
• Homer: excellence across worlds (i.e., how Odysseus is polymetis)
• Aeschylus: Familial loyalty/vengeance versus duty to the state/justice.
• Aeschylus: passions/emotion v. reason/disinterestedness.
• Plato: Socrates and the conflict between knowledge and opinion in the polis.
• Augustine: Excellence consists in renouncing what is bodily/desire (i.e., the flesh) and embracing the
immateriality and goodness of God as the face of ultimate reality. The significance of one’s autobiography (first
person account of inwardness; otherwise private) before God.
• Dante: Punishment for not renouncing one’s will. Classification of the severity of sin.