Dr. Travis Holloway - PHI 205- Ethics

This course fulfills three credits of the Humanities General Education requirement.

 

Description: This course will savor the history, art, thought, and pleasure of Florence by studying the work of Florentine philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527). By visiting the Piazza del Duomo and the famous Uffizi Gallery that houses masterpieces of Renaissance art, we will track the transition from a powerful Church to the celebration of the human being. We will visit the tombs of Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Galileo, and others in Florence. We will enter the central residence of the powerful Medici family in Florence, to whom Machiavelli’s initial work, The Prince, is addressed. We will explore the Italian Renaissance in the city where it all happened. As we consider the Renaissance’s reclamation of an ancient, pre-Christian culture, students will be encouraged to visit the nearby ruins of Ancient Rome, which form the backdrop of Machiavelli’s second major work, Discourses on Livy. After our journey through Machiavelli’s Florence, the Italian Renaissance, and Ancient Rome, our course will conclude with a discussion about contemporary Italian ethical life, comparing to ethical life in the United States.