Holy Spirit Preparatory School - Philosophy Department

Personalized
Learning at
Holy Spirit Prep

The Philosophy Department at Holy Spirit Prep

	Department Links & Articles
	First Things Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture St. Mary's Philosophy Resources The Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy The Jacques Maritain Center Notre Dame Catholic Philosophers’ Websites: Fred Freddoso
	John Haldane Peter Kreeft Eleonore Stump Scott MacDonald Paul J. Griffiths Robert Spaemann Bio Robert Spaemann Paper Charles Taylor Philosophy Papers of Interest for Catholics and other Christians: Richard Swinburne, “The Existence of God.” Robert Spaemann, “Rationality and Faith in God.”
Philosophy Department Philosophy The Philosophy program at Holy Spirit Preparatory School has two major goals. The first goal to give students an understanding of the history of Western philosophy from its Classical roots in Plato and Aristotle through the medieval tradition (especially Augustine and Thomas Aquinas) and up to the contemporary scene. Second, courses are designed to help students acquire the critical, analytical, and logical skills needed to read philosophical texts and to evaluate important philosophical issues and questions. There is an emphasis on the Big Questions with which philosophers everywhere have grappled throughout history. For example: What is the good life for a human being? What is happiness? What is mind? What is human freedom? What is the relationship between Faith and Reason? What is a human person? How can we justify our judgments of right and wrong? What philosophical arguments have been offered for and against God's existence? What is the nature and scope of human knowledge? "Men and women have at their disposal an array of resources for generating greater knowledge of truth so that their lives may be ever more human Among these is philosophy, which is directly concerned with asking the question of life's meaning and sketching an answer to it." ---John Paul II "Philosophy is the practical integration of an answer to the question of how one ought to act as a human being in the world as one conceives it to be, with a true understanding of what it is to be a human being, of what it is for there to be a world, and of what is involved in thinking truly and acting rightly." ---John Haldane "Philosophy is a matter of concern for plain persons before it is a matter of concern for professional philosophers." --Ralph McInerny "All human beings are in some sense philosophers and have their own philosophical conceptions with which they direct their lives." --John Paul II
© Holy Spirit Preparatory School 2008