Midterm report presentations, Spring '26

Take a look at the schedule, make sure you're on it:

Select a topic related to the day's scheduled assigned reading OR to one of the RECOMMENDED texts #1-8 on reserve in the library, below* (focus on the first couple of chapters, if you wish you can return to the rest of it for your final report presentation later) OR on one of the additional RECOMMENDED (but not reserved) texts.**

Plan to speak for about ten minutes, then give us a discussion question or two and direct the discussion. We'll do two presentations per class. If you can find a suitable way to incorporate a library-produced podcast and/or video into your report presentation (as we learned about on our Library Day tour), you're welcome to do so.

If it's a nice day and the class decides to go outside, be prepared to present your report without technological support - you can do a PowerPoint (etc.) and post it, but we'll look at it when we're inside.

Indicate your date & topic preferences in the comments space below, and include your section # (1, 2, or 3). Don't request a topic someone in your section has already requested. First come, first served.

When selecting from a list of philosophers to be covered on a given date, just pick one or two.

Before your assigned report date, post your sources in the comments space below. 

An accompanying blog post is optional on this report, but will be required for the final report in April. If you wish to accompany your midterm presentation with a blog post, you'll need to sign up as an Author on the site. 

FEB

10 Machiavelli and/or Hobbes - #1 Shane #2 Sarah A #3 Josie

*How [some of] the World Thinks - #1 Sarah

**________________ -

12 *Montaigne, Descartes, and/or Pascal

Pascal - #1 Artin

Descartes - #2 Ben

Additional options today:

🐟Darwin (in honor of Int'l Darwin Day) - #1 Sakina

❤Plato's Symposium (in honor of Valentines Day, and your Prof's b'day) - #1 Zariayana

17 Spinoza or Locke & Reid -

*_Locke - #1 Rylie #3 Natalie M

Sartre - #2 Ava Oops: that should be MARCH 17

19 Berkeley, Leibniz, Hume, or Rousseau -

*Rousseau - #1 Megan #2 aidyn

**How to Think Like Marcus Aurelius - #3 Chenoa

          Leibniz - #1 Daniel

24 Kant, Bentham, Hegel, or Schopenhauer -

Kant - #1 Jayden #2 Laura

Bentham - #2 John #3 Christopher

Schopenhauer - #2 Ribka #3 Alina

26 Mill, Darwin, Kierkegaard, or Marx-

Mill - #2 Dean F

Marx - #1 Evie  #2 Amelia

Kierkegaard - #1 Sami

Darwin - #1 Sakina

MAR

3 Peirce & James, Nietzsche, or Freud -

*Freud - #2 thatgirldayz

**Peirce/James - #2 Simeon

          Nietzsche - #1 Haylie #2 Liam #3 Presley

5 Exam 1.

Spring Break

17 [Happy Green Day!] Russell, Ayer, Sartre, de Beauvoir, or Camus -

de Beauvoir - #1 Natalie 

Russell - #1 Ainsley

Ayer - #2 Truett 

         Camus - #2 Caleb

         Sartre - #2 - Ava

19 Wittgenstein, Arendt, Popper & Kuhn, or Foot & Thomson -

Wittgenstein - #1 Kiersten #2 Johnathane #3 Shaun

Popper & Kuhn - #1 Graham W

24 Rawls, Turing & Searle, or Singer; or WGU Introduction thru p.35 -

*________________ -

**________________ -

*RECOMMENDED TEXTS on 3-day library reserve, at the circulation desk:

1. How the World Thinks (HWT) by Julian Baggini - because Western philosophy is not the whole story.
2. Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, a 500-Year History by Kurt Andersen (FL) - because the contemporary crisis of American democracy is rooted in our history.
3. How to Think Like Socrates, by Donald J. Robertson - because he was, as the Monty Python song says, "a lovely little thinker..."
4. How to Think Like Marcus Aurelius, by Donald J. Robertson - because he was a wise stoic and emperor, as close to a Philosopher-King as we've had or are likely to get.
5. The Philosopher Queens: the lives and legacies of philosophy's unsung women, by Rebecca Buxton and Lisa Whiting - because women have always philosophized too.
6. Starry Messenger: cosmic perspectives on civilization, by Neil deGrasse Tyson - because we are cosmopolitans, citizens of the cosmos.
7. Question Everything: A Stone Reader, eds. Catapano and Critchley - short popular essays by contemporary philosophers published in the New York Times, because philosophy is relevant to contemporary issues.
8. Three Roads Back: How Emerson, Thoreau, and William James Responded to the Greatest Losses of Their Lives by Robert Richardson - because we'll all eventually lose someone close.
9. Be Not Afraid of Life: In the Words of William James-companion anthology to Sick Souls Healthy Minds by John Kaag - because William James can save your life, or at least ameliorate it.
10. Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help by Kieran Setiya - because we'll all eventually be challenged by something hard.
11. Night Vision: seeing ourselves through dark moods, by Mariana Allesandri - because all is not sunshine and light.

**ADDITIONALLY RECOMMENDED (but not currently on library reserve, in the stacks)

• Arthur Schopenhauer: The Life and Thought of Philosophy's Greatest Pessimist, by David Bather Woods
• Kant: A Revolution in Thinking, by Marcus Willaschek
• Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial that Riveted a Nation, by Brenda Wineapple. About the Scopes Trial in Dayton TN, 1925.
• Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life, by Agnes Callard (our Spring '25 Lyceum guest)
• The Varieties of Experience: William James After the Linguistic Turn, by Alexis Dianda (our Spring '26 Lyceum guest). About the philosophical importance of experience, even when philosophers cannot put it into words.
• Thinking in Transit: Explorations of Life in Motion, by Ed Casey and Megan Craig. About the value of philosophy that literally moves, co-authored by our Fall '25 Lyceum guest Megan Craig