Political Philosophy by Fr. Schall: 6. Ethics Books 9 & 10

This course was recorded in 2015 in an informal setting by Fr. Schall himself.

Chapters Nine and Ten of the Ethics complete our reading of this great book. Book nine is the second part of Aristotle's discussion on friendship where he looks at the loss of friends and the various kinds of friendship and problems connected with it. Chapter 10 has three parts. The first is a completion of the discussion on pleasure that was at the end of Chapter 7. The middle chapters of the Ethics return to and complete Aristotle's discussion of friendship. Here he gives his final definition of happiness and explains how it transcends politics itself. These middle paragraphs of Book 10 are among the most beautiful and important in all of Aristotle. Finally, Aristotle takes his transition to the economics and politics, which are taken up more fully in the Politics. Aristotle makes this transition through a discussion of lack of virtue and the need of coercion.

 

For over 35 years, Fr. James Schall taught Political Philosophy at Georgetown University, where he was legendary among generations of students.  If you want an experience of what those students enjoyed, this course is the place to begin.  Fr. Schall starts with Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics and then, with wisdom and wit, guides his listeners through the thought of the great Roman statesman Cicero, the French Catholic philosopher Yves Simon, the Old and New Testaments, the political thought of St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas on Law, Machiavelli, politics in the plays of Shakespeare, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Nietzsche, and finally, Plato’s masterwork, the Republic.  It is a historical and intellectual tour de force in 60 lectures.  What generations of students had to pay thousands of dollars in tuition to hear, you can now have in recorded lectures to listen to over and over again.  In preserving the lectures of Fr. Schall, we at the Catholic International University feel that we are fulfilling the mission set by our founder Ralph McInerny:  to make the best Catholic lectures available as widely as possible to the public. Please don’t miss this opportunity to engage in one of the greatest intellectual journeys you’ll ever take with one of this generation’s wisest guides.

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