The philosophical impasse that resulted from the conflict between the Ionian empiricism and the Italian rationalism came to Athens toward the beginning of the fifth century b.c. These 'pluralists' favored democracy, and were quite influential during the so-called Greek 'golden age' of Pericles.

By the time the Greeks had weathered the devastating Peloponnesian Wars of the late fifth century, however, the expectations of philosophy had greatly diminished. Skepticism pervaded the atmosphere of Greece, with Sophists and Cynics questioning whether there were ultimately any satisfactory answers to life's great questions.

1. Introduction to the Major Themes of Philosophy
2. The Ionian Philosophers
3. The Italian Philosophers
4. The Athenian Pluralists
5. The Life and Times of Socrates
6. Introduction to Plato
7. Plato's World of the Forms
8. Plato's Parable of the Cave
9. Dualism in Plato
10. Introduction to Aristotle
11. Aristotle's Metaphysics
12. Aristotle's Categories
13. Aristotle's Theory of Language
14. Aristotle's God
15. The Epicureans
16. Stoicism
17. Philo of Alexandria
18. The Christian Synthesis
19. Early Christian Apologists
20. Antiochan Christianity
21. Alexandrian Christianity
22. The Council of Nicaea
23. Manichaeism
24. Neo-Platonism
25. The Life of Augustine
26. Overview of Augustin's Thought
27. Augustin's Epistemology
28. Augustin's Epistemology (part 2)
29. Augustin's Theory of Faith
30. Augustin's Understanding of the Church
31. The Pelagian Controversy
32. The Pelagian Controversy (cont)
33. The Pelagian Controversy (concl)
34. Anselm of Canterbury
35. Anselm's Cur Deus Homo
36. Introduction to the Classical Synthesis
37. The Classical Synthesis (part 2)
38. Thomas Aquinas and the Five Ways
39. Art, Philosophy, and the Renaissance

This wide ranging course starts with the pre-Socratic philosophers of the ancient world, and traces the history of philosophical speculation across the ages up to the present. Included along the way is special attention to the greatest Christian thinkers in history, including Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin and many others.