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Philosophy, Religion, and the Meaning of LifeCourse No. 4610 (36 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)Taught by Francis J. AmbrosioGeorgetown UniversityPh.D., Fordham UniversityLink: http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=4610640×480 Xvid .avi128 kbps CBR MP3What is the meaning of life? Is human existence meaningful or absurd? Is it even worth asking this kind of question? Anyone who has ever pondered these fundamental questions has an extraordinary adventure in store.In 36 inspiring lectures, award-winning Professor of Philosophy Francis J. Ambrosio fields the biggest of the “big” questions, in a boldly revealing inquiry into one of the most fundamental of all human concerns.Philosophy, Religion, and the Meaning of Life charts how the question of life’s meaning has been pursued through the ages, highlighting the Western philosophical and religious paths in the human search for meaningful living.Embracing a wide range of perspectives, Professor Ambrosio demonstrates that whether we are philosophically inclined or not, religious or atheistic, cynic or optimist, the question of life’s meaning is shared universally by human beings, as an essential dynamic of human existence itself.In revealing the ways in which our civilization has grasped the question of meaning and by proposing a specific type of purposeful inquiry, these lectures provide you with the tools to come to terms with the question in a direct, practical way. Philosophy, Religion, and the Meaning of Life delivers a clear and useable framework for both understanding the history of the human path to meaning and for navigating that path as an individual, personal concern.Course Lecture Titles1. Meaning—A Question and a Commitment2. Hero and Saint—Mapping the Cultural Genome3. The Heroic Age—The Greek Worldview4. Heroism and the Tragic View of Life5. Plato—Politics, Justice, and Philosophy6. Plato’s Republic—The Hero’s Reward7. The Heroic Ideal in Late Stoicism8. “In the Beginning”—The Hebrew Worldview9. Father Abraham, the First Saint10. Saintly Types in the Hebrew Bible11. Jesus as Saintly Innovator—Forgiving Love12. Hero or Saint? Saul of Tarsus13. Hero or Saint? Augustine of Hippo14. Mohammed—The Prophet as Saintly Innovator15. Saint Francis and Dante—Saintly Troubadours16. The Agony and Ecstasy of Michelangelo17. Enlightenment Patterns of Cultural Mutation18. Mt. Moriah Revisited—Saintly Transgression19. A History of Suspicion—Marx, Darwin, Freud20. Nietzsche—The Return of the Tragic Hero21. Dostoevsky—The Return of the Saint22. A Century of Trauma23. The Quantum Leap24. Existentialism—Sartre and de Beauvoir25. Camus and the Absurd Hero26. Flannery O’Connor and the Mystery of Grace27. The Holocaust and the Crisis of Forgiveness28. Faulkner and Beckett—Images of the Forlorn29. Viktor Frankl—Freedom’s Search for Meaning30. Simone Weil—Imagining the Secular Saint31. Simone Weil—A New Augustine?32. Identifying the Secular Saint33. The Secular Saint at the Movies34. Ernest Becker—The Denial of Death35. Terror and Hope in a Planetary Age36. The Secular Saint—Learning to Walk Upright