Honors 183: Construction of Reality

Goals: This course will utilize resources from multiple disciplines - philosophy, art, literature, science, medicine, theology - to address an intellectually vexing question whose answer has many practical consequences: what constitutes reality? One major theme throughout the course will be the mind/brainÕs contribution to the construction of reality; a recurring ÒsidebarÓ to this theme will be disorders of mind/brain and their consequences for disordered constructions of reality. A second major theme during the course will be the nature of ÒevidenceÓ and its bearing on the establishment of truth.

Format: As a seminar, a major goal of this course is for students to be deeply involved in framing questions, identifying resources for answering those questions and, finally, evaluating the validity and generality of those answers. Scholarly research is the foundation of this process. The teacherÕs role is the same as the studentÕs: the common pursuit of knowledge and understanding. It is anticipated that most of the significant learning in this course will take place outside of the designated class times. Class meetings provide the opportunity to reflect on and share with others the progress of your investigations into the nature of reality.