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In this class we will read a variety of texts that ponder the question
about the nature of justice and ethical action. We will employ the
tradition canon of literary interpretation employing the fourfold method
of analogical, allegorical, tropological and anagogic reading. So
too, we will assume, in an old fashioned way, that the text is self-justifying,
self-explaining, and self-authenticating: our focus is upon the language
of the text.
A question central to this class throughout the semester is the relation
(if any) between beauty and justice. We will ask if the western canon
of aesthetics, which focuses upon the idea of beauty as a perfected reconciliation
of various oppositions, teaches us about the quality of just action as
a moment where action perfectly conform to the ethical demands of a moment.
The accepted tension between reason and emotion, masculine and feminine,
chaos and order, instinct and reflection, nature and civilization,
and justice and grace are among the set of polarities that will be explored.
In each case, and with each text, we will seek to find a mode of reconciling
the opposition that enables a transcendence of both that produces a third
and greater quality that arguably is an attribute of justice itself.
In addition, we will discuss modes of rhetorical persuasion as it relates
to legal argument and explore the structure of the texts in an effort to
glean the various methods and structures employed to illuminate a matter
or question.
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