Great Books of the Western World Syntopicon Reference

Plato Apology

Angels
1.Inferior deities or demi-gods in polytheistic religion

Art
5.The sources of art in experience, imagination, and inspiration

Astronomy
8b. Soul and intellect in the heavenly bodies

9a. The sun: its position, distance, size, and mass

9b. The moon: its irregularities
12. The worship of the earth, sun, moon, and stars
13. The history of astronomy

Citizen
1. The individual in relation to the state
5. The virtues of the citizen and the virtues of the good man

Courage
1. The nature of courage
7a. The courage required of citizens and statesmen: the political recognition of courage
7b. Courage in relation to law and liberty
7c. Courage in war

DIALECTIC

5. The spheres of dialectic and rhetoric: proof

and persuasion

Duty

4. The sense of duty

5. The derivation of duty from divine, natural, and civil law, and from the categorical imperative of
reason

7. The relation of duty to justice and to rights: oaths and promises

10. Political obligation: cares, functions, loyaties.

11. Duty to God: piety and worship

Education

1. The ends of education

4a. The possibility and limits of moral education: knowledge and virtue
4c. The role of the state in moral education: law, custom, public opinion
5a. The profession of teaching: the relation of
teacher and student
5h. The means and methods of teaching
8b. The economic. support of educational institutions

Emotion

2a. Definitions of particular passions

4a(2) The strength of reason or will
5d. The devices of oratory: emotional persuasion

Eternity

5. The knowledge and imagery of eternity

Fate

2. The fated or inevitable in human Iife.

GOD

1. The polytheistic conception of the super-

natural order
1a. The nature and existence of the gods
1e. The intervention of the gods in the affairs of men: their judgment of the deserts of
men
3d. Obedience to God or the gods
10. The denial of God orthegods,orofasuper- natural order: the position ofthe atheist

Good and Evil

3e. Right and wrong: the social incidence of the good; doing or suffering good and
evil
4c. Goods of the body and goods ofthe soul
4d. Intrinsic and external goods: intrinsic worth and extrinsic value
5d. The supremacy of the individual or the common good: the relation of the good of the individual
person to the good of other persons and to the good of the state

Government

3d(1) The powers and duties of the judiciary

3d(2) Judicial institutions and. procedures

Happiness

2b(7) The function of knowledge and wisdom in the happy life: the place of speculative activity and
contemplation
4b. The attainability of happiness: the fear of death and the tragic view of human life
6. The happiness of men in relation to the gods or the after-life
Honor

2. Honor and fame in the life of the individual

2a. The sense of honor and of shame: loyalty to the good
2b. Honor as an object of desire and as a Jactor in virtue and happiness.)
2e. Honor as due self.esteem: magnanimity or proper pride
2e. Honor as the pledge of friendship: the codes of honor among social equals
3b. The conditions of honor or fame and the causes of dishonor or infamy
5a. Honor as a motivation of heroism
5c. The occasions of heroism in war and peace

Immortality

1. 'I'he desire for immortality: the fear of death

2. The knowledge of immortality: arguments for and against personal survival
3. Belief in immortality
4. The moral significance of immortality: rewards and sanctions
5, Conceptions of the after-life
5j. The state of the blessed: Heaven

Justice

4. The comparison of justice and expediency: he choice between doing and suffering injustice; the
relation of justice to happiness
9e. The just distribution of honors, ranks,offices, suffrage
10b. The legality of unjust laws: the extent of obedience required of the just man in
the unjust society
lIb. Man's debt to God or the gods: the reli-gious acts of piety and worship

Knowledge

44. Knowledge and truth: the differentiation of knowledge, error, and ignorance
5c. Dogmatism, skepticism, and the critical attitude with respect to the extent, certainty, and finality
of human knowledge
7 a. Human and divine knowledge
9a. The means and methods of communicating knowledge
9b. The value of the dissemination of knowledge: freedom of discussion

Language

12. The language of God or the gods: the deliverances of the oracles; the inspiration, revelation, and
interpretation of Sacred Scripture

Law

5g. The application of positiye law to cases:the casuistry of the judicial process; the conduct of a
trial; the administration of justice
6. Law and the individual
611. Obedience to the authority and force of law: the sanctions of conscience and fear; the objective
a~d subjective sanctions of law; law, duty, and right
6c. The force of tyrannical, unjust, or bad laws:the right of rebellion or disobedience
6d. The educative function of law in relation to virtue and vice: the efficacy of law as limited by
virtue in the individual citizens
9. The legal profession and the study of law: praise and dispraise of lawyers . And judges

Liberty

2. The issues oj civil liberty. 2a. Freedom oj thought and expression: the problem of censorship.
2b. Liberty of conscience and religious freedom

Life and Death

8c. The contemplation and fear of death: the attitude of the hero, the philosopher, the martyr

Love

1f. The power of hate

Man

6b. The differences between men and women: their equality or inequality
10. Man's conception of himself and bhplace in the world. 1 Oa. Man's understanding of bis relation
to the gods or God.)

Mind

4b. The mentality of children

Opinion

5a. Rights and duties with respect to the expression of opinion

7a. The value of the majority opinion: the distinction between matters to be determined by the
expert or by a consensus

Philosophy

4a. The philosophic mode of life: contemplation and happiness

4e. The social role of philosophy: the philosopher and the statesman; the philosopher king
5. The character and training of the philosopher: the difficulty of being a philosopher
\a. The philosopher as a man of science or wisdom: the love and search for truth
7. Observations on the history of philosophy: the lives of the philosophers in relation to their
thought

Pleasure and Pain

4c(2) The pleasure and pain of learning and knowledge

10b. The use of pleasure and pain by orator or statesman in persuasion and government

Poetry

3. The inspiration or genius of the poet: the influence of the poetic tradition.
5a. The aim of poetry to instruct as well as to delight: the pretensions or deceptions of the poet as
teacher
8c. The interpretation of poetry

Prophecy

la. Prophecy as the reading of fate, the foretelling of fortune, the beholding of the future
3tf. The institution of oracles: the interpretation of oracular or prophetic utterances
3c. Dreams, visions, visitations

Prudence

6b. Jurisprudence: prudence in the determination of laws and the adjudication of cases

Punishment

2a. Free will in relation to responsibility and punishment: voluntariness in relation to guilt or fault;
the accidental, the negligent, and the intentional
4b. The forms of punishment available to the state
4b(1) The death penalty: its justification,)
4b(2) Exile or ostracism: imprisonment or incarceration
4d. Grades of seventy in punishment: making the punishment fit the crime

Religion

2. The virtue and practice of religion: piety as justice to God

7. Historical observations concerning religious beliefs, institutions, and controversies

Revolution

la. The issue concerning violent and peaceful means for accomplishing social, political, or
economic
6a. The right of rebellion: the circumstances justifying civil disobedience or violent insurrection

Rhetoric

la. The distinction of rhetoric from dialectic and sophistry: the rhetorician and the philosopher
Ic. The relation of rhetoric to the arts of government: the orator and the statesman
3c. The use of language for persuasion: oratorical style
4b. The orator's treatment of emotion: his display of emotion; the arousal of his audience
5. The evaluation of oratory and the orator: the justification of rhetorical means by the end of
success in persuasion
5a. The purpose of oratory and the exigencies of truth
5b. The orator's concern with justice, law, and the good: the moral virtue of the orator
7. The history of oratory: its importance under various social conditions and in different forms of
government
8. Examples of excellence in oratory

Sign and Symbol

5b.Supernatural Signs: Omens, portents, visitations, dreams, miracles

5e. The interpretation of the word of God
Soul
1.Conceptions of soul
4b.The issue concerning the self-subsistence or immortality of the human soul: its existence or
capacity for existence in separation from the human body

State
7b. The importance of the arts and sciences in political life
8e. The advantages and disadvantages of participation in political life

Truth
4d. Truth and probability in rhetoric and dialectic
8a. Prevarication and perjury: the injustice of lying or bearing false witness
8c. Truth in relation to love and friendship: the pleasant and the unpleasant truth
8e. The love of truth and the duty to seek it: the moral distinction between the sophist and the
philosopher; martyrdom to the truth

Virtue an Peace
7b. Civic virtue: the virtue of the good citizen compared with the virtue of the good man
l0c. The military virtues: the qualities of the professional soldier; education for war

Wealth
10a. The nature of wealth as a good: its place in the order of goods and its relation to happiness

Wisdom

1a. Diverse conceptions of natural wisdom: the supreme form of human knowledge
1b. The distinction between speculative and practical wisdom, or between philosophical and
political wisdom
Id. The wisdom of God: the defect of human wisdom compared with divine wisdom; the folly or
vanity of worldly wisdom
2c. Wisdom life; as a good: its role in the happy the place of the wise man in society
3. The love of wisdom and the steps to wisdom: the sophist, the philosopher, and the wise man