C

Read textbook Fiero, G. K. (2007). Landmarks in humanities (4^th ed). New York: NY McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 9781259544927 “Chapter 9 Encounter Contact and the Clash of Culture, Chapter 10 Baroque: Piety and Extravagance, Chapter 11, "Enlightenment: Science and the New Learning, and Chapter 12, "Romanticism: Nature, Passion, and the Sublime" to answers the following questions:

An Arresting Moment – Everyone has a favorite song, one that always makes us stop and listen, takes us back in time, or evokes strong feelings. Tell us about the music that affects you in this way. What sensations, thoughts, feelings, and choices overwhelm you when you hear this song? (Remember, it is not the words that matter here—that is poetry, and this week we are focused on music.)

How does this auditory experience compare with the "conversation starter" story we considered in the discussion in Unit 1? Is there a basic life lesson in the power of music to influence our lives?

Classical Music – Our textbook readings for this unit include descriptions of the work of many composers from the classical and romantic periods. If you have the ability to do so, please listen to a few samples of the music created by these composers. Which features of music theory, as outlined in the unit introduction, do they contain?

What is your favorite piece of classical music? Why does this particular selection appeal to you more than any other?

Price and Dignity – Immanuel Kant argued that everything in the world has either price or dignity. The difference is that things with price can be substituted for each other whenever their value is equivalent. Dignity, on the other hand, is always unique to the individual that has it; the value of these individuals can never be replaced with anything else. Things have price; people have dignity. How does this fit with the notions of intrinsic and instrumental value?

What consequences does this distinction have for the ethical choices we make in everyday life? Kant held that this provides a rational philosophical basis for morality, under which we should treat people as ends in themselves and never as means to some other end. Does this approach help us to understand the different roles played by scientific thinking and the humanities?

Science and the Humanities – Much of modern science can be characterized as the slow but steady recognition that human beings do not occupy a uniquely privileged position in the natural world. Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler showed that the Earth is not the center of the universe. Sir Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle identified natural processes that generate natural phenomena without regard for human concerns. And Charles Darwin established that our very existence as a species is the result of an ongoing process that began long before our appearance, and will continue long after we are gone.

What has this progressive displacement of any claim to human centrality or superiority done for our sense of the meaning of our lives and culture? How can the humanities interpret human significance in the face of such facts?