JUSTICE, NATURE, & LAW: FROM THE POLITICS OF SOCIETY TO THE RULES OF THE NATURAL WORLD

In what sense does nature have laws? In what sense can human laws be by nature? We will read Sophocles’ Antigone and Plato’s Republic to think about the relationship of nature and justice to the laws of the city. Connecting literature and philosophy to the laboratory, we read Pascal’s treatises on pressure to consider force and counterforce in nature and the lawful relationship between them. And we will explore justice and law at work, in the nation, the family, and the human heart, reading stories by Franz Kafka, Flannery O’Connor, and Eudora Welty.