OLLI101614 - Toward the Meaning of Human Life [Online via Zoom]

Course Description

Toward the Meaning of Human Life

Instructor: Alan Soffin

Day of Week: Monday

Dates: Feb 3 – April 7  (no class March 3)

Time: 1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.

Location: Online via Zoom

This course is a seminar on the meaning of human life. It offers students a chance to reflect, philosophically, on this deepest of all questions. If an answer is possible, it will involve coming to know what kind of beings we are and whether, in consequence of our nature, we may, indeed, have a purpose in this vast and mindless universe. Students need not begin as philosophers; our topic leads the way. This class is a journey we take together.

Maximum: 15

Instructor Bio: Alan Soffin, PhD, Social Foundations and Philosophy of Education. Primary doctoral course-work in philosophy. Author, Rethinking Religion: Beyond Scientism, Theism and Philosophic Doubt (Telford: Cascadia Press, 2011, 434 pp.). Author, Recollecting Honor, in Images of Youth. Soffin has published in Educational Theory, MLA Bulletin, and Dreamseeker Magazine, a Mennonite journal to which he contributed a series of articles on religion and the religious.

Notes

Why when I’m registering do I join the Wait List?
Several of our courses are in high demand. In order to accommodate our members who are not tech-savvy and have trouble registering online, we created a registration system in which there is no advantage to registering early, no disadvantage to registering later.

When registering, you join the Wait List for each course. Don’t be alarmed. This does not mean the course is full. After the registration period is over, we run a lottery on the courses, and it randomly determines who is admitted to each course and who is not. You typically will receive notification regarding which courses you are admitted to, about two weeks before the start of the semester. If a course accepts 150 or more students, you are very likely to get into it.