Intellectual Heritage (GY & GZ)

Requirement: Intellectual Heritage I: The Good Life (3 credits) and Intellectual Heritage II: The Common Good (3 credits). Students normally complete their Intellectual Heritage requirements soon after completing Analytical Reading & Writing. Students may take Intellectual Heritage I and Intellectual Heritage II in any order.

The Intellectual Heritage (IH) curriculum introduces students to intellectually and artistically influential works, both ancient and modern, from cultures around the world. In small seminars, students read and discuss books that have shaped the ways people think and act, working together to interpret their historical significance, their relation to one another, and their relevance today. IH asks students to discover and debate timeless questions of human experience, to face different values and viewpoints fairly, and to examine the present in relation to the past. The attitudes cultivated in IH — thoroughness, open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and vision — prepare today's students, tomorrow's citizens, for lasting learning and engaged lives.

Intellectual Heritage courses are defined by the following area competencies:

  • The seminar experience: Students will share ideas, ask questions, and actively listen to peers in a free and honest exchange of multiple viewpoints.
  • Communication and critical thinking: Students will sharpen analysis and argumentation skills through a variety of expressive modes.
  • Ethical reasoning: Students will evaluate the historical, social, and cultural bases of prevailing beliefs.
  • Diversity & Universality: Students will investigate fundamental questions of human experience from a variety of perspectives.
  • Connecting texts to world: Students will make connections between historical texts about human existence and current moral, social, and political issues.

Intellectual Heritage Courses

  • Intellectual Heritage I: The Good Life IH 0851
  • Intellectual Heritage II: The Common Good IH 0852
  • Honors Intellectual Heritage I: The Good Life IH 0951
  • Honors Intellectual Heritage II: The Common Good IH 0952

Find out more about Intellectual Heritage at https://liberalarts.temple.edu/academics/departments-and-programs/intellectual-heritage.