The Examined Life - July

  • Start date: 10 July - 30 July, 2022
  • Duration: 21 Days (plus arrival and departure days)
  • Level: Introductory
  • Location: Onsite - FFA School

This is an intensive summer bootcamp at our Northern California mountain retreat school. Students will be issued a tablet computer pre-loaded with the summer’s reading assignments. Students will engage in approximately ten hours of classroom reading and discussion each day with periodic exercise breaks and one day each week of outdoor activity.

Inspired by the famous anthology by Aldous Huxley which noted that across all ages and civilizations, great minds have perceived the same underlying pervasive reality just as the same moon is reflected in pools everywhere.

Consequently great thinkers have continued to raise similar challenging questions clothed in the terminology and metaphor of their particular age and culture. These great questions constitute the foundations of civilization and tie us all together into one great human adventure.

Among the great thinkers whose works we will explore are Plato, Confucius, Marcus Aurelius, Lao-Tzu, St. Augustine, Lu Xun, St. John of the Cross, Spinoza, Immanuel Kant, W.K. Clifford, and Emerson

The basic cost of our 21-day course is $2,500 which includes tuition, computer equipment, supplies and room and board. The fees roughly break down as:

Scholarships and payment options are available for those with finiancial constraints. Contact our staff for a scholarship application.

This course requires high school graduate level English. We will be reading at college-graduate levels within ten days so it is imperitive that students be able to match the fast pace.