Mar 29, 2024  
Catalogue 2013-2014 
    
Catalogue 2013-2014 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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PHIL 101 - History of Western Philosophy: Ancient

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
PHIL 101-PHIL 102 : This course provides an introduction to the first three centuries of Western philosophy, a period of extraordinary insight and creativity. We will begin by exploring the fragmentary writings of some of the earliest Greek philosophers, and attempt to reconstruct their accounts of the nature of the cosmos and of our place within it. We will then study several of Plato’s most influential dialogues, focusing on the trial and death of Socrates, and the radical claim that the human good consists in knowledge or wisdom. The Republic will give us the tools we need to make better sense of Plato’s thesis, while raising complex questions of its own. Towards the end of the semester we will consider how his student, Aristotle, responds to some of these issues in his investigations of knowledge and substance, form and matter, and the best life for creatures like us. Throughout the course we will ask how the literary form in which ancient philosophical texts were written (e.g., poetic verse, aphoristic statement, dialogue, and treatise) should affect our understanding of their content. Mr. Raymond.

Two 75-minute periods.



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