Ancient Philosophy Course

Lesson 1 • Ancient Mediterranean World Overview

Survey the geographic and cultural landscape of ancient Greece, Egypt, and the Near East. Context explains why philosophy emerged where and when it did.

Lesson 2 • What Philosophy Is and Does

Define philosophy as a discipline distinct from religion and myth. This foundation clarifies why ancient thinkers asked the questions they did.

Lesson 3 • Primary Sources and Scholarly Methods

Introduce the types of texts available and how scholars interpret fragmentary evidence. Students develop skills for reading ancient philosophical sources critically.

Lesson 1 • Heraclitus and the Doctrine of Flux

Analyze Heraclitus's view that change and opposition are fundamental to reality. His paradoxes introduce students to dialectical thinking.

Lesson 2 • Pluralists and Atomists

Study Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the Atomists as responses to Parmenides. These thinkers reconcile change with the permanence of fundamental constituents.

Lesson 3 • Pythagoreans and Mathematical Order

Investigate Pythagorean claims that number underlies all reality. Their blend of mathematics, cosmology, and ethics anticipates later systematic philosophy.

Lesson 4 • Parmenides and the Problem of Being

Examine Parmenides's argument that true reality is unchanging and one. This challenges earlier flux theories and shapes all subsequent metaphysics.

Lesson 1 • The Socratic Problem

Address the challenge of reconstructing Socrates from Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes. Students learn to distinguish the historical Socrates from literary portrayals.

Lesson 2 • The Elenctic Method

Examine how Socratic questioning exposes contradictions in interlocutors' beliefs. Mastery of elenchus is essential for understanding Platonic dialogues.

Lesson 3 • Trial, Death, and Philosophical Courage

Study the Apology and Phaedo to understand Socrates's response to his trial and death. His conduct models philosophical commitment to truth over self-preservation.

Lesson 1 • Critiques and Revisions of the Forms

Study the Third Man Argument and Plato's self-criticism in the Parmenides. Students evaluate the internal tensions within Platonic metaphysics.

Lesson 2 • The Allegory of the Cave

Interpret the Cave as a political and epistemological allegory about enlightenment and return. It synthesizes Plato's metaphysics with his educational philosophy.

Lesson 3 • Recollection and the Immortal Soul

Examine the Meno and Phaedo arguments that learning is recollection of prenatal knowledge. This links Plato's epistemology to his psychology and metaphysics.

Lesson 4 • Knowledge, Belief, and the Divided Line

Analyze the Divided Line analogy to map degrees of cognitive access to reality. Students distinguish knowledge from mere opinion systematically.

Lesson 1 • The Tripartite Soul

Analyze the rational, spirited, and appetitive parts of the soul in the Republic. This psychological model grounds Plato's ethics and political theory.

Lesson 2 • Justice in the Individual and City

Explore the analogy between the just soul and the just city in the Republic. Students see how Plato uses political structure to illuminate personal ethics.

Lesson 3 • The Ideal City and Philosopher-Kings

Examine the structure of Plato's kallipolis and the role of philosopher-rulers. This section addresses the political implications of privileging philosophical knowledge.

Lesson 4 • Love, Beauty, and the Symposium

Study the Symposium's accounts of eros as a philosophical force ascending toward the Form of Beauty. Students encounter Plato's philosophy of love and desire.

Lesson 1 • The Four Causes

Study Aristotle's material, formal, efficient, and final causes as a complete explanatory structure. Students apply causal analysis to natural and artificial objects.

Lesson 2 • Critique of Platonic Forms

Examine Aristotle's arguments against separately existing Forms and his alternative account of universals. This critique motivates his own metaphysical programme.

Lesson 3 • Aristotle's Natural Philosophy

Explore Aristotle's Physics and biological works as applications of his metaphysical principles. His empirical approach distinguishes him from Platonic rationalism.

Lesson 4 • Hylomorphism: Matter and Form

Analyse Aristotle's doctrine that all physical things are composites of matter and form. Hylomorphism explains change, identity, and natural kinds.

Lesson 1 • Eudaimonia and the Human Function

Analyse Aristotle's argument that happiness is the highest good and consists in excellent activity. The function argument grounds his entire ethical project.

Lesson 2 • Friendship, Justice, and Community

Explore Aristotle's three types of friendship and their role in the good life. Justice and friendship together constitute the social fabric of ethical life.

Lesson 3 • Rhetoric as Practical Reasoning

Introduce Aristotle's Rhetoric as the art of finding available means of persuasion. Students connect rhetorical theory to ethics and political deliberation.

Lesson 4 • Aristotle's Political Philosophy

Examine the Politics to understand Aristotle's view of the city as natural and humans as political animals. Students compare his constitutions and evaluate his political realism.

Lesson 1 • Ancient Skepticism

Study Pyrrhonian and Academic Skepticism as challenges to the possibility of certain knowledge. Skeptical arguments sharpen students' understanding of epistemological standards.

Lesson 2 • Epicureanism: Pleasure and Tranquility

Examine Epicurus's atomist metaphysics and his ethics of ataraxia and aponia. Students evaluate how physics grounds Epicurean ethics.

Lesson 3 • Neoplatonism and Plotinus

Examine Plotinus's emanationist metaphysics of the One, Intellect, and Soul. Neoplatonism synthesises earlier traditions and bridges ancient and medieval philosophy.

Lesson 4 • Stoicism: Logos, Virtue, and Fate

Analyse Stoic physics, logic, and ethics as an integrated system centred on living according to nature. Stoic virtue ethics contrasts sharply with Epicurean hedonism.