Ancient Philosophy

(2.5-3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

A critical survey of important texts and authors in Ancient Philosophy. Socrates poses a series of deceptively simple questions: What is justice? What is holiness? What is virtue? Strikingly, he contends that he is unable to answer these questions himself-and seems adept at showing that those who think they know the answers in fact do not. Using his elenchtic method (the 'Socratic method'), he is able to reduce his interlocutors to embarrassing perplexity and outright contradiction. One question from Socrates, then: do you think you can answer such questions? Plato and Aristotle, who followed in his wake in the rich philosophical milieu of ancient Athens, seem to think that they can develop the epistemological and metaphysical sophistication required to answer them satisfactorily. So, a second question from Socrates: are they right? IC PI 2113 description: This module focuses on core themes in ancient philosophy through the study of an individual text (for example, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics) or a survey of one theme in a range of philosophical movements in the ancient world.