Ancient Greek Philosophy

Papers: Three short papers (3-5 pages) due: September 25, November 18, December 5.

Each paper will provide an exegesis of a particular textual passage, a reconstruction of the argument(s) embedded in that passage, and an evaluation of the argument(s). Papers must follow the paper guidelines (see course website) and be turned in at the beginning of the class in which they are due. Late papers will drop a letter grade for every day late. All papers must properly cite any sources used and any papers that do not properly cite sources will receive an F. We will review citation guidelines in class. If you need additional help understanding what constitutes appropriate research, what is acceptable assistance on your papers, or the correct way to cite your sources, please do not hesitate to ask me.

Information is also available on the Simpson Library website: http://www.umw.edu/library/research/guides_to_library_resource/citing_sources.php

THIRD PAPER

Write a paper on one of the following topics. To address the topic, choose one passage from each philosopher and offer a close reading and analysis of each passage; show how the ideas of each thinker are similar, different, etc. Conclude your paper with an evaluation of each view. Papers should be 3-5 pages (12 point type, double-spaced, one inch margins). Please make sure you have provided all necessary references and sources.  Papers are due by 5:00 pm, December 5. If you want to submit a draft, you must do so no later than December 2.

1. Plato and Aristotle on the end/purpose of human life

2. Plato and Epicurus on “care of the soul”

3. Plato and Aristotle on virtue

4. Aristotle and Epicurus on the role of perception/sensation

5. Plato and Aristotle on the role of philosophy

6. Plato and Aristotle on the relationship of the individual to the polis

7. Aristotle and Epicurus on the nature/value of friendship

• Aristotle, Physics Book II, Chapter 3, 194b 25-35 (pg 102-103)

Starting with, “In one way, then, that from which as a <constituent> present in it, a thing comes to be is said to be that thing’s cause…”

Ending with, “The same is true of all the intermediate steps that are for the end…”

• Aristotle, De Anima, Book II, Chapter 1, 412a 5-10 (pg 176)

Starting with, “We say, then, that one kind of being is substance…”

Ending with, “Matter is potentiality…”

• Aristotle, De Anima, Book III, Chapter 5, 430a 10-20 (pg 201)

Starting with, “In the whole of nature each kind of thing has something as its matter…”

Ending with, “This second sort of intellect…”

• Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book I, Chapter 1, 980a 21-25 (pg 221)

Ending with, “The reason is that sight, more than any of the other sense…”

• Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book XII, Chapter 7, 1072b 15- 20 (pg 336-337)

Starting with, “This, then, is the sort of principle on which the heaven and nature depend…”

Ending with, “…while expectations and memories are pleasant because of these.”

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, Chapter 4, 1095a 15-20 (pg 350)

Ending with, “But they disagree about what happiness is…”

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, Chapter 6, 1006b 10-30 (pg 372-373)

Starting with, “This, then, is how each science produces its product well…”

Ending with, “Virtue then, is a mean, insofar as it aims at what is intermediate.”

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, Chapter 3, 1156a 10 (pg 419)

Ending with “…insofar as they love each other.”

• This logos holds always but humans always prove unable to understand it, both before hearing it and when they have first heard it. For though all things come to be [or happen] in accordance with this logos, humans are like the inexperienced when they experience such words and deeds as I set out, distinguishing each in accordance with it nature and saying how it is. But other people fail to notice what they do when awake, just as they forget what they do while asleep.

Heraclitus/from Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 7.132=22B1

A Presocratics Reader p. 30

• The second is the one called “Achilles.” This is to the effect that the slowest as it runs will never be caught by the quickest. For the pursuer must first reach the point from which the pursued departed, so that the slower must always be some distance in front. This is the same argument as The Dichotomy, but it differs in not dividing the given magnitude in half.

Zeno of Elea/ Aristotle, Physics 6.9 239b14-20=29A26

A Presocratics Reader, pg 75

• If you kill me, you will not easily find such another…I, a man who…has been fastened as it were to the City by the God as, so to speak, to a large and well-bred horse, a horse grown sluggish because of its size and in need of being roused by a kind of gadfly…

Plato, Apology, 30e-31a

Dialogues of Plato, R.E. Allen, pg 93

• …when the soul makes use of the body to investigate something, be it though hearing or seeing or some other sense…it is dragged by the body to the things that are never the same, and the soul itself strays and is confused and dizzy… But when the soul investigates by itself it passes into the realm of what is pure, ever existing, immortal and unchanging, and being akin to this, it always stays with it whenever it is by itself and can do so; it ceases to stray and remains in the same state as it is in touch with things of the same kind…

Plato, Phaedo, 79c-d

Grube, Plato Five Dialogues, pg 118

• I understand what you want to say Meno. Do you see what an eristical argument you are spinning? It is thus impossible for a man to inquire either into what he knows, or into what he does not know. He cannot inquire into what he knows; for he knows it, and there is no need for inquiring into a thing like that. Nor would he inquire into what he does not know; for he does not know what it is he is to inquire into.

Plato, Meno 80d-81e

Dialogues of Plato, R.E. Allen, pg 163