Philosophy 25A

This course will provide an introduction to Ancient Greek philosophy. We will focus especially on works of Plato and Aristotle, though we may also spend some time reading works of pre-Socratic philosophers, Epicureans, and Stoics.

One reason to study Ancient Greek philosophy is that Ancient Greek philosophers thought deeply about questions that many of us still care about today. In the course, we will look at how Plato and Aristotle thought about some of these questions, which include, but are not limited to:

• What does being a virtuous person involve? Is virtue something that people are born with, or do they acquire it? If virtue is something which is acquired, how is it acquired?

• What is the nature of knowledge? For example, how, if at all, is knowing that “triangles have three sides” different from having a true belief that “triangles have three sides?” What does the process of learning something involve?

• What does justice in a city require? What sorts of divisions of labor within a city are just?

Another reason to study Ancient Greek philosophy is that these texts have had an enormous influence on the history of Western philosophy; familiarity with Ancient Greek philosophy can help us to better understand later philosophers. A final reason to study Ancient Greek philosophy is that, although the many of the questions occupying Ancient Greek philosophers still resonate today, there are aspects of their thought which are likely to strike us, at least initially, as foreign, and/or difficult to understand. By trying to work through these more challenging aspects of our thought, we strengthen our own capacities to engage charitably and critically with viewpoints that are different (sometimes profoundly different) from our own.

Students can expect to read selections from early Platonic dialogues, from the Republic, and from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics. Reading knowledge of Greek is not required.