Seminar in Ancient Philosophy

Catalog description

This course allows intensive study of select authors, traditions, works, or questions from ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. Focal authors may include, for instance, the Presocratics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucretius, Cicero, Seneca, Augustine, or Plotinus. Key traditions may include Stoicism, Hedonism, Platonism, Skepticism, Jewish, Roman, and Christian reception, or Neoplatonism and Neopythagoreanism. Focal works may include Nicomachean Ethics, On the Nature of Things, Confessions, or Enneads. Focal themes may include ethics (e.g., virtue, human flourishing, and pleasure), psychology (e.g., emotion, character, immortality of the soul), epistemology (e.g., imagination, knowledge, wisdom), metaphysics (e.g., atomism, teleology, dualism), theology, logic, aesthetics, or history. This course may also include intellectual and cultural context for claims or trends in ancient philosophy. Students will develop in-depth experience with parts of ancient philosophy that go beyond what they receive in Philosophy/ CAMS 200 : Ancient Philosophy. They will also hone reading, interpretative, argumentative, and creative philosophical skills on the relevant texts, which are among the most fascinating, puzzling, and frequently referenced of the Western philosophical tradition.