Description
Students will get an overview of the intellectual history of Greece from the Presocratics into the Neo-Platonists. We'll practice recognizing, reconstructing, and producing logical, stepwise arguments. We'll discuss the role of rationality, observation, and argumentation in understanding the truth, the relationship of truth to goodness, and many of the Greeks' most important preoccupations and theories.
Materials
A Presocratics Reader (Second Edition): Selected Fragments and Testimonia, ed. Patricia Curd, tr. Richard D. McKirahan & Patricia Curd
Great Dialogues of Plato, tr. W.H.D. Rouse
You should also have a notebook with lined paper for note taking and in-class assignments.
This is all you will need to find on your own for the first two sessions. All other readings will be scanned and posted online.