Ancient Philosophy

Professor May Sim
Philosophy 225-01
MWF 1:00-1:50 p.m.

Course Description

We start by looking at the Presocratics (6th and 5th centuries B.C.) to witness the
emergence of philosophical, scientific, ethical and religious thinking. We will follow the
similarities and differences of these Presocratics to trace the kinds of questions they set
and the kinds of answers they accept. Addressing many of the same questions
bequeathed to them by the Presocratics, the Ancients offered new solutions. We will
think with the great thinkers about alternative conceptions of the divine, first principles
and causes, form and matter, atoms and the void. Wonder along with Plato, Aristotle,
Lucretius and Epictetus about happiness in relation reason and desire, and our place in
society and in the universe.

Required Texts

Greek Philosophy: Thales to Aristotle, ed. by R. E. Allen (Free Press) 0029004950

The Presocratics, ed. by Philip Wheelwright, Macmillan Prentice Hall (ISBN-10:
002426640X, ISBN-13: 978-0024266408)

Plato: The Symposium and the Phaedrus: Plato’s Erotic Dialogues, trans. by W. S. Cobb
(Suny Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy) 0791416186

Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, trans. by T. Irwin (Hackett) 0872204642

Lucretius: On the Nature of the Universe, trans. by R. E. Latham, intro. by J. Godwin
(Penguin Classics) 0140446109

Epictetus: The Handbook (The Encheiridion), trans. by N. P. White (Hackett)
0915145693