Course Overview
What is the value of knowledge or understanding? From Socrates’s famous pronouncement that “the unexamined life is not worth living” to Aristotle’s claim that the contemplative life is the happiest, the idea that knowledge or understanding is a distinctive human good—indeed, perhaps the highest of all goods—is a founding thought of Ancient philosophy which animates the whole of the Western philosophical tradition. In this course (the first in a sequence of three courses jointly aimed at introducing students to this tradition), we will explore this thought as it is developed in the work of the three greats of Ancient Greek Philosophy: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. We will also look at a tragic counterpoint to it in Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex. Classical readings will be supplemented by several more recent writings relevant to or reflecting on the Ancient philosophical tradition.  pdf of syllabus.

Class 1: Introduction

Class 2: The Euthyphro

• Reading: Plato, “Euthyphro”
• Class 2 Handout

Class 3: The Apology

• Main Reading: Plato, “Apology”
• Optional Background Reading: Aristophones, “Clouds” excerpt
• Class 3 Handout
• Handout on Writing Assignments

Class 4: The Crito

• Reading: Plato, “Crito”
• Class 4 Handout

Class 5: Obedience and Disobedience in Plato and MLK

• Readings:
  • King, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
  • Marcou, “Obedience and Disobedience in Plato’s Crito and Apology”
• Class 5 Handout

Class 6: Phaedo

• Reading: Plato, “Phaedo,” Beginning to 87c (p. 126)
• Class 6 Handout

Class 7: Phaedo, Continued

• Reading: Plato, “Phaedo,” 87d (p.126) to end
• Class 7 Handout

Class 8: Oedipus

• Reading: Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, lines 1-862
• Optional Background Reading: Lev, A Short Introduction to Greek Theatre, excerpt
• Class 8 Handout

Class 9: Oedipus, Continued

• Reading: Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, lines 863-1530
• Additional Reading: Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, excerpt.
• Class 9 Handout

Class 10: Oedipus, Modern Interpretations (Group Presentations)

• Readings (only required to read the one you signed up for, others optional):
  • ​Carroll, “Oedipus Tyrannus and the Cognitive Value of Literature”
  • Nussbaum, “The Oedipus Rex and the Ancient Unconscious”
  • Leer, “Knowingness and Abandonment”
  • Dodds, “On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex”
  • Hagberg, “In the Ruins of Self-Knowledge.”

Class 11: Republic

• ​Reading: Plato, Republic, end of Book Five (473d) through book Six
• Class 11 Handout

Class 12: Republic, Continued

• Reading: Plato, Republic, Book Seven and bit of Book Eight
• Class 12 Handout

Class 13: Ethics (The Human Good)

• Reading: Aristotle, Ethics, Book One
• Class 13 Handout

Class 14: Ethics (Moral Virtue)

• Reading: Aristotle, Ethics, Book Two
• Class 14 Handout

Class 15: Ethics (Intellectual Virtue)

• Reading: Aristotle, Ethics, Book Six
• Class 15 Handout

Class 16: Ethics (Happiness)

• Reading: Aristotle, Ethics, Book Ten
• Class 16 Handout

Class 17: Wrapping up

• Reading: Arendt, “Philosophy and Politics”