Syllabus

Final-Exam Questions: Devote one page informally to each of the three questions.

Epicurus: How does Epicurean katastematic hedonism differ from kinetic hedonism? Which is ethically preferable?

Stoics: What is Stoic apatheia? Why is "indifference" a misleading English translation of the word?

Augustine: Critically examine Augustine's most compelling argument against Academic skepticism.

                Thales                                   Anaximandros                            Anaximenes                             Pythagoras

             Demokritos                                    Heraklitos                               Empedokles                        Anaxagoras

Greek Apotropaism

QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION:

Monists:

• In what ways does Thales mark an advance over mythographers of his day? In what ways does he seem to continue the mythographic tradition?
• What defect(s) does Anaximander propose to remedy by making to apeiron the first principle (arche)?
• Why does the addition of two principles, condensation and rarefaction, enable Anaximenes with his notion of to aer as first principle to mark a significant advance over the monism of Anaximander and Thales?
• Among Pythagoreanas, who were the akousmatikoi? ...the mathematikoi?
• Why was Pythagoreanism more like a cult than a school of philosophy?
• Why is Parmenides often called the first true philosopher? Here focus on his two proposed paths--the Way of Seeming and the Way of Truth
  
• In what ways did Xenophanes challenge traditional Greek religion?
• Why was Heraclitus called "The Riddler"? Does to pyr (fire) as first principle account for the visible flux of things adequately? Does it fail to account for visible stability of visible things adequately?

Greek Words: arche (first principle), stoicheion (element), arete (virtue), kosmos (ordered thing), hydor (water), to apeiron, (the boundless underlying stuff) aer (air), kousmata (reports, things heard), pyr (fire)

Pluralists:

• How does the process of "separating off" (krinetai) result in the coming to be of all the things in the cosmos for Anaxagoras? What role does Nous play?
• How do Love and Strife "work up" the four elements to account for the various entities in Empedocles' cosmos?
• How do Leucippus and Democritus use shape, arrangement, and position to account for all the visible entities in the cosmos? What are his two fundamental existents?
• Who were the Sophists? Why do you think that Socrates (and Plato), whose life was in pursuit of truth, had an especially distaste for them?
  

Aristotle: National Archeological Museum in Athens                   Ancient Stagira, Aristotle's Birthplace

Key: Pay especial attention to the impact of Empedocles (fire, air, water, earth) and Anaxagoras (use of Nous and A's Prime Mover).

Aristotle's Life     Aristotle's Works     Change     Hylomorphism   Outline of Sciences

Four Causes     Potency/Actuality     Hypothetical Necessity

Key Greek words: techne (science, craft), dynamis (capacity), energeia (actuality), hyle (matter), morphe (form), hypokeimenon (substratum), eide (forms), physiologos (nature-philosopher, scientist), to ti esti (the what it is), arche (first principle, source), to telos (the end)

Some Questions:

• What are the three types of works that Aristotle wrote?
• What are the three types of science  (techne) for Aristotle?
• What are the four "causes"? Is Aristotle really giving an account of causation with them?
• How does Aristotle account for change in his Physics? How does he deal with Parmenides' problem?
• What is teleology for Aristotle?
• What is hypothetical necessity and how is it related to Aristotle's teleology?
• What is dynamis? --energeia?

Plato: National Archeological Museum in Athens

Key: Pay special attention to the impact of Parmenides (what is real is one, ungenerated, unchanged, eternal), Heraclitus (the flux of observable things), and Pythagoras (immoratlity of soul, importance of mathematics) on Plato.

Plato's Life     Dating Works     Socratic Elenchos     Education     Divided Line

Plato on Forms     Socratic Irony     Unity of Virtues     Person/Polis     Republic (Outline)

http://www.nd.edu/~plato/plato7issue/contents7.htm  < My Paper on Republic IX

Some Questions:

Book I: Socratic Dialectic:

• Why Cephalus' dialectical conversation (328c-331d) with Socrates so brief? What does that say about Cephalus as one interested in justice?
• Can you list Polemarchus' five definitions of "justice" (331d-336a)?
• How does Thrasymachus enter the discussion? How does dialectic on "justice" (336a-347d, 344b-344c, 347d-354d) go with him? How does he leave?\
• What three arguments (349b-350c, 351b-352a, & 352d-354a) does Socrates give to "refute" Thrasymachus?

General Questions:

Education:

• Do you think that it is right for the rulers to purge traditional stories of content (e.g., showing gods warring, fighting, whoring; 377e ff.) I.e., can censorship be justified by an appeal to its potential benefits?
• Do you agree with Plato that lying is sometimes acceptable, but only when the rulers lie in the best interest of non-rulers (414d ff.)?
• Is a system of education without choice a healthy system?
• Would unity of attitude, stressing conformity, quash innovative spirit?
• Why does Plato consider imitation (mimesis) to be an ill (Book IX)?

Justice:

• How compelling is Thrasymachos' argument through Glaukon's defense of it that no one is willingly just (Book II)?
• What does Socrates unusual method of seeking justice at 428a & 433c tell you about the relationship of virtue and the four particular virtues?
• Does Socrates successfully show that personal and political justice are isomorphic (435a ff.)?
• Does Book IV sufficiently demonstrate that justice is desirable for its own sake?
• Is justice best served if men and women and children in common (451d ff.)?
• Does Socrates show adequately that a just polis is a distinct possibility (472a ff.)?
• Does Socrates sufficiently demonstrate in Book IX (580a-591c) that justice is desirable for the sake of its benefits?
• Does Plato's organicism at 462a justify the overall lack of freedom one would have in such a "republic"?

Greek Words: dikaiosune (justice), arete (excellence, virtue), paideia (education), polis (city-state), kallipolis (beautiful or perfect city), elenchos (dialectic done Socratically), eudaimonia (good living, happiness), musike (music and poetry), gymnastike (physical education), psyche (soul), to logistikon (the rational [soul]), to thymoeides (the courageous [soul]), to epithymetikon (the appetitive [soul])

Epicurus' Ethics

Questions:

• In what way is Epicureanism fundamentally a way of life (an ethics)?
• What are the chief disturbers of ataraxia?
• Why is Epicurean hedonism called "katastematic"?
• Why is Epicureanism not a form of virtue ethics?

Key Terms: ataraxia (freedom from mental disturbance), aponia (freedom from physical disturbance), anima (soul), animus or mens animae (mind or intelligence of the soul), simulacra (Gr. eidola; films)

The Greatest Stoic, Chryssipos