PHIL 230 B1

PHIL 230 B1: Ancient Greek Philosophy
Instructor: Phil Corkum

Course Description

The goal of the course is to introduce some of the themes of ancient Greek philosophy, with a focus on Plato. Students will also develop facility with some of the skills needed to take further classes in philosophy generally. One of the central philosophical issues, with which we’ll be concerned, is the relation between knowledge and virtue. We’ll examine the interrelations among three strands of Plato’s philosophical views: his views on ethics (addressing such questions as: is it better to be just than unjust? and can virtue be taught?), epistemology (what is knowledge and how does it differ from true belief?) and metaphysics (what is there?). In the middle part of the course, we’ll study Plato’s middle period answers to these questions primarily through a close reading of Plato’s Republic. In the first third of the course we’ll study the Presocratics, philosophers working prior to Plato, to understand the context within which Plato proposes his middle period answers to these questions. We’ll also study, in the last third of the course, Plato’s own criticism of these answers in his later dialogues. And we’ll look ahead a bit to study Plato’s influence on Aristotle.