Timing and CATS
The module will run in the Spring Term and is worth 15 CATS
Module Description
The module introduces thinkers, ideas and arguments from ancient philosophy that have been foundational for the western philosophical tradition. Thinkers studied include Parmenides, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Students are introduced both to the primary texts and to secondary literature. The module focuses specifically on metaphysics, epistemology and ethics, and emphasizes contrast and continuity between treatments of these topics in the ancient literature. The module provides a foundation both for further study of Greek philosophy, and for study of contemporary philosophical literature that engages with these traditional themes.
Learning Outcomes or Aims
By the end of the module students should have acquired: 1. a good basic knowledge and understanding of the work of some of the key figures in Ancient Greek philosophy; 2. an appreciation of the development of philosophical thought about metaphysics, epistemology and ethics in Ancient Greece, and an ability to compare the views of key thinkers on specific topics; 3. an appreciation of the importance of Ancient Greek philosophy in the history of Western philosophy as a whole; 4. skills in reading and interpreting philosophical texts; 5. an ability to critically assess relevant arguments; 6. an ability to construct and present a lucid and rigorous argument, both orally and in writing; 7. the ability to discuss a topic in a pair or a group with clarity, patience and sensitivity to the views of others.
Contact Time
In this module students must attend 2 hours of lectures and 1 hour of seminars per week, over the course of 10 weeks
Lectures for 2017-18
- Monday 12pm to 1pm in L5
- Wednesday 11am to 12pm in LIB2
There will be no lectures in reading week (week 6)
Seminars for 2017-18
Seminars start in week 2 and run for the rest of the term
There will be no seminars in reading week (week 6)
Please sign up for a seminar group using Tabula.
Assessment Methods
This module is formally assessed in the following ways:
- 1 x 1,500 word essay (worth 15% of the module)
- 1 x 2-hour exam (worth 85% of the module)
Plato and Descartes (PH145-15)
What would you do if you had a magic ring that made you invisible, and which guaranteed that, whatever you did, you’d go unnoticed? Perhaps you’d spend your time like an invisible superhero, striking from nowhere to trip up bag-snatchers, using your power to expose criminal conspiracies by companies to use child slaves to make their products, or to dump toxic waste in rivers? If you did do things like this, would it bother you that no one ever gave you even the tiniest bit of credit, or even acknowledged that it was you that had done all of that? On the other hand, with the power of invisibility and a guarantee that you would never get caught, you could take what you wanted from anyone, at any time, anywhere. And you wouldn’t have to fear punishment, or shame, or retribution. What would you do?
In the Republic, Plato uses this question, and others like it, to help us think about what justice amounts to, and why we should be just. His profound answers to these questions, as well as his further claims about how to organize society in a way that promotes justice, are at the foundation of the discipline of philosophy. We will think and argue with Plato on the way to considering our own answers to these questions.
What do you now know most certainly of all? Perhaps you take yourself to know that there is a computer screen in front of you because you can see one? Or, perhaps you can take yourself to know that a car alarm is going off outside because you can hear one? Most of the things we know with certainty appear to come to us through the senses; through sight, smell and touch. But does all of our knowledge about the world come to us through the senses? Suppose that there was a powerful evil demon who has brought it about that the experiences that you are having now are all radically misleading about the real world. There is no computer, no cup of coffee on the desk, and no walls that surround you, even though it appears that there are. If all of the evidence of the senses cannot be trusted, is there anything at all that you are able to know in these circumstances? If so, how?
In the Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes uses an exercise of this kind to argue that it is possible to arrive at truths about the world independent of the use of the senses, simply through reasoning and reflection. This is an idea that places Descartes squarely in the Platonic tradition. But Descartes also combines his Platonism with the worldview of the new physics. What reason reveals—according to Descartes—is that the world is very different from the way it appears, lacking colour, taste, smell and sound, and composed only of extended stuff. Is he right?
The first 5-6 weeks of this module introduce students to Kant’s Critique of Judgement, the foundational text of modern aesthetics for both the analytic and the continental traditions. It aims to give students a good overview of this difficult text, and to help them engage critically with both key ideas in the text, and some of the debates in recent scholarship and aesthetic theory to which it has given rise. It will cover aspects of the Introduction, particularly the idea of reflective judgement, the Analytic of the Beautiful, the Deduction of Aesthetic Judgements, the Analytic of the Sublime, as well as Kant’s generally overlooked remarks on fine art and genius. Key questions to be considered include: are judgements of taste subjective or objective, and in what sense?; what is the relation between the sublime and morality for Kant; how are work of art possible? We will also consider the extent to which Kant’s analysis of aesthetic judgement can be applied to works of art, and ways in which this might be problematic. The remaining 3-4 weeks of the course focus on Martin Heidegger’s antipathy to aesthetics as a philosophical understanding of art. Our focus will be the ‘Origin of the Work of Art’ informed by Heidegger’s critique of modern subjectivism in ‘The Age of the World Picture’ and contrast between art and technology as ‘modes of disclosure’ in ‘The Question Concerning Technology.’ Questions to be considered include: why is Heidegger hostile to the very idea of aesthetics as a philosophical understanding of art? What is the ontological function of works of art according to Heidegger, and is this credible? What is the relation of art to truth on the one hand and technology on the other?