Plato:
Early vs. Late Dialogues & Socrates, Socrates following the
oracle, Not knowing as wisdom, daemon & intuition, Plato the broad,
Socrates’ apology vs charges of impiety, Crito’s rejected offer, social
contract with Athens, symbolic death, Meno vs Socrates on universal
good, Socrates as stingray, teaching as recollection, leading slave boy
through geometric proof, Symposium & Pausanias’ lust vs passion,
Eryximachus’ cosmic love as harmony, Aristophanes’ dual beings of sun
& moon, Socrates’ love as philosopher, pregnant in body & mind,
platonic love, Alcibiades’ unknown ignorance vs Socrates known
ignorance, Republic & Socrates vs Thrasymachus,
Parmenides/Pythagoras over Heraclitus, optimistic vs pessimistic
skepticism, three part individual & city as form of justice, common
good vs private property/family, one person one job, noble lie, cave
& philosophers, Timaeus Atlantis story, real vs unreal, the One
& the Demiurge as Nous & Logos, four elements & pyramid,
Socrates vs Parmenides on forms, paradoxical exercises of the One &
the many
Aristotle:
student of Plato, tutor of Alexander, Lyceum & Peripatetics,
barbarian in Athens, aetherial above, four causes (form, material,
efficient & final), metaphysics as rules of the rules, Plato’s
Socrates as pinnacle, ideas and One as supreme substances, sight as
highest sense, noncontradiction vs skepticism, square of opposition,
inclusive vs exclusive or, four forms of perfect syllogisms,
intellectual/moral/nutritious virtue, doctrine of the mean, distribution
& correction, political animal by nature, diamond shape of forms of
government, workers excluded from politics, city as achieving the noble
Pyrrho & Skepticism:
Pyrrho as painter & inquirer, debt to Democritus, journey with
Alexander, withholding judgement, tranquility (ataraxia), relativising
assertions, Timon & appearances as lies & truth, Aenesidemus’
ten tropes, cause & effect as association, Sextus as skeptical
doctor, skepticism as ability to think, standards as processes not
convictions, Apelles’ sponge, against providence, animals as rational,
individuals vary in body & mind, rare as meaningful, two modes of
in-itself and in-another
Epicureanism:
Epicurus & his egalitarian garden, pleasure as good vs hedonism,
reciprocity, wise life is the happy life, atomism with chaotic
wandering, problem of evil, death is nothing vs Aristotle, arguments
against skepticism, influence on modern European thought
Stoicism:
Zeno of Citium & Cynicism, pot of lentil soup, speaking less,
cosmic fire & pantheism, acceptance of fate, hand metaphor as
grasping, ignorance vs logic as tranquility, conforming to cosmos,
meditation, egalitarianism & cosmopolitanism, Epictetus’ leg, Marcus
Aurelius quotes
Short Answers: Pick
four topics from the list below. For each of your choices, write a
third to a half page in each of the spaces provided below. You should
demonstrate that you 1) understand the meaning of the concept, 2) that
you can connect it to other material from the class, and 3) that you can
apply it to examples. If you demonstrate each of these three things
and complete the required page length, you will get full points for your
answer.
Plato’s Early vs. Late Dialogues Socrates’ Not Knowing as Wisdom
Crito vs Socrates on Jailbreak Apology vs Meno on (Not) Knowing
Symposium & Socrates vs Alcibiades Republic & Socrates vs Thrasymachus
Optimistic vs Pessimistic Skepticism Form of Just Individual & City
Plato vs Aristotle on Private Property Plato’s Cave
Forms & Third Man Argument Plato vs Aristotle on Forms
Aristotle vs Skeptics on Contradiction Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean
Skepticism as Continuous Inquiry Apelles’ Sponge
Problem of Evil Stoic Acceptance of Cosmic Fate
