Course Overview
Over two thousand years ago, philosophers were thinking about some of the central topics that we still struggle with today. What are we obligated to do? What kinds of things exist? What makes for a good person, and a good life? How can we have knowledge of the world around us? The ancient greeks developed some striking and sophisticated arguments on these topics that still inform contemporary discussion.
In this course we will study many of the main pre-Socratic philosophers, including Thales, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zeno and Democritus, as well as Plato (and through him, Socrates) and Aristotle. The focus of this course will be on extracting and evaluating the views and arguments that were presented by these philosophers, while drawing connections to contemporary debates on these topics.
Logistics
Instructor: Shieva Kleinschmidt
Contact email: shievak [at] hotmail [dot] com
Instructor website: http://homepages.nyu.edu/~sjk362/index.htm
Meeting times: MTWTh 6:00pm - 7:35pm
Course dates: May 18th - June 25th
Location: The 2nd floor seminar room, 5 Washington Place
Office hours: after class daily, and by appointment
Office Location: 5 Washington Place, room 313
Requirements
There will be a midterm exam, a final exam, and a short (15 minute) presentation, as well as pop-quizzes throughout the term. A week before each exam, about 5 essay questions will be posted online. The day of the exam, I will choose at least one of these. The midterm and final will each be worth 35% of the final grade, the presentation will be worth 5%. The pop-quizzes together are worth 25% of the final grade.
Text
Our textbook will be Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle (3rd edition), edited by S. Marc Cohen, Patricia Curd, and C. D. C. Reeve.