Contents:

Unit Outline and Requirements:
Assessment:
Unit Online Forum
For External Students: N.B.!
Unit Schedule:
Essay topics:
What you need to do during the first Week:
Questions on Thucydides (work for Week 2's Tutorial)

Lecture Topics, weekly Bibliographies and Tutorial questions:

• Week 1: Introduction to the ‘Classical Tradition’, and the first Greek Philosophers.
• Week 2: ‘Monists’ and ‘Pluralists’.
• Early Greek Philosophy: a rough Chronological Outline.
• The Development of Ancient Philosophy: an Outline Chronology.
• Week 3: Socrates and his World
• Week 4: Socrates and Plato
• Week 5: Plato
• Week 6: Aristotle

Introduction to the Unit

In the Sixth Century B.C. on the Greek mainland and the Aegean islands an intellectual revolution took place which determined the whole style of ‘western thought’ down to the present. In the generations that followed the early Greek philosophers set about the investigation of the ethical, political and metaphysical questions that have dominated European thinking ever since. In this Unit we will examine the beginnings and development of this ‘Classical Tradition’, as well as a number of the philosophical issues with which it dealt, and the people who formulated, elaborated and refined it. Issues dealt with will include: whether visible reality has some kind of foundations in a different kind of (non-visible) reality, the nature of love, the nature of the ‘ideal society’ and the definition of justice, the relationship between the individual and society, and between art and society, the moral nature of human beings, and the relationship between rationality and emotion.

This Unit, the scope of which is indicated in the Handbook of Undergraduate Studies, is of the ‘General Education’ type, and the presentation will bear this in mind throughout. No background in ancient world studies or philosophy will be required or assumed, though it will be of assistance if you have it. The Unit should not, however, be thought of as merely a brief survey of the subject, because many topics will be thoroughly explored and much attention will be given to the analysis and interpretation of ancient writers. The Unit will move from an introduction to Presocratic Philosophy, through Socrates and Plato, including their ethical, metaphysical and political philosophy, to Aristotle. Then will follow a treatment of Stoicism and Epicureanism in the context of later Greek and early Roman thought. Roman culture will be discussed, with emphasis on the Roman response to Greek philosophical thinking and Greek culture. We will also deal with the rise of the importance of early Christian thinking, and its main similarities to and differences from Greek and Roman thought. For the period of the Roman Empire, Seneca and St. Augustine will be studied, together with other representatives of the Classical Tradition.

For those with no historical background in the 6th and 5th centuries B.C., A.R. Burn, The Pelican History of Greece, N.B. pp. 63-141, or J.K. Davies, Democracy and Classical Greece, are recommended as good, readable introductions to the period. Other older works, such as J.B. Bury's A History of Greece, and N.G.L. Hammond's A History of Greece, may be useful if you have them, but do not buy them specially.

The modern work set as a textbook is T. Irwin, Classical Thought, Oxford, 1989. Though it does not cover the whole of the content of the unit, it comes closer than any comparable book. It will be referred to regularly in lectures and tutorials.

The required ancient authors are all available in Penguin translations or other inexpensive editions. You are not required to use any particular version, but for ease of use in groups (so we can all turn to the same page!) we suggest:

The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists, ed. R. Waterfield, Oxford, 2000.

Plato – Protagoras and Meno, trans. A. Beresford, Penguin, 2005, and The Symposium, trans. R. Waterfield, Oxford, 1994.

Aristotle – The Politics, trans. T.A. Sinclair, Penguin, 1962.

Lucretius – On The Nature of the Universe, trans. R. Melville, Oxford, 1997.

Seneca – Letters from a Stoic, trans. R. Campbell, Penguin, 1969.

St Augustine – Confessions, trans. H. Chadwick, Oxford, 1991.

(All these books may be obtained from the University Co-op Bookshop. N.B. all except The First Philosophers, Plato's Symposium, Lucretius and Augustine's Confessions are the Penguin translation.)

Recommended General Reading:

F. Copleston - A History of Philosophy, Book 1.

E. Brehier - The Hellenistic and Roman Age.

J.V. Luce - An Introduction to Greek Philosophy.

H. Chadwick - Early Christian Thought and Classical Tradition.

For students with some experience in philosophy:

R.W. Jordan - Ancient Concepts of Philosophy.

In addition to attending the lectures (Internal students: Externals can download them from iLecture and receive them on CD) and doing the reading associated with weekly tutorial discussion topics, you will be required to hand in written work as specified below. For each Tutorial you are set a particular passage of one ancient author to read. A series of questions are given, which are intended to guide your thinking as you prepare for the Tutorial. They are also the basis for the Short Paper for that week, if you decide to do it.

Assessment:

Assessment: All students are required to complete three pieces of written work and an examination, and participate in the Online Forum (for which see below). The written work is made up of two short papers (12.5% each) and one major essay (30%). Participation in the Online Forum is worth 15%. Details of the exam (worth the remaining 30%), will be available later in the term.
    The topics for the two short papers may be selected from the weekly Tutorial topics. You may not do more than one from each broad section of the Unit: the sections are Weeks 3-6, Weeks 7-10, and Weeks 11-13. They are to be of approximately 1,000 words, in essay form based around the guide questions, and are to be heavily based on your understanding and explanation of the particular piece of ancient writing, not merely the collection of the opinions of others. They must be submitted by the time of the following Tutorial. Short papers need not refer to any secondary (i.e. modern) literature, though such reference is certainly not discouraged if you wish to go into greater depth. Bibliographies are not necessary, though footnotes must be used if you do make use of the work of modern scholars. N.B. If you do an assignment and are dissatisfied with your mark, you may elect to do three; if you do so, you will be assessed on the best two. This ‘safety net’ is designed to help those who are only feeling their way into the subject.
 

The major essay, of approximately 2500-3000 words (2500 if you are doing the Unit at 200-Level; 3000 if you are doing it at 300-Level), is due at Macquarie on Monday April 27th. Topics are to be selected from the list supplied. The essay will require much more detailed use of both the ancient evidence and the modern scholarly discussion than do the short papers: footnotes to opinions cited and a full bibliography are required, as set out in “Essay Presentation and Conventions: Style Guide”, which is available from the Departmental office (W6A 540), or from this link.

Please note that in all work for this Unit, it is your own understanding of the ancient writers, based on a careful reading of what they actually say, that matters. Repetition of the opinions of learned commentators, even with full footnotes, is of very limited value. May I also strongly suggest that, to avoid unnecessary despair and hair-tearing in the event of an assignment going astray, you should make and keep a photocopy of all assignments.

PLEASE ALSO NOTE: (a) Written work MUST be handed in to the boxes on the Ground Floor in W6A, or (in the case of External students) sent to the Centre for Open Education. Please sign and attach the standard Humanities assignment cover-sheet. This rule is for your benefit: the fact that your assignment has been handed in, and the date, is registered, and you can prove you handed it in. It also has the benefit of avoiding the possibility of my losing your assignment! PLEASE hand in your work this way: DO NOT put work under my door. EVERY YEAR work goes astray when it is not handed in correctly: no responsibility will be accepted in such cases. By special arrangement, work can also be emailed in.

All written work submitted should conform to the specifications laid down in “Essay Presentation and Conventions: Style Guide”. In particular, modern works should be cited with full publication details (author, title, place and date of publication, page). In the case of printed rather than handwritten material submitted, some slight variation in the specifications will be accepted (for example, 1½ spaced text instead of double spaced, if 12-point type is used), provided that you must allow space for the marker to insert comments.

Work that is handed in late without an extension having been specifically granted in advance will normally incur a penalty of 2% per day.

• The capacity for independent thought and judgment 
• Advanced communications skills, including the ability to present sustained, cogent and persuasive arguments 
• Analytical ability, and the capacity to evaluate and solve problems 
• A capacity to analyse and critically examine a range of discourse types 
• The ability to absorb the intellectual and imaginative concepts of others, to build upon them, and to communicate the resultant synthesis 
• The ability to work cooperatively with others through the presentation of ideas and negotiation of solutions, and to respect others' reasoned views
• The ability to understand, interrogate and apply a variety of theoretical positions and weigh the importance of alternative perspectives
• A critical understanding of a culture and practices other than one's own 
• Development of intercultural awareness and an appropriate outlook for working in multicultural environments 
• Library and bibliographic research skills

Dr. Forbes will announce his Office Hours (i.e. the times he guarantees to be available for telephone calls or visits) in the first week or so of lectures. Meanwhile he can be contacted on (02) 9850 8821, and there is voicemail: you should have no trouble leaving a message, even if I am speaking to someone else! Be sure to leave your name, phone number, and convenient times for a return call.

   Mail can be addressed to:
      Dr. Chris Forbes,
       Department of Ancient History,
      Macquarie University,
      N.S.W. 2109.

Alternatively you may . Do feel free to drop in to discuss Unit topics or other matters in Contact times, or catch me after the Lectures or Tutorials!

In this Unit we will be running an Online Forum, an electronic ‘Bulletin Board’ where issues related to the Unit can be discussed. To gain access to this system you will need a computer capable of running one of the common web-browsers, and you will need to make sure it is correctly configured. For more information, see the Online Browser Tune-up, at https://learn.mq.edu.au/.
    The Forum will provide two basic facilities: the ‘Bulletin Board’, where issues can be publicly discussed and ideas or references can be shared, (N.B., your participation in the Forum is assessable; see below), and Email, so that you can send one another private notes. I will take part in the public discussions, and can also be reached by Email. We hope that this Online Forum will be of particular value to external students.

Login to the Online Forum
Using BlackBoard CE6: Technical Information You should read this!

The dates that follow are dates at Macquarie. The iLectures are normally available for download within an hour of the live lecture. Your lecture CDs will normally arrive early in the week after that. Please keep this time-lag in mind. If you do not download the lectures immediately, but wait for the CDs, your lectures will be ‘out of synch’ with the tutorials by a week or so.
Dates for the submission of written work for External students follow the same pattern as for Internal students. Please consult the Unit Schedule, below, very carefully.
External students do not normally come to Tutorials (though if you can, you are very welcome). You do the same work, however, week by week, in your own time, after you have listened to the lectures. (There is not always a close link between lecture and tutorial topics, but there sometimes is.) If you have problems with the work you are always welcome to contact me. This work (plus your own questions and ideas) is what you bring to the External Students' On Campus Session, on Saturday May 2nd..

Week 1 (Mon. February 23rd.)
Lectures: 1. Introduction: the Classical Tradition.
               2. Presocratic Philosophy: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes.

Tutorial: Discussion of Unit requirements, assessment, etc. See also “What you need to do during the first week”.

Week 2 (Mon. March 2nd.)
Lectures: 3. Heracleitus and ‘Monism’; Parmenides and the Philosophy of ‘Being’.
               4. Zeno, Pythagoras, Empedocles and Anaxagoras.

Tutorial: Read the extract from the “History” of Thucydides attached. What are the leading ideas of this speech? (See Guide Questions)

Week 3 (Mon. March 9th.)
Lectures: 5. The intellectual context of Socrates. Socrates the man.
               6. The ‘Socratic Method’.

Tutorial: Plato's Protagoras forms the basis of the Tutorial for the next two weeks. Please read it all, if possible, but for this week read particularly 320D to 334C, on whether ‘virtue’ (arete) is teachable.

Week 4 (Mon. March 16th.)
Lectures: 7. “No-one errs willingly”: Greek moral optimism.
               8. Plato: the man and the theory of ‘Forms’.

Tutorial: This week we continue with Plato's Protagoras, reading 339A to 346E.

Week 5 (Tuesday March 23rd.)
Lectures: 9. Plato and the ideal state: the Republic and the nature of justice, and the critique of art.
               10. Platonic Love and the Theory of Knowledge.

Tutorial: Symposium 1. The speeches of Pausanias and Aristophanes (180-185, 189-194).

Week 6 (Mon. March 30th.)
Lectures: 11. Aristotle 1.
               12. Aristotle 2.

Tutorial: Symposium 2. Sections 201-212, the reported speech of Diotima.

Week 7 (Mon. April 6th.)
Lectures: 13. Alexander the Great and the spread of Greek ideas: the wider Greek world of the ‘Hellenistic’ age.
               14. Hellenistic philosophies. (1) Stoicism: physics and ethics.

Tutorial: Aristotle 1: Aristotle's Politics will be studied over two weeks. Please read it all, if possible, but for this week read particularly Book 1, on the idea of ‘nature’ (i.e. the nature of women, slaves, etc.).
 

EASTER BREAK Week 8 (Mon. April 27th.)
N.B. MAJOR ESSAY DUE by this date for both Internal and External students.
Lectures: 15. (2) Greek Epicureanism: Physics and hedonism.
               16. The Roman response to Greek culture

Tutorial: Aristotle's Politics Book 4: systems of government, the middle classes, and moderate democracy, and 5.9 on the principle of the ‘middle way’.

Saturday May 2nd: External Students’ On Campus Day, 10 am.

Week 9 (Mon. May 4th.)
Lectures: 17. Lucretius and Roman Epicureanism
               18. Seneca and Stoicism

Tutorial: Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe, Book 1: freedom from superstition, and the atomic theory.

Week 10 (Mon. May 11th.)
Lectures: 19. Scepticism, Later Platonism and other developments
               20. The Creation of the World according to Plato and Genesis

Tutorial: Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe, Book 5, on the origin of the world, the gods, species, and human society: compare Protagoras.

Week 11 (Mon. May 18th.)
Lectures: 21. Early Christian thinking.
               22. Beginnings of Christian philosophy: response to the Classical Tradition.

Tutorial: Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, Letters 2, 3, 5 and 6. What attitudes are typically Stoic? In what important ways do they contrast with our own?

Week 12 (Mon. May 25th.)
Lectures:             23. The Classical response to Christianity.
                           24. The Development of Christian philosophy.

Tutorial: Augustine, Confessions, Book 2, concentrating on the ‘theft of the pears’ incident and the attractiveness of moral evil.

Week 13 (Mon. June 1st.)
Lectures: 25. St. Augustine: his background and ideas.
               26. St. Augustine and Unit Summary.

Tutorial: Augustine, Confessions, Book 7: the contrast between “the books of the Platonists” and those of the Christians.
 

The Date for the Examination in this Unit has not yet been set. The Examination period begins on Wednesday June 10th.

These reading lists are not intended to be definitive. You need not use every reference, and you will probably find others in your own reading and research. These references are simply a variety of places to begin your reading.

1. Examine the views of Heracleitus and Parmenides on how the world as we know it came into existence. On what points of method and on what results do they agree?

Primary Sources: the fragments of Heracleitus and Parmenides, in R. Waterfield, The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists, and (with commentary) G.S. Kirk and J.E. Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers.

Secondary Sources: A.R. Burn, The Lyric Age of Greece, E. Brehier, The History of Philosophy, vol. 1, “The Hellenic Age”, F. Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. 1, K. Freeman, Companion to the Presocratic Philosophers, E. Fraenkel, Early Greek Poetry and Philosophy, W.C.K. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, G. Vlastos, Plato's Universe, Washington, 1975, Chapter 1, and the relevant chapters of C.C.W. Taylor, ed., From the Beginning to Plato, vol. 1 of the Routledge History of Philosophy.

For more detail see Edward Hussey, The Presocratics, London, 1972, J. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers, London (2nd edition), 1982, F.M. Cleve, The Giants of PreSocratic Philosophy, The Hague, 1973, vols 1-2. The most detailed discussion of D. Furley, The Greek Cosmologists, vol. 1, provides excellent detail.

See also G.S. Kirk, Heraclitus: the Cosmic Fragments, Cambridge, 1954, and C.H. Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus, Cambridge, 1979, and K. Pritzl, “On the Way to Wisdom in Heraclitus”, Phoenix vol. 39, 1985, pp. 303-316, and on Parmenides see D. Gallop, Parmenides of Elea, Toronto, 1984, the collections of essays in the bibliography for weeks 2-3, K. Popper, “How the Moon might throw some of her light upon the Two Ways of Parmenides”, C.Q. 42.1, 1992, pp. 12-19, and A.P.D. Mourelatos, “Parmenides and the Pluralists”, Apeiron vol. 32 no. 2, 1999, pp. 117ff.



2. Why did Socrates claim that he knew nothing? What did this claim mean, and how seriously should we take it? Which of the theories put forward to explain it do you find most persuasive?

Primary Sources: Plato, any of the Charmides, Euthyphro, N.B. Euthydemus, Gorgias, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches, Protagoras; Xenophon, Memorabilia.

Secondary Sources: R.S. Brumbaugh, The Philosophers of Greece, London, 1966, N. Gulley, The Philosophy of Socrates, London, 1968, B.S. Gower and M.C. Stokes, Socratic Questions, London, 1992, W.K.C. Guthrie, Socrates, Cambridge, 1971, or, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 3, part 2, Cambridge, 1969 (the same material, published in two different forms), G.B. Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement, Cambridge, 1981, G.X. Santas, Socrates: Philosophy in Plato's Early Dialogues, London, 1979, A.E. Taylor, Socrates, New York, 1953, G. Vlastos, The Philosophy of Socrates, New York, 1971, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher, Cambridge, 1991, and “Socrates’ Disavowal of Knowledge”, Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 35, 1985, pp. 1-31, J.H. Lesher, “Professor Vlastos on Socrates’ Disavowal of Knowledge”, Journal of the History of Philosophy vol. 25, 1987, pp. 275-288, as well as M.M. Mackenzie, “The Virtues of Socratic Ignorance”, Classical Quarterly, vol. 38, 1988, pp. 331-350, and M.N. Forster, “Socrates’ Profession of Ignorance”, O.S.A.Ph. vol. 32, 2007, pp. 1-35. Add to this T. Irwin, Plato's Moral Theory, Plato's Ethics, Oxford, 1995, ch. 2, and T.C. Brickhouse and N.D. Smith, Plato's Socrates, Oxford, 1994.



3. Compare Plato's critique of art (Republic, Book 3.392c ff., Book 10) with Aristotle's in the Poetics generally, referring particularly to the idea of catharsis in Poetics 1449b; (= Chapter 6.2).

Primary Sources: as above. Secondary Sources: S.H. Butcher, Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, New York, 1951, J. Jones, On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy, London, 1971, W.W Fortenbaugh, Aristotle on Emotion, London, 1975, I. Murdoch, The Fire and the Sun, Oxford, 1977, D. Keesey, “On Some Recent Interpretations of Catharsis”, The Classical World 72.4, 1978, pp. 193-205, W.B. Stanford, Greek Tragedy and the Emotions, London, 1983, I. Smithson, “The Moral View of Aristotle's Poetics”, Journal of the History of Ideas vol. 44, 1983, pp. 3-18, J.A. Elias, Plato's Defence of Poetry, Macmillan, London, 1984, S. Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics, London, 1986, and S. Rosen, The Quarrel between Philosophy and Poetry, New York, 1988, J. Lear, “Katharsis”, Phronesis vol. 34, 1988, pp. 297-324, S.R. Leighton, “Aristotle and the Emotions”, Phronesis vol. 27, 1982, pp. 144-174, and E. Asmis, “Plato on Poetic Creativity”, in R. Kraut, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plato, Cambridge, 1996.


 
4. In what ways do the moral doctrines of Stoicism depend upon its physics?

Primary Sources: for the sources for early Stoicism see A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 1, pp. 158ff, or J.L. Saunders, Greek and Roman Philosophy after Aristotle, New York, 1966, pp. 59ff.; later evidence can be found in Plutarch, Moralia, Loeb vol. 13 part 2, Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, and Epictetus (Loeb edition: 2 vols).

Secondary Sources: E. Bevan, Stoics and Sceptics, M. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, Leiden, 1985, J.B. Gould, The Philosophy of Chrysippus, Leiden, 1970, D.E. Hahm, The Origins of Stoic Cosmology, Ohio, 1977, H.A.K. Hunt, A Physical Interpretation of the Universe, Melbourne, 1976, A.A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy, and Problems in Stoicism, London, 1971, S. Sambursky, Physics of the Stoics, London, 1971, J. Rist, Stoic Philosophy, Cambridge, 1969, F.H. Sandbach, The Stoics, London, 1975, N.P. White, “The Basis of Stoic Ethics”, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. 83, 1979, F.H. Sandbach, The Stoics, 2nd ed., London, 1994, R.W. Sharples, Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics: an Introduction to Hellenistic Philosophy, London, 1996, T. Brennan, The Stoic Life: emotions, duties and fate, Oxford, 2007, and J. Annas, “Ethics in Stoic Philosophy”, Phronesis vol. 52, 2007, pp. 58-87.



5. How did their Graeco-Roman philosophical inheritance affect the earliest Christian philosophers? In what areas did they accept, and in what areas did they resist its influence? Refer in your answer to at least two of the 2nd and 3rd century “apologists”.

Primary Sources: for Justin and Clement of Alexandria: see The Ante-Nicene Fathers (ANF), ed. Roberts and Donaldson, vols. 1 – 3. See also Ferguson, ed., Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis Books One to Three, Washington, 1991. N.B. do not use the letters of Clement of Rome or the “Clementine Recognitions”: these are by different Clements! For others (e.g. Tatian, Tertullian) see again A.N.F.

Secondary Sources: A.H. Armstrong, ed., The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, H. Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition, R.J. Mortley, “The Problem of Knowledge in Late Antiquity”, Protocol of the 33rd Colloquy, vol. 33, 1978, pp. 1-31, Centre for Hermeneutical Studies, Berkeley, and From Word to Silence, vol. 2, E.F. Osborn, The Beginning of Christian Philosophy, and L. Bouyer, The Christian Mystery: from Pagan Myth to Christian Mysticism, trans. I. Trethowan, Edinburgh, 1990. On Justin Martyr see P. Parvis, “Justin Martyr”, Exp. T., 120.2, 2008, pp. 53-61, L.W. Barnard, Justin Martyr: his Life and Thought, 1967, and E.F. Osborn, Justin Martyr, Tübingen, 1973, H.B. Timothy, The early Christian apologists and Greek philosophy, Assen, 1973, R.M. Price, “Hellenisation and Logos Doctrine in Justin Martyr”, Vigiliae Christianae vol. 42, 1988, pp. 18-23, and A.J. Droge, “Justin Martyr and the Restoration of Philosophy”, Church History 56.3, pp. 303-319. On Clement see J.L. Kovacs, “Clement (Titus Flavius Clemens) of Alexandria”, Exp. T., 120.6, 2009, pp. 261-271, S.R.C. Lilla, Clement of Alexandria, a study in Christian Platonism and Gnosticism, London, 1971., and on Tertullian see M. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, vol. 2, Leiden, 1985, N.B. pp. 9ff on Tertullian, J. Danielou, Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture, trans. J.A. Baker, London, 1973, and The Origins of Latin Christianity, London, 1977, N.B. chapters 5 and 7, and G.D. Dunn, Tertullian, Routledge, 2004.

See also, in E. Livingstone, ed., Studia Patristica vol. 15, 1984, the following: J.F. Procope, “Quiet Christian Courage: a Topic in Clemens Alexandrinus and its Philosophical Background”, pp. 489-94, C. Andresen, “The Integration of Platonism into Early Christian Theology”, pp. 399-413, and E. Osborn, “Paul and Plato in Second Century Ethics”, pp. 474-485. The 1989 volume has E. Osborn, “Early Christian Platonism”, pp. 109-120. The 1993 volume has N.J. Torchia, “Theories of Creation in the Second Century Apologists and their Middle Platonic Background”, pp. 192-199.  See also M.J. Edwards, “Justin's Logos and the Word of God”, J.E.C.S. vol. 3, 1995, pp. 261-280, E. Osborn, “The Platonic Ideas in Second Century Christian Thought”, Prudentia vol. 12, 1980, pp. 31-45, and A. van den Hoek, “The ‘Catechetical’ School of Early Christian Alexandria and Its Philonic Heritage”, Harvard Theological Review, vol. 90 no. 1, 1997, pp. 59ff.


 
6. Did Graeco-Roman philosophers attempt to change their social world? If so, which of them, and in what ways? Were their methods limited to individual moral exhortation?

Primary Sources: Early “Socratic” Dialogues, Plato's Republic and Laws, and Plutarch's Lives of Dion, Phocion and Philopoemon, Aristotle, Politics, A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, Seneca, Letters from a Stoic; Epictetus (Loeb edition: 2 vols), Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.

Secondary Sources: F.L. Vatai, Intellectuals in Politics in the Greek World, A.A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy, B. Farrington, The Faith of Epicurus, London, 1967, J.M. Rist, Epicurus: an Introduction, Cambridge, 1972, E. Bevan, Stoics and Sceptics, F.H. Sandbach, The Stoics, 2nd ed., London, 1994, G.J.D. Aalders, Political Thought in Hellenistic Times, Amsterdam, 1976, D.R. Dudley, A History of Cynicism, Hildesheim, 1967, D. Dawson, Cities of the Gods: Communist Utopias in Greek Thought, Oxford, 1992, and A. Erskine, The Hellenistic Stoa: Political Thought and Action, London, 1990, and D. Dawson, Cities of the Gods: Communist Utopias in Greek Thought, Oxford, 1992.


 
7. Another topic by negotiation with Dr. Forbes.

The University defines plagiarism in its rules: “Plagiarism involves using the work of another person and presenting it as one’s own.” Plagiarism is a serious breach of the University's rules and carries significant penalties. Information about plagiarism can be found in the Handbook of Undergraduate Studies, on the web at http://www.student.mq.edu.au/plagiarism/, and on the Faculty cover sheet, which you must sign before you submit your assignments. If you are in doubt consult your lecturer or tutor.

The university has a set of guidelines on the distribution of grades across the range from “Fail” to “High Distinction”. These guidelines are designed to ensure comparability across the University. Scaled marks, raw marks or grades are given to students on each assessment task. This is part of the learning feedback. The marks or grades on the assessment tasks are combined into a raw score in the unit, following the distribution of possible marks indicated in the Unit study guide, but the raw score is only an interim stage in the calculation of the final grade. A scaling process is used to convert the raw score to the final scaled marks (standardized numerical grades or SNGs), using the guidelines for grading as moderators.

The scaled marks indicate that students have satisfied the criteria for inclusion in a particular performance band and rank them by the performance within the band. The scaling process preserves the rank order of the marks.

There is no simple arithmetical relationship between raw marks and scaled marks. The relationship will almost always differ between units and between different performance bands within the same unit.

Week 1.

Lectures: 1. An Introduction to the ‘Classical Tradition’.
               2. The first Greek Philosophers: Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes.

Suggested Reading:

For these first lectures, you will not need to do any specific background reading beyond that mentioned below, under “What You Need to Do During the First Week”. Simply make sure you bring your copy of Waterfield, The First Philosophers, with you to the lectures.

For the general diagram of the various ancient thinkers and writers on philosophical topics, click here.

For the diagram of the sources for Xenophanes, click here.

In the first week, along with coming to Lectures and Tutorials (which DO start in the first week), we recommend that you do the following (once you have the necessary books, of course):

1. If you have little or no background in the history of Ancient Greece, do some general reading (from Burn, Davies, etc.) first.

 
2. Read Chapter 3, "The Naturalist Movement", from Irwin, and the introductory chapters of Robin Waterfield's The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists, and/or one or more of the general books under "Recommended General Reading". This will begin to give you a feeling for the kind of terminology used.

 
3. Read the extract from Thucydides' History below. This passage, along with the Guide Questions that follow, form the basis of the first Tutorial. Naturally, the material is introductory, but it will provide an important orientation for the rest of the Unit.

 
4. Look at the Tutorial / Short Paper questions and decide soon how early you want to do your first one. It is a good idea to do one early in the Unit, particularly if you are unfamiliar with the material, to get an idea early as to whether you're ‘on the right track’. As was mentioned in the section on the Short Papers, if you find you have done one particularly badly, you can do all four, and you will then only be assessed on your best three.

In reading the attached passage, consider the following issues:

The speech is given at the conclusion of a national festival in honour of the Athenian war dead. The festival was an annual affair, and the bones of the dead were carried through the city in ten coffins, one for each Athenian tribe, along with one empty coffin for those ‘missing, presumed dead’. After the burial ceremony itself, the speech was given.

1. Given all the qualms the speaker has (or pretends to have) about his own fitness to glorify the dead, what is the reason he gives for going ahead and speaking none the less? What does it tell you about the society's values?
2. For what particularly does he honour the previous generation? What does this tell you about Athens' current political situation?
3. What are the balances he claims to be inherent in the Athenian political system of which the speaker is most proud?
4. What is the origin of the prosperity and elegance of the Athenian lifestyle that the author praises in (38)?
5. What is the speaker's attitude to participation in government business?
6. How does he sum up his feelings about the particular excellence of the Athenian culture?
7. What attitude of the dead does he most praise? What attitude does he urge on his hearers?
8. To what portion of the audience has all this been addressed?

If you would like to do some further reading on the context of this speech, see either P. Walcot, “The Funeral Speech, a Study of Values”, Greece and Rome vol. 20, 1973, pp. 111-121, or A.B. Bosworth, “The historical context of Thucydides’ funeral oration”, Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 120, 2000, pp 1-16. The fullest treatment is probably N. Loraux, The Invention of Athens, Harvard U.P., 1986.

(adapted from P.J. Rhodes, Thucydides' History II, Warminster, 1988, pp. 77-93. Quotations are copied pursuant to Section 53A of the Copyright Acts (as Amended) on behalf of Macquarie University.)

(34) In the same winter the Athenians, in accordance with their traditional institution, held a public funeral of those who had been the first to die in the war. The practice is this. Two days before the funeral they set up a tent and lay out in it the bones of the deceased, for each man to bring what offerings he wishes to his own kin.

On the day of the procession, cypress-wood coffins are carried on wagons, one for each tribe, with each man's bones in his own tribe's coffin. In addition there is one empty bier carried, laid out for the missing, that is, for those whose bodies could not be found and recovered. Every man who wishes joins the procession, whether citizen or foreigner, and the women of the families are present to lament at the grave. In this way the dead are placed in the public tomb, which is situated in the most beautiful suburb of the city. Those who die in war are always buried there, apart from those who fell at Marathon, whose virtue was judged outstanding and were given a tomb on the spot.

When they have been covered with earth, appropriate words of praise are spoken over them by a man chosen by the state for the intelligence of his mind and his outstanding reputation, and after that the people depart. That is how the funeral is conducted: this institution was followed throughout the war when occasion arose. Over these first casualties, then, Pericles son of Xanthippus was chosen to make the speech. When the time arrived, he came forward from the grave on to a high platform which had been erected so that he should be as clearly audible as possible to the crowd; and he spoke on these lines.

(35) The majority of those who have spoken here before have praised the man who included this speech in our institutions, and have claimed that it is good that they should make a speech over those who are buried in consequence of war. However, I should have thought that when men have been good in action it is sufficient for our honours of them to be made evident in action, as you see we have done in providing for this public funeral, and that the virtues of many ought not to be put at risk by being entrusted to one man, who might speak well or ill. It is hard to speak appropriately in circumstances where even the appearance of truth can only with difficulty be confirmed. The listener who knows what has happened and is favourably disposed can easily think that the account given falls short of his wishes and knowledge, while the man lacking in experience may through jealousy think some claims exaggerated if he hears of things beyond his own capacity. Praise spoken of others is bearable up to the point where each men believes himself capable of doing the things he hears of: anything which goes beyond that arouses envy and so disbelief. Nevertheless, since in the past this has been approved as a good practice, I too must comply with our institution, and try as far as I can to coincide with the wishes and opinions of each of you.

(36) “I shall begin first of all with our ancestors. It is right, and on an occasion like this it is appropriate, that this honour should be paid to their memory for the same race of men has always occupied this land, as one generation has succeeded another, and by their valour they have handed it on as a free land until the present day. They are worthy of praise; and particularly worthy are our own fathers, who by their efforts gained the great empire which we now possess, in addition to what they had received, and left this too to us of the present generation. We ourselves who are still alive and have reached the settled stage of life, have enlarged most parts of this empire, and we have made our city's resources most ample in all respects both for war and for peace. The deeds in war by which each acquisition was won, the enthusiastic responses of ourselves or our fathers to the attacks of the barbarians or our Greek enemies, I do not wish to recount at length to those who already know of them, so I shall pass them over. What I shall expound first, before I proceed to praise these men, is the way of life which has enabled us to pursue these objectives, and the form of government and the habits which made our great achievements possible. I think in the present circumstances it is not unfitting for these things to be mentioned, and it is advantageous for this whole assemblage of citizens and foreigners to hear of them.

(37) “We have a constitution which does not seek to copy the laws of our neighbours: we are an example to others rather than imitators of them. The name given to this constitution is democracy, because it is based not on a few but on a larger number. For the settlement of private disputes all are on an equal footing in accordance with the laws, while in public life men gain preferment because of their deserts, when anybody has a good reputation for anything: what matters is not rotation but merit. As for poverty, if a man is able to confer some benefit on the city, he is not prevented by the obscurity of his position. With regard to public life we live as free men; and, as for the suspicion of one another which can arise from daily habits, if our neighbour behaves with a view to his own pleasure, we do not react with anger or put on those expressions of disgust which, though not actually harmful, are nevertheless distressing. In our private dealings with one another we avoid offence, and in the public realm what particularly restrains us from wrongdoing is fear: we are obedient to the officials currently in office, and to the laws, especially those which have been enacted for the protection of people who are wronged, and those which have not been written down but which bring acknowledged disgrace on those who break them.

(38) “Moreover, we have provided the greatest number of relaxations from toil for the spirit by holding contests and sacrifices throughout the year, and by tasteful private provisions, whose daily delight drives away sorrow. Because of the size of our city, everything can be imported from all over the earth, with the result that we have no more special enjoyment of our native goods than of the goods of the rest of mankind.

(39) “In military practices we differ from our enemy in this way. We maintain an open city, and do not from time to time stage expulsions of foreigners to prevent them from learning or seeing things, when the sight of what we have not troubled to conceal might benefit an enemy, since we trust not so much in our preparations and deceit as in our own inborn spirit for action. In education, they start right from their youth to pursue manliness by arduous training, while we live a relaxed life but none the less go to confront the dangers to which we are equal. Here is a sign of it. Even the Spartans do not invade our territory on their own, but with all their allies; and we attack our neighbours' territory, and for the most part have no difficulty in winning battles on their land against men defending their own property. No enemy has yet encountered our whole force together, because we simultaneously maintain our fleet and send out detachments of our men in many directions by land. If they come into conflict with a part of our forces, either they boast that they have repelled all of us when they have defeated only some, or if beaten they claim that it was all of us who defeated them. Yet if we are prepared to face danger, though we live relaxed lives rather than making a practice of toil, and rely on courageous habits rather than legal compulsion, we have the advantage of not suffering in advance for future pain, and when we come to meet it we are shown to be no less daring than those committed to perpetual endurance. In this respect as well as in others our city can be seen to be worthy of admiration.

(40) “We are lovers of beauty without extravagance, and of wisdom without softness. We treat wealth as an opportunity for action rather than a matter for boastful words, and poverty as a thing which it is not shameful for any one to admit to, but rather is shameful not to act to escape from. The same men accept responsibility both for their own affairs and for the state's, and although different men are active in different fields they are not lacking in understanding of the state's concerns: we alone regard the man who refuses to take part in state affairs not as non-interfering but as useless.

“We have the ability to judge or plan rightly in our affairs, since we think it is not speech which is an obstacle to action but failure to expound policy in speech before action has to be taken. We are different also in that we particularly combine boldness with reasoning about the business we are to take in hand, whereas for other people it is ignorance that produces courage and reasoning produces hesitation. When people have the clearest understanding of what is fearful and what is pleasant, and on that basis do not flinch from danger, they would rightly be judged to have the best spirit.

“With regard to displays of goodness, we are the opposite of most people, since we acquire our friends not by receiving good from them but by doing good to them. If you do good, you are in a better position to keep the other party's favour, as something owed in gratitude by the recipient: if you owe a return, you are less alert, knowing that when you do good it will not be as a favour but as the payment of a debt. We alone are fearless in helping others, not calculating the advantage so much as confident in our freedom.

(41) “To sum up, I maintain that our city as a whole is an education to Greece; and I reckon that each individual man among us can keep his person ready to profit from the greatest variety in life and the maximum of graceful adaptability. That this is not just a momentary verbal boast but actual truth is demonstrated by the very strength of our city, which we have built up as a result of these habits. Athens alone when brought to the test proves greater than its current reputation; Athens alone does not give an enemy attacker the right to be indignant at the kind of people at whose hands he suffers, or a subject the right to complain that his rulers are unworthy of their position. Our power does not lack witnesses, but we provide mighty proof of it, to earn the admiration both of our contemporaries and of posterity. We do not need the praise of a Homer, or of any one whose poetry gives immediate pleasure but whose impression of the facts is undermined by the truth. We have compelled the whole of sea and land to make itself accessible to our daring, and have joined in setting up everywhere undying memorials both of our failures and of our successes. Such is our city. These men fought and died, nobly judging that it would be wrong to be deprived of it; and it is right that every single one of those who are left should be willing to struggle for it.

(42) “That is why I have spoken at length about our city, to instruct you that the contest is not on the same terms for us and for those who do not similarly enjoy these advantages, and to give a firm basis of proof to my praise of the men for whom I am now speaking. The greater part of this praise has been uttered already. When I have lauded the city, it has been for qualities bestowed on it by the virtues of these men and of men like them, and there could not be many Greeks of whom it is true, as it is of these, that what is said of them is equalled by the facts.

“I believe that the way in which these men have died is a proof of their virtues, whether it was the first indication of them or the final confirmation. For even if men have been less good in other respects, it is right to give priority to the courage which they have displayed for war on their country's behalf: they have wiped out the evil by good, and the harm which they did as individuals is outweighed by the benefit which they conferred together. None of these was led into cowardice by the hope that he might continue to enjoy his wealth; nor did a poor man's hope that he might yet escape and grow rich prompt any one to delay the dreadful encounter. They accepted that the punishment of our enemy was more desirable than these things; and, reckoning this to be the noblest of dangers, they were willing at the price of this danger to forsake wealth and punish the enemy, to entrust to hope the uncertainty of success while thinking it right to rely on themselves in the action already before their eyes. They thought that safety lay more in the act of resistance and in suffering than in submission, and so, avoiding a disgraceful reputation and enduring bodily action, in a very brief moment, at the turning point of fortune, they were delivered not from fear but from glory.

(43) “These men met their fate in a manner worthy of our city. The rest must judge it right to adopt an equally daring attitude towards the enemy, though you may pray for a safer outcome. You must not consider the advantages of this simply as a theoretical matter. I could spell out at length what benefits there are in resisting the enemy, but you know them as well as I. In your actions you must every day fix your eyes on the strength of our city; you must become lovers of it. When it appears great to you, you must realise that men have made it great, by daring, by recognising what was needed, and by acting with a sense of honour; and when they failed in any attempt they still did not think it right to deprive the city of their good qualities, but they offered them to it as the finest kind of free contribution. Together they offered their bodies; individually they received eternal praise, and the most distinguished of tombs - not the one in which their bodies lie but rather the one in which their glory remains recorded for ever on every occasion for word or deed. For the whole earth is the grave of distinguished men: they are commemorated not only by the inscription on the tombstone in their own land, but even in foreign territory there lives in every man's heart an unwritten memorial, of their purpose rather than their accomplishment.

“You now must emulate them, judging that happiness depends on freedom, and freedom on a good spirit, and not looking anxiously at the dangers of war. It is not the victims of misfortune, men with no hope of a good outcome, who are most justified in being generous with their lives, but those who risk a great downfall if their life continues, and the greatest reversal of fortune if they fail. For a man of spirit the arrival of misfortune attended by cowardice is more distressing than a barely perceived death attended by firmness and hope for one's country.

(44) “For that reason, to those of you who are here now as the parents of these men I wish to offer encouragement rather than sympathy. You know that you were brought up in a world of changing fortune. It is success to achieve the most honourable end, as these men have now done (though it is a source of grief to you), and to have one's happiness in life measured out to the moment of death. I know it is hard to convince you, when you will often have reminders of your grief as you see others enjoy the good fortune which you once enjoyed, and sadness comes not from missing the good things that one never had but from losing those to which one was once accustomed. Those of you who are still of an age to have children must be stouthearted in the hope of having other sons: for you as individuals, the new children will help you forget those who are no more; and for the city there will be a double benefit, deliverance from shortage of men, and a source of safety, since men who do not contribute children and so run the same risks as the others cannot be fair or just in their deliberation. Those who are past that age must reckon that the longer period of life in which you have had good fortune is a gain, and that the life still to come will be short and will be lightened by these men's fame. Love of honour is the only thing that does not grow old; and it is not profit, as some say, but honour which gives pleasure in the useless time of life.

(45) “For those of you who are here as sons or brothers of the dead I see there will be a great contest: every one tends to praise those who are no more, and you will find it hard to be judged only a little inferior to these men, let alone equal to them, as their virtues come to be exaggerated. Among the living, rivalry arouses jealousy, but what is no longer present is honoured with a good will free from competition.

“If I am to say anything to those who have now been widowed, about the virtues of a wife, I can convey my whole message in a brief exhortation: your glory is great if you do not fail to live up to your own nature, and if there is the least possible talk of you among men either for praise or for blame.

(46) “So in this speech I have said in my own way what appropriate things I could, in accordance with our institution. In our actions these men have been honoured by their burial now; and hence forward the city will undertake the upbringing of their sons until they grow up, thus conferring a valuable crown on them and on the survivors of conflicts like these. Where the prizes for valour are the greatest, there the men will be the best citizens. Now make your lament for your own dead, and go your way.”

(47) Such was the funeral in this winter. When that was over, the first year of this war came to an end.

Week 2.

Lectures: 3. Heracleitus and Parmenides.
               4. The ‘Eleatics’, Pythagoras, Empedocles and Anaxagoras.

Suggested Reading:

T. Irwin, Classical Thought, chs. 3-4, G. Vlastos, Plato's Universe, Washington, 1975, Chapter 1, C.J. Emlyn-Jones, The Ionians and Hellenism, London, 1980, chs. 5-6, and any of A.H. Armstrong, An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy, A.R. Burn, The Lyric Age of Greece, E. Brehier, The History of Philosophy, vol. 1, “The Hellenic Age”, F. Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. 1, K. Freeman, Companion to the Presocratic Philosophers, E. Fraenkel, Early Greek Poetry and Philosophy, W.C.K. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy and R. Waterfield, Before Eureka: the Presocratics and their Science.

For more detail see R.W. Jordan, Ancient Concepts of Philosophy, London, 1990, chapter 1, D. Furley, The Greek Cosmologists, vol. 1, Cambridge, 1987, pp. 16-57, and Cosmic Problems, Cambridge, 1989, Edward Hussey, The Presocratics, London, 1972, J. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers, London (2nd edition), 1982, F.M. Cleve, The Giants of PreSocratic Philosophy, The Hague, 1973, vols 1-2, M.C. Stokes, The One and the Many in Presocratic Thought, New Haven, 1971, and K.R. Popper, The World of Parmenides, ed. A.F. Petersen, London, 1998, particularly the essay “Back to the Presocratics”. Three excellent collections of essays on various aspects of the Pre-Socratics are R.E. Allen & D.J. Furley, eds., Studies in Pre-Socratic Philosophy, London, 1975, A.P.D. Mourelatos, ed., The Pre-Socratics, New York, 1974, and J.P. Anton and A. Preus, eds., Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy, vols. 1 and 2, State University of New York Press, and E. Hussey, “The Beginnings of Science and Philosophy in Archaic Greece”, in M.L. Gill & P. Pellegrin, eds., A Companion to Ancient Philosophy, Blackwell, 2006 (Library and online).

For the claim that Greek thought was in many ways dependent on Near Eastern ideas, see particularly M.L. West, Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient, Oxford, 1971, and The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth, Oxford, 1997, and S.M. Burstein, “Greek Contact with Egypt and the Levant: Ca. 1600-500 BC. An Overview”, The Ancient World, 1996, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 20ff.

Specifically on Heraclitus see G.S. Kirk, Heraclitus: the Cosmic Fragments, Cambridge, 1954, and C.H. Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus, Cambridge, 1979, and K. Pritzl, “On the Way to Wisdom in Heraclitus”, Phoenix vol. 39, 1985, pp. 303-316. On Parmenides and his followers, the ‘Eleatics’ see D. Gallop, Parmenides of Elea, Toronto, 1984, and the collections of essays above, K. Popper, “How the Moon might throw some of her light upon the Two Ways of Parmenides”, C.Q. 42.1, 1992, pp. 12-19, and A.P.D. Mourelatos, “Parmenides and the Pluralists”, Apeiron vol. 32 no. 2, 1999, pp. 117ff. On Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans see F.L. Vatai, Intellectuals in Politics in the Greek World, W. Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 166ff., pp. 299ff., and D. Furley, cited above.

On Empedocles see F.M. Cleve, The Giants of PreSocratic Philosophy, The Hague, 1973, vol. 2, pp. 329ff., D. Furley, The Greek Cosmologists vol. 1, p. 79ff., and in detail, M.R. Wright, Empedocles: the Extant Fragments, New Haven, 1981, and D. O'Brien, Empedocles' Cosmic Cycle, Cambridge, 1969, Allen and Furley, vol. 2, pp. 221-274, Mourelatos, p. 397ff., and C. Osborne, “Empedocles Recycled”, C.Q. vol. 37, 1987, pp. 24-50, and D.W. Graham, “Symmetry in the Empedoclean Cycle”, C.Q. 38.2, 1988, pp. 272-312.

On Anaxagoras see also F.M. Cleve, The Philosophy of Anaxagoras, The Hague, 1973, and M. Schofield, An Essay on Anaxagoras, Cambridge, 1980, and D. Furley, “Anaxagoras in Response to Parmenides”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, supplementary vol. 2, pp. 61-85; or see it reprinted in J.P. Anton and A. Preus, eds., Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy, vol. 2, Albany, State University of New York Press. See also D.W. Graham, “The Postulates of Anaxagoras”, Apeiron vol. 27, 1994, pp. 77-121, and A. Drozdek, “Anaxagoras and the Everything in Everything Principle”, Hermes, 133.2, 2005, pp. 163-177.

Plato's Protagoras forms the basis of the Tutorial for the next two weeks. Please read it all, if possible, but for next week read particularly 316 to 334C (pp. 14-39), on whether ‘virtue’ is teachable. See the questions, over. If you wish to do some reading in this area, a good place to start might be B. Hubbard and E. Karnofsky, Plato's Protagoras: a Socratic Commentary, Chicago, 1982. If you are interested in his view of punishment and the nature of justice, see R.F. Stalley, “Punishment in Plato’s ‘Protagoras’”, Phronesis 40.1, 1995, pp. 1-19. If you are interested in his view of human cultural development, as expressed in his ‘myth’, see R.A. McNeal, “Protagoras the Historian”, in History and Theory vol. 25, 1986, pp. 299-318.

Suggested Points for consideration in the Protagoras:

Protagoras himself was an historical character, as (most probably) are all those who take part in the dialogue. He was one of the class of ‘sophists’, celebrity philosophers and educators who became common in the mid-fifth century in Greece, but most especially in Athens. They were at their best men of wide education, specialising in eloquent argument, on a multitude of topics. They formed the vanguard of the ‘new education’ with its critique of traditional culture and religion. As professionals, they naturally tended to offer their services to the educated wealthy elite, where new ideas were most welcome and men had leisure for education. They were treated with suspicion by the ordinary population, for whom they appeared dangerously ‘advanced’ and radical.
 

1. What precisely does Protagoras claim he is able to do for his students? What is his particular specialisation?


2. The claim “you can't make someone good by teaching them” in 320 B (p. 19) translates the general Greek term arete. The word can mean ‘skill’, ‘prowess’ or ‘excellence’ in a general sense, or it can mean the particular property that fits an item for its own use: i.e. the arete appropriate to a knife would be sharpness. We still say that a person particularly skilled in, say, music, is a ‘virtuoso’ in this sense. When applied to people, then, it can mean their vocational skills in particular, or their ‘excellence’ at the broadest level, encompassing personal and political ‘virtues’. In Protagoras' speech, it means “those skills and attitudes which make a person a good (or even virtuoso) citizen”: we might say ‘social skills’, or ‘citizenship skills’, provided we understand there are intellectual, emotional and social aspects to this arete. ‘Excellence’ is the normal translation, though perhaps ‘quality’ in English comes closer. ‘Quality’ has the same ambiguity: it can mean the property of a thing that makes it what it is (“the quality of mercy is not strained”) or it can mean ‘high quality’ (“a person of quality”). Given all this:

What are the contrasting views of Protagoras and Socrates about the teachability of ‘virtue’? What qualities of human beings is Protagoras' speech most concerned with? What examples does Socrates use to illustrate his view, and what two (different) points do they make?
 
3. Why does Protagoras frame his first argument in terms of a deliberate piece of mythology? Is it perhaps not so much a myth as what we would call a ‘conceptual model’, for interest rather than as proof (or is this distinction between myth and conceptual model a false one)? What does he attempt to prove with it? Does his argument prove what he wants it to?

 
4. With what arguments does he follow up his story? Do they improve the case? What do they attempt to prove?

 
5. Is there a tension in Protagoras' case between the universal giving of basic social skills in the myth and the differing levels of skill that people actually display? What analogy does Protagoras offer to explain this? How persuasive is it?

 
6. Note that the suggestion that even the least capable Athenian is more skilled in arete (civic virtue) than any barbarian is utterly culture-bound. Among such non-Greeks an Athenian would not know how to live properly, and as such would lack arete for that culture. But those present, fully confident of the superiority of their own culture, feel no qualms about the argument.

 
7. What “one little thing” does Socrates want explained?

 
8. Note that Socrates here raises one of his most characteristic questions: that of the definition of moral and ethical qualities. By what argument does he attempt to persuade Protagoras that ‘the virtues‘ are all closely related, or even that they are the same thing, in 332-333A? What do you think he means?

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Map of Southern Italy and Greece adapted from J. Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy, Harmondsworth, 1987.

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The Development of Ancient Philosophy: an Outline Chronology.

Date		Area and World Events		Major Characters
c. 625 B.C.		Greece, Ionia, Sicily and South Italy		The Pre-Socratic Philosophers
490-479 B.C.		The Persian Invasions of Greece
c. 479-399 B.C.		The great age of the city-states. The ‘Classical Period’.		The first “Sophists” Socrates
c. 427-348 B.C.		The Rise of Macedon.		Plato
c. 384-322 B.C.		Alexander the Great. Massive expansion of Greek horizons. The ‘Hellenistic’ period.		Aristotle
370-270 B.C.		Proliferation of differing schools of thought.		Theophrastus, Crates Pyrrho, Epicurus Zeno, Cleanthes
150-50 B.C.		Steady rise of Roman power Roman absorption of Greek culture. 'Republican' period.
49-28 B.C.		Roman Civil Wars		Cicero, Lucretius
28 B.C. - 64 A.D.		Julio-Claudian Emperors		Philo Judaeus, Seneca
64 - c. 180 A.D.		Flavian and Antonine Emperors. Beginnings of early Christian philosophy.		Musonius Rufus, Epictetus Plutarch, Justin Martyr, Celsus
180-350 A.D.		Flowering of Christian philosophy		Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria Origen, Plotinus. Neo-Platonism.
354 A.D.		The Later Roman Empire		St. Augustine

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Week 3.

Socrates and his World

Lectures: 5. The Intellectual World of Socrates.
               6. Socrates and the ‘Socratic Method’.

Suggested Reading:
 

Most general Greek histories will have a section on the intellectual and cultural environment of the late fifth century. Most will also give a brief outline of the facts of Socrates’ career and death. For more detail, see Irwin, Ch. 4, "Doubts about Naturalism", pp. 43ff., and Ch. 5, "Socrates".

On the Atomists, see any of the general works on the Pre-Socratics from last week's Study Guide, and D.J. Furley, The Greek Cosmologists, vol. 1, pp. 122ff., and "The Atomists' reply to the Eleatics", in A.P.D. Mourelatos, ed., The Pre-Socratics, New York, 1974, pp. 504ff. See also A.T. Cole, Democritus and the Sources of Greek Anthropology, Cleveland, 1967, and A. Pyle, Atomism and its Critics, Bristol, 1995.

On the Sophistic movement and the intellectual world of Socrates see any of: E. Brehier, The Hellenic Age, pp. 72-86, (brief only), and the other introductory works noted in the Unit Outline. See also R.S. Brumbaugh, The Philosophers of Greece, London, 1966, pp. 112-132, G.B. Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement, Cambridge, 1981, J. de Romilly, The Great Sophists in Periclean Athens, Oxford, 1992, and G. Striker, "Methods of Sophistry", Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics, Cambridge, 1996, p. 1-21.

On Socrates himself the most important ancient sources are found in Plato's Dialogues and the writings of Xenophon, for which see the Loeb edition, or R.C. Bartlett, Xenophon: The Shorter Socratic Writings, Ithaca, 1996, or H. Tredennick and R. Waterfield, Xenophon: Conversations of Socrates, Harmondsworth, 1990.

For reconstructions of Socrates see T.C. Brickhouse and N.D. Smith, Plato's Socrates, Oxford, 1994, B.S. Gower and M.C. Stokes, Socratic Questions, London, 1992, containing essays on “Socrates’ Mission”, “Socratic Questions”, “Socrates versus Protagoras” and “Socratic Ethics”, N. Gulley, The Philosophy of Socrates, London, 1968, W.K.C. Guthrie, Socrates, Cambridge, 1971, or, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 3, part 2, Cambridge, 1969 (the same material, published in two different forms), C.D.C. Reeve, Socrates in the Apology, Indianapolis, 1989, J.W. Roberts, City of Sokrates, 1984, pp. 209-249, G.X. Santas, Socrates: Philosophy in Plato's Early Dialogues, London, 1979, A.E. Taylor, Socrates, New York, 1953, G. Vlastos, The Philosophy of Socrates, New York, 1971, containing essays on: “The Paradox of Socrates” (Vlastos), “Our knowledge of Socrates” (A.R. Lacey), “Socrates in the Clouds” (K.J. Dover) and several other important topics, G. Vlastos, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher, Cambridge, 1991, R.W. Jordan, Ancient Concepts of Philosophy, London, 1990, chapter 2, and B. Huss, “The dancing Sokrates and the laughing Xenophon, or the other ‘Symposium’”, A.J.Ph., vol. 120 no. 3, 1999, pp. 381ff., and T.C. Brickhouse and N.D. Smith, “The Origin of Socrates’ Mission”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 44.4, 1983, pp. 657-666. For a detailed discussion of the historical problem of Socrates, see also D.W. Graham, “Socrates and Plato”, in Phronesis, vol. 37, 1992, pp. 141-165.

All of the above are to be found in Reserve / eReserve: several are also on the open shelves and available for borrowing.

Tutorials: In this, the third week of Term, we will be discussing the section of Plato's Protagoras from 320D to 334C. Questions on this passage are to be found above. For next week's Tutorials see the questions which follow.

Suggested Points for consideration in the Protagoras, 339A to 346E, for Week 4.

Note that questions 1-4 deal with something of a diversion from the topic of the teachability of arete. Socrates has had his chance to ask questions: now Protagoras has his opportunity to show his critical skills. It is taken for granted that any educated Athenian would know the poem of Simonides in question.
 

1. Precisely what is the point on which Protagoras attempts to catch Socrates in the interpretation of Simonides' poem (339 B)?

 
2. What is Socrates’ reply? How serious is it, in the light of developments in 341 D-E?

 
3. Socrates’ full exposition of Simonides’ poem follows. What is the point of the satirical references to the Spartans as philosophers? What particular features of the Spartan way of life are forced into service for his argument by Socrates?

 
4. In what ways does Socrates change the sense of the poem for his own purposes? (344 C-D, 346D-E. Note that not every detail of his exposition is clear: much of it depends on nuances of Greek word order and emphasis.) Note also that this digression on poetry has not been completely off-topic: it has still been about “becoming a good man”, and whether, once one has achieved this, one can be deflected from it.

 
5. In the light of the remainder of the Protagoras, how might Socrates justify the claim (at 345 E) that “no one who knows anything believes that people ever make mistakes wilfully or do things that are wrong, or bad for them, wilfully”?

 
6. Is it possible to reconcile this point of view with our own ‘common-sense’ view, that many people wilfully commit actions which they themselves believe to be wrong? Is there simply a different cultural point of view here, or are the reasons stronger than that?

 
7. How is this statement, that no-one wilfully acts wrongly, related to Socrates’ suggestion that ‘virtue’ (arete) is all one thing, noted above in Question 8 of the set work for Week 3?

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Week 4.

Socrates and Plato

Lectures: 7. “No-one errs willingly”: Greek moral optimism.
               8. Plato: the man and the theory of ‘Forms’.

Suggested Reading:
 

Lecture 1: Virtually any of the works referred to in last week's Study Guide will have sections on the moral optimism implicit in Socrates’ famous paradox. See also Irwin, pp. 75ff., and T.C. Brickhouse and N.D. Smith, Plato's Socrates, Oxford, 1994.

Lecture 2: On Plato and Forms see Euthyphro 5-7 (pp. 23-28), Hippias Major 287c-d, Phaedo 65dff, Symposium 211-212, Republic 502d-521b (pp. 299-325), Parmenides 126-135, Sophist 245ff; see also Irwin, Chapter 6, “Plato”, R.E. Allen, “Plato's Earlier Theory of Forms”, in Vlastos, The Philosophy of Socrates, New York, 1971, pp. 319-334, and contrast J.M. Rist, “Plato's ‘Earlier Theory of Forms’”, Phoenix 29, 1975, pp. 336-357, and W.C.K. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. IV, pp. 188-191; see also for the fully-developed theory pp. 340-365, 503-518, D. Bostock, Plato's Phaedo, Oxford, 1986, pp. 194-213, R.W. Jordan, Ancient Concepts of Philosophy, London, 1990, chapter 3, and K.R. Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies (vol. 1): the Spell of Plato, 5th edition, 1966, pp. 18-34.

Tutorials:

Plato's Symposium will be studied over the next two weeks. Please read it all if possible, but for next week read specifically the speeches on Love (Eros) by Pausanias and Aristophanes (180-185, 189-194).
 

1. Note that the setting, a meal and subsequent drinking party, is not merely conventional. Among the Athenian elite, drinking parties were regularly the scene of long political or philosophical debates. Note that the group agrees together that the subject is important enough to warrant not getting too drunk, and sending away the flute-girl, the hired entertainer. The chief pleasure of the evening will be the conversation. (176)

 
2. What is the distinction between the two sorts of Love that Pausanias suggests? On what mythological point does he base it?

 
3. Give a brief description of the two kinds of Love he brings forward.

 
4. What appear to have been the conventions about courtship relevant to male love affairs in Athens?

 
5. What kinds of considerations are used in the evaluation of love in this speech?

 
6. Aristophanes’ speech begins, like that of Protagoras, with a myth. Apart from the sheer joy in fantasy displayed here, what serious points about Love is Aristophanes out to make? Does he also distinguish between higher and lower forms of Love?

 
7. What further evidence does this speech give us about the prevalence of male homosexuality in Athens? Does it suggest that it was widespread?

 
8. Is there a distinction being made between ‘the lover’ and ‘the beloved’? Are they merely reciprocal terms, or do they imply differences of status?

 
9. If we discount the emphasis on homosexuality, how similar or different are the attitudes to Love (Eros) displayed here to those of our own culture?

 
10. Thinkers have often distinguished between (a) love as desire, and (b) love as the wish to please the Beloved, as well as (c) altruistic or ‘disinterested love’. To what extent is each of these three under discussion in these two speeches?

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If you wish to read further on Symposium in the context of this or the next Short paper, you may find some of the following interesting:

T. Gould, Platonic Love, London, 1963.
K.J. Dover, “Aristophanes’ Speech in Plato's Symposium”, J.H.S. 86, 1966, pp. 41-50.
G. Vlastos, Platonic Studies, Princeton, 1973. (collected essays): particularly Vlastos, “The Individual as Object of Love in Plato”.
R. Mortley, “Love in Plato and Plotinus”, Antichthon vol. 14, 1980, pp. 45-52.
A.W. Price, “Loving Persons Platonically”, Phronesis vol. 26, 1981.
F.C. White, “Love and Beauty in Plato's Symposium”, J.H.S. vol. 109, 1989, pp. 149-157.
A. Nye, “The Subject of Love: Diotima and her Critics”, Journal of Value Inquiry, 24.2, 1990, pp. 135-153.
G.R.F. Ferrari, “Platonic Love”, in R. Kraut, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plato, Cambridge, 1992.
M. Nussbaum, “The Speech of Alcibiades: a reading of the Symposium”, in The Fragility of Goodness, Cambridge, 1986.
     Upheavals of Thought: the Intelligence of Emotions, Cambridge, 2001, Part 3 chs. 9-10.
W.A. Johnson, “Dramatic Frame and Philosophic Idea in Plato”, A.J.Ph. 119.4, 1998, pp. 577-598.
R.G. Edmonds III, “Socrates the Beautiful: Role Reversal and Midwifery in Plato's Symposium”, T.A.Ph.A. vol. 130, 2000, pp. 261-285.
D.C. Schindler, “Plato and the Problem of Love: On the Nature of Eros in the Symposium”, Apeiron 40.3, 2007, pp. 199-220.

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Week 5.

Plato.

Lectures: 9. Plato and the ideal state: the Republic and the nature of justice, and the critique of art.
               10. Platonic Love and the Theory of Knowledge.

Suggested Reading:
 

Lecture 9: Republic books 1-7; see also Irwin, Ch. 6, Guthrie, History of Greek Philosophy, pp. 439-486, R.W. Jordan, Ancient Concepts of Philosophy, London, 1990, chapter 3, K.R. Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies, vol. 1 generally, R. Bambrough, ed. Plato, Popper and Politics, Cambridge, 1967, R. Robinson, Essays in Greek Philosophy, Oxford, 1969, Chapter 4, “Dr. Popper's Defence of Democracy”, R.B. Levinson, In Defence of Plato, and the reply of Popper, op.cit., pp. 323ff, and G. Vlastos, “The Theory of Social Justice in the Polis in Plato's Republic”, in Interpretations of Plato, ed. H.F. North, Leiden, 1977. See also B. Williams, “The Analogy of City and Soul in Plato's Republic”, in E.N. Lee, A.P.D. Mourelatos &  R.M. Rorty, eds., Exegesis and Argument, Assen, 1973, pp. 196-206, M.F. Burnyeat, “Utopia and Fantasy: the Practicability of Plato's ideally just city”, in J. Hopkins and A. Savile, eds., Psychoanalysis, mind, and art; perspectives on Richard Wollheim, Blackwell, 1992, pp. 175-187, and L. Brown, “How Totalitarian is Plato’s Republic?”, in E.N. Ostenfeld, Essays on Plato's Republic, Aarhus University Press, 1998, pp. 13-27.

Lecture 10: Theory of Knowledge, Meno 81-86, Phaedo 73-75c; other sources are gathered in D.J. Herrmann and R. Chaffin, eds, Memory in Historical Perspective, 1988. See also N. Gulley, Plato's Theory of Knowledge, London, 1962, J.L. Ackrill, “Anamnesis in the Phaedo: Remarks on 73c-75c” in Exegesis and Argument, ed. E.N. Lee, A.P.D. Mourelatos and R.M. Rorty, Assen, 1973, pp. 177-195, and J. Moravcsik, “Learning as Recollection”, in G. Vlastos, ed., Plato: a Collection of Critical Essays, Indiana, 1971. See also W.C.K. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 4, pp. 249-254, pp. 329-330, pp. 342-346.

On Platonic Eros, see the Symposium, the Phaedrus, N.B. 246ff., G. Vlastos, “The Individual as Object of Love in Plato”, in Platonic Studies, Princeton, 1973, A.W. Price, “Loving Persons Platonically”, Phronesis vol. 26, 1981, pp. 25-34, G. Santas, “Passionate and Platonic Love in Phaedrus”, Ancient Philosophy, 1982, pp. 105-114, A.B. Palma, “Socrates: Love, Irony and Philosophy”, Prudentia, vol. 18, no. 1, 1986, pp. 15-30, S. Rosen, “The Role of Eros in Plato's Republic”, and “Socrates as Concealed Lover”, both in his The Quarrel between Philosophy and Poetry, London, 1988, D.M. Halperin, “Why is Diotima a Woman?”, in One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, London, 1988, pp. 113ff., E.E. Pender, “Spiritual Pregnancy in Plato's Symposium”, C.Q., vol. 42, 1992, pp. 72-86, A. Cavarero, In Spite of Plato, Cambridge, 1995, Chapter 4, “Diotima”, and M. Nussbaum The Fragility of Goodness, Cambridge, 1986, ch. 6 pp. 165ff.

See also, for social background, P. Green, Classical Bearings, London, 1989, chapter 9, “Sex and Classical Literature”, pp. 130ff., K.J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality, 1978, and D.M. Halperin, “Sex before Sexuality: Pederasty, Politics and Power in Classical Athens”, in Hidden from History, ed. M.B. Duberman, et al., New York, 1989, pp. 37-53.

On the contrast with the Christian ideal of love, see A. Nygren, Eros and Agape, trans. P.S. Watson, London, 1953, A.H. Armstrong, “Platonic eros and Christian agape”, in Plotinian and Christian Studies, London, 1979, J. Rist, “Some Interpretations of Agape and Eros”, in Platonism and its Christian Heritage, London, 1985.

Tutorial: Symposium 1. The speeches of Pausanias and Aristophanes (180-185, 189-194). For next week: Symposium 201-212, the reported speech of Diotima and the interruption of Alcibiades.
 

1. The previous speech, that of Agathon, had raised the question of the nature of Eros. It had done so mythologically, by treating it, in personified form, as a god (195-197). Socrates pronounces himself vastly impressed, but his irony is as usual pronounced: he has “a few small questions”. He then proceeds to turn Agathon's speech on its head. His central question is: is Love (Eros) a desire for something? and if so, for what?

 
2. In what way does the argument of Diotima's reported speech (202-3) go beyond the “argument about opposites” we saw Socrates use in the Protagoras? What are the consequences for the view that Love is a God?

 
3. What is the meaning of Diotima's myth of the birth of Eros?

 
4. Likewise, what is the point, at the level of human experience, of Eros “within a single day … being full of life in abundance, when things are going his way, but then he dies away … only to take after his father (‘Plenty’) and come back to life again”?

 
5. In sections 205b-c Diotima comments that “there are all kinds of creativity. It's always creativity, after all, which is responsible for something coming into existence when it didn't exist before. And it follows that all artefacts are actually creations or poems and that all artisans are creators or poets.” The point of this is that the Greek term poiesis was used for making: it could be equally used of making shoes or making verse. Poiesis was a term that could be used of any ‘creative process’, but ‘poetry’ in our sense had become its dominant meaning. How does she use a similar argument to ‘broaden’ the nature of ‘Love’? What does she mean?

 
6. What, according to Diotima, is the true aim of all love, whether ‘merely’ physical, or ‘true’ love? In what ways is it expressed, at these different levels?

 
7. What, according to Diotima, are the stages through which Love ought to pass in its ascent?

 
8. What, in the context of the theme of the Symposium, is the dramatic point of the drunken speech of Alcibiades?

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Week 6.

An Introduction to Aristotle

Lectures: 11. Aristotle 1
               12. Aristotle 2

Suggested Reading:
 

On Aristotle see Irwin, Chapter 7, J.L. Ackrill, Aristotle's Ethics, B. Baumrin, “Aristotle's Ethical Intuitionism”, New Scholasticism, vol. 42, 1968, pp. 1-17, A. Grant, The Ethics of Aristotle, 2 vols., A.O. Rorty, Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, J. Lear, Aristotle and the Desire to Understand, Cambridge, 1988, R.W. Jordan, Ancient Concepts of Philosophy, London, 1990, D. Furley, The Greek Cosmologists, Cambridge, 1991, vol. 1, and W.C.K. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 6. See also, for more detail on other questions, J. Barnes, Articles on Aristotle, vol. 2, J.M. Cooper, Reason and Human Good in Aristotle, J.B. Morrall, Aristotle, and W.D. Ross, Aristotle, and N.D. Smith, “Aristotle's Theory of Natural Slavery“, Phoenix vol. 37, 1983, pp. 109-122.

Tutorial: Aristotle 1: Aristotle's Politics will be studied over two weeks. Please read it all, if possible, but for next week read particularly Book 1, on the idea of ‘nature’ (i.e. the nature of women, slaves, etc.).

1. Aristotle gives a schematic outline of the growth of communities in 1.2. What points convince him that the city state is the most natural form of community?

 
2. How does Aristotle use the category (though not the term) of “management” to organise his discussion of social roles and institutions (i.e. marriage, government, slavery)?

 
3. In what sense can someone be described as a slave ‘by nature’? (1.4-5) How does Aristotle justify slavery?

 
4. Does Aristotle have any arguments specifically to justify the enslavement of barbarians? (1.2, 1.6, 1.8)

 
5. What is Aristotle's point about the naturalness and unnaturalness of various forms of economic life in 1.9-10? Does it conflict with his views about the naturalness of polis life in 1.2?

 
6. Notice the personification of ‘nature’ in these chapters. Does Aristotle's argument depend on this?

 
7. What are the differences between the three kinds of authority that Aristotle distinguishes in 1.12?

 
8. To what psychological theory does Aristotle link his view of natural social roles in 1.13? Note how this theory is linked to the definition of the ‘arete’ of particular classes of people.

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Diagrams used during the first Aristotle lecture:

Plato's View of Political Systems
 

	Good	Bad
Rule of One	Monarchy	Tyranny
Rule of Few	Aristocracy	Oligarchy
Rule of Many	Polity / Democracy	Ochlocracy / Democracy

Characteristics of Differing forms of Governments According to Aristotle
 

Oligarchy	Polity	Democracy
High Property Qualification	Moderate Property Qualification	No Property Qualification
Rich fined for not participating	Rich Fined, poor paid	Poor paid for participating
Election to office	High offices elected, others chosen by lot	Offices chosen by lot

Note that the three forms are distinguished by – term of office, repetition of office-holding, the extent of direction of officers by the Assembly, relationships between the Assembly and the Council, and the form of selection for office.

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Diagrams used during the second Aristotle lecture:

Aristotle's understanding of Virtues and the Mean (adapted from W.D. Ross, Aristotle, London, 1949, p. 203)

Feeling	Action	Excess	Mean	Defect or Lack
Fear		Cowardice	Courage	Not named
Confidence		Rashness	Courage	Cowardice
Certain pleasures of touch		Profligacy	Temperance	Insensibility
Generosity	Giving money	Prodigality	Liberality	Meanness
	Accepting money	Meanness	Liberality	Prodigality
Large-Scale Generosity		Vulgarity	Magnificence	Meanness
	Claiming Honour (large scale)	Vanity	Self-respect	Humility
	Claiming Honour (small scale)	Ambition	Not named	Lack of ambition
Anger		Irascibility	Gentleness	Meekness
In social relations	Truthfulness	Boasting	Truthfulness	Self-deprecation
	Amusing people	Buffoonery	Wit	Boorishness
	Pleasing people	Flattery	Friendliness	Sulkiness
Shame		Bashfulness	Modesty	Shamelessness
Pain at good or bad fortune of others		Envy	Righteous indignation	Malevolence

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