Ancient Philosophy

Full course description

Why would anyone choose to study philosophers who lived and wrote more than two millennia ago? One obvious answer is: to learn about one’s roots; to better understand Western culture and heritage. Up to this day, the ancient Greeks constitute a major influence on our ideas about critical thinking, about the fundamental character of reality, about science, ethics, and art, and last not least: about what it is to be human and about what it means for humans to flourish, to live truly good lives. Ancient philosophy provides an inexhaustible source of inspiration for contemporary philosophy. “The European philosophical tradition”, the philosopher Whitehead once remarked, “consists in a series of footnotes to Plato”. Slightly overstated, but not untrue.

In this course we will return to the sources and study the texts that helped us become who we are today. We will analyze a range of canonical philosophical texts from Antiquity, ranging from the Ionian Philosophers of Nature to Aristotle, and beyond. Although we will attempt to position these treatises in their historical and geographic contexts, our main concern will be: what do these ancient thinkers still have to say to us today?

Please note: even if you have some prior knowledge of ancient Greek philosophy, that doesn’t make this an easy course. Only choose this course if you are genuinely interested in reading intellectually challenging texts that do not always yield their secrets easily.