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Ancient Western Philosophy (PHIL 301)

Lewis & Clark College

Spring 2025

Professor Joel A. Martinez (joel@lclark.edu)

Book Office Hours Appointments HERE

Tentative Course Schedule:

(Please Note: I am providing this tentative course schedule merely as a courtesy. It should not be construed as a commitment to keep strictly to the plan outlined below.

 

 

Week 1:  Introduction, Early Greek Philosophy

 

Day 1    Introduction to course -  What is Philosophy? What are the origins of Philosophy?   In class exercise and discussion.  (Identify a philosophical question, Choose favorite section of Voices of Ancient Philosophy)

Day 2    Parmenides Poem on your own. How will you find the poem?  In class exercise and discussion.  (Where do the ideas of Greek/Roman Philosophy come from?)

Supplementary reading:  Bernard Williams "Why Philosophy Needs History"

 

Week 2  Sources, Doxography and the Presocratics I:  The Milesians, Xenophanes

 

Day 1:  Parmenides Poem on your own. How will you find the poem?  In class exercise and discussion.  (Where do the ideas of Greek/Roman Philosophy come from?)

Readings for Day 2:

a. Shields preface ix-xii & Chpt 1 pp. 1-9  

b. Curd Introduction, pp. 1-22 and pp. 31-38;

c. SEP links on Pre-Socratics and Doxography

Day 2: Are we studying the ideas of the actual people? What counts as the text? How to have fun.     Begin The Milesians & Xenophanes

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 3:  Eleatics Change and Multiplicity; Being and Unity

Readings for Week 3:  

a. Curd pp. 39-72

b. Shields pp.  9-20

Day 1  Continue the Milesians & Xenophanes   Begin: The Presocratics II:  Heraclitus, 

Day 2  The Presocratics II:  Parmenides

 

 

 

 

 

Week 4 -- Parmenides' Assault on a posteriori Knowledge and Zeno's Paradoxes

Readings:  

a. Curd pp. 39-72

b. Shields pp.  9-20

Day 1    Parmenides Continued

 

Day 2   Parmenides, Zeno if there is time  (How to read Plato)

 

Week 5 --  Sophists & the Challenges for Philosophy; Socrates

Readings for Day 1: 

a. Curd fragments on Protagoras pp.145-148,

b. Plato's Protagoras 309a-328d (Cooper's Collected works see syllabus or google drive week 4)

Day 1  Protagoras and Plato’s Protagoras 

PAPER #1 DUE FRIDAY OVER EMAIL

 

Readings for Day 2:

a. Euthyphro, Meno 70-80d, and re-visit Protagoras reading (Elenctic method vs. Sophistic Method, Protagoras’ Conventional Morality vs. Socrates’ Revisionism, Hedonism and Ethics, Knowledge and Techne (the Skill Analogy))

b. Shields 35 -59

Day 2 What are Socrates' main philosophical contributions?

 

 

 

Week 6  Exam and Plato’s Project

ASSIGN Exam 1  Covering the Presocratics and Socrates

Reading for the Week:  Read through Plato's Gorgias.


Day 1  Socrates in the Gorgias


Day 2  Socrates in the Gorgias

 

 

Week 7: Plato on Knowledge and Explanation

 

Day 1  Meno 80d-100 & Phaedo 57-90  Two Accounts of Recollection

 

Day 2 More on Knowledge and Recollection

 Exam 1 Due

Week 8:  Plato on Knowledge and Explanation

 

Day 1   Meno 80d-100 & Phaedo 57-90  Two Accounts of Recollection  Phaedo  91-118  Forms in the Phaedo & The Hypothetical Method

Short paper #2 assigned

 

 

Day 2     Phaedo  91-118  Forms in the Phaedo & The Hypothetical Method; Shields Pp 68-82

 

Week 9:  Plato’s Republic

 

Day 1 Transitioning to the Republic; The Forms and Western Culture. Helmut Heit, Jude Dougherty and Susan Bordo.  In class reflections and discussions. Republic 1-2 The Challenge of the Republic

 

 

Day 2 Transitioning to the Republic; The Forms and Western Culture. Helmut Heit, Jude Dougherty and Susan Bordo.  In class reflections and discussions. Republic 1-2 The Challenge of the Republic 

 

 

Week 10:    SPRING BREAK    

Week 11:   The Move to Virtue

 

Day 1    Republic 3-4  Early Education and Virtue      

Short Paper #2 due, Student presentations assigned

 

Day 2   Republic 6-7 Higher Education

 

 

 

Week 12 Transitioning to Aristotle

 

Day 1 Plato’s   Parmenides  Finishing Plato, moving to Aristotle

 

Day 2   Parmenides (cont)

 

 

Week 13:   Aristotle on Being and Nature        

 

Day 1   Intro to Aristotle, Categories  Short Paper #3 assigned

 

Day 2   Physics  2.1-3  Nature and the Four Causes

 

 

 

 

Week 14:  Aristotle on Luck and the Automatic; Begin Happiness and Virtue

 

Day 1  Physics 2.4-9 Luck and the Automatic, Hypothetical Necessity

 

Day 2   EN Bk. 1 & 2 & 6

 

 

 

Week 15:  Hellenistic Philosophy

 

Day 1  Student Presentations

 

Day 2  Student Presentations   

 

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