The course aims to introduce students to the study of fundamental philosophical texts and issues from classical antiquity, considered from various points of view: historical genesis and fortune, conceptual substance, philological issues.
- Platone, Repubblica, intr. di M. Vegetti, trad. di F. Sartori, note di B. Centrone, Laterza.
- Plato, The Republic, with an English trans. by P. Shorey, 2 vols, Cambridge MA / London 1930-35.
- J. Adam, The Republic of Plato, 2nd ed. with an introduction by D.A. Rees, 2 vols, Cambridge 1963 (1st ed. 1902).
- J. Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic, Oxford University Press.
(2) INTRODUCTION TO ARISTOTLE
- The Aristotelian texts will provided in pdf format.
- M. Vegetti, F. Ademollo, Incontro con Aristotele. Quindici lezioni, Einaudi.
HANDBOOK
- R. Chiaradonna, P. Pecere, Filosofia. la ricerca della conoscenza (Mondadori Scuola), voll. 1A + 1B (fino a Unità 6, cap. 1, § 2 – Plotino e il suo platonismo – compreso).
- T. Irwin, Classical Philosophy, Oxford University Press.
Further and more precise bibliographical directions will be provided during the course.
Learning Objectives
- Knowledge and understanding: students will learn the main aspects and implications of the ancient texts and philosophical doctrines which are the subject matter of the course.
- Applied knowledge and understanding: students will acquire a general capacity to compare and assess different interpretations of a philosophical text or solutions to a philosophical or philological problem, also by making use of pertinent bibliographical resources.
- Communication skills: students will become able to understand and use appropriately a technical terminology and illustrate clearly and precisely the meaning of a philosophical text or of a philosophical or philological problem.
- Making judgements: students will become able to make informed critical decisions between different interpretations of a philosophical text or different solutions to a philosophical or philological problem.
- Learning skills: students will acquire the learning skill which is necessary for them to carry on autonomously their studies in this field.
Prerequisites
Knowledge of ancient Greek.
Teaching Methods
Lectures; discussion.
Further information
Introductory course.
Type of Assessment
- Final oral examination.
The final examination (approximately 30-40 minutes) will aim at ascertaining whether and to what extent the course's various learning objectives (see "Learning Objectives") have been achieved. Students will pass the examination only if all the objectives turn out to have been achieved at least to an acceptable degree. To this purpose students may be requested to expound or compare philosophical theses encountered either in the lecture course or in the handbook, or to translate and comment on texts included among (or akin to) those encountered.
In order to take the examination students will have to be present on the day and at the time fixed for the examination or notify their delay within two hours.
Course program
The course will consist of two parts.
(1) Plato, Republic, books 1-4. We shall set out the main lines of the general argument of the Republic and then focus on books 1-4, analysing their text (in the original Greek) from both the philosophical and the philological point of view.
(2) An introduction to Aristotle. We shall come to grips with some of the main notions of Aristotle’s physics and metaphysics through the study of a selection of texts.
Students will also study a handbook of the history of ancient philosophy (see Bibliography).