PHILOSOPHY SUMMER SCHOOL IN CHINA

2007 SESSION: ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY

SHANDONG UNIVERSITY

23 July–11 August 2007

Dr. Melissa Lane (King’s College, Cambridge):

       PLATO’S REPUBLIC

Dr. Cristina Viano (Sorbonne, Université de Paris, Sorbonne & CNRS):

       THE CONCEPT OF MATTER IN ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Associate Professor Jiyuan Yu (University at Buffalo):

       Aristotle's Metaphysics

Professor Carlo Natali (Università di Venezia "Ca' Foscari):
　　
　　The Nicomachean Ethics

cOURSE dESCRIPTIONS

Plato’s Republic

Melissa Lane, University of Cambridge

The objective of this course is to achieve an understanding of the overall structure, purpose, and content of Plato's Republic. We will explore issues such as the dialogue form; the question of whether the Republic is essentially an ethical rather than a political text; and the nature of the

philosophers envisaged as rulers. The focus will be on ethics and politics more than on metaphysics and epistemology, although the latter will feature also. The course will also provide an introduction to key moments and themes in the reception of the Republic in various contexts.

The course will proceed by studying one book of the Republic each lecture, so that participants can grapple with the text directly. The lectures will move around in the text to provide a more synoptic overview, as well as surveying various possible interpretations and situating the work in its Athenian cultural and political context.

1.  Plato and Athens; Plato and us 

2.  Puzzles preparing the way for the 'Republic'

3.  Two challenges: why be just?  

4.  Psychology and poetry

5.  Goodness, mathematics, and the Forms

6.  Criticising conventions: gender, property, and democracy

7.  (Why and how) will the philosophers rule?

8.  Ethics and politics

9.  The 'Republic', the 'Statesman' and the 'Laws'

10. Conclusion: unity, significance, reception of the Republic

Course Text: Plato: The Republic, trans. T. Griffith, ed. G.R.F. Ferrari (Cambridge:

Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought).

If you have Greek, you can get a copy of the Oxford classical text or Loeb text. Another helpful

volume is J.M. Cooper (ed.) Plato: Complete Works (Hackett, 1997).

A handy guide to the Republic is N. Pappas, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook

to Plato and the Republic (1995). A good deeper discussion of Plato's

political thought is M. Schofield, Plato (Oxford: 2006).

The Concept of Matter in Ancient Greek Philosophy:

 From the Presocratics to the Greek Alchemists

Cristina Viano, Université de Paris-Sorbonne & CNRS

This course will focus on the notion of matter in Greek thought from the Presocratics to the Neoplatonic Commentators and Greek Alchemists. The main protagonist of this history is Aristotle, who was the first to define and name the philosophical concept of matter (hulê). After Aristotle, the Commentators tried to explain and develop his notion of matter and to establish a convergence with Plato's theory of material principle. In particular, one of the most interesting interpretations of the Aristotelian concept of matter is at the origin of  the  revolutionary theory of transmutation, coined by the  Greek Alchemists in Alexandria.

The course will begin with a methodological introduction and then cover the following stages:

Lecture 1:        Introduction: Definitions of Matter

Lectures 2 & 3: The Principles of the Cosmos: The Presocratics

Lectures 4 & 5: Space and the Elements: Plato, Timaeus

Lectures 6 & 7: Physical Matter and Prime Matter: Aristotle

Lecture 8:         The Enigma of Prime Matter: The Neoplatonic Commentators

Lecture 9:         Making Gold with Aristotle: Transmutation in the Greek Alchemists

Lecture 10:       Conclusions

Course Text:

Reading will be drawn from

G.S. Kirk, J.E. Raven, M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Plato: Timaeus in  J.M. Cooper (ed.) Plato: Complete Works, Hackett, 1997.

The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation (ed. By J. Barnes, Princeton University Press, 2 vols.).

R. Sorabji, The Philosophy of the Commentators, 200-600 AD. A Sourcebook, Duckworth, 2004, vol. 2: Physics.

I shall distribute some specific articles for each period. For an interesting introduction to

the problems of matter, in the perspective of the modern physics, see R. Sorabji, Matter, Space and

Motion. Theories in Antiquity and Their Sequel, Cornell University Press, 1988, particularly Chapter I: Matter.

Aristotle’s Metaphysics

Jiyuan Yu, University at Buffalo

The objective of this course is to acquire a critical understanding of Aristotle's Metaphysics. We will read the key sections of the Metaphysics and other treatises which are essential for our grasp of Aristotle's project in the Metaphysics. The course will begin with an introduction to Aristotle's works and Aristotelian studies, and then cover the following major topics:

      The Nature of Metaphysics (Metaphysics I. 1-2, II. 1, III.1) 

       Category and Being (Categories 1-5; Topics I, 9; Metaphysics V. 7) 

       Being qua Being and Substance (Metaphysics IV. 1-2; VII. 1-2, 3)

Substance, Essence, and Form (Metaphysics VII. 3-16) 

Change, Cause, Nature (Metaphysics VII. 17, Physics I-II)

Potentiality and Actuality (Metaphysics VIII, IX)

Theology (Metaphysics XII. 6-10)

The Unity of Aristotle's Metaphysical Project (Metaphysics VI. 1-2)

I will go though the key passages, explain the main linguistic and philosophical issues and introduce influential debates and interpretations of these texts. I intend to distribute one classical article for each session to help students to understand the text under discussion and to serve as an example of how to write an academic paper.

Course text: The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation (ed. By J. Barnes, Princeton, 2 vols.).

If you have Greek, you can get a copy of Oxford Classical Text (Greek text) or Loeb Classical Library (Greek text and English translation) edition of the Metaphysics.

The Nicomachean Ethics

Carlo Natali, Università di Venezia "Ca' Foscari

The Nicomachean Ethics is one of the most studied and discussed works in Greek antiquity. Before Aristotle no Greek philosopher wrote a general treatise on ethics.  In this sense, he can be described as the inventor of this philosophical discipline.  To be sure, every civilisation and every age had its own morals, and some ethical doctrines were expressed by poets, legislators, and priests.  But to build a system of ethics is something different.

Aristotle invented philosophical ethics by unifying, in a single field, problems such as the nature of happiness, friendship, virtue and pleasure, which were discussed separately by preceding philosophers.  Furthermore, he detached ethical discussion from problems of cosmology and metaphysics, giving unity and independence to the new field.  In this regard, he did for ethics what he did for logic, ontology, and many other philosophical disciplines.

The course will investigate his realisation of the following topics:

Lectures 1 & 2: Theory of Happiness (EN I 1-12 + X 6-9)

Lectures 3 & 4: Theory of Virtue in General (EN I 13-III 7)

Lectures 5 & 6: Theory of Particular Virtues (EN III 8-V)

Lectures 7 & 8: Theory of Wisdom and the Practical Syllogism (EN VI and VII 3)

Lecture 9:         Theory of Friendship (EN VIII-IX)

            Lecture 10:        Summary and General Considerations

Course Text: The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. by W.D. Ross, rev. by J.O. Urmson, in: The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation (ed. By J. Barnes, Princeton University Press, 2 vols.).

If you have Greek, you can get a copy of Oxford Classical Text (Greek text) or Loeb Classical Library (Greek text and English translation) edition of the Nicomachean Ethics. A short, but very good, introduction to Nicomachean Ethics is: J.O. Urmson, Aristotle's Ethics, Oxford: Blackwell, 1988. On the topic of wisdom, you might be interested in reading Carlo Natali, The Wisdom of Aristotle, English translation, New York: SUNY Press, 2001.