Greek 205: Greek Philosophers

Our aim will be to understand something about Plato's "Theory of Forms." We will start with Parmenides, followed by Plato's Theory of Forms (via the Republic, Phaedo, the Symposium and perhaps other texts), Aristotle's criticism of Plato's Forms (via On Ideas).

• Week 1:
  
  • Parmenides fragments 1-8 on the TLG
• Week 2: 
• Meno: read it all in English, but read 70a-81e and 85-86c in Greek.
• Wednesday Articles: Sean and Nate
  
• Fine's article on inquiry in the Meno
• Scott's article on recollection
• both articles sent to you via email pdfs
  
• Week 3: Sept. 14, 16, 18
  
  • Grad student Greek reading: Phaedo beginning to 68b
  • Everyone: be sure to read 64-66 in Greek.
    
  • Secondary Reading: Marissa and Taylor M.
    
  • Dancy's Intellectualist Assumption together with Dancy on the Meno.
  • 'Dancy' here and in what follows is R.M. Dancy, Plato's Introduction of Forms, Cambridge, 2004.
  • I will have to take these pdfs down after we discuss them, so download them and keep them in a place on your computer or your uvm account where you can find them.
    
  • NB The pages on the Intellectualist Assumption are there because Dancy speaks of them in his chapter on the Meno: they provide background. They do not include their context, which means they may seem jarring: other than assign another 25 page chapter, this is the best thing to do.
    
  • Verity Harte on "Plato's Metaphysics"
    
  • A general introduction to Plato's "Forms"
    
• Week 4: Sept. 21, 23, 25
• Grad students: Read in Greek for the week: Phaedo 68b-79a
• Sept. 21: We will start at Phaedo 65b9 in class and read through 67b5
• Sept. 23: Matt Leonard and Taylor Ryan (divide it amongst yourselves)
  
• Dancy on Phaedo 64-66
• Sept. 25: we will start at Phaedo 73d6 in class and read thru 75b3
  
• Week 5:
  
• Sept. 28: we will start at 75b4 and read thru 76e7
• Sept. 30: (Sean and Nate)
  
• Dancy on Phaedo 72-78
• Irwin, "The Theory of Forms"
• Oct. 2nd: we will start with Phaedo 95e8 and read thru to 97b7
• Week 6:
• Oct. 5th we will start with 99d4 and read thru to 102a1
• Oct. 7th
  
• • Dancy on Phaedo 95a-107b (Marissa presents)
    
  • Alexande Nehamas article (Matt presents)
    
• Oct. 9th: we will start at 102a2 and read thru 103c9
• Week 7:
  
• Oct. 12th:
• We will start at 103c10 and read thru 105c2
  
• Oct. 14th:
• 
  
• Oct. 16th: We will start at 105c3 and read thru 107c3
• Week 8:
• Oct. 19
• MIDTERM
• Oct. 21
• Aristotle's Categories
  
• Oct. 23
• Aristotle's Categories
• Week 7: 
• Oct. 26, 28, 30: Aristotle Categories.
• Week 8:
• Nov. 2: Aristotle Categories.
• Nov. 4: Gareth Matthews "Aristotelian Categories"
• Nov. 6: Prof. Bailly absent: work on your papers
  
• Week 9:
• Nov. 9:
  
• PAPER DUE (3 article synthesis: at least 6 pages, but you may write more: if you only write 6, they had better be jam-packed, dense-with-argument, and carefully worded and thought out, not that those qualities are not required for longer papers too: if you write 20 pages, they had better be pellucid and mesmerizing and such that the thought could not possibly have been condensed: I'd say 9-11 pages would be "normal")
• Discuss papers
• Aristotle Categories:
• Nov. 11:
  
• Aristotle Peri Ideon in English as translated by Gail Fine
• Nov. 13: Aristotle Categories.
• Week 10:
• Nov. 16: Categories 6a36ff: on relatives
  
• Nov. 18: discuss division of text of Republic end of book IV for commentaries, which are due Dec. 4.
  
• Nov. 20 continue reading about relatives in Categories.
  
• Week 11:
• Nov. 30: Next chapter of Categories: Qualities.
  
• Dec. 2
• Dec. 4 Philosophical Commentaries due: send me an electronic version as a Word document or in html.
  
• Week 12:
  
• Dec. 7
• Dec. 9
• Final