HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Single discipline educational activity

Course Sheet

Course code:

LC142

Academic Year of enrolment:

2021

Year of supply:

2021/2022

Type of Course:

Related/Supplementary

Degree:

Course of 1st Cycle Degree in HUMANITIES

Disciplinary Sector:

HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Location:

CHIETI

Credits:

Programme Year:

Professor and Collaborators:

FEOLA Giuseppe

Cycle:

Second semester

Hours of classroom activity:

Individual study hours:

108

Prerequisites:

Acquaintance with the historiographical methods and with the procedures of abstraction and generalization (as provided by the usual cv of secondary school). Desire to meet worldviews that are dramatically different from our own(s).

Objectives

At the end of the course, the pupil should be able to understand the historical development of Greek philosophy, with a firm grasp of the geographical and chronological positions of the various thinkers; the pupil will also be able to individuate the social, economical, historical, cultural conditions that were the starting point of te various thinkers, and in which way these same thinkers interpreted, transcended or subverted the cultural conditions that were their starting points.
The pupil will be able to understand the arguments of the philosophers, as they will be presented by the teacher.
The pupil will be able to perceive the relevant ways in which many philosophical and scientific theories and concepts of Antiquity anticipate nowadays theories.
The pupil will also be able to understand the relevant discontinuities that separate us from the Ancients.

Contents

Starting from Homer’s insight on human and natural reality, we will have an overview of the modes in which Greek culture tried to articulate its own theoretical knowlede about the world and human beings.

Extended Syllabus

The main theoretical Leitmotiv will be the tension between two apparently opposite tendences, both deeply ingrained in Greek spirit: attention to the particular aspects of the World and tendence to generalize. From the various way in which the different thinkers try to conciliate these two tendences, Greek philosophy and science were born – and, with them, Western speculative tradition.
Historical framework. The Greeks and us. The Greeks and the Ancient Near East.
The birth of Greek philosophy and science: the pre-theoretical acquantaince with the world; Homeric depictions of nature; the pre-scientific manipulation of the world in the arts and tecniques.
Science and philosophy begin to differentiate from other forms of knowledge.
The 7 Sages. Orpheus. Pythagoras.
The Milesians. Heraclitus. Xenophanes. The Eleatics. Empedocles. Anaxagoras. The Atomists.
The Sophists.
Socrates.
Plato: biography; relationships with Athens’ political life; orality and writing; the problem of the political and moral norm; searching for an epistemic norm in order to find a moral norm; mathematics as the source of epistemic norm. The Ideas. The psychology. The politics: Republic and Laws. The cosmology and the World-soul.
Aristotle: biography. Categories. De interpretatione. Prior Analytics. Second Analytics. Substance, essence, definition in the Organon. Form and matter in the Physics. Potentiality and Actuality in the Physics. Aristotle’s natural philosophy. The telos. The explanation of change. The concept of nature. The being as being. The unity of the categories. Analogy pros hén. Form and matter in the Metaphysics VII-VIII. Potentiality and actuality in Metaphysics IX. The problem of the origin of motion and of the order of the cosmos: Metaphysics XII. Life, living bodies, souls. The general structure of Aristotle’s psychology. Nutritive-generative soul. Sensory-perceptual soul. Sense-perception and its hierarchies. Pleasure and pain. Voluntary motion and its ecceptions. The intellect. Reason. Aristotle’s biology: birth of a science. The two ethics of Aristotle. The politics.
The Hellenistic transition: end of classic philosophy. The prevalence of the ethics. Separation between philosophy and science.
Epicurus and his school.
The Stoà. The Stoà and Roman public morality. Its influence on subsequent Western ideas and paradigms of morality.
Skepticism.
Cynicism.
Science and technology in the Imperial Age.
Toward Neoplatonism.
Plotinus. Porphyrius. Proclus.

APPROFONDIMENTI

La nascita della filosofia e della scienza greche – 3: caratteri peculiari della religione greca che favorirono la nascita della filosofia.
La nascita della matematica. La nascita della cosmografia. La nascita della medicina. La nascita dell’etnografia e della teoria sociale e politica
Approfondimenti a Platone: le costruzioni mitiche di Platone: l’escatologia; gli sviluppi tardi della teoria delle Idee
I successori di Platone e il giovane Aristotele
Approfondimenti ad Aristotele:
Lo statuto ontologico del cosmo e gli argomenti per l’eternità del mondo. La dimostrazione dell’esistenza del Primo Motore nella Fisica. I trattati Sul cielo, Sulla generazione e corruzione, sulle Meteore. L’anima sensitiva – 0: catalogare i sensibili e le sensazioni. L’anima sensitiva - 1: la sensazione semplice. L’anima sensitiva – 2: i by-products della sensazione semplice, phantasìa ed errore. L’anima sensitiva – 3: la sensazione dei sensibili comuni. L’anima sensitiva – 4: la sensazione dei sensibili per accidente. L’anima sensitiva – 5: la sensazione di sentire, ossia la coscienza percettiva. L’anima sensitiva – 6: la percezione di sé come esseri senzienti. L’intelletto - 1: il così detto “intelletto passivo”. L’intelletto – 2: il così detto “intelletto agente”. L’intelletto – 3: il così detto “intelletto in abito”. L’intelletto – 4: ricezione della teoria aristotelica sull’intelletto; problemi aperti. La retorica. La poetica
Approfondimenti all’Ellenismo:
Da Aristotele all’Ellenismo: la sorte dei testi e delle scuole.
L’eclettismo ciceroniano.
L’uso della filosofia nella classe dirigente romana: la filosofia come mera formazione alla politica attiva e alla carriera del funzionario.

Recommended Bibliography

The teacher will try to provide in advance the text of each lecture. Beside these texts, the bibliography consists in:
books to be partially examined or overviewed
they must be at hand during the lessons, in order to understand the professor’s lectures; but the exam will not be about these texts
Lami, A., I Presocratici. Testimonianze e frammenti da Talete ad Empedocle, BUR.
A complete translation of Plato’s works (one of your choice), e.g. one among these: Platone, Tutti gli scritti, a cura di G. Reale, Rusconi, or Platone, Tutte le opere, a cura di E. Maltese, Newton Compton.
Aristotele, Fisica, a cura di G. Radice, Bompiani.
Aristotele, L’anima, a cura di G. Movia, Bompiani.
Aristotele, Metafisica, a cura di G. Reale, Bompiani.

Bibliography for the exam:
one of your choice between W. Jaeger, La teologia dei primi pensatori greci, La Nuova Italia, and M.M. Sassi, Indagine su Socrate, Einaudi;
one of your choice between F. Adorno, Introduzione a Platone, Laterza, or M. Erler, Platone. Un’introduzione, Einaudi, or F. Ferrari, Introduzione a Platone, Il Mulino;
one of your choice between J.L. Ackrill, Aristotele, Il Mulino, or P. Donini, La ‘Metafisica’ di Aristotele. Introduzione alla lettura, Carocci, or G. Reale, Introduzione ad Aristotele, Laterza
The texts (professor’s lectures) that the professor may send you

Teaching Methods

Frontal lecture (either online or presentially).
The teacher will try to provide the texts of his lectures with at least one day of advance.
Commentary on ancient texts. Comparison between ancient texts, and between ancient and modern or contemporary texts.
Debate.

Evaluation methods

Verification of learning:

Way of examination: dialogue.
Way in which the learning process will be tested: maieutical dialogue, followed by an exam of the texts.
Evaluation: final grade

Contacts/More Information

Università degli Studi
"G. d'Annunzio"

Chieti - Pescara

Aree