History of philosophy 1 : History of ancient philosophy [ LFILO1280 ]

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The prerequisite(s) for this Teaching Unit (Unité d’enseignement – UE) for the programmes/courses that offer this Teaching Unit are specified at the end of this sheet.

The lectures offer an account of the major stages of evolution of Ancient philosophy: the Presocratic period; the Classical period (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle); the Hellenistic period; the Roman period. In addition, the lectures furnish some information regarding the peculiar status of Ancient philosophy (the often fragmentary nature of the sources; the importance of doxography; the problems linked to translating/transcribing manuscripts; the relationship between the oral and the written traditions; particular literary genres; the working conditions of Ancient philosophers; the structure of philosophy schools in Antiquity; the nature of Ancient philosophy, etc.).

To give the students a comprehensive overview of philosophy in Antiquity.

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.

Written exam.

Lecture.

The course shall be divided into two parts. The first one will deal with ancient Greek philosophy (logic, physics, and especially ethics) from the "Presocratic philosophers" until the Hellenistic schools; the second part will cover the Roman world until the death of Boethius and the closing of the Athenian school by Justinian in the VIth century CE. We shall review the main schools and the most famous and influentiual thinkers.

A summary of the course in French shall be available for download on iCampus; moreover, the students will be asked to read a few texts from ancient philosophers (the references shall be given in due time).
For those who wish to go further, the reference book is the Storia della filosofia antica by Giovanni Reale.

No specific knowledge is required.