Ancient Philosophy (Advanced Studies)

Teacher(s)

Destrée Pierre;

Language

English

Prerequisites

The course assumes a basic knowledge of the history of ancient philosophy.
Knowledge of Latin and Greek, while very useful, is not essential.

Main themes

The course in the history of ancient philosophy will seek to deepen the knowledge of the period concerned, starting with a given theme or corpus. The course will pay particular attention to the genesis and development of the chosen subject and, based on up-to-date research, will attempt to shed light on this subject and to advance the questions related to it.
The historical scope of this course ranges from Early Antiquity to Late Antiquity.
The course will focus on bodies of work and problems from the Greek and Roman traditions of thought, both comparatively and otherwise.
The systematic field will not be restrictive, since the course may focus simultaneously or alternatively on problems of theoretical or practical philosophy.
Particular attention will be paid to research tools and translation issues.

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	read, understand and comment on texts from the relevant period;
2	Identify the historical textual sources of a specific philosophical problem and understand questions of authorship;
3	evaluate the relevance of a historical argument to our thinking today;
4	use specific research tools for ancient philosophy: dictionaries, lexicons, directories, main journals;
5	understand how a critical edition works;
6	be attentive to the problems posed by the translation of ancient texts;
7	write well-structured papers with well-defined themes, in preparation for the dissertation.

Content

This year (2022/23), the course will consist in a close reading of Plato's texts on art and poetry: Republic 2-3 and 10, Ion, Gorgias, Phaedrus.

Faculty or entity

EFIL