ACADEMICS
The Course
PHIL 136 - THE BIRTH OF REASON IN ANCIENT GREECE (CCI, CZ, EI) Tours, lectures, and readings focusing on topics in ancient Greek ethics, metaphysics and epistemology. Two exams, one short term project, and two textbooks. Maximum enrollment: 28. No pass/fail option or auditing permitted. One course credit. Prof. Michael Ferejohn.
This is an integrated course of study combining in-depth tours of the important sites and museums in various regions of this spectacular country with close reading and discussion of key ancient philosophical texts. The principal course objective is to give the student a thorough understanding of (and a critical perspective upon) the classical Greeks' pronounced emphasis on the rational aspect of human nature that enabled them not only to produce the artistic and architectural splendors we shall be seeing at first-hand, but also to lay the intellectual foundations for subsequent western civilization.
All texts to be worked with at length are by ancient philosophical authors, and are collected in a single paperback, S. M. Cohen, et al, Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy (paper). Occasionally, these will be supplemented by short excerpts from other authors (such as Homer, Thucydides, and Euripides), to be distributed in class. A. R. Burn, A History of Greece (paper) will be used as a general reference work.
The Instructor
PHIL 136 will be taught by Professor Michael Ferejohn, who teaches Ancient Greek Philosophy at Duke University, with occasional guest lectures by scholars from Greek universities. Professor Ferejohn is the author of The Origins of Aristotelian Science (Yale University Press, 1991) and has published numerous articles on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. He has been teaching in Greece the past nine summers, and knows both Ancient and Modern Greek.
