Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Ancient Greek Moral Psychology Name: Hendrik Lorenz Nationality: Germany Academic Title:Professor Home University Princeton University (From): Email Address: [email protected] Undergraduate Master Doctoral student English Basic knowledge of the history of Western philosophy Lectures and discussions Attendance and participation 20% assignment and mini-papers 80% 2 credits Prof. Hendrik Lorenz is Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. His main research areas are ancient psychology, ethics, and natural philosophy from Plato to late ancient philosophy. He has published a book on Plato's and Aristotle's moral psychology (The Brute Within, Oxford 2006) and numerous articles on Plato and Aristotle. He has also published a paper on Stoic moral psychology, focusing on Chrysippus and Posidonius. Among other topics, he is currently working on a paper on Plotinus' conception of the imagination, and on a book on Books 5-7 of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. The course offers a survey of ancient Greek moral psychology from Socrates to at least the Hellenistic period. The aim is to study in considerable detail the central philosophical theories of human motivation offered by the key ancient thinkers (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the early Stoics, and Epicurus), and to place these theories in the context of their psychological and ethical theories. The main texts to study will be Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. We will also have occasion to discuss the moral psychology of the Eudemian Ethics, which in some ways is closer to Plato's thinking in the Republic and the Laws than Aristotle's later ethical treatise is. We will end with a brief survey of Plotinus' theory of human motivation. LECTURE ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction to the course 1.2 City and Soul in Plato's Republic 1.3 Plato's Tripartite Soul LECTURE TWO: THE VIRTUES IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC 2.1 The definitions of the four virtues in Republic 4 2.2 Dynamic conceptions of the virtues in Republic 6 and 7 LECTURE THREE: "SOCRATES": 3.1 Reading Platonic dialogues 3.2 The historical Socrates and the "Socrates" character of the Socratic dialogues 3.3 Socratic intellectualism LECTURE FOUR: THE MORAL PSYCHOLOGY OF ARISTOTLE'S EUDEMIAN ETHICS 4.1 Happiness and virtue in the Eudemian Ethics 4.2 Virtues of Intellect and of Character 4.3 The role of character-virtue in the psychological life of the virtuous person Due first minipaper LECTURE FIVE: THE MORAL PSYCHOLOGY OF ARISTOTLE'S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS: 5.1 Virtues of Character and of Intellect in the Nicomachean Ethics 5.2 The character-virtues as rational states 5.3 Character-virtue as a state that issues decisions LECTURE SIX: PRACTICAL WISDOM, WISDOM AND HAPPINESS 6.1 The nature of practical wisdom, and its role in the cognitive life of the virtuous person 6.2 What is wisdom and what role does it play in the well-lived human life? 6.3 Three conceptions of human happiness LECTURE SEVEN: STOIC AND EPICUREAN MORAL PSYCHOLOGY: 7.1 Chrysippus on the virtues as states of reason 7.2 Posidonius: a Platonizing Stoic? 7.3 Epicurus on pleasure and the value of the virtues LECTURE EIGHT: PLOTINUS ON THE SELF AND MOTIVATION: 8.1 Different conceptions of the self in Plotinus 8.2 Plotinus on appetite, spirit, and reason 8.3 Plotinus on the virtues Plato, Complete Works, ed. John Cooper, Indianapolis 1997 Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics, tr. B. Inwood and R. Woolf, Cambridge 2013 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (2nd Edition), tr. T. Irwin, Indianapolis 1999 A. A. Long & D. N. Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophy, Cambridge 1987 Plotinus, Enneads I. 1-9 and IV, tr. A. H. Armstrong, Cambridge, Mass. 1966 and 1984 J. Cooper, Pursuits of Wisdom, Princeton 2012 H. Lorenz, The Brute Within, Oxford 2006