Ancient Philosophy
The Search for the Life of Happiness
PHI [TBD], Fall 2017, Voskuyl Library 307
Contact Information
Instructor: David Vander Laan, PhD
Office: Porter Center 4
E-mail: vanderla@westmont.edu
Phone: x7041
Office Hours: M 2:00-3:15; W 2:00-3:30; and by appointment
Texts
Patricia Curd, Richard D. McKirahan, A Presocratics Reader
C. D. C. Reeve, ed., The Trials of Socrates
Plato, Meno
Plato, Republic
Plato, Symposium
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Terence Irwin and Gail Fine, Aristotle: Introductory Readings
Brad Inwood and Lloyd Gerson, Hellenistic Philosophy
course reader
Course Learning Outcomes
A. Relative to the Westmont Philosophy Major:
Here are the Philosophy Department’s official “Student Learning Outcomes”:
Knowledge: Students will be able to explain important philosophical positions, concepts,
arguments, and themes.
Skills: Students will be able to construct structurally solid arguments and to critique
faulty ones appropriately.
Virtues: Students will both value and acknowledge the limits of rational inquiry. In other
words, they will display both the love of wisdom and Socratic humility.
In this course, students will build on their lower-level philosophical training, and
continue to acquire the above knowledge, skills and virtues, especially in relation to the
history of ancient philosophy and the themes and sub-themes described above.
B. Relative to the Reasoning Abstractly GE Requirement:
Students in this course will be able to recognize, construct, and evaluate abstract
arguments and explanations, analyze abstract concepts, and solve abstract problems
Other Course Goals
Love of Wisdom
“Gentlemen of the jury, I am grateful and I am your friend, but I will obey the god rather
than you, and as long as I draw breath and am able, I shall not cease to practice philosophy,
to exhort you and in my usual way to point out to any one of you whom I happen to meet:
Good Sir, you are an Athenian, a citizen of the greatest city with the greatest reputation for
both wisdom and power; are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much
wealth, reputation, and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to
wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?”
Plato, Apology (29 c-e)
In this course we will follow great thinkers who tried to understand the world and their
place in it. Often discontent with shortsighted and popular ideas, philosophers have
labored to craft philosophies of life and coherent pictures of the world as a whole.
Through their writings Plato, Aristotle, et cetera will tutor us in our own pursuit of
wisdom. Throughout the course I will encourage you to grapple with questions like these:
 Does being good pay off on the short term?
 How do I become virtuous?
 What lifestyle is the most enjoyable? And is that lifestyle the best one?
 To what extent is having a good life under my control?
 What is the goal of human life?
 What are the ultimate sources of reality?
Reasoning Abstractly
“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter;
to search out a matter is the glory of kings.”
Proverbs 25:2
The ability to reason abstractly is part of what makes us fully human. When a dog falls for
a fake throw seventeen times running, we recognize the inferiority of that canine mind.
When a human being clings doggedly to her beliefs without considering how they fit
together, we see a person who is to some degree stunted. A flourishing bearer of the
divine image is able to generalize--that is, to reason abstractly.
Abstract reasoning skills are valuable in part because they are broadly transferable. This
course satisfies the GE requirement for Reasoning Abstractly. Its goals include
(1) analysis: increased ability to identify, understand, and evaluate arguments, and
(2) synthesis: a greater awareness of worldviews, and a greater sensitivity to how
ideas fit (or fail to fit) in the context of the big picture.
Skills of Analysis
By the end of the course you should be able
 to read a text and identify any arguments it contains,
 to write a well-crafted version of a prose argument (see “Writing Well-Crafted
Arguments” below),
 to evaluate such an argument, pointing out its weaknesses (dubious premises or
inferences) and explaining views incompatible with the premises, or ways the
premises could be true and the inferred statement false.
Skills of Synthesis
By the end of the course you should be able
 to explain how lifestyles and daily choices are motivated by a vision of the world
and of the good life, and to explain the relationship between a metaphysics and an
ethics,
 to articulate how the various worldviews of the ancient period might be applied to
questions about how to live and what the world is like,
 to critique worldviews fairly and accurately, appreciating strengths, identifying and
weighing internal tensions,
 to progress in constructing a coherent and defensible worldview.
Historical Themes
"Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy must be
answered…Most of all, perhaps, what we need is an intimate knowledge of the past. Not
that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need
something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been
quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is
merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived
by the local errors of his native village: the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore
in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and
the microphone of his own age."
C.S. Lewis, Learning in War-Time
Our exploration will give special attention to the search for the good life, particularly in
Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. This will give us a glimpse of what
philosophy has historically been all about.
Course Requirements
The course readings--most of which are primary texts--are central to the objectives of the
course. Disciplined and active reading is crucial. A reading guide is included in the
course reader to direct your reading and to help you prepare for examinations. To
facilitate discussion, you will be required to contribute to a Google document forum with
at least two philosophically useful questions or comments or arguments pertaining to the
reading before each class (12% of final grade), due at 1:00 a.m. the day of the class
discussion. You should be prepared to elaborate on them in class. You will be allowed to
skip three whole assignments without penalty. A complete set of questions that show
thoughtfulness and attentiveness to the reading will receive a 100; sloppy work will count
as skipped. Skipped assignments beyond the allowed three will decrease this grade by 5
percentage points each. Questions of clarification and interpretation are helpful, so feel
free to submit them.
There will be four tests (16% each), a cumulative final examination (8 am Fri.,
Dec. 14; 12%), and a scattered exam, i.e., an essay examination whose questions will be
distributed throughout the semester (12%). Each of the above, along with very consistent
attendance, is required to pass the course.
Students are expected to know and abide by the community standards for
academic honesty as stated in the Student Handbook, Academic Policies and Procedures,
and
the
college
plagiarism
policy
at
www.westmont.edu/_academics/pages/provost/curriculum/plagiarism. These policies
will be enforced. There is no excuse for plagiarism or any other form of dishonesty.
Please show courtesy to your classmates and the professor by arriving to class on
time, remaining for the duration of the period, and turning off your cell phones.
Resources
Library Resources: Westmont librarians are available to help you. You can go to
the Research Help Desk in the library for help with research for your assignments. You
can also can set up an appointment with the librarian who serves your academic
department . To identify a specific librarian and to find subject-specific resources, consult
thelibrary’s research guides at libguides.westmont.edu.
Disability Services: Students who have been diagnosed with a disability are
strongly encouraged to contact the Office of Disability Services as early as possible to
discuss appropriate accommodations for this course. Formal accommodations will only
be granted for students whose disabilities have been verified by the Office of Disability
Services. These accommodations may be necessary to ensure your equal access to this
course. Please contact Sheri Noble, Director of Disability Services. (310A Voskuyl Library,
565-6186, snoble@westmont.edu) or visit the website for more information:
http://www.westmont.edu/_offices/disability
Schedule and Reading Assignments
Sept. 1
Introduction and Homer
Sept. 3
The Presocratics
Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus
Sept. 5
Xenophanes, Democritus
Sept. 8
Pythagoras
Sept. 10
Wesley Salmon, “A Contemporary Look at Zeno’s Paradoxes,” 129-144
(course reader)
The Sophists
Sept. 12
Empedocles
Sept. 15
Gorgias
Socrates
Sept. 17
Plato, Meno
Sept. 19
Plato, Apology
Sept. 22
Plato, Phaedo Death Scene (115b1 - 118a17) (in Reeve)
Aristophanes, The Clouds, 102-111 (in Reeve)
Xenophon, Socrates’ Defense to the Jury (in Reeve)
Sept. 24
TEST ONE
Plato
Sept. 26
Plato, Republic, Book I
Sept. 29
Plato, Republic, Book II
Oct. 1
Plato, Republic, Book IV
Oct. 3
Plato, Republic, Book VI
Oct. 6
Plato, Republic, Book VII
Oct. 8
Plato, Republic, Book IX
Lee Hardy, “On the Deplorable Lack of Freedom at Calvin College” (reader)
Oct. 10 Plato, Republic, Book X
Oct. 13-14
Fall Holiday
Oct. 15
Plato, Symposium, 1-44
Oct. 17
Plato, Symposium, 45-77
Oct. 20
K. Sayre on Plato’s Late Ontology (course reader)
Oct. 22
Pierre Hadot, “Philosophy as a Way of Life” (course reader)
Oct. 24
TEST TWO
Oct. 27
Aristotle
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I
Oct. 29
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, II
Oct. 31
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, III.6-12
Nov. 3
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, IV
Nov. 5
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VII.1-10
Nov. 7
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VIII.1-4; IX.1-4; X.7-8
Nov. 10
Aristotle, On the Parts of Animals; On Generation and Corruption
Nov. 12
Aristotle, Metaphysics
Nov. 14
Aristotle, Metaphysics
Nov. 17
Aristotle, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics
Nov. 19
TEST THREE
Nov. 21
The Hellenistic and Roman Philosophers
Epicurus, “Letter to Menoceus” and “Principal Doctrines" (course reader)
Nov. 24
Comparison: Happiness in Contemporary Psychology
Nov. 26-28
Thanksgiving Holiday
Dec. 1
Pierre Hadot, “The Meditations as Spiritual Exercises” (course reader)
Dec. 3
Seneca, Epictetus, Diogenes Laertius (course reader)
Dec. 5
Cicero on Carneades’s Academic Skepticism (course reader)
Dec. 8
Sextus Empiricus, An Outline of Pyrrhonism, 157-168, 188-90 (course reader)
Dec. 10
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations
Dec. 12
TEST FOUR
(course reader)
Writing Well-Crafted Arguments
The point of writing a well-crafted argument is to make the original argument’s structure
and assumptions clear so it is easier to evaluate.
Your first task is to identify the argument.
 Number each statement (premise, intermediate step, and conclusion) so that each
is explicit. This may force you to state something that is implicit or unclear in the
original. Identify each premise by writing the word ‘premise’ in the right margin.
 Do not simply number the sentences of the original text. You’re looking for the
premises, i.e., the assumptions of the argument, not bits of background
information or reiteration of things said earlier. Condense the argument to its
essentials, without hedges and other extraneous verbiage.
Next, make the logical structure of the argument clear.
 Of each statement, ask yourself, “Which statements (if any) support it?”
 The inferences of your well-crafted version should be transparently valid if
possible.
 In the right margin, beside each intermediate step and conclusion, indicate which
of the earlier statements support it. Use a label like ‘from 3 and 4.’ All the
intermediate steps and the conclusion should be supported in this way. (See
example below.)
 Each premise and intermediate step should support some later statement (either
an intermediate step or the conclusion). Check to be sure that the number of each
premise and intermediate step appears in the right margin. If it doesn’t, then that
statement is superfluous as far as the reasoning is concerned.
 Avoid unnecessary variation in language. E.g., don’t use ‘free act,’ ‘free action,’ ‘act
of will,’ and ‘volition’ as synonyms. Choose one term and stick with it. Variety may
be a virtue of prose style, but uniformity makes a well-crafted argument easier to
evaluate.
 There may be several ways to reasonably interpret an argument. Use your
judgment.
Finally, you should be able to identify a small number of ways in which the argument
could go wrong. Either one of the inferences will be faulty, or one of the premises will be
false, dubious, or question begging.
A Short Example
Original Argument (adapted from Lucretius, De Rerum Natura)
You who fear the emptiness beyond the grave, have you not considered the years
before your birth? It is as though nature has put up a mirror to let you see what
your future non-existence will be like. You do not regret the eternity past when
you did not exist, since it cannot do you any harm--why do you regard not existing
for eternity after your death as a terror?
Well-Crafted Version
1. Your future nonexistence will be like your past nonexistence.
2. Your past nonexistence cannot do you harm.
3. Your future nonexistence cannot do you harm.
2
4. Only that which can do you harm is to be feared.
5. Your future nonexistence is not to be feared.
premise
premise
from 1,
premise
from 3, 4
Note how this example involves a little interpretation of the original argument. E.g.,
premise 4 is not explicitly stated, but something like it is assumed.