Stanford Summer Humanities Institute - The Greeks and Beyond

In this course, we shall read some of the foundational works in the ancient Greek philosophical tradition including all or part of Plato's Symposium, Aristotle's On the Soul, Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism, and Lucretius' On the Nature of Things. We shall focus on questions concerning knowledge (Can I know anything? If so, what can I know and how can I know it?), love (Is love good or bad for us? What is it to love someone and should we have reasons for loving?), identity (What makes me the same person over time? Could I be duplicated?), and death (Is my death bad for me? If so, why is my death bad for me?) On each topic, we shall also read some modern or contemporary philosophy.