43655 PHIL-202-01 ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY: STOIC ETHICS

WINTER 2018

F 2:00 PM-5:00 PM, HUMANITIES 1 400

 

SYLLABUS

 

Professor:

 

 

 

 

Office Hours:

John Bowin

E-mail: jbowin@ucsc.edu

Phone: 459-5676

Office: Cowell Annex A-111

 

Wednesday 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. or by appointment

 

Required Texts:

The following text is available at The Literary Guillotine, 204 Locust Street, Santa Cruz:

 

The Discourses of Epictetus, The Handbook, Fragments, (The Everyman Library), C. Gill (ed.) R. Hard (tr.), Everyman Paperback: 1995. ISBN: 978-0460873123.

 

Two required course readers with additional readings are also available at the Bay Tree Bookstore:

 

1.) Primary Texts (PT)

2.) Secondary Sources (SS)

 

I will maintain a course web page at http://people.ucsc.edu/~jbowin/Stoics/phil202.html for the purpose of posting announcements.

 

Course Description:

This course is a survey of Stoic Ethics in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods.  We will attend both to the theoretical efforts of early Stoa such as Zeno and Chrysippus as well as to the therapeutic and protreptic writings of later figures such as Seneca and Epictetus.  We will also discuss some recent applications of Stoic ethics to the military.

 

Requirements:

1.) One term paper of about 20-25 pages, due on March 21, 2016.

 

2.) One 20-25 minute presentation to the class on a topic relevant to this syllabus.  The presentation may be on the same topic as the final paper.

 

Evaluation:

Students will be evaluated based on their written work, primarily their term papers (75%), and on assigned presentations to the class (25%).

 

Books on Reserve at McHenry Library (Optional):

Annas, Julia. The Morality of Happiness. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Becker, Lawrence. A New Stoicism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.

Long, A. A. & Sedley, D. N. The Hellenistic Philosophers. vols. 1 & 2 The principal sources in translation with philosophical commentary. Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Nussbaum, Martha C. The Therapy of Desire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Sherman, N. Stoic Warriors. The Ancient Philosophy behind the Military Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

 

Podcasts on eCommons (Optional):

 

 

There are 13 optional podcasts on Canvas.

 

COURSE OUTLINE

 

I. Following Nature; Virtue (Weeks 1-2)

 

Reading:

 

The Epitomes of Diogenes Laertius, Arius Didymus, and Cicero, PT, §§1A-C.

Other Sources, PT, §§2A-7G.

Annas, Julia. Chapter 5, "The Stoics: Human Nature and the Point of View of the Universe," in The Morality of Happiness, 159-179. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. (SS, pp. 5-25)

White, Nicholas P. "Stoic Values." Monist 73 (1) (January 1990): 42-58. (SS, pp. 27-43)

 

II. Happiness (Week 2-3)

 

Reading:

 

Happiness, PT, §§8A-10C.

Irwin, T. H. "Stoic and Aristotelian Conceptions of Happiness." In The Norms of Nature: Studies in Hellenistic Ethics, edited by Gisela Striker and Malcolm Schofield, 205-44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. (SS, pp. 46-85)

 

III. The Cynics (Week 3-4)

 

Reading:

 

The Cynics, PT, §§11A-19B.

Epictetus, Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 24; Book 3, Chapter 22.

 

IV. The Passions (Weeks 5-6)

 

Reading:

 

1 Zeno, Chrysippus, and Posidonius.

Zeno, Chrysippus, and Posidonius, PT, §§20A-E.

Nussbaum, M. "The Stoics on the Extirpation of the Passions." Apeiron 20 (2) (1987):129-177. (SS, pp. 88-136)

Sorabji, R. "ChrysippusPosidonius – Seneca:  A High-Level Debate on Emotion." In The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, edited by J. Sihvola & T. Engberg- Pedersen, 149-169. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1998. (SS, pp. 138-158)

 

2 Seneca.

Seneca, On Anger, PT, §21A.

Nussbaum, Martha C. "Seneca on Anger in Public Life" In The Therapy of Desire, 402-438. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. (SS, pp. 161-197)

Sherman, N. Chapter 4, "A Warrior's Anger." In Stoic Warriors. The Ancient Philosophy behind the Military Mind, 65-100. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. (SS, pp. 199-240)

 

V. Determinism & Moral Responsibility (Weeks 7-8)

 

Reading:

 

Cicero, PT §22A.

Other Sources, PT, §§23A-K.

Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 19, §1.

Hankinson, R. J. "Determinism and Indeterminism." In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, edited by Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfeld, and Malcolm Schofield, 513–41. (SS, pp. 242-270)

Bobzien, S., "Stoic Conceptions of Freedom and their Relation to Ethics." In Aristotle and After, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Supplement 68, edited by R. Sorabji, (1997): 71–89. (SS, pp. 272-290)

Harry Frankfurt, “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 66, No. 23. (Dec. 4, 1969), pp. 829-839. (SS, pp. 292-302)

 

VI. Freedom & Autonomy (Week 9)

 

Reading:

 

1 Seneca.

Seneca, Letters, PT, §§24A-F.

Inwood, Brad. "Seneca on Freedom and Autonomy" In Metaphysics, Soul, and Ethics in Ancient Thought: Themes from the Work of Richard Sorabji, edited by R. Salles, 489-505. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005. (SS, pp. 305-321)

 

2 Epictetus.

Epictetus, Discourses, Book 1, Ch. 1-3, 6, 9, 12, 14, 19, 25, 28, Book 2, Ch. 1.

Sherman, N. Chapter 1, "A Brave New Stoicism" in Stoic Warriors. The Ancient Philosophy behind the Military Mind, 1-12. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. (SS, pp. 324-336)

Stockdale, J. "Courage Under Fire - Testing Epictetus's Doctrines in a Laboratory of Human Behavior" in Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot, 185-201. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1995. (SS, pp. 338-354)

 

VII. Epictetus' Discourses (Week 10)

 

Reading:

 

Epictetus, Discourses, Book 2, Ch. 5, 8, 11, 16, 19, Book 3, Ch. 1, 3, 24, Book 4, Ch. 1, 5, 6, Handbook 5, 19, 31, Fragment 4.