Philosophy & Political Theory M.A. Reading List

Students must complete the overview in section I, any one of four historical periods from section II.A, and any one of four fields from section II.B.  This is preparation for the 90-minute written exam plus oral.

With the permission of a faculty advisor and the Associate Chair of Graduate Studies, students may elect to offer two historical periods (either 1 or 2 AND either 3 or 4) and two fields for a 3-hour written exam plus oral.

I.  Overview

J. V. Luce, An Introduction to Greek Philosophy (London: Thames and Hudson 1992).

  • Terence Irwin, Classical Thought (Oxford: OUP 1989).
  • David Sedley ed., The Cambridge Companion to Greek and
  • Roman Philosophy (Cambridge: CUP 2003).

II. A.  Periods (choose 1 of 4)

1.  Pre-Socratics:  the Greek beginnings to the Sophists

Primary Texts

  • Kirk, Raven and Schofield edd., The Presocratic Philosophers (2nd ed., Cambridge: CUP1983).
  • Robin Waterfield, The First Philosophers:  the Presocratics and the Sophists (Oxford: OUP 2000).
  • Full familiarity with the fundamental Diels-Kranz edition, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (6th ed. Berlin: Weidmann 1952).

Studies

  • Edward Hussey, The Pre-Socratics (London: Duckworth 1972).       
  • Alexander Mourelatos ed., The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays (revised Princeton: Princeton UP 1993, orig. Doubleday 1974).
  • A. Long ed., The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy (Cambridge: CUP 1999).
  • choose one of two:
    • G. B. Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge: CUP 1981)   OR
    • W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 3.1 The World of the Sophists (Cambridge: CUP 1969).

2.  Socrates, Plato and Aristotle

Primary Texts

  • Plato, Apology, Republic, Phaedo.
  • Xenophon, Memorabilia 1 and 4.
  • Aristotle, Metaphysics 1, Physics 1 and 3,  Nichomachean Ethics.

Studies

  • W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 3.2 Socrates (Cambridge: CUP 1969).
  • Gregory Vlastos, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Ithaca: Cornell UP 1991).
  • David J. Melling, Understanding Plato (Oxford 1987).
  • Alexander Nehamas, Virtues of Authenticity: Essays on Plato and Socrates (Princeton: Princeton UP 1999).
  • Richart Kraut ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge: CUP 1992).
  • choose one of two:
    • Jonathan Lear, Aristotle: the desire to understand (Cambridge: CUP 1988)   OR
    • G. E. R. Lloyd, Aristotle:  The Growth and Structure of his Thought (Cambridge: CUP 1968).
  • Jonathan Barnes ed., The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle (Cambridge 1995).

3.  Hellenistic and Roman

Primary Texts

  • A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley edd., The Hellenistic Philosophers,2 volumes (Cambridge 1987).
  • Lucretius, De Rerum Natura.
  • Cicero, De Officiis 2, Tusculan Disputations5 (translated in M. Grant ed., Cicero: On the Good Life, Penguin 1971).
  • Seneca the Younger, Letters from a Stoic (selected by Robin Campbell, Penguin 1969)..
  • Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.

Studies

  • Choose one of two:
    • A. A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy (2nd ed., Berkeley: California 1986)   OR
    • R. W. Sharples, Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics:  An Introduction to Hellenistic Philosophy (London and New York: Routledge 1996).
  • Elizabeth Rawson, "Philosophy," in Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (London: Duckworth 1985) 282-297.
  • John Glucker, "Cicero's Philosophical Affiliations," in J. M. Dillon and A. A. Long edd., The Question of "Eclecticism":  Studies in Later Greek Philosophy (Berkeley: California 1988) 34-69.
  • David Sedley, Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom (Cambridge: CUP 1998).
  • Martha Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire:  Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton UP 1994).
  • Brad Inwood ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics (Cambridge: CUP 2003).

4.  Neo-Platonic, Jewish and Christian

Primary Texts

  • Plotinus, Enneads.
  • Augustine, Confessions.
  • Philo of Alexandria, Life of Moses and On the Eternity of the World (in Loeb volumes VI and IX).
  • Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy 4.5-7 and 5, in R. W. Sharples ed. Cicero: On Fate and Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy (Warminster: Aris & Phillips 1991).

Studies

  • Christopher Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity (Cambridge: CUP 1994).
  • R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism (2nd ed. with introduction by Lloyd Gerson, Indianapolis: Hackett 1995).
  • Lloyd Gerson ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus (Cambridge: CUP 1996).
  • E. Stump and N. Kretzmann edd., The Cambridge Companion to Augustine (Cambridge: CUP 2001).
  • Jaap Mansfeld, " Philosophy in the service of Scripture:  Philo's Exegetical Strategies," in J. M. Dillon and A. A. Long edd., The Question of "Eclecticism": Studies in Later Greek Philosophy (Berkeley:  California 1988) 70-102.
  • Richard Sorabji, "The ancient commentators on Aristotle," in R. Sorabji ed., Aristotle Transformed:  The Ancient Commentators and their Influence (Ithaca: Cornell UP 1990) 1-30.
  • R. W. Sharples, introduction to R. W. Sharples ed. Cicero: On Fate and Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy (Warminster: Aris & Phillips 1991).

II.B.  Fields (choose 1 of 4)

In each case, the secondary literature discusses relevant primary texts, whether in a broad or a narrow range.  Students are expected to know the major primary texts or passages addressed by the authors of the secondary readings in addition to the primary texts listed.

1. Epistemology, Metaphysics and Logic

Primary Texts

  • Parmenides (as in KRS and Waterfield, II.A.1 above).
  • Plato, Republic 5-7, Theaetetus, Sophist.
  • Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, de Anima.

Studies     

  • Robert Heinaman, "Plato: metaphysics and epistemology," in C.C.W. Taylor ed., From the Beginning to Plato, Routledge History of Philosophy v. 1 (London: Routledge 1997) 356-393.
  • R. J. Hankinson, "Parmenides and the Metaphysics of Changelessness," in V. Caston and D. Graham edd., Presocratic Philosophy:  Essays in Honour of Alexander Mourelatos (Burlington, VT: Ashgate 2002) 65-80.
  • Charles H. Kahn, "Parmenides and Plato," in V. Caston and D. Graham edd., Presocratic Philosophy:  Essays in Honour of Alexander Mourelatos in 81-99.
  • David Furley, "Aristotle the philosopher of nature," in in D. Furley ed., From Aristotle to Augustine, Routledge History of Philosophy v. 2 (London: Routledge 1997) 9-39.
  • Alan Code, "Aristotle's Logic and Metaphysics," in D. Furley ed., From Aristotle to Augustine, Routledge History of Philosophy v. 2 (London: Routledge 1997) 40-75.
  • Gisela Striker, Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics (Cambridge: CUP 1996) 1-165, Epistemology.
  • Stephen Everson, ed., Epistemology (Cambridge: CUP 1990).

2.  Morality, Ethics, and the Self

Primary Texts

  • Plato, Republic, Phaedrus.
  • Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, de Anima.
  • Cicero, De Officiis.
  • Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.

Studies

  • Hugh Benson, "Socrates and the beginnings of moral philosophy," in C.C.W. Taylor ed., From the Beginning to Plato, Routledge History of Philosophy v. 1 (London: Routledge 1997) 323-355.
  • Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness (Oxford: OUP 1993).
  • Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life (Oxford: Blackwell 1995).
  • Gisela Striker, Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics (Cambridge: CUP 1996)167-324, Ethics.
  • Stephen Everson ed., Ethics (Cambridge: CUP 1998).
  • Stephen Everson ed., Pychology (Cambridge: CUP 1991).

3. Politics and the State

Primary Texts

  • M. Gagarin and P. Woodruff edd., Early Greek Political Thought from Homer to the Sophists (Cambridge: CUP 1005).
  • Plato, Crito, Republic.
  • Aristotle, Politics.
  • Cicero, On the Republic.

Studies

  • Christopher Rowe and Malcolm Schofield edd., Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (New York and Cambridge: CUP 2000).
  • Malcolm Schofield, Saving the City:  Philosopher-Kings and Other Classical Paradigms (London: Routledge 1999).
  • A. Laks and M. Schofield edd., Justice and Generosity:  Studies in Hellenistic Social and Political Philosophy (Cambridge: CUP 1995).
  • Josiah Ober, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens:  Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule (Princeton:  Princeton UP 1998).

4.  Language, Rhetoric, Poetics and Literature

Primary Texts

  • Gorgias, Helen, On Not Being.
  • Plato, Gorgias, Phaedrus, Cratylus.
  • Aristotle, Poetics, Rhetoric.
  • D. A. Russell and M. Winterbottom edd., Ancient Literary Criticism.  The Principal Texts in New Translations (Oxford: OUP 1972).

Studies

  • Stephen Everson, Ed., Language (Cambridge 1994).
  • Robert Wardy, The Birth of Rhetoric:  Gorgias, Plato and their Successors (London/New York: Routledge 1996).
  • George Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton: Princeton UP 1994).
  • Stephen Halliwell, Aristotle's Poetics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1986).
  • D. Furley and A. Nehamas edd., Philosophical Aspects of Aristotle's Rhetoric (Princeton: Princeton UP 1994).
  • choose one of three:
    • G. M. A. Grube, The Greek and Roman Critics (Toronto 1968, reprint Indianapolis: Hackett 1995)   OR
    • George Kennedy ed., The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. v. 1: Classical Criticism (Cambridge: CUP 1989)   OR
    • Donald Russell, Criticism in Antiquity (London: Duckworth 1981).