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HU Credits:
2
Degree/Cycle:
1st degree (Bachelor)
Responsible Department:
Philosophy
Semester:
1st Semester
Teaching Languages:
English
Campus:
Mt. Scopus
Course/Module Coordinator:
Antonio Vargas
Coordinator Office Hours:
Teaching Staff:
Dr. Antonio Luis Costa Vargas
Course/Module description:
Since its beginnings in Greece, philosophers have often divided reality into two parts: the temporal part, which changes, and the eternal part, which does not change. In this course we will be looking at the origins of the distinction between time and eternity by reading the texts of Plato, the “father” of Greek philosophy, and Aristotle, his student, in light of other ancient philosophers that commented on them. Since these are the oldest philosophical discussions about time and eternity, they raise basic and fundamental questions that persist to this day. Furthermore, with regard to eternity, we shall see its intimate connection with the understanding of the present in both Plato and Aristotle: far from understanding eternity as a mere privation, “timelessness”, both philosophers conceive eternal things as superlatively present, alive, and active. The course will finally serve as an introduction to the complexities of reading Plato and Aristotle. It will focus not only on their most famous texts on time, but also many minor passages in tension with their more extended discussions.
Course/Module aims:
Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
- reconstruct arguments from Platonic dialogues and Aristotelian treatises, recognizing the distinct challenges of each kind of text
- Be able to offer both a synthetic reading of Plato’s and Aristotle’s texts that harmonizes their contradictions, and an analytic one that brings out their tensions
- Be able to draw on late ancient philosophers as commentators to shed light on their reading of Plato and Aristotle
- Explain Plato and Aristotle’s concept of eternity, as a positive, contentful concept and not merely as an empty “what is beyond time”.
- Present the classical paradoxes about time and discuss the merits of possible solutions to them
Attendance requirements(%):
Students are required to attend all classes but may be excused for personal reasons on the condition of receiving permission to be absent. Attendance is part of the Participation Grade (10%)
Teaching arrangement and method of instruction:
For each class, there will be assigned primary and secondary readings. You will have to have read the primary readings to be able to follow the class, whereas the secondary readings are texts (not just secondary literature) provided for those who wish to read about the issue further in depth. The secondary readings will be required for one student in each meeting who will be tasked with preparing a handout containing a breakdown of the arguments in the day’s assigned primary literature. Near the beginning of each class I will ask the assigned student to quickly take us through the structure of the texts, raising difficulties and parts where they failed to follow the argument. I will then explain the texts, connecting them with the more general flow of the course and in the last fifteen minutes I will make some preparatory comments on the readings for the following class.
Students will be assessed on (a) the handouts they produce for classes summarizing the assigned readings (30%) and (b) two essays to be turned in, one in the middle of the course (1000 words, 30%), another at the end of the term (2000 words, 30%). Your first essay should arise from the close reading of one or more of the texts of Plato we will read: it can be an interpretation, an objection, a puzzle or even a novel thought of your own, as long as it is firmly grounded in a dialogue with Plato. The second essay should then be either a similar essay on Aristotle, or, better yet, a continuation of the first essay, but now taking into account also one or more Aristotelian texts from the second half of the course. In my feedback to the first essay I will already point you in the direction of what Aristotelian texts might be of special interest to you.
The handouts will be assessed according to:
(a) Completeness: were all the assigned readings summarized?
(b) Clarity: How clearly was the argument of the author presented? This does not imply that the argument of the text should be completely clear to you. Rather, parts of the argument that are unclear should be flagged and doubts and objections raised.
(c) Use of the Secondary Literature: When secondary literature is provided, I will expect there to be references to it in the handout.
Course/Module Content:
Projected Sequence of Subjects:
1. Introduction to Reading Plato and to Ancient Philosophy of Time: Heraclitus
Plato can be difficult to read, as his texts are dialogues, where a few opposing viewpoints are presented. An earlier philosopher, Heraclitus, will introduce us into the world of ancient thought on time.
2. Plato: An Introduction to Plato’s Timaeus
The Timaeus is Plato’s main account of the physical world
3. Plato: Time and Eternity in the Timaeus
Plato famously defined Time as a “changing image of eternity” in the Timaeus. What does this mean? What concept of eternity can have something that changes as an image of it?
4. Plato: Time and the Celestial Bodies (Philosophy and Astronomy)
Plato also appears to identify Time as the motion of the heavenly bodies. Is this the case? What is the connection between Philosophy and Astronomy for Plato?
5. Plato: Time and the Process of Ageing
Here we will consider a curious argument from Plato’s dialogue Parmenides according to which ‘’the older you get, the younger you get” and what it tells us about how he thought about time.
6. Plato: The Tenses and Aspect of Time (Philosophy and Grammar)
Here we will see how grammatical and philosophical considerations are combined in another argument from Plato’s Parmenides and in Plato’s distinction between time and eternity in the Timaeus.
7. Plato: On the Now and the Instant
Concluding our discussion of Plato, we will consider two arguments from the Parmenides on the “now” and the “present instant”. Is Plato contradicting himself here?
8. Aristotle: Introduction to Aristotle’s Physics and the Paradoxes of Time
Aristotle’s pioneers the study of physical concepts such as change independent of cosmology in his Physics. We will see what is distinctive about Aristotle’s approach relative to Plato’s and look at his classic paradoxes about time, that leave us in doubt about whether time can be said to exist.
9. Aristotle: The Now is an Instant vs. There is Present Change
Here we will deal with a pair of arguments that are in tension with each other; on the one hand Aristotle argues that the now is an instant. On the other, he claims that every change takes time and there are changes happening now. How are these arguments to be understood? Can they be reconciled?
10. Aristotle: Physics IV: Time is not Change, but is something of Change
Against Plato, time argued that “the passage of time”, was not an independent change, but a feature of other changes. What are his arguments? Are they fair to Plato?
11. Aristotle: Physics IV: Time is the Number of Change
Aristotle’s positive definition of time is that “Time is a number of change”. What can this mean? How does Aristotle support it?
12. Aristotle: Time and Lifespans (Philosophy and Biology)
One important kind of change for Aristotle is biological change: the generation, life and death of living beings. Aristotle claimed that these changes had a “natural” time to take place. What was his argument? What does this change about how he thought about time?
13. Aristotle: Power, Activity and Change: Three Concepts and What they mean
Aristotle drew a pair of fundamental distinctions with wide consequences for the whole history of philosophy between “power” and “activity” and “activity” and “change”. This session will prepare for the discussion of Aristotle’s understanding of eternity by discussing these distinctions.
14. Aristotle: Aristotle on Pure Activity i.e. Aristotle’s concept of Eternity
Employing the distinctions between power, activity and change we will try to understand Aristotle’s claim that the first principle of being is “pure activity”. What does this mean? How does pure activity relate to time? What are his arguments?
Required Reading:
We will be reading texts from Plato and Aristotle primarily, with late ancient and contemporary commentators of both authors as secondary literature. In each class, solely the primary texts of Plato and/or Aristotle will be required reading, with the other authors being additional reading, which however the author of the week’s handout will be required to incorporate into their handout. Reading the texts in the original languages will not be a requirement, as there are good translations into English of all the texts, but we will discuss some translation issues at times. We won’t be reading through any single volume, so there is no need to buy any volumes for this course.
From Plato we will be reading excerpts from Plato’s’ Timaeus, Republic and Parmenides, though passages from other dialogues may be assigned as additional reading material.
From Aristotle we will be reading passages from Aristotle’s Physics, Generation and Corruption, Generation of Animals, Metaphysics and On the Heavens, though passages from other treatises may be assigned as additional reading material.
Additional Reading Material:
Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 30 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 30 %
Assignments 30 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 10 %
Participation
Additional information:
This is a course for undergraduate students. No previous knowledge of Ancient Philosophy, Ancient Greek or Metaphysics will be required, but without a disposition to read texts closely, to follow terminological discussions and to entertain metaphysical arguments students will not be able to profit much from the course.
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