ANCIENT THOUGHT READING LIST

PRE-SOCRATICS

CLASSICAL GREEK THOUGHT (c.470 - c.290 BCE)

Sophists:

Gorgias (c.483 - c.376 BCE):

• Encomium of Helen

Protagoras (c.481 - c.411 BCE)

•  

Plato (c.427 - c.347 BCE):

• Cratylus [pp. 38-48 in Adams; also in Leitch]
• Crito ["Our Obligation to Respect the Laws of the State," pp. 473-476 in Cottingham]
• Ion []
• Meno ["Innate knowledge," pp. 3-12 in Cottingham]
• Phaedo ["The Immortal Soul," pp.127-134 in Cottingham]
• Phaedrus [pp. 81-85 in Leitch]
• The Republic (trans. Francis MacDonald Cornford):
  • Ch. V "The Problem Stated" ["Morality and Happiness," pp. 361-366 in Cottingham]
  • Ch. XII "The Virtues in the State"
  • Ch. XIII "The Three Parts of the Soul"
  • Ch. XIV "The Virtues in the Individual"
  • Ch. XXIII "The Good as the Highest Object of Knowledge"
  • Ch. XXIV "Four Stages of Cognition. The Line"
  • Ch. XXV "The Allegory of the Cave"
  • Ch. XXVII "Dialectic"
  • Ch. XXXV: "How Representation in Art is Related to Truth"
  • Ch. XXXVI: "Dramatic Poetry Appeals to the Emotions, not to the Reason"
  • Ch. XXXVII: "The Effect of Dramatic Poetry on Character"
  • [or in lieu of chs. xxxv, xxxvi, xxxvii, pp. 31-38 in Adams; pp. 67-80 in Leitch]

Aristotle (c.384 - c.322 BCE):

• Categories ["Individual Substance," pp. 70-74 in Cottingham]
• De Anima ["Soul and Body, Form and Matter," pp. 134-138 in Cottingham]
• On Interpretation [pp. 595-598 in Marc Cohen, et al., eds. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy]
• Nicomachean Ethics ["Ethical Virtue," pp. 366-370 in Cottingham]
• Physics ["Four Types of Explanation," pp. 301-303 in Cottingham]
• Poetics [pp. 50-66 in Adams; pp. 90-117 in Leitch]
• Posterior Analytics ["Demonstrative Knowledge and its Starting-Points," pp. 19-22 in Cottingham]
• Rhetoric [pp. 117-121 in Leitch]

HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN THOUGHT (c.320 BCE - c.150 CE)

Pyrrhonian Skepticism:

Sextus Empiricus (2nd or 3rd Century CE):

• Outlines of Pyrrhonism

Epicureanism:

Epicurus (341 - 270 BCE):

• Letters

Stoicism:

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 - 43 BCE):

Aesthetics / Critical Theory:

Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Horace] (65 BCE - 8 BCE):

• Art of Poetry [pp. 68-74 in Adams; pp. 124-135 in Leitch]

'Longinus' (1st Century CE):

• On the Sublime [pp. 76-98 in Adams; pp. 138-154 in Leitch]

NEOPLATONISM (c.200 - c.500 BCE)

Plotinus (204 - 270 CE):

• Enneads [pp. 100-106 in Adams; pp. 174-178 in Leitch]