Die antiken griechischen Sophisten sind am besten als die Bösewichte in Platons Dialogen bekannt. Lieder ist nur wenig von ihren Werken überliefert, was sicherlich auch dem großen Erfolg von Platons beißender Polemik geschuldet ist. Trotzdem ist es klar, dass die Sophisten Denker mit profunder Weite und Einblick waren. In diesem Seminar werden wir die überlieferten Zeugnisse über die größten Sophisten (wie Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiphon, Thrasymachus und Euthydemus) lesen, um selbst ihren Verdienst zu beurteilen. Wir werden unter anderem folgende Themen besprechen: ist Moralität, oder sogar Realität, relativ? Was ist der Unterschied zwischen dem, was durch Konvention, und dem, was durch Natur, der Fall ist und was sind die gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen? Wie soll man eine überzeugende Rede am besten hervorbringen und gebrauchen? Zu welchem Zweck haben die Sophisten Paradoxien eingesetzt? Was ist die richtige Form des Argumentierens?

Aristotle’s Metaphysics is devoted to the subject that he calls “first philosophy”: the science that studies the principles and causes of being qua being. In Metaphysics Gamma (=book 4) Aristotle argues that there is a science of being and investigates its first principles: the Principle of Non-Contradiction (nothing both is and is not so-and-so,  henceforth: “PNC”) and the Law of the Excluded Middle (each thing either is or is not so-and-so, henceforth: “LEM”).  Aristotle’s philosophical ambition in this work is in several respects unparalleled in western philosophy. Aristotle attempts to defend the most fundamental principles in any science—principles that he argues are impossible to deny—against opponents who (claim that they) in fact deny them.  In this seminar we will carefully read this rich text alongside recent literature and assess the degree to which Aristotle’s arguments live up to their ambition. 

Questions we will consider include: What does Aristotle mean in claiming that there are many different senses of being and does he have good reasons for thinking that there can be a science of being despite this fact? Why is it the task of the Metaphysician to study the PNC and LEM? Does Aristotle have a compelling argument for his ambitious conclusion that it is metaphysically impossible to deny the PNC? Given that one cannot prove first principles, what does Aristotle hope to achieve with his (historically singular) arguments against opponents of the PNC? Do Aristotle’s arguments for the PNC have any traction against those who purportedly deny it? What role do Aristotle’s definitions of truth and falsity play in his defense of the PNC and LEM? Are Aristotle’s arguments for the LEM effective against his opponents, who endorse relativism about truth?

Dieses Seminar dient als eine Einführung in Aristoteles‘ theoretische Philosophie. Wir werden uns auf drei wichtige Bereiche konzentrieren: Naturphilosophie, Psychologie und Metaphysik. Innerhalb dieser Bereiche werden die folgenden Themen besprochen: die Analyse von Veränderung, das Konzept der ‚Natur,‘ die vier Ursachen, Teleologie in der Natur, das Konzept von der Seele als der Form des Lebewesens, Philosophie als Wissenschaft des Seienden als Seienden, Der Satz vom Widerspruch, Substanz, Akt und Potenz, und Gott als der unbewegte Beweger.

Wir werden versuchen, diese Ideen durch eine genaue Lektüre der Schlüsselpassagen in drei der wichtigsten Werke des Aristoteles zu verstehen: Physik, De Anima und Metaphysik. Die Lektüre für jede Sitzung wird immer kurz, aber sehr gehaltvoll sein. Unser Ziel in jeder Sitzung wird es sein, die Kernargumente aus dem Text zu rekonstruieren und zu bewerten. Die Studierenden werden den Kurs sowohl mit grundlegenden Fähigkeiten der Exegese antiker philosophischer Texte als auch mit einem fundierten Verständnis der Schlüsselideen und Argumente der aristotelischen Philosophie verlassen.

Fallacies are deceptive arguments. They are badarguments that nevertheless appear to be good ones. While the study of fallacies today is primarily confined to introductory courses in informal logic, in other periods of the history of philosophy fallacies were a central preoccupation for philosophers. In this course we will carefully read and discuss the most influential treatment of fallacies in western philosophy: Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations. This text serves as an excellent basis for the study of fallacies not only because of its remarkable staying power—surprisingly little has changed in the study of fallacies since Aristotle—but also because recent scholarship has shown this text to be a rewarding piece of philosophy in its own right.

Our main goals in reading the Sophistical Refutations will be to understand what fallacies are, why they were so important for Aristotle, and to evaluate whether they ought to be more important for philosophers today. Questions that we will consider include: What exactly is a fallacy? Does Aristotle provide good reasons for thinking that philosophers ought to study them? Why does Aristotle think that there are exactly six ‘linguistic’ fallacies and exactly seven ‘non-linguistic’ ones? What makes a fallacy linguistic or not? Are fallacies dependent on a live argumentative context? Must someone actually be deceived by a fallacy in order for it to count as one?

Der Protreptikos war Aristoteles‘ berühmtestes Werk in der Antike. Hier hat Aristoteles seine Vorstellung der Philosophie dargelegt und erklärt, warum man die Tätigkeit des Philosophierens überhaupt aufnehmen sollte. Neue Forschung erlaubt es, Teile dieses Werkes zu lesen, die bis vor kurzem nicht als zu diesem Werk gehörig anerkannt waren. Daher werden wir in diesem Kurs alles, was neue Forschung als Aristoteles‘ Protreptikos kennt, gründlich lesen. Folgende Fragen oder Themen werden wir diskutieren: was für eine Art von Wissenschaft ist Philosophie? Hat Philosophie einen praktischen Nutzen? Wenn nicht, was genau für einen Wert hat sie?  Wir werden zum besseren Verständnis dieses Textes auch die platonischen Argumente, die im Hintergrund des Protreptikos stehen, und die sogenannten „apotreptischen“ Argumente von Rednern wie Isokrates lesen, die ein Gegenprogramm zu dem philosophischen Programm von Aristoteles (und Platon) entworfen haben, und diskutieren, wie Aristoteles auf solche Gegenvorschläge reagiert.

 In this course we will consider Plato’s and Aristotle’s influential treatments of rational powers: the capacities in virtue of which rational agents are able to bring about changes. We will focus in particular on their treatment of productive knowledge or expertise (techne), which both philosophers took to be a two-way power: the practical knowledge that enables one to bring about a particular result also allows one to bring about its contrary (for example, the mark of an expert medical doctor is the ability to produce both health and disease). Questions we will consider include: is Plato’s commitment to the two-way nature of expertise consistent with the view, expressed in certain dialogues, that virtue is an expertise? Is the kind of inerrancy that Plato seems to attribute to this kind of knowledge defensible? How exactly do rational capacities like expertise technē differ from non-rational ones like knacks (empeiriai)? Are rational capacities good-directed for Plato and Aristotle?  In what ways does Aristotle innovate in relation to Plato’s treatment of rational powers? 

Platons Figur des Sokrates in den sogenannten "sokratischen Dialogen" verteidigt berühmte, paradox—oder zumindest äußerst seltsam—klingende Thesen: Er wisse, dass er nichts weiß; Tugend sei Wissen; alle Tugenden seien eine Einheit; niemand irre freiwillig; derjenige, der freiwillig irre, sei gerecht; es sei unmöglich, einem guten Menschen zu schaden; Weisheit sei hinreichend für Glückseligkeit; es sei besser, selbst widerlegt zu werden als jemand anders zu widerlegen; man wisse nur, was man mit einem bestimmten Begriff meint, wenn man ihn definieren könne.

In diesem Kurs werden wir wichtige sokratische Dialoge lesen (die Apologie des Sokrates, Eutyphron, Protagoras, Gorgias) und auch einige seltener gelesene Dialoge (Hippias Minor, Euthydemus). Wir verfolgen hierbei drei Ziele: 1) Diese Ideen zu verstehen; 2) zu beurteilen, inwieweit Platons Sokrates diese Thesen selbst vertritt; 3) herauszufinden, wie diese Thesen mit dem größeren philosophischen Projekt von Platons Sokrates zusammenpassen.

Parmenides of Elea—whose followers are known as ‘Eleatics’—is both the most influential Greek philosopher before Socrates and the most enigmatic. In this course, our first task will be to read the surviving fragments of the poem in which Parmenides expounded his philosophy and to wrestle with some of the central interpretive difficulties they raise. Is Parmenides actually a monist? If so, does he espouse strict numerical monism—the view that there is only one thing? Is the world of everyday experience a mere illusion? What is the purpose of the lengthy cosmological portion of Parmenides’ original poem? What is Parmenides’ relationship to earlier Presocratic thinkers?

We will then go on to read two other Presocratic thinkers who are frequently regarded as followers of Parmenides—Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos—with a view to understanding whether they are appropriately classified as Eleatics, and, if so, whether and how they innovate in relation to Parmenides. We will conclude by asking similar questions about purported followers of Parmenides in the 4th century BCE and following, in particular members of the so-called ‘Megaric’ school.

In this course we will examine the way in which Plato argues for the value of philosophy and attempts to distinguish it from rival intellectual pursuits such as sophistry and rhetoric. Alongside our main text, the Euthydemus, and parts of related Platonic dialogues, we will also look at selections from some of the contemporary rivals whom Plato may be targeting in the _Euthydemus_ (e.g., Antisthenes and Isocrates). Our guiding aim will be to better understand the educational debates in the context of which Plato developed his distinctive views about the nature and value of philosophy and philosophical education. Along the way we will also consider a number of central questions raised by the _Euthydemus_, such as: How does Plato understand the relationship between wisdom and happiness? To what extent is Plato aware of, and able to diagnose fallacious reasoning?

Would it be better to live an unjust life while appearing to be a good person, or to live a just life while appearing to be a bad person? Would you be happier if you could do whatever you wanted to, and you could always get away with it? And if so, does that mean that tyrants and dictators are happier than most of us? Are societies that give their citizens maximal freedom of speech and expression more just than societies that limit such freedoms? And what does it mean for a person or society to be just? In this seminar, we will explore these questions and more like them through a close reading of the whole of Plato's masterwork on justice and happiness, the Republic.

In this course we will examine the ways in which Plato distinguished his philosophical project from the intellectual pursuits of both his predecessors and his contemporary rivals. In addition to considering Plato's influential views about the nature of reality, knowledge, and human happiness, we will aim to understand the kinds of questions that Plato thinks philosophy is apt to answer, the method by which he thinks philosophy ought to be conducted, and his arguments about the value of philosophy over competing intellectual pursuits and ways of life.