Hellenistic Philosophy

Ancient philosophy did not end with Aristotle: the centuries after Aristotle's death saw considerable philosophical output from often-competing philosophical schools in the Greco-Roman world. In this course, we will study the major Hellenistic schools of philosophy - the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the sceptics - carefully examining the (often fragmentary) evidence on each and discussing the interpretation of their doctrines from this evidence, as well as how these doctrines fit into a background of Platonic and Aristotelean philosophy and the Hellenistic intra-school debates. Topics to be covered are especially epistemology, ethics, and physics, but will also include metaphysics, psychology, cosmology, ontology, and logic.