Study philosophy: ancient, medieval, modern

Define the main branches of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and political philosophy.

Distinguish between deductive and inductive arguments.

Identify the conclusion and premises in a passage of philosophical text.

Reconstruct a philosopher's argument in standard form from a prose passage.

Evaluate the validity and soundness of a deductive argument.

Explain the significance of the shift from mythological to rational explanation, including the character of pre-philosophical mythological accounts of nature.

Explain Thales' and Anaximander's proposals for the fundamental substance (arche) of nature.

Analyze Heraclitus' doctrine of flux and the role of logos using his fragments.

Reconstruct Parmenides' argument that change is impossible from his poem 'On Nature'.

Explain Zeno's paradoxes as defenses of Parmenides' position.

Explain the core tenets of Democritus' atomism, including the concepts of atoms and the void.

Compare and contrast Democritus' atomism with the cosmologies of earlier Pre-Socratics.

Describe Socrates' method of elenchus as demonstrated in the 'Euthyphro'.

Analyze the Euthyphro dilemma and its implications for the relationship between piety and the gods.

Reconstruct the main arguments of Socrates' defense against the formal and informal charges in the 'Apology'.

Analyze and evaluate Socrates' claim that 'the unexamined life is not worth living' based on his arguments in the 'Apology'.

Analyze Socrates' arguments for remaining in prison in the 'Crito'.

Explain the distinction between knowledge and true opinion as it emerges in Plato's early dialogues.

Explain the Analogy of the Sun as an introduction to the Theory of Forms and the Form of the Good.

Reconstruct the Divided Line analogy and explain its four levels of cognition and reality.

Analyze the Allegory of the Cave as an account of philosophical education and the philosopher's journey.

Analyze the tripartite theory of the soul from 'Republic' Book IV.

Explain Plato's argument for philosopher-kings by synthesizing the Theory of Forms, the Cave, and the tripartite soul.

Evaluate the Third Man Argument from the 'Parmenides' as a challenge to the Theory of Forms.

Explain Aristotle's four causes using examples from 'Physics' Book II.

Distinguish between substance and accident in Aristotle's 'Categories'.

Analyze Aristotle's critique of Plato's Theory of Forms in 'Metaphysics' Book I.

Explain the distinction between potentiality (dynamis) and actuality (energeia).

Explain the Unmoved Mover as pure actuality and its causal role in Aristotle's metaphysics.

Analyze Aristotle's function argument for eudaimonia in 'Nicomachean Ethics' Book I.

Explain the doctrine of the mean and distinguish between practical wisdom (phronesis) and theoretical wisdom (sophia).

Explain Epicurean atomism and its ethical implications.

Analyze the Epicurean argument that death is nothing to us from Epicurus' 'Letter to Menoeceus'.

Distinguish between what is 'up to us' and what is not in Stoic ethics.

Reconstruct the Stoic account of living according to nature using texts from Epictetus' 'Discourses'.

Analyze the Pyrrhonian skeptic's method of equipollence and suspension of judgment from Sextus Empiricus' 'Outlines of Pyrrhonism'.

Compare Stoic, Epicurean, and Skeptic accounts of achieving tranquility (ataraxia).

Analyze the concept of Ma'at as a philosophical principle of truth, justice, and cosmic order in ancient Egyptian thought.

Examine the ethical teachings in the 'Maxims of Ptahhotep' as an early work of moral philosophy.

Analyze Zera Yacob's 'Hatata' as an exercise in independent rational inquiry and compare his method with Western rationalist approaches.

Explain the concept of Ubuntu and its implications for personhood and communal ethics.

Analyze the debate about the nature of African philosophy: ethnophilosophy, sage philosophy, and professional philosophy.

Compare African communitarian ethics with Western individualist ethical frameworks encountered earlier in the course.

Explain the Nahua concept of teotl as a fundamental metaphysical principle of dynamic, generative cosmic energy.

Analyze the Nahua concept of neltiliztli (rootedness) as an epistemological and ethical ideal.

Explain the role of balance (nepantla) in Nahua ethics and metaphysics.

Analyze the concept of the Fifth Sun and its philosophical implications for impermanence and human responsibility.

Examine the flower-and-song (in xochitl in cuicatl) tradition as a form of philosophical inquiry into truth and meaning.

Compare Nahua metaphysics with Pre-Socratic inquiry into the fundamental nature of reality.

Explain the core tenets of Neoplatonism, including Plotinus' concepts of the One, the Intellect, and the Soul.

Analyze how Augustine of Hippo adapted Neoplatonic concepts to formulate his Christian philosophy.

Reconstruct Augustine's account of evil as privation in 'Confessions' Book VII.

Analyze Augustine's central arguments about the nature of time in 'Confessions' Book XI.

Reconstruct Boethius' argument for reconciling divine foreknowledge with human free will in 'Consolation of Philosophy' Book V.

Reconstruct Anselm's ontological argument from the 'Proslogion' and analyze Gaunilo's objection.

Reconstruct Aquinas' Five Ways for proving God's existence from 'Summa Theologiae'.

Analyze the problem of universals and explain Ockham's nominalist solution and the principle of parsimony.

Reconstruct Descartes' method of doubt and the cogito argument from 'Meditations' I-II.

Analyze Descartes' cosmological argument for God's existence in 'Meditation' III.

Analyze Descartes' ontological argument for God's existence in 'Meditation' V.

Analyze Descartes' arguments for mind-body dualism in 'Meditation' VI.

Explain Spinoza's monism and the identification of God with Nature in 'Ethics' Part I.

Analyze Spinoza's determinism and his critique of free will as a human illusion.

Explain Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason and its role in his metaphysics.

Reconstruct Leibniz's argument for monads as the fundamental substances.

Reconstruct Locke's argument against innate ideas in 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding' Book I.

Explain Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities.

Analyze Berkeley's idealism and his arguments against material substance in 'Three Dialogues'.

Reconstruct Hume's fork: the distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact.

Analyze Hume's problem of induction from 'Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding' Section IV.

Evaluate Hume's argument against the rational justification of causal inference.

Explain Hume's bundle theory of personal identity from 'Treatise' Book I.

Explain Kant's 'Copernican Revolution' as a synthesis of rationalism and empiricism.

Distinguish between analytic/synthetic and a priori/a posteriori judgments to frame the problem of synthetic a priori knowledge.

Explain the distinction between phenomena and noumena, and the role of the 'categories of understanding' in structuring experience.

Analyze Kant's critique of traditional rationalist metaphysics, using his refutation of the ontological argument as an example.

Explain the fundamental distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives.

Reconstruct the Formula of Universal Law from Kant's 'Groundwork' and apply it to a moral dilemma.

Reconstruct the Formula of Humanity from Kant's 'Groundwork' and explain its implications for the concept of dignity.

Distinguish between acting 'from duty' and acting 'in accordance with duty' using a concrete example.