Course Description

Instructor: Steve Hays. Office, Ellis 210C.

Phone (Office) 597-2105; (Home) 448-4202.

E-mail: hays@ohiou.edu

Office Hours: 4-5 M-Th. If that isn't convenient, we'll set up other times. Give me a call or e-mail me.

Class meetings: M-TH, Ellis 212

Syllabus: online on Blackboard

Required Texts: (available at College Book Store):

Greek Tragedies, Volume 1 Grene and Lattimore (U of Chic.)
Homer, Iliad, tr. Rouse
Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, tr./ed. M.L. West
The Oxford Study Bible and Apocrypha
Plato, The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin)
Plato, Gorgias (Penguin)

Description.

Undergraduate study in the traditional liberal arts mode involves students in a considerable amount of dreaming and hard thinking about how they and their world "should be" and in studying the attempts of previous generations of people who have attempted to make things as they "should be." As undergraduate study turns increasingly in the direction of professional training, students find fewer occasions to study the great dreams and dreamers of the past. I'm afraid they also find very little time or encouragement for shaping and refining their own aspirations.

This course identifies three of the great dreams or aspirations of the ancient Greeks and Romans—aspirations that lived on in written form and played an important role in shaping the ideals and aspirations of later Western civilization: 1) the political aspiration to create a just society; 2) the philosophical aspiration to "know oneself" and to be a person of virtue whatever the condition of one's society; and 3) the Christian aspiration to live a life of loving service that derives from the Christian understanding of the nature of God.

Our intention in this course will be to give a judiciously gracious hearing to these three historically important modes of thought with the dual intentions of learning about our intellectual and spiritual forebears in the Western tradition and of sharpening and developing our own personal aspirations.

We will read quite a bit of primary source literature in English translation. The primary means of presentation will be lecture with short periods of discussion interspersed.

Learning Objectives. I will try to help you develop the following skills:

1) To read carefully and sympathetically in order to accurately understand what the author is saying--and why.

2) To respect smart ideas even when they appear in strange cultural and intellectual contexts.

3) To understand that and how new ideals arise in human history.

4) To contemplate the value of idealism in human experience and to consider whether you want your life to be driven by ideals or utility.

Requirements:

1) You will be expected to attend class every day, arrive prepared, and to engage intellectually in classroom discussions. Sometimes I will ask you to complete questionnaires to get your intellect in gear.

2) Quizzes. Many days I will post quizzes on Blackboard to be taken prior to the class. I will also administer brief in-class quizzes.

2) Exams: 2 exams: midterm and final. The final will take place at the scheduled time. Please don't commit to doing something else at that time and expect me to allow you to take the exam at some other time.

Grades (provisional). Quizzes, 20%; First Exam, 40%; Final exam, 40%.

Academic dishonesty of any sort will result in a grade of 0% on the assignment and referral to the University judiciaries. I'm very serious about this. Please don't make me do it.