Ancient and Medieval Philosophical Thought
Code: 100017 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2502758 Humanities | OB | 2 | 2 |
Contact
- Name:
- Jaume Mensa Valls
- Email:
- jaume.mensa@uab.cat
Use of Languages
- Principal working language:
- catalan (cat)
- Some groups entirely in English:
- No
- Some groups entirely in Catalan:
- Yes
- Some groups entirely in Spanish:
- No
Prerequisites
There is no requirement.
Objectives and Contextualisation
Ancient and medieval philosophical thinkingis a subject of the second year of the degree of Humanities. The specific objectives of this subject are:
a. To get a good knowledge of the main authors, and of the philosophical approaches and of the problems of philosophical ancient and medieval thinking.
b. To learn more about one of the most significant authors of ancient or medieval philosophy.
c. To read, understand and interpret selected and representative texts of the authors studied, using the aforementioned knowledge.
d. To reflect on some problems considered by thinkers at this time, on its cultural, social and political impact, and on its historical transcendence.
e. To develop their own critical and self-critical thinking.
f. To connect the contents of the subject with the content of other subjects of the degree.
Competences
- Critically analysing today's culture and its historical conditions.
- Properly using the resources and methodologies of the study of contemporary culture.
- Respecting the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
- Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
- Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
- Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.
Learning Outcomes
- Drawing up an academic text using the discipline's specific vocabulary.
- Engaging in debates about historical facts respecting the other participants' opinions.
- Identifying the characteristic methods of the history of philosophy and using them in the analysis of concrete facts.
- Indicating and discussing the main characteristics of the of a period and contextualizing them.
- Indicating and summarising the common content of several manifestations of various fields of culture.
- Indicating the main issues of the history of the field.
- Preparing a summary from a given text.
- Summarising acquired knowledge about the origin and transformations experienced in the several fields of anthropology.
Content
1. Introduction*
2. Mythologies*
3. Oriental thought*
4. Greece: The Presocratics
5. Greece: The Sophists and Socrates
6. Plato: The Platonic studies
7. Plato: What is a platonic dialogue?
8. Plato: The Phaedo and the theory of ideas
9. Plato: theParmenidesand the revision of the theory of ideas
10. Aristotle: Introduction
11. Aristotle: logic
12. Aristotle: psychology and metaphysics
13. Aristotle: practical sciences
14. Hellenistic schools I
15. Hellenistic schools II
16. The patristic Philosophy. Augustine of Hippo
17. Philosophy in the medieval Latin West until the introduction of the new Aristotle (9th-11th centuries)
18. Scholasticism. Aquinas.The “via moderna"
19. The Renaissance*
The students (in small group) will prepare a presentation of one of the subjects marked with an asterisk (see "Methodology" and "Evaluation")
Methodology
Lessons combine theoretical lectures with reading and comments about particularly significant texts. The lecturer will make available to students notes on the main topics of the course and texts by the most representative authors (Virtual Campus). The student must prepare the daily topic. The lecturer's explanation of the subject presupposes this preparation.
In addition, the student will have to read (compulsory) one of the following texts and write an essay:
Parmenides, Poem & Heraclitus, Fragments
Epicurus, Letter to Monoeceus and Capital Maxims.
Peter Abelard - Heloise, Letters
We will use the Virtual Campus basically to share the materials. On the other hand, if the student wishes to contact the lecturer, he or she must send a personal email (not by a Virtual Campus message).
The tutorials will be basically dedicated to prepare the essay and the compulsory readings, and to solve any doubt.
The teaching methodology and the evaluation proposed in the guide may undergo some modification subject to the onsite teaching restrictions imposed by health authorities.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Activities
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Lectures | 36 | 1.44 | 3, 8 |
| Study and preparation for the exams | 30 | 1.2 | 4, 6, 8 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Group presentations | 10 | 0.4 | 4, 5, 7, 3, 2, 8 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Compulsory reading | 20 | 0.8 | 4, 1, 6, 8 |
| Preparation of topics and texts. Bibliographical research | 36 | 1.44 | 4, 5, 8 |
Assessment
The assessment is continued and requires the constant follow-up of the course. To pass the course is required: a) to achieve a mark of 4, at least, in each exam; b) to achieve a mark of 5 in average, at least, in the set of all the activities. If a student does not fulfil these two conditions, he or she must be submitted to a reevaluation exam. The essays will not have a reevaluation. The reevaluation is not possible without having done previously the ordinary exam.
The reassessment exam format will be similar to the ordinary exams format and will have two parts: one for the topics of each partial exam. The student will only have to do the failed part(s).
The student whose evaluation activities have not reached the 30% of the activities will be assessed as “Non-evaluable”.
After the reevaluations, there is not a second round.
The lecturer will assign a day, hour and place to review the exams after having evaluated the activities of the course. Students who have to do the reassessment will have a specific day of review when they will have done the aforementioned reevaluation exam.
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.
In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.
Comments
1. The essay (of one of the compulsory readings) must have 5,000 words maximum and will consist of the following parts:
Introduction
1. Context
2. Work
3. Critical commentary
4. Bibliography
2. The oral presentations (Cf. Contents *) will last 20'.
Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essay on one of the compulsory reading | 20 | 13.5 | 0.54 | 4, 5, 7, 1 |
| Exam 1 | 30 | 1.5 | 0.06 | 4, 3, 6, 8 |
| Exam 2 | 30 | 1.5 | 0.06 | 4, 5, 3, 8 |
| Group presentations (with abstract) | 20 | 1.5 | 0.06 | 4, 7, 3, 2, 8 |
Bibliography
Bréhier, É. (1998), Història de la filosofia i de la ciència. Barcelona: UAB.
Copleston, F. (2001), Historia de la Filosofía, 9 Vol. Barcelona: Ariel.
Ferrater Mora, J. (1981), Diccionario de Filosofía, 4 Vol. Madrid: Alianza.
Garfield, J.L & Edelglass, W. (Eds.) (2014), The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy. Oxford: OUP.
Geymonat, L. (1998), Història de la filosofia i de la ciència. Barcelona: Crítica.
Long, A. A. (ed.) (1999), The Cambridge companion to early Greek philosophy (ebook), Cambridge, University Press;
Lagerlund, H. (ed.) (2011), Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy (ebook), Dordrecht, Springer;
Marenbon, John, Medieval Philosophy. A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, University Press, 2016, 141 p.
McGrade, A.S. (ed.) (2006), The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Philosophy (ebook), Cambridge, University Press;
Mensa i Valls, J. (2012), Introducció a la filosofia medieval, Bellaterra, UAB. (Printed book and ebook).
Reale, G. et al. (1988), Historia del pensamiento filosófico y científico, 3 Vol. Barcelona: Herder.
Terricabras, J. M., (Ed.) (2001), El pensament filosòfic i científic. I i II. Barcelona: Pòrtic.
Tola, F. & Dragonetti, C. (2008), Filosofia de la India: Del Veda Al Vedanta. Barcelona: Kairós.
Software
During the course we will work with documents in .doc, .docs, .pdf and .ppt formats.
If we have to do online sessions, we will use the Teams and Meet programs