This is an archived course. A more recent version may be available at ocw.mit.edu.

Readings

Students may want to purchase the following books:

[Republic] = Buy at Amazon Plato. Republic. Translated by R. E. Allen. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780300114515.

[Ethics] = Buy at Amazon Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Christopher Rowe. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780198752714.

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction No readings
I. Ancient and Modern Knowing
2 Knowledge as Power/ Knowledge as Virtue

Bacon, Francis. Novum Organon. 1620.

Descartes, René. Rules for the Direction of the Mind. 1619.

Plato. Meno. (PDF)
3 Logos as Definition: What is "What is?"

Plato. Meno. (PDF)

Euclid. Elements. Book 1, Definitions.

Aristotle. Topics. Book 1.

Definition Assignment 2 (PDF)
The Idea of a Proof

Descartes, René. Geometry. [Read in French on Project Gutenberg]

Euclid. Elements. Book 1 (entire) and II (proposition 1 and 4)

Pappus. Commentary on Euclid. Book 1. (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)
II. Logos and Arithmos
4 Logos as Ratio Euclid. Elements. Book V (Study definitions and browse proofs).
Magnitude and Multitude Euclid. Elements. Book VII (Study definitions and browse proofs).
Quality and Quantity Aristotle. Categories. Chapters 6-8.
5 The Greek Conception of Number

Nicomachus of Gerasa. Introduction to Arithmetic.

Euclid. Elements. Book VII (Study definitions and browse proofs).
The Idea of Number: Ancient vs. Modern Newton, Issac. Arithmetica Universalis. [Read on Google Books]
III. Measuring the Unmeasurable: Putting the Irrational in Ratio
6 Aristotle, Plato, Euclid, and Theon of Smyrna

Aristotle. Prior Analytics. 41a, 50a.

———. Topics. 158b.

Plato. Epinomis. (Excerpt).

Euclid. Elements. Book V (Definitions Book 5), Book VII (Propositions 1, 2), Book X (all definitions, propositions 1-3, 5, 6).

Buy at Amazon Theon of Smyrna. Mathematics Useful for Understanding Plato. Mecosta, MI: Wizards Bookshelf, 1978. ISBN: 9780913510247.
IV. Fitting Ideas to the World
7 Courage Plato. Laches.
8 Justice [Republic] Book 1. [Read on Project Gutenberg]
9 The Pursuit of Truth

[Republic] Books VI-VIII. [Read on Project Gutenberg]

Euclid. Elements. Book XII (selected proofs).
10 The Truth as a Surd Plato. Theaetetus.
11 The Truth as a Surd (cont.) Plato. Theaetetus, cont.
V. The Ethics of Arithmetic and Geometry
12 John Stuart Mill Buy at Amazon Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2007. ISBN: 9780486454221. [Read on Google Books]
13 Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

[Ethics]. [Read online].

Book I all chapters except 6, 9, 10. (Anyone caught reading 6, 9, 10 will be banished.) Pay special attention to Chapter 3.

Book II in its entirety;

Chapters 6, 7, 11 of Book III

Chapters 6 & 7 of Book IV
14 Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (cont.) [Ethics], cont.