ASSIGNMENTS

End of WEEK 4: Write a 4-6 page essay responding to the following set of questions:
What are the origins of Greek thought according to Vernant? Tell the story of the origins using the conceptual contrast between mythos and logos. In his argument, Vernant only uses Anaximander in order to make his main point but you should use as many of the early Greek thinkers (Pre-Socratics) as you can in giving your account of the development of philosophy and how it might connect
with mythos, logos and polis.

End of WEEK 8: Write a 4-6 page essay responding to the following set of questions:
Using Plato’s Symposium and Sophocles’ Antigone and Oedipus the King, compare and contrast the tragic world-view with Plato’s vision of the human condition. In developing your essay, please be sure to utilize the readings. Find evidence to support your claims about the kinds, status and prospects of love in the human sphere, for example, or about the place and importance of conflict, or about the significance of the quest for knowledge. Do you prefer Plato’s or Sophocles’ view of the order of things? Why?

End of WEEK 10: Turn in thesis statement and bibliography for research Paper.

End of WEEK 12: Write a 4-6 page essay responding to one of the following questions:
A. Judging from your reading of the selections
from Plato’s Republic and from Thucydides’
account of Pericles’ Funeral Oration, how would you compare and contrast their respective appraisals of Athenian democracy?
B. Based on your reading of selections from
Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics and Politics,
what is Aristotle’s view of the “good life” and how compatible was Athenian democracy with the “good life”? (A strong response to this question requires you to do some independent research on the nature and institutions of Athenian democracy).
End of WEEK 15: Research paper due.

STUDY QUESTIONS

Introduction to The Greeks by J.P. Vernant (pp. 1-22)
1. Notice that Vernant (“V” hereafter) wants us to come to understand the Greeks by noticing how unlike us they were. What do you make of V’s musings about use of the term “man” as in “Greek man”?
2. How does V begin to draw out the “singularity” of the Greeks? How did the Greek view of divinity differ from our own Judaeo-Christo-Islamic one?
3. What differences does V claim exist with regard to Greek religious practice?
4. What about the theme of the “world” or phusis?
5. How does V’s analysis of Greek “vision”, contrasted with our own, support his claim about the Greek “connectedness” with the world?
6. Where does he go with this contrast? Did the Greeks possess an inward sense of self similar to our own? What is the basis for the contrast between shame/honor cultures and ones based on guilt/duty? What is the implication of this analysis for the Greek understanding of death?
7. Notice the last paragraph (p. 21). Do you think V has made his case that “man himself” changes?

“The Greeks and Their Gods” by Mario Vegetti, Ch. 8 of The Greeks.
1. What are the three features of Greek religious experience revealed through Aristotle’s anecdote according to Vegetti (“V” hereafter)?
2. What is V’s point in regard to eusebeia?
3. What are the primary experiences associated with the Greek sense of the sacred (heiros)?
4. What are the connections among the poets, the gods, and the polis?
5. Do you think that the Greek gods are “all too human” and that their behavior provides poor ethical models?
6. What seems to have been the function of the mystery cults?
7. What was the nature and allure of Pythagoras and his community?
8. Summarize what V has to say about the developing criticisms of religion by
Greek philosophy.

The Origins of Greek Thought by J.P.Vernant.
This slender book packs a lot of information into a small volume. Don’t be overwhelmed by terms and references you don’t understand. Be patient, keep reading and you should be able to follow the argument. Having already read the essays by Vernant and Vegetti should also help. The puzzle is to explain how the Greeks developed such an extraordinary culture. Vernant’s brief excursion into relatively recent discoveries about Mycenaean culture (chapters 1&2) furnishes background providing a dramatic contrast to what emerges in the Classical Age (5th century BCE). Do not worry about the level of detail Vernant provides. Follow the main themes of his argument. If you can answer the following questions, you can feel confident that you have understood Vernant’s thesis and the support he provides to hold it up.
1. What is the significance of the “disappearance of the king”?
2. Describe “palace culture” and the particular kind of sovereignty it provides.
3. In chapter 3, Vernant discussed the following Greek terms: agon and arche. Do you understand their meaning and how they throw light on the “advent of the polis” around 750 BCE?
4. Do you see under what conditions speech could become a pre-eminent form of power? Remember that both mythos and logos are kinds of speech.
5. In describing the development of the polis, Vernant uses the following contrasts: hidden vs. open (palace vs. the agora) sacred vs. secular speech vs. writing
Can you make sense out of these contrasts and see how they help us understand the problems attending a new kind of social order (polis)?
6. Chapter 4 seems to involve what we might call a “psychological transformation” of Greek culture. How do military matters enter into this? The question of aristocracy versus democracy (the “best” vs. the “equal”)?
7. If philosophia means love of wisdom, then the first philosophers were probably the early sages Vernant discusses. How can they be seen within the contrast between mythos and logos?
8. Arete is an important Greek term. It is usually translated as ‘virtue’ or ‘excellence’ but these words don’t help us much. What is Vernant saying about the way the meaning of arête is changed? How is it connected with the idea of law and with sophrosyne (self-control or moderation)?
9. What have the “myths of sovereignty” to do with the early philosophers known as the Milesians? (This group, comprised of Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, derive their name from their city of origin, Miletus)
10. How can we differentiate between theogonies and cosmogonies? How is the distinction related to the political question of sovereignty? Do you see how this might be an important distinction in terms of mythos and logos?
11. Are you able to say what, according to Vernant, is the “new image of the world”?
12. Notice that by the end of the book, Vernant has taken us up to the beginning of the Classical Age in Athens. By this time, logos has freed itself from mythos sufficiently to guide practical decision making in the polis. But what exactly counts as logos and which kind of discourse and discipline best expresses logos will remain contested throughout the Classical Age.