PHIL 681: Philosophical Figures:
Pre-Socratic Philosophers, including Sophists
Spring 2009
M 7:20 - 10:00 PM
Here is one of the lion statues that guarded the ancient harbor of
Miletus. (The harbor silted up and became a swamp, then dry land.) This
excellent image comes from the Perseus
web site; the photographer is Don Keller.
Prof. Cherubin
Robinson B 461
Office hours: M 5 - 6 PM; W 2 - 3 PM; additional times available by
appointment
Phone 3-1332; email rcherubi(at)gmu.edu
Course Materials
Syllabus
(.pdf)
Readings
page (required, recommended, and optional readings are all listed here)
Other
Potentially Useful Links
Perseus Project: To
read works by well-known Greek writers such as Homer, Hesiod, Plato,
[some] Aristotle, and Pindar, click on "Collections," then "Greek and
Roman materials," then scroll
down to the author of your choice. Texts are available in both Greek
and English. (Some of the translations may seem somewhat out-of-date,
as they are largely from out-of-print editions of the Loeb Classical
Library.) If you're going to use a translated text in your papers, it's
better to get a fairly recent and good translation. But for quick
reference, or to look up the Greek, Perseus is very handy to have.
To look up Greek words, from the main
page, click on "All search options" (top right) then select "show" next
to "Dictionary Entry Lookup."
Archimedes Project: Another
dictionary entry lookup engine. Click on "Help" to see how to work this
one.
The Stoa
Project: Lots of pertinent and well-researched material,
including Diotima: Materials for the
Study of Women
and Gender in the Ancient World, Demos (Documents on Classical Athenian
Democracy), and much, much more.
Library of Ancient Texts Online:
A wide variety of texts by ancient authors. Translation quality varies
widely, and do note the site's discussion entitled "disadvantages of
online editions." But if a text is not available in GMU, and you want
to get an idea of whether you're going to need to order it from the
Consortium Loan Service or InterLibrary Loan for your paper, this is a
good way to tell.
Some terrific bibliographies on various sophists,
courtesy of Dr. M. Zulick of Wake Forest University; note that there
are pages on the sophists in general and also pages on individual
sophists including Gorgias.