FIF 243 - Wise Old Heads: Great Thinkers of Antiquity

Course Description

This course illustrates how much we can learn from differences and similarities between ancient and modern thinking. We discuss major Greek, Roman, and Byzantine philosophers and scientists. Highlights include: the ancient foundations of modern theory and practice in architecture, astronomy, atomism, Big Bang versus creationism, computers, evolution, mathematics, and ethics and morality.

Course Details

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the course, you will be able to:

• Appreciate the lives, ideas, and writings of the major ancient philosophers and scientists from the Pre-Socratics to late antiquity and Byzantium.
• In particular, you will have a grasp of such famous individuals as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucretius, Christ, and Saint Augustine.
• See the constant correlations between ancient and modern thinkers, how they agree and disagree, and the influence of classical ideas on such modern developments as (e.g.) Darwin’s theory of Evolution, Marx’s notions of atomism and materialism, and  the entire approach to ancient and modern philosophy and science of, in particular, Bertrand Russell.