Philosophy of Religion (Ph 103, Section JJ, 3 Units) Darren Gustafson

Philosophy Department, School of Humanities afterthales@yahoo.ca

Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila University CTC 203, T-Th 1100-1230, Second Semester, 2016-17

Course Syllabus

Course Description

This seminar examines the effect of thinking about God in ancient Greece to answer the question,
What happens when we think about God? The early Greeks initiated a revolution that still shapes the world we
live in. Strikingly, their scientific thinking grew out of a philosophy of religion. This seminar follows the
emergence of scientific thought, from the earliest Greek poets through Plato and Aristotle, focusing on the
pivotal role of Xenophanes.

Learning Outcomes

The objective of this seminar is to trace the effect of our thinking about God.
Seminar participants gain a working familiarity with the emergence of scientific inquiry out of
theological speculation in ancient Greece as a rigor for exploring the effect of thinking about God
on our own world view.
Seminar participants trace the development of thought from one stage to another as a way to
recognize our connection to originary thinking.
Seminar participants learn to differentiate between the content and effect of theological
reflection in order to recognize its impact on their lives.
Seminar participants will self-critically evaluate the impact of religious conviction on a society and
ones closest neighbors in order to distinguish felicitous from destructive convictions.
Seminar participants will be able to construct their own cosmos of incredulity in order to map a
path forward for themselves through shifting priorities and responsibilities.

Course Outline and Calendar

Seminar One Introduction to Xenophanes and Philosophy of Religion

January 19, 2017 Introduction to Seminar Requirements and Arrangements

January 24, 2017 Introduction to Xenophanes and Philosophy of Religion

January 26, 2017 Ibid.

January 31, 2017 Ibid.

Due 1/31/17 Reflection: Photograph one of the fragments of Xenophanes. Submit 3-12
original images. Upload JPEG files to the class FB page saved in the following
format: Fragment number, Last Name, Sequence number (i.e., 7.09
Gustafson 1). Submit hard copies in class, size and print quality is irrelevant.
Refrain from commentary; your image is your contribution.
Seminar Two Thinking about God in Classical Philosophy

February 2, 2017 Platos Euthyphro

February 7, 2017 Ibid.

February 9, 2017 Ibid.

Due 2/9/17 Reflection: Do the gods tell us to do things because they are good for us to
do, or are they good for us to do because the gods tell us to do them? Give
Plato/Socrates answer, Xenophanes answer (which is not explicitly given),
and your own.
February 14, 2017 Aristotles Metaphysics
February 16, 2017 Ibid.

February 21, 2017 Ibid.

Seminar Three The Ionian Challenge

February 23, 2017 The Ionian Challenge

February 28, 2017 Ibid.

March 2, 2017 Ibid.

March 7, 2017 Ibid.

MIDTERM EXAMINATION PERIOD

March 9, 2017 Research and Review Session

March 16 and 17, 2017 Midterm Oral Exam (20%)
Seminar Four Myth and Philosophy

March 21, 2017 Homer, Iliad

March 23, 2017 Ibid.

March 28, 2017 Homer, Odyssey

March 30, 2017 Ibid.

April 4, 2017 Hesiod, Theogony

April 6, 2017 Ibid.

April 11, 2017 Holy Week

April 13, 2017

April 18, 2017 Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

Due: 4/18/17 Research Paper: Explain how one of the thinkers in the curriculum
emerges/develops out of another. 2-5 pages double spaced. At least 3
academic resources required. Submit hard copies in class, printed on recycled
paper, and upload to class FB page.
FINAL EXAMINATION PERIOD (FOR SENIORS)

April 20, 2017 Review Session

April 25, 2017 Study Day

April 27, 2017 Final Oral Exam (30%)
Seminar Five The Challenge of Practical / Mystical Thinking

May 2, 2017 Selected Presocratics

May 4, 2017 Ibid.

May 9, 2017 Ibid.

FINAL EXAMINATION PERIOD

May 11, 2017 Review Session

May 16, 2017 Final Oral Exam (30%)
 I live my life in widening orbs
which spread out over the things of the world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.
Rilke

Method and Aim of Study

This seminar offers a careful reading of Xenophanes fragmentswhich can be read in just a few
minutes. However, an explication of the tradition that gives birth to his sayings and of the effect they have on
subsequent thinking will take us in widening orbs around this epicenter. The purpose of the seminar is not to
acquire a broad range of information about the phenomena of religion, but to gain a depth of insight into the
role it plays in our lives. The method of the seminar, then, is of constant recapitulations of Xenophanes core
insightsmoving always from the enigmatic toward the concrete nature of our relationship with the divine.
Xenophanes lived during the century before Socrates, one of the most explosive periods in the history
of thinking. The early philosophers spoke or wrote in short, pithy sayings that continue to have a powerful
effect on thinking that comes into contact with it. Xenophanes belonged to what the Greeks called a
succession, critically continuing a tradition of thinking about the gods that extends from the earliest
mythological poets to the classical philosophers.
The course outline is intended to provide order and an anticipation of the themes that emerge in our
thinking of God, but it does not suggest a movement from one topic to another and toward a conclusion.
Rather, outline items represent repetitions, and Xenophanes will be with us throughout the course. There is a
strong sense in which we will do nothing but try to understand the fragments we begin the semester with.
The course is offered in seminar format, meaning that the primary texts and commentary (lectures
and supplementary readings) are merely invitations for the participants to contribute the actual content of a
philosophy of religion. The seminar does not suggest that Greek thinking is somehow normative for spirituality.
In fact, the hope is that choosing a tradition which is no longer immediately familiar to us will give us the
opportunity to observe our own spiritualities from a non-dogmatic perspective.
The observation of our spirituality, of our cultural and religious impulses, is not available in the course
readings and is only nascent in the lectures. It is to be supplied primarily by the seminar participants. Insight
into the implications and contextualization of the course material, then, is the principle grading criterion for
contributions. (See the Grading System.) Contributions that help co-participants to interact appreciatively with
the topicrelating it to our lives in the Philippines and before the Lordwill be incorporated into future class
discussions.

Categorized Bibliography

Aeschylus

Aeschylus. Suppliant Maidens. Translated by George Theodoridis, 2009.

http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/AeschylusSuppliants.htm

Aeschylus. Prometheus Bound. In Three Greek Plays, 91-143. Translated with introductions by Edith Hamilton.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1937.

Solmsen, Friedrich. Hesiod and Aeschylus. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1949.

Aristotle

Aristotle. Selections from The Metaphysics. Translated by Hugh Tredennick. London: William Heinemann,
1961.

Fuller, B.A.G. The Theory of God in Book L of Aristotles Metaphysics. The Philosophical Review, Vol. 16, No. 2
(Mar., 1907), 170-183).

Palmer, John A. Aristotle on the Ancient Theologians. Apeiron, 2000, 191-206.

Taylor, A.E. Aristotle on His Predecessors. La Salle: Open Court, 1989.

Hesiod

Bussanich, John. A Theoretical Interpretation of Hesiods Chaos. Classical Philology, Vol. 78, No. 3 (Jul.,
1983), 212-219.

Cornford, F.M. A Ritual Basis for Hesiods Theogony in The Unwritten Philosophy and Other Essays, 95-116.
Edited with an Introductory Memoir by W.K.C. Guthrie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950.

Dolin, Edwin F. Jr. Parmenides and Hesiod. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 66 (1962), 93-98.

Hesiod. Hesiod: Theogony; Works and Days. Translated by C.S. Morrissey. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2012. (cf.
http://omacl.org/Hesiod/theogony.html.)

Mller, Vigdis Songe. Philosophy Without Women: The Birth of Sexism in Western Thought. Translated by Peter
Cripps. New York: Continuum, 2002.

Park, Arum. Parthenogenesis in Hesiod's Theogony. Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the
Preternatural, Vol. 3, No. 2 (2014), 261-283.

Nelson, Stephanie A. God and the Land: The Metaphysics of Farming in Hesiod and Vergil. With a translation of
Hesiods Works and Days by David Grene. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Solmsen, Friedrich. Hesiod and Aeschylus. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1949.

Homer

Hammer, Dean. Homer and Political Thought in The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Political Thought, 15-
41. Edited by Stephen Salkever. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Homer. Books Fourteen and Fifteen of The Iliad. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Anchor Books,
1989.

______. Book Six of The Odyssey of Homer. Translated by Allen Mandelbaum. New York: Bantam Books, 1990.
(cf. http://swcta.net/moore/files/2014/08/The-Odyssey-Greek-Translation.pdf)

McKirahan, Richard D. Early Greek Moral Thought in Philosophy Before Socrates: An Introduction with Texts
and Commentary, 356-363. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994.

Weil, Simone. The Iliad, or the Poem of Force. Chicago Review, 18:2 (1965), 5-30. Available at
http://people.virginia.edu/~jdk3t/WeilTheIliad.pdf.

Plato

Allen, R.E. Plato: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Gorgias, Menexenus. Translated with a Comment by R.E.
Allen. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.

Ambury, James M. Platos Conception of Soul as Intelligent Self-Determination. International Philosophical

Quarterly, Vol. 55, No. 3, Issue (219 (September 2015), 299-313.

Cornford, F.M. Before and After Socrates. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Despland, Michael. Euthyphro in The Education of Desire: Plato and the Philosophy of Religion, 3-14.
Toronto: University of Toronto, 1985.

Kamtekar, Rachana (ed). Platos Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito: Critical Essays. New York: Rowman & Littlefield
 Publishers, 2005.

McPherran, Mark L. Justice and Pollution in the Euthyphro in Platos Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito: Critical
Essays, 1-22. Edited by Rachana Kamtekar. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005.
Originally in Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science, vol. 35 (2002), 105-27.

______.Socratic Religion in The Cambridge Companion to Socrates, 111-137. Edited by Donald R.

Morrison. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Patoka, Jan. Plato and Europe. Translated by Petr Lom. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.

Plato. Euthyphro. Translated by G.M.A. Grube. In Plato: Complete Works. Edited, with an Introduction and
Notes, by John M. Cooper and D.S. Hutchinson. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.

Taylor, A.E. Socrates. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1953.

Vlastos, Gregory. Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.

______. Socratic Piety in in Platos Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito: Critical Essays, 49-71. Edited by
Rachana Kamtekar. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005. Originally in Socrates, Ironist
and Moral Philosopher, 157-178.

Woodruff, Paul. Socrates and the New Learning in The Cambridge Companion to Socrates, 91-110. Edited by
Donald R. Morrison. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Presocratic Philosophy

Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes, and Parmenides. Selected fragments from Richard
McKirahans Philosophy Before Socrates: An Introduction with Texts and Commentary. Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing Co., 1994.

Cornford, F.M. From Religion to Philosophy: A Study in the Origins of Western Speculation. New York: Harper &
Brothers Publishers, 1957.

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. The Beginning of Knowledge. Translated by Rod Coltman. New York: Continuum, 2002.

______. The Beginning of Philosophy. Translated by Rod Coltman. New York: Continuum, 1998.

______. The rehabilitation of authority and tradition in Truth and Method, translation edited by Garrett
Barden and John Cumming, 245-253. New York: Crossroad, 1982.

Jaeger, Werner. The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers. Translated by Edward Robinson. London: Oxford
Press, 1948.

McKirahan, Richard D. Philosophy Before Socrates. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1994.

Mourelatos, Alexander P.D. ed. The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays. New York: Anchor Books,
1974.

Ring, Merril. Beginning with the Pre-Socratics. Mountain View: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1987.

Robinson, John Mansley. An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy. New York: Houghton Miffin Co., 1968.

Xenophanes

Bowra, C.M. Xenophanes and the Olympian Games in Problems in Greek Poetry, 15-37. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1953.
______. Xenophanes on Songs at Feasts in Problems in Greek Poetry, 1-14. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1953.

Eisenstadt, Michael. Xenophanes Proposed Reform of Greek Religion. Hermes, 102, 2 (1974), 142-150.

Finkelberg, Aryeh. Studies in Xenophanes. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 93 (1990), 103-167.

Franek, Juraj. Presocratic Philosophy and the Origins of Religion. Graeco-Latina Brunensia, Vol. 18 Issue 1
(2013), 57-74.

Gerson, L.P. The Pre-Socratic Origins of Natural Theology in God and Greek Philosophy: Studies in the early
history of natural theology, 1-32. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Granger, Herbert. Xenophanes' Positive Theology and his Criticism of Greek Popular Religion. Ancient
Philosophy. 33 (2013): 35-271.

Heidel, W.A. Hecataeus and Xenophanes. The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 64, No. 3 (1943), 257-277.

Hershbell, J.P. The Oral-Poetic Religion of Xenophanes in Language and Thought in Early Greek Philosophy.
Edited by Kevin Robb, 125-133. La Salle: The Hegeler Institute, 1983.

Jaeger, Werner. The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers. UK: Oxford Press, 1948.

Kirk, G.S. and J.E. Raven. The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1963.

Lebedev, Andrei. Xenophanes on the Immutability of God: A Neglected Fragment in Philo Alexandrinus.
Hermes, 128. 4 (2000), 385-391.

Lesher, J.H. Xenophanes on Inquiry and Discovery: An Alternative to the Hymn to Progress Reading of Fr. 18.
Ancient Philosophy 11 (1991), 229-248.

______. Xenophanes Scepticism. Phronesis, Vol. 23, No. 1 (1978), 1-21.

Mourelatos, Alexander P.D. The Conception of eoikos/eikos as Epistemic Standard in Xenophanes,

Parmenides, and in Plato's Timaeus. Ancient Philosophy 34(2014), 169-191.

Palmer, John A. Xenophanes Ouranian God in the Fourth Century. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy,
edited by C.C.W. Taylor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.

Tulin, Alexander. Xenophanes Fr. 18 D.-K. and the Origins of the Idea of Progress. Hermes, 121, 2 (1993),
129-138.

Vlastos, Gregory. Theology and Philosophy in Early Greek Thought in Studies in Greek Philosophy (Volume I:
The Presocratics), 3-31. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Suggested Readings

Karen Armstrong. To Go Beyond Thought. An interview with Parabola.

http://parabola.org/2016/02/22/to-go-beyond-thought-an-interview-with-karen-armstrong/

Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus and other essays. Translated by Justin OBrien. New York: Vintage Books,
1959.

Coward, Harold and Toby Foshay, ed., Derrida and Negative Theology. New York: State University of New York
Press, 1992.
de Certeau, Michel. The Jabbering of Social Life. In On Signs, edited by Marshall Blonsky, 146-54. Baltimore:
The Johns Hopskins University Press, 1989.

______. The Weakness of Faith.

______. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

______. What We Do When We Believe. In On Signs, edited by Marshall Blonsky, 192-202. Baltimore:
The Johns Hopskins University Press, 1989.

Derrida, Jacques. Acts of Religion. Edited and with an Introduction by Gil Anidjar. New York: Routledge, 2002.

______. The Gift of Death. Translated by David Willis. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995.

duBois, Page. Torture and Truth. New York: Routledge, 1991.

Eliot, Thomas Sterns. Tradition and the Individual Talent. In Selected Prose of T.S. Eliot, edited by Frank
Kermode, 37-44. London: Faber and Faber, 1975.

Gustafson, Darren. Introduction to Reading Thales: The Effect of his Thinking on Aristotles Metaphysics.
The Loyola Schools Review: School of Humanities, Vol. 6 (2007): 49-68.

Harrison, Jane Ellen. Ancient Art and Ritual. London: Oxford University Press, 1951.

Heidegger, Martin. Early Greek Thinking. Translated by David Farrell Krell and Frank A. Capuzzi. New York:
Harper and Row, 1975.

______. Poetically Man Dwells In Poetry, Language, Thought, translated by Albert Hofstadter, 213-29.
New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1975.

______. What is Called Thinking? Translated with an introduction by J. Glenn Gray. New York: Perennial, 2004.

Kahn, Charles H. The Art and Thought of Heraclitus: An edition of the fragments with translation and
commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

Lao Tzu, Tao The Ching. (Shambhala Classics) Translated by John C.H. Wu. Boston: Shambhala Publications,
Inc., 2005.

Levinas, Emmanuel. God and Philosophy in Of God who Comes to Mind, translated by Bettina Bergo, edited
by Werner Hamacher and David E. Wellbery, 55-78. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.

______. Hermeneutics and Beyond in Of God who Comes to Mind, 100-110.

______. Is Ontology Fundamental? in On Thinking-Of-The-Other, 1-11. Translated by Michael B. Smith and

Barbara Harshav. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols (Penguin Classic). Translated by R.J. Hollingdale. London: Penguin
Books, 1990.

Powell, Barry B. Classical Myth (Fourth Edition) with translations by Herbert M. Howe. Upper Saddle River:
Pearson Education, Inc., 2004.

Pseudo-Dionysius. The Complete Works. Translated by Colm Luibheid. New York: Paulist Press, 1987.

Sherwood, Yvonne and Kevin Hart, ed. Derrida and Religion: Other Testaments. New York: Routledge, 2005.
Snell, Bruno. The Discovery of the Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought. Translated by T.G.
Rosenmeyer, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953.

Wilbur, James B. and Harold J. Allen. The Worlds of the Early Greek Philosophers. New York: Prometheus
Books, 1979.

Course Requirements

A seminar course relies heavily on the contributions of its participants for its content. Each class begins with a
graded opportunity for voluntary or assigned participants to recapitulate the discussions of the previous
period, paying particular attention to the implications of the topic for us today. Keep good notes paying
discrete attention to a) the text under discussion, b) the lecture material and (optionally) the supplementary
readings, and c) the contributions of co-participants.
There will be in-class reading exercises and creative responses. Participants should attend sessions
well preparedwith an annotated copy of the required reading and quality notes of the previous session.
There is only one, small but very demanding writing component of the seminar: a research paper
explaining how one of the thinkers of the seminar emerges (develops) out of another one. The research paper
is restricted to 2-5 pages long. Please print your contributions on recycled paper, using a legible, 12 point font.
Double space and follow the space limitations strictly. At least 3 academic sources are required.
The seminar is fundamentally open to replacing grades with supplementary participation.
Replacement contributions, however, will not be assigned but are the responsibility of the participant to
arrange with the lecturer. Your choice of media and content is as much your contribution to the seminar as is
the quality of work you put into it. If, however, participants chose to replace a grade, the second grade will
stand even if it is lower than the first.

Grading System

15% Contributions to class discussions and learning environment

15% Exercises
20% Research paper
20% Mid-term oral exam
30% Final oral exam

A (4) Utility is the criterion of excellence. A contribution that helps other participants understand
Excellent and internalize the course content is more than exemplaryit is educational.
B+ (3.5) A well-executed contribution demonstrating insight and a comprehensive grasp of the subject
Very Good matter.
B (3) A competent contribution that articulates the key elements of the subject matter. However,
Good the insight may be unclear or require further articulation.
C+ (2.5) Demonstrates an understanding of the subject matter, but fails to bring it home to co-
Above participants. Ideas may not be well integrated, and the insight may be either lacking or a poor
Satisfactory match for the content.
C (2) An adequate response to the assigned topic.
Satisfactory
D (1) A poor contribution showing little preparation or understanding. May contain outright errors
Poor that obscure the issue at hand.
F (0) Does not demonstrate understanding, reflection, preparation, or thought. Plagiarism will
Failing receive an automatic and irreplaceable failing mark and will be reported. (The lecturer
reserves the right to assign replacement contributions in the case of suspicion of plagiarism.)

Classroom Policies

A seminar course relies heavily on the contributions of its participants for its content. Behavior that is
destructive of a learning environment and the basic project of the seminar are inappropriate and the lecturer
may ask you to leave the room, resulting in a recorded absence. Only 6 absences are allowed. Absence at the
time of attendance is an absence. (Please inform the lecturer at the beginning of the semester if you are an
honor student and plan to use your privilege of additional cuts.) Tardiness to an exam will mean the
participant has only the remaining time to answer the question, and will be graded accordingly. An absence is
an automatic F.
Papers are to be submitted in class, during the attendance. (Also, please upload a soft copy of your
contribution to the class FB page. Submission implies permission to use your contribution for the purposes of
the seminar.) Please restrict your contributions to English.

Consultation

Consultation hours: 8:00-9:00 Tuesday and Thursday (or by appointment) in the Philosophy Department. It is
best to let me know in advance if you would like to consult. Im generally quite accessible by email or by FB
Messenger.