Course Outline
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  NEW: A LIST OF TERM PAPER TOPICS 

 

History of Ideas I: Course Outline

Week   Lesson Content
1   Socrates, Plato
2   Plato, Aristotle
3   The Early Medieval Era
4   Western Christianity
5   Later Medieval Society
6   Humanism, Neo-Platonism, Renaissance
7   [Mid Term Examination]
8   Machiavelli
9   The Reformation
10   Printing, Translations and uses of the Bible
11   The Counter Reformation
12   Francis Bacon
13   Galileo Galilei
14   Revision

Grading and assessment:

Assignments  20%
Quizzes  20%
Mid-term exam  20%
Final exam  40%

Attendance and meeting the deadlines for submission of assignments are mandatory.

 

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(Images related to this course are available to registered students of this course through METU Online)

 

LIST OF TERM PAPER TOPICS

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 Read Aristophanes’  The Clouds or The Birds and discuss what criticisms of Socrates are made and how he may be defended. 

Read, summarize and discuss one Socratic Dialogue from an early text by Plato

Investigate the Oracle at Delphi – who or what was it? what famous sayings and incidents are associated with it? Where does it appear in later western literature?
Identify Platonic themes in Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha.  Other, Eastern, philosophies are referred to in this text: investigate them in relation to Plato’s ideas (Buddhism, Zoroastrianism)
Discuss the central “Caves” section of Forster’s novel  Passage to India in terms of Plato’s philosophy.
Identify and discuss Platonic themes in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressid, or Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince, or Peter Ackroyd’s The Plato Papers, or any other literary text you may agree upon with the course instructor.
Why did Plato dismiss the poets from his ideal city (Republic Book X)? How did Sidney defend them (Apology/Defense of Poetry)?
Read Aristotle's Poetics and one of the following plays, discussing the extent to which the play you have selected conforms or otherwise with Aristotle’s dicta:  Sophocles Antigone, Oedipus Rex, or Oedipus at Colonus; Shakespeare Othello, King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra.
The Britons who had lived before and during Roman occupation, seem to have been expelled by the Anglo-Saxons.  What happened to them, and have they had any influence on the subsequent history of  the nation?
  In what ways were the Anglo-Saxons, the Franks,  the Vikings, and the Normans related? What cultural features did they share?
 Find out more about the Viking people, their raids and settlements in Britain, and any effects they have had on English culture or society.
 In what language(s) was the Bible originally written?  Trace the history of Bible translation, and  consider why  it took so long for vernacular translations to be accepted.
The history of the established Church of Rome is largely one of suppression of heresies.  What is a heresy?  Investigate one or two (for instance, Arianism, or the Albigensian Heresy).  How did the Church attempt to control them?
Discuss the influence on the English language of the Authorised (King James) translation of the Bible and of the Book of Common Prayer
Read Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory  and/or The Heart of the Matter, then Identify and discuss the importance of christian elements to the novel(s)’s plots and themes
Later Medieval literature all over the Europe was dominated by a single, long, poem.  This is the Roman de la Rose.  Find a description of this work, or a summary such as is provided by Curtius, and discuss what is so particularly Medieval about it
  This is the period of the Crusades.  What exactly were the Crusades and when did they happen?  Discuss the different strands of typically Medieval concerns that combined to make them such  ‘popular’ events. What influences, if any, did they have on European society? Which English legends arose around the Crusades?
 From one of the Harry Potter books, or from one of C S Lewis’s books of The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe series,   identify as many typically Medieval ideas and features as you can and discuss the extent to which they have been either used exactly as they were in the Middle Ages and the extent to which they have been adapted for the modern story.
Erasmus of Rotterdam was perhaps the most famous of humanists.  Read about his life, ideas and writings, read one of his pieces of writing, and then  discuss what is ‘humanist’ about them
Read Thomas More’s Utopia, and discuss Renaissance and humanist aspects of this work
 Printing by moveable type was introduced around 1451.  What role did it play in promoting Renaissance ideas?
Read Machievelli’s The Prince, and discuss Renaissance and humanist aspects of this work
 The Reformation in England was led by political, not religious concerns, and those who had wanted reformation for the sake of religion were left deeply unsatisfied.  What were the consequences of this?
 To this day the Anglican Church (also called the Church of England) maintains elements of both Catholicism and Protestantism.  Try and find information about this church (an encyclopaedia should help), and discuss which elements belong to which category.
  It has been argued that the Calvinist doctrine of Predestination led to Western capitalism.  How can this argument have developed?
Trace the histories and characteristics of the following Christian groups:  Quakers, Baptists, Methodists, Unitarians
What sort of errors in textual transmission were eliminated, and what new sorts of errors in textual transmission were introduced by the invention of printing??
Consider the role of printing in the Renaissance and Reformation.
 List as many different types of items that are printed as you can think of, and using this as a base, discuss some of the ways in which printing has changed the world
 Find out about the Counter Reformation in France, Italy, Spain and  England
Does the Index still exist?  What famous books have been on it?  Discuss one such book, identifying the reasons for its inclusion in the list.
Discuss why Bacon was so particularly against Aristotle’s teachings
Discuss Renaissance  and Medieval aspects of Bacon’s philosophy of science
  Apply Bacon’s Four Idols to a field of research that interests you.  Show how they may affect such   a piece of work.
Read at least 4  of Bacon’s Essays and analyse his approach to the subjects he treats
We have now come across three named techniques for advancing knowledge: dialectic, induction, and deduction.  Write a brief explanation of each, with examples.  What  other named forms of learning or thinking are there?  Describe them. 

Compare the ideas about science expressed by Bacon and by Galileo, then discuss these compare with present-day attitudes towards scientific research?

One of Galileo’s many discoveries was that of how to make more accurate time-keeping devices.  Research the history of concepts of time and of the measurement of time,