My research direction is ancient philosophy, to be exact, Plato’s epistemology and Aristotle’s metaphysics on being. The programme begins in Feb. 8, 2022, and formally ends in Apr. 9, 2022.
The programme helps a lot on my learning of ancient philosophy, for in the programme, I have had a brief understand of the structure of the directions I learned. The reading of Plato’s Meno in week 1 to 4 has made me think about how Plato argues the theory of recollection, and the need of recollection for Plato’s epistemology. And the argument of the theory of recollection not only talks about what Plato thinks, but also the rethinking of whether Plato needs it or not. The argument of Meno’s paradox has pushed me to think about some core points of epistemology. I think that maybe we can deal with Meno’s paradox by other ways that don’t have so many metaphysical preconceptions, and it’s possible for us to make sure the possibility of knowing and the holding of knowledge without setting up “The soul is immortal”. And if we restrict knowledge to the range of scientific knowledge and other daily knowledge, it’s maybe an Aristotelian way, which depends on logical inference in Posterior Analytics.
Then in week 5 to 8, the reading of Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics helps me systematically investigate Aristotle’s thought on beings and teleology. I think that my investigation gives me a new understanding of Aristotle’s teleology, especially on the macro level, that is, Aristotle’s teleology is not a reduced one, we can’t reduce it to the natural material, and to describe the production of concrete thing. It’s a theory that builds up a hierarchical system of the whole universe. As Aristotle has told us, the “cause” doesn’t talk about the things that haven’t occurred, but describe how the real things occurred, then teleology is a way that better than others to describe why and how the world being in the way it is now.
And I’m grateful to may tutor, Dr. Janine Gühler, she has precisely controlled the process of the course, and guided us to investigate the philosophical problems.
