Outlines of Essay Answers

Question 1. Quotes are from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, representing the Classical tradition, from Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, representing the Epicurean tradition, and St. Augustine’s On Free Choice of the Will or “Excerpts,” representing the Classical Christian tradition.

Essay Question: two parts (1) What does each of these three traditions hold to be “the highest object of human knowledge”; (2) How can we obtain this “highest object of human knowledge”?

[This is a question solely about epistemology; its focus is not on philosophical anthropology, and “highest object” does not necessarily mean “most important.”]

Tradition Highest Object Method of Obtaining It

Classical unchangeable reality intuitive reason or nous

Epicurean empirical concepts reasoning or reckoning

Classic-Christian God or God’s Will revelation or faith

Question 2. Quotes are from the Anonymous (or “Anon.”) Hymn of the Pearl or In Quest of the Priceless Pearl, representing the Esoteric or Gnostic tradition, from Plato’s Republic, representing the Classical tradition, and from Lucretius’s On the Nature of Things, representing the Epicurean tradition.

Essay Question: what are the philosophic anthropologies of these three traditions. This question is expressly about philosophical anthropology.

Tradition Philosophical Anthropology or Nature of Man

Gnostic man, with a spark of divinity within his spirit or pneuma, is trapped in a deformed mind and deformed body in a deformed world

Classical man is part of a purposeful/teleological cosmos with his own human purpose/function: rational activity of the soul

Epicurean man has no cosmic purpose and differs from other animals only by degree in the ability to reason or reckon

Question Three. Explain how the epistemology and philosophical anthropology are related to one another in the Esoteric (Gnostic or Hermetic), the Classical, and the Epicurean traditions.

These three traditions largely define the nature of man and his relation to the cosmos by what man can know and how he knows it. Another approach to this question is to explain the difference between human beings and the other animals by what human beings can know that animals cannot.

Gnostic: only man can know his nature as a trapped being by having his divine spirit activated by revelation

Hermetic: only man can become the equal of God by using his mind to apprehend divine wisdom

Classical: only man can exercise the intellectual virtues of rational intuition, logic/science, wisdom, and prudence (presumably animals who can make things, like nests, can master arts. Presumably.)

Epicurean: animals share man’s ability to “reckon,” or reason, or figure things out, but man is better at it than animals. Thus, there is no clear distinction between human beings and other animals in Epicurean thought.