Here is the course description and syllabus for a summer class for which I registered:
Plato and the Philosophic Life
Socrates, Plato’s model of the
philosophic life, both attracts and repels those who encounter him. Athens put
Socrates to death for questioning the assumptions that held the city together,
but the real casualty of such philosophic questioning is always convention, or
the prescribed way of looking at man, the gods, and the city. Plato’s art teases
participants far removed from the actual dialogues into feeling the immediacy
of the conversations, while it invites them into the compelling presence
of Socrates. Plato’s legacy to the best
thinkers, including historians, philosophers, and literary critics, is
incalculable.
Why did he write dialogues? Because
the dialogue form deeply engages one in serious inquiry while leaving “a
teaching” elusive and suspended. The dialogue
engages the rational faculty fully while it protects the form of the
conversation and leaves open an ongoing path of inquiry, much as a poem resists
reduction to a statement or paraphrase. Using this dramatic shield, the
Platonic dialogues both transcend their historical setting and make the pursuit
of wisdom, Sophia, a never-ending
courtship. Charmed by the music of the dialogue form, one gains a comic, rather
than a tragic, sense of the human enterprise. This eros for philosophy becomes the mark of the philosophic life.
Socrates’ critiques of the Athenian
democracy, the poets who provide its wisdom, and the sophists and rhetoricians
who train its young are all embedded in the conversations between Socrates and
others in Plato’s dialogues, such as the Euthyphro,
the Apology, the Crito, and the Republic. To
engage in Socratic questioning is to learn to live harmoniously with the soul’s
own excellences — a practice that has great consequences for the polis or city. The lover of wisdom is
willing to risk everything to ask the important questions, as Socrates shows.
It is perhaps not surprising, then, that he says the best preparation for death
is the philosophic life. Yet what kind of life is the best life, either for
oneself or for the political order, is subject to various interpretations.
The goals of this course are to
introduce the student to the ongoing importance of the questions that Socrates asks,
to reveal how these questions have a bearing on right order, both personally
and politically, and to engage the students themselves in the Socratic
conversation, as if they were present in the dialogues. Through these three goals, the student will assess
the difference between a conventional life lived according to public orthodoxy and
the only life worth living, according to Socrates — the well-examined one.
Active attendance
is essential for successful completion of the course. The class will be part
lecture, part seminar with text analysis part of the class time.
Requirements: There will be one oral report (20 minutes)
and one paper (10-15 pages). Grading
will be divided in the following manner: 25 % on the oral report, 25% on the
paper, 25% on the Final, 25% on class participation.
Texts and Readings: Texts are
available at the UTD Bookstore. Other
assignments are accessible on line (or to be distributed in class). Use only
the translation or editions specified in the syllabus. Bring appropriate texts
and readings to every class meeting.
Assignments
T May 16
Introduction
to Plato
Euthyphro or On the Pious in Four Texts on
Socrates (trans., Thomas
G. and Grace
Starry
West)
Th May 18
Plato’s
Apology of Socrates in Four Texts
Aristophanes,
Clouds in Four Texts
T May 23
Clouds (cont.)
Crito in Four Texts
Th May 25
The Republic of Plato (trans.and edit., Raymond
Larson),
Books 1 and 2
Tu May 30
Republic, Books 3 and 4
Th June 1
Republic, Books 5 and 6
Tu June 6
Republic, Books 7 and 8
Symposium, selections
Th June 8
Republic, Books 9 and 10
Phaedo, selections
Tu June 13
Oral
Presentations
Phaedrus, selections
Th June 15
Oral
Presentations
Plato’s
Laws, selections
Plato’s
Seventh Letter
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