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This course explores the meaning and importance of Plato s towering achievement in immortalizing the thoughts of Socrates in 35 dialogues,

which laid the philosop hical basis for Western civilization. The dialogues cover ideas about truth, jus tice, love, beauty, courage, and wisdom. The course also makes the case for the subtlety with which Plato weaves together the strengths of philosophy and poetry, dialectic and drama, and word and actio n. Socrates was driven by a love for truth so great that he suffered death rather t han give up his search, and likewise this course offers no easy answers. What it does provide is an introduction to Platonic "meta-education," the art not of wh at to think but of how to think. Course Lecture Titles The Domain of the Dialogues What Socratic Dialogue Is Not The Examined Life Tragedy in the Philosophic Age of the Greeks Republic I Justice, Power, and Knowledge Republic II-V Soul and City Republic VI-X The Architecture of Reality Laws The Legacy of Cephalus Protagoras The Dialectic of the Many and the One Gorgias The Temptation to Speak Parmenides "Most True" Sophist and Statesman The Formal Disintegration of Justice Phaedrus Hymn to Love Symposium The Pride of Love The Platonic Achievement The Living Voice Socrates was driven by a love for truth so great that he suffered death rather t han give up his search. Though he never wrote down his thoughts, he had a brilli ant pupil in Plato, who immortalized his teacher's legacy in 35 timeless dialogu es that laid the philosophical basis for Western civilization. In fact, Alfred North Whitehead once famously remarked, all of philosophy is but a footnote to Plato. Professor Michael Sugrue of Princeton University brings the Socratic quest for t ruth alive in these lectures, which discuss ideas that are as vital today as the y were 25 centuries ago. Ideas about truth, justice, love, beauty, courage, and wisdom. Ideas that can change lives and reveal the world in new ways to the true student. An Indispensable Companion Next to the Bible, the dialogues are perhaps the most studied and scrutinized work in Western literature. Professor Sugrue reveals the inner structure, action, and meaning of 17 of Plato 's greatest dialogues, making this course an indispensable companion for anyone interested in philosophy in general or Platonic thought in particular. The dialogues share some general characteristics: They are not a soliloquy, but rather a discussion. They are not between equals ( there is a teacher-student relationship). Plato himself never speaks. Each dialo gue is a work of art, but all, taken together, constitute one huge artwork. At t he center of the form is irony. The dialogues are very clearly intended to be a

teaching tool. Dr. Sugrue shows how each dialogue breathes with the feeling, the tension, and even the humor of great theater. On a human level, they testify not only to the greatness of Plato's gifts, but t o the loyalty, friendship, and dauntless love of learning that he shared with hi s beloved master. Explore Questions at the Core of What it Means to be Human "What is justice?" "H ow should I live my life?" "How can we know what is real and what is illusion?" "Can a perfect society ever be conceived or created?" "What is human excellence, and can it be taught?" Socrates gave his life to the study of questions like these, questions that have seized the minds of thinking people down the ages and which drive straight to t he core of what it means to be human. Unlike nearly anyone before or since, Socr ates was driven by a passionate love for thinking and talking about such questio ns. Indeed, why was this love so great that when his gentle but fearless quest for t ruth aroused opposition, he suffered death rather than give up the search? As you begin listening to these tapes, you may find yourself wanting to read or re-read the dialogues. As Professor Sugrue observes, you can't really read Plato until you've read him three or four times. But even if you don't have time to reacquaint yourself directly with Platonic te xts, this course will benefit you enormously with its insight into the depths of reflection opened by Socrates and Plato arguably the most important teacher-stude nt pairing in history. You will become engrossed in "the romance of the intellect" as Professor Sugrue opens a path for you into the inner structure and action of these selected dialo gues, for millennia the objects of devoted study by the noblest minds. He explores the dialogues' relations to one another, conveying the grandeur of t he Platonic project in all its breadth and profundity. Learning Not What but How to Think This course offers no easy answers. What it gives instead is much better: an int roduction to Platonic "meta-education," the art not of what to think but of how to think. You see the stunning subtlety with which Plato weaves together the strengths of philosophy and poetry, dialectic and drama, word and action. And you catch a glimpse of the "serious playfulness" that Socrates says the sear ch for the good, the true, and the beautiful can inspire in the human soul. Let the "Socratic Method" Come Alive for You Plato, Dr. Sugrue maintains, is "th e necessary starting point for any study of Western philosophy. In many of his d ialogues, he speaks through the person of his revered teacher, Socrates, using t he dialogic form that is still today termed the 'Socratic method.' "These lectures analyze this form and then discuss certain key dialogues and oth er writings that address issues concerning governance, knowledge, reality, virtu e and others that have engaged philosophers both before, but especially since, P lato." There are 35 dialogues, plus letters, surviving. They may be divided into three

general groupings, based on chronology and topic. The major dialogues, by group, include: Early (skeptical and ethical): Apology, Crito, Laches, Ion, Euthyphro, H ippias Minor, Protagoras, Gorgias, Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Lysis, Mexeneus. T hese dialogues end in an impasse ( aporia ) which invites further contemplation. Middle (dramatic): Meno, Phaedo, Symposium, Republic, Parmenides, Theaet etus. These deal with moral order, being (ontology) and knowledge (epistemology) and are generally, but not always, more dogmatic than skeptical. Late (less dramatic and poetical, more analytical and concerned with sav ing the moral and political order, less emphasis on Socrates): Timaeus, Critias, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, Laws. The World to Which Plato was Heir "This exp loration of the thought of Plato necessarily makes us consider the Greek world o f thought and literature, to which Plato was the heir," states Dr. Sugrue. "In fact, in a play on the quote from Alfred North Whitehead, it has been sugges ted (half-seriously) that Plato is merely a footnote to Parmenides of Elea. Thus , we also consider other philosophers and their schools, as well as the world of 5th century B.C. Greece as we explore Plato's fascinating world of Greece and o f the mind." Thus Professor Sugrue introduces you to Plato's milieu, post-Periclean Athens, a nd explains how the failings evident in that city's social, civic, and intellect ual life spurred Socrates and his pupil to do their work of searching and often painful criticism. Before Socrates and Plato, Greek philosophy was primarily speculative about the nature of the universe and the world and mathematics. The philosophers before hi m are generally grouped together and termed the "presocratics." Their main conce rn was in the area of nature or "physics." Among the famous presocratics are Pyt hagoras (born c. 570 B.C.), Parmenides of Elea (c. 515 B.C.) and Heraclitus of E phesus (died after c. 480 B.C.). Closer to the time of Plato and Socrates a new school of thought developed, that of the Sophists. Perhaps the best-known Sophist is Protagoras (c. 490-c. 420 B. C.). They were a more skeptical group who did not focus on the natural (physical ) world or speculative cosmologies. Both Socrates and Plato were opposed to the Sophists, viewing Sophists as morall y empty teachers who instructed young men to argue only for victory and sought m oney, rather than wisdom and truth, as the end for their techne (art of teaching rhetoric). A New Kind of Hero The dialogues, as Professor Sugrue shows you, are far from be ing dry treatises or bloodless catalogues of arguments. You learn how Socrates speaks differently to different interlocutors, and how Pl ato intends him to be a new kind of hero, superior to any who had gone before. You also reflect on the implications of Socrates's famed professions of ignoranc e, and the enigmas and ironies that shadow him and his enterprise.

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