Plato (PHIL 412)
Instructor: James Lesher. This course meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:00-12:15PM.
An examination of some representative works in the context of contemporary scholarship.
Main Topics: (1) Plato and the Presocratics; (2) Socrates’ guilt or innocence, attitude toward the law, and disavowal of knowledge; (3) Plato’s doctrine of Recollection, metaphysical epistemology, theory of love, defense of justice, second thoughts about knowledge, and legacy.Course Requirements: a mid-term exam, a substantial (8-10 page paper/class presentation), and final exam (each item counting for one-third of the semester grade).
Required Text: Hamilton, Cairnes, and Cooper, The Collected Dialogues of Plato: including the Letters (Bollingen Series LXXI: Princeton U. P., 1961) Various xeroxed articles (will be made available in House Undergraduate Library on two-hour reserve)
James Lesher’s webpage