The argument runs for only about a page, but it is complex and challenging, and it remains the focus of a lively debate among Plato scholars. This lecture will offer some thoughts about what the argument means and why it matters.
Lecturer bio:
Noah Chafets is currently the Cyril O. Houle Chair of the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults. He holds a BA in philosophy from Vassar College and a PhD from the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought. His dissertation is about desire and motivation in Plato’s Gorgias and Republic. He has taught high school students in Boston and Shanghai, and taught undergraduates at the University, primarily in core sequences in the Humanities and Social Sciences, for a decade before joining the Basic Program. His interests are well represented by the texts in the Basic Program’s curriculum, but also extend to contemporary ethics and practical philosophy, aesthetics and film.
