Philosophy 163

This course will be devoted to a careful reading of two Platonic dialogues: Phaedrus and Theaetetus. This might seem like an unlikely pairing, since they are markedly different both in content and in style: The Phaedrus takes up questions about the nature of love (erōs) and rhetoric, while the Theaetetus is concerned primarily with what it means to possess knowledge (epistēmē). The Phaedrus is sometimes seen, alongside the Symposium, as Plato’s dramatic masterpiece, and the Theaetetus as his philosophical masterpiece—certainly, it is among Plato’s most philosophically sophisticated and difficult works. But this divergence in style and subject matter is part of the point. Reading these two dialogues will give us a sense of the wide range both of Plato’s intellectual concerns and his abilities as a philosophical dramatist; it will allow us to explore some surprising connections between different areas of philosophical inquiry, and to consider the relationship between the Platonic dialogue as literature and as philosophy.

Along the way, in addition to questions about love and knowledge, we will also consider (for instance) the nature of the soul (psychē), perception (aisthēsis), poetic inspiration, justice, cosmology, and what it means to live a philosophical life. And we will ask about the form of Plato’s writing: Why did he write dialogues, rather than treatises? Why does he, at crucial junctures and despite his overt emphasis on reason and argument (logos), resort to myth-making (mythos)?

Our goal will simply be to read these two dialogues together, trying to understand what Plato wrote and discussing the philosophical issues that arise. But we will also consider parallel passages from other Platonic dialogues (e.g., Meno, Gorgias, Protagoras, Symposium, and Republic), as well as passages from Aristotle (e.g., in Posterior Analytics, De Anima, Metaphysics, and Nicomachean Ethics) that engage with themes from Phaedrus and Theaetetus. If time permits, we may also look at more recent philosophical work inspired by these two dialogues. But our primary focus will always be on Plato’s writing itself.