ALL1400-C 12 Weeks Thursday 3:00-4:20 Start Date 30-Jan
Grossman 115 Limit 25
Plato’s Republic is his best-known work. In this dialogue, Socrates (Plato’s teacher and inspiration) tries to imagine an ideal, perfectly just society ruled by selfless philosophers. Can such a society exist? Would its citizens be truly happy? Socrates and his companions discuss a wide range of topics, including: human nature, knowledge and belief, illusion and reality, wealth and poverty, marriage and gender relations, democracy and tyranny, nepotism and succession, education and corruption, living in a simulation, and the magic ring that makes its wearer invisible. The questions and arguments they raise are just as gripping today as they were in the Athens of 380 BC. Like the dialogue itself, our classes will be about half lecture and half discussion. The recommended text for this course is Hackett’s Grube and Reeve edition, Plato: Republic. Penguin’s Lee and Lane edition is also very good, as is Benjamin Jowett’s classic translation in old-fashioned English.
Coordinator: Theodore Everett 
Ted is Professor Emeritus at SUNY Geneseo, where he taught philosophy for 25 years before retiring with his wife to Brewster. He misses teaching but not grading papers. This will be his first course at ALL.