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11) The Philosophic Education (II)

Political Philosophy Course: An Introduction to Plato’s Republic Class 11: The Philosophic Education (II) Professor: Jonathan Culp, Ph.D., Director of International Studies & Associate Professor, University of Dallas Course Description: The purpose of this class is to introduce students to Socratic-Platonic political philosophy through a careful study of Plato’s most comprehensive work, the Republic. Commonly known as a book outlining a political utopia, Plato’s Republic is in truth a comprehensive reflection on the nature of the human soul, its longing for justice, and its place within the whole. The Republic is also complex, elusive, and often outrageous. In the course of reading the Republic, we shall consider many of the crucial questions it presents to us: What is justice? Is it good to be just? What is the best form of government? the best education? the best way of life? What are the obstacles in the way of these things? What is truth and how do we find it? We will read the Republic slowly and carefully and contemplate Plato’s responses to these questions. Class 11: In this class, Dr. Culp completes his discussion of the Republic’s account of philosophic education and of the city in speech. First, Dr. Culp discusses Socrates’ crucial claim that philosopher kings must be compelled to rule. According to Socrates, the philosophic life is the best life and political activity is, from that perspective, a distraction. But the very fact that philosophers do not want to rule ensures that they are most qualified to rule, because it shows they are immune to corruption. Dr. Culp next gives an overview of the philosophic curriculum, with its culmination in “dialectic”—the cross-examination of opinions in search of the true account of what things are. Dr. Culp calls attention to Socrates’ claim that dialectic is inherently morally and politically dangerous. Next, Dr. Culp discusses Socrates’ final account, at the end of Book VII, of how the city in speech could be founded. Dr. Culp concludes that the city is, effectively, impossible, and reflect that it may also be unnatural and irrational.