All Western philosophy is said to be a “series of footnotes to Plato.” For the inaugural week of the Political Studies Program, fellows will have a choice between two seminars devoted to close reading of the Republic or the Gorgias.

In discussing each Platonic dialogue, fellows will reflect on the ethical dilemmas implied by the pursuit of power, in politics and other realms, and on how we should conduct ourselves in a world in which the demands of justice and the demands of political necessity often seem to conflict.

Image Credit: Acropolis of Athens by Leo von Klenze, 1846, Wikipedia Commons

Ben Storey on Why We Are Restless, Moderated by Ryan Hanley

This course is part of our residential Political Studies Program. Fellows participate in morning seminars and meet prominent men and women in public life over afternoon and evening sessions. Up to 36 fellows will be selected.

Faculty

Ryan Patrick Hanley

Ryan Patrick Hanley is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. His research in the history of political philosophy focuses on the Enlightenment. He is the author of Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life and Love’s Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity.

Ryan P. Hanley

Ryan Patrick Hanley is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. Previously, he was the Mellon Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Marquette University. His research in the history of political philosophy focuses on the Enlightenment.

He is the author of Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life (Princeton University Press, 2019), Love’s Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 2016), and Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge University Press, 2009). His edited volumes include Adam Smith: His Life, Thought, and Legacy (Princeton University Press, 2016), the Penguin Classics edition of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (Penguin, 2010), and with Darrin M. McMahon, The Enlightenment: Critical Concepts in History, 5 vols. (Routledge, 2010).

His articles have appeared or are forthcoming in American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, European Journal of Political Theory, Review of Politics, Social Philosophy & Policy, History of Political Thought, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Revue internationale de philosophie, and Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie.

Professor Hanley received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, his M.Phil. from Cambridge University, and his Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. Prior to Marquette, he was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University’s Whitney Humanities Center.

Benjamin Storey

Benjamin Storey is a senior fellow in Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and co-director of AEI’s Center for the Future of the American University. He is concurrently an SNF Agora Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and a research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.

Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session

Readings:

Discussion Questions:

  • Why does Socrates engage in this conversation about justice? Is he persuaded or forced to lead this discussion? Why might this be significant?
  • What sort of character is Cephalus? What is good and what is problematic in his definition of justice? What sort of character is Polemarchus? What is good and what is problematic in his definition?
  • What is Thrasymachus’s first understanding of justice, as expressed at 339a? How does his position on justice and injustice evolve or shift as the discussion proceeds? Does Socrates succeed in refuting Thrasymachus by the end of Book I?
  • What sort of people are Glaucon and Adeimantus? Why are they dissatisfied? What is it that they want from Socrates? What approach does Socrates take to answering their objections?

Readings:

Discussion Questions:

  • What is “spiritedness”? What might be good and bad about “spiritedness” from a political perspective? How does Socrates propose to educate the spiritedness of the guardians?
  • What, if anything, is noble about the “noble lie”? How does it complement and continue the education of the guardians? Do you think it will be effective in achieving the ends for which it is intended?
  • What objection does Adeimantus present to all of this at the beginning of Book IV? How does Socrates respond to his concerns? What shift in the argument does this produce?
  • What are the three parts of the soul? What are the three parts of the city? What does it mean to say that virtue is the health, beauty, and good of the soul? How is this definition related to Socrates’ account of justice in the city at 433b?

Readings:

Discussion Questions:

  • What is Socrates’ argument for the equality of the sexes? Is it a good argument? Why or why not? What specific aspects of it strike you as persuasive or problematic?
  • What is Socrates’ argument for sexual communism? Is it a good argument? Why or why not? What specifics of it strike you as persuasive or problematic?
  • What does Socrates mean when he speaks of “philosopher-kings”? What is the argument for why they should rule? Are you convinced? Should they rule in real cities?

Readings:

Discussion Questions:

  • How does the portrait of the philosopher in Book VI compare to the portrait of the philosopher-king in Book V? Who or what exactly does Socrates have in mind when he describes “a man who has his understanding turned towards the things that are” (500b)?
  • What is life like inside the cave described by Socrates? What does it mean to say that the prisoners are “like us”? Are our lives today in any way similar to the lives of those imprisoned in the cave?
  • Who escapes from the cave? How do they escape? What do they eventually see? And what does this have to do with “a life better than ruling” (521a)?
  • What does Socrates mean when he calls this an allegory of education? How does the education described here compare to the education that the guardians received—or the kind of education we provide in schools today?
  • What is the difference between seeing and knowing? What specifically is “intellection,” and why is it important if we hope to know the idea of the good?

Readings:

Discussion Questions:

  • How does Socrates describe the social and political conditions of democratic life? What aspects of democratic life are attractive? Which are more problematic?
  • How does Socrates describe the soul of the individual living in democracy? What sorts of things does a democratic person desire, and why? Why does he think that tyranny necessarily follows democracy?
  • What sort of life does the tyrant lead? Is he happy? Why or why not? How might Socrates’ portrait of the tyrant’s life serve as a response to Thrasymachus’ praises of the tyrant’s life in Book I?
  • Why does Plato end the Republic with the Myth of Er? What is the story of this myth, and why does Socrates think it’s important for these young men, interested in questions of justice and the best life, to hear?

Readings:

Discussion Questions:

  • What is the context of the conversation described in Plato’s Gorgias, insofar as you can discern it from the details of the text? Who are the characters?
  • What does Socrates hope to learn from Gorgias?
  • What is the power of rhetoric, according to Gorgias?
  • Socrates continually refers to “our speech,” in his conversation with Gorgias; what does he mean and why does he insist upon it?
  • What are the two kinds of persuasion, according to Socrates?
  • What is the relationship between rhetoric and justice?
  • How does Gorgias ultimately contradict his own argument?

Readings:

Discussion Questions:

  • Why does Polus interject himself into the conversation at 461B?
  • What does Polus believe to be the source of Gorgias’ self-contradiction?
  • How does Socrates define rhetoric?
  • Make a chart of Socrates’ analogy of the true and spurious arts of body and soul.
  • What does Socrates mean by his distinction between a human being “doing what seems good to him” and “doing what he wants”?
  • Upon what, according to Socrates, does human happiness depend?
  • What is Polus’ example of Archelaus intended to prove?
  • How does Socrates bring Polus to agree that the proper use of rhetoric is to bring accusations against one’s loved ones or oneself, if they are guilty of any injustice, although, as Polus says, “it seems crazy”? Is it in fact crazy?
  • Why does Callicles doubt whether Socrates is serious? Do you think Socrates is serious?
  • What, according to Callicles, is Socrates’ technique for getting people to refute themselves? Does he accurately describe what goes on in the conversational portions of the dialogue?
  • What, according to Callicles, is “just by nature”?
  • What does Callicles believe to be the proper place of philosophy in the life of an anḗr, a “real man”?

Readings:

Discussion Questions:

  • What characteristics does Socrates attribute to Callicles in describing him as a touchstone upon which to test his own soul? Does Callicles truly seem to possess these characteristics?
  • Socrates easily finds examples to disprove Callicles’ argument that “the one who’s greater should carry off the things that belong to the lesser.” What would be the best version of Callicles’ argument?
  • What is Callicles’ definition of “virtue and happiness”?
  • Callicles likens the life Socrates recommends to that of a “stone or a corpse,” that is, to something that is not alive at all. Socrates likens the life Callicles recommends to the continual replenishing of an urn full of holes. Is there such a thing as a life that is something better than continual succession of filling and emptying?
  • Callicles rapidly tires of answering what he calls Socrates’ “shriveled little questions.” Why does Gorgias encourage him to go on?
  • How does Socrates finally bring Callicles to admit that the pleasant and the good are not the same thing?
  • Is there an art of seeking the human good?
  • What, according to Socrates, would be the aim of a healthy art of rhetoric?
  • What is Socrates’ critique of the greatest Athenian statesmen—Themistocles, Miltiades, Cimon, and Pericles?

Readings:

Discussion Questions:

  • What, according to Socrates, produces the good of a thing?
  • What does Socrates mean when he suggests that the source of Callicles’ error is his neglect of geometry?
  • What must one do to avoid suffering injustice in a city, on Socrates’ account?
  • Why does Callicles find it “galling” that “someone who’s worthless” can take “a good and beautiful life” from an innocent man? Given his previously stated opinions, shouldn’t he find that state of affairs natural and unobjectionable?
  • How, according to Socrates, is rhetoric akin to helmsmanship?
  • How does the comparison Socrates makes between rhetoric and medicine at 512D compare to the relation between the two indicated by the larger analogy he makes at 465B–D?
  • Callicles remarks that “something about what you’re saying seems good to me, Socrates—I don’t know what it is—but I’m having the experience most people do: I’m not entirely persuaded by you.” Do you share his experience of being divided in your reactions to Socrates? What is the source of this division?
  • How can Socrates claim to be “one of a few Athenians, not to say the only one, to make an attempt at the political art in the true sense,” although he famously steers clear of Athenian politics (521B)?
  • Socrates concludes the dialogue with a speech he calls a “logos” but says that Callicles will consider a “mythos.” What is the difference?
  • What, according to Socrates’ story, is death?

  • Review The Gorgias in its entirety

Discussion Questions:

  • What happens in Plato’s Gorgias? Does anyone learn anything?
  • How does Socrates manage to get people to bear witness against themselves?
  • For the last fourth of the dialogue, Socrates speaks almost alone, and Callicles has long since given up on the conversation. Why does Socrates continue? Is he beating a dead horse?
  • Throughout the Gorgias, Socrates makes extreme arguments. Are there moderate versions of Socrates’ arguments that seem more plausible? If so, why does he take such extreme positions?
  • What can this dialogue, set in a strange context and a distant time, teach us about power, virtue, and the proper use of speech in politics?

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Biography Image

Robert C. Bartlett

Robert C. Bartlett is the Behrakis Professor of Hellenic Political Studies at Boston College. His principal area of research is classical political philosophy, with particular attention to the thinkers of ancient Hellas, including Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle. He is the co-translator of a new edition of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.

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Mary P. Nichols

Mary P. Nichols is Professor Emerita of Political Science at Baylor University. She is author of Thucydides and the Pursuit of Freedom, and Socrates on Friendship and Community: Reflections on Plato’s Symposium, Phaedrus, and Lysis. She has delivered lectures on ancient political theory, Shakespeare, and film.

Biography Image

Amy A. Kass

Amy Apfel Kass (1940 – 2015) was a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, Senior Lecturer Emerita in the humanities at the University of Chicago, and coeditor of What So Proudly We Hail: The American Soul in Story, Speech, and Song. She was an award-winning teacher of classic texts.

Biography Image

Leon R. Kass

Leon R. Kass, M.D., is the Addie Clark Harding Professor Emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought and the College at the University of Chicago and the Madden-Jewett Chair at AEI. He was the chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001 to 2005. He has been engaged for more than 40 years with ethical and philosophical issues raised by biomedical advances and, more recently, with broader moral and cultural issues.