Explore the meaning and importance of Plato's towering achievement in immortalizing the thoughts of Socrates in 35 dialogues, which laid the philosophical basis for Western civilization. The dialogues cover ideas about truth, justice, love, beauty, courage, and wisdom. Learn not what to think, but how to think, as you experience the subtlety with which Plato weaves philosophy and poetry, dialectic and drama, and word and action.
Plato, Socrates, and the Dialogues
Explore the meaning and importance of Plato's towering achievement in immortalizing the thoughts of Socrates in 35 dialogues.
01: The Domain of the Dialogues
This lecture describes the life and times of Plato and Socrates, the structure of the dialogues, the way the style of argument in the dialogues progresses, and the best ways to approach understanding this body of work.
46 min
02: What Socratic Dialogue Is Not
Professor Sugrue shows some of the methods used by Socrates to begin his caricature and demolition of the Sophists, and his long search to answer the question: "Can virtue be taught?"
46 min
03: The Examined Life
In the "Timaeus," the origins and principles of the physical world are discussed. In the "Theaetetus," Socrates engages a young wounded man in a discussion of knowledge, edifying the young man before he dies and before Socrates is taken away to be tried and executed by Athenian authorities as a corrupter of youth.
46 min
04: Tragedy in the Philosophic Age of the Greeks
The "Apology," the "Crito," and the "Phaedo" are the stories of Socrates's trial and execution. Professor Sugrue explores the motif of heroic journey from this new type of Greek hero, who looks at his accusers with courage and resolve as he faces death.
44 min
05: Republic I—Justice, Power, and Knowledge
This lecture focuses on Plato's development of his political, ethical, and educational theories. Socrates and Thrasymachus, a cagey Sophist, struggle to define justice and to determine whether it is an art that can be practiced.
46 min
06: Republic II-V—Soul and City
Socrates continues his search for the meaning of justice; the Homeric virtues and heroes are discussed and dismissed as corrupt; and Plato describes the ideal city.
44 min
07: Republic VI-X—The Architecture of Reality
Here, Professor Sugrue explains Plato's myth of the cave, the hierarchies of human moral development and the political regimes that accompany each, and the criticism of tragedy and comedy.
46 min
08: Laws—The Legacy of Cephalus
Professor Sugrue argues that toward the end of his life, Plato recognized serious problems with his philosophical positions—so serious that he wrote very little for more than 10 years—and that the "Laws" is one of the dialogues designated to a "second best" philosophical position.
45 min
09: Protagoras—The Dialectic of the Many and the One
A comic dialogue in which Socrates develops his argument on the nature of virtue, concluding that virtue is knowledge and, therefore, can be taught.
46 min
10: Gorgias—The Temptation to Speak
Socrates engages Gorgias, one of the great Sophists, in discussions of virtue and education, and converts Gorgias to teach true virtue rather than the corrupt craft of rhetoric.
45 min
11: Parmenides—"Most True"
This dialogue prefigures Hegel for its baffling qualities; it is a protracted and very difficult discussion on the nature of being and the consequences of Plato's conclusions for the theory of the ideal forms of being.
45 min
12: Sophist and Statesman—The Formal Disintegration of Justice
This pair of dialogues continues Plato's later project to expose the weaknesses of his earlier works and to propose and defend a workable theory and practice for knowledge and politics.
45 min
13: Phaedrus—Hymn to Love
The great lyrical masterpiece of Platonic poetry. The main themes of love and rhetoric are bridged by related themes: identity, the soul, desire, and the longing for ultimate beauty.
45 min
14: Symposium—The Pride of Love
Plato's famous description of a drunken discussion among Socrates and other remarkable Greeks concerning the nature of love.
47 min
15: The Platonic Achievement
Professor Sugrue summarizes his view of the intended and actual effects of Plato's work. Platonic argument is usually appreciated as the origin of Western speculation, but it is at least as important, Sugrue argues, to view Plato form the perspective of the intellectual traditions he continued and transformed.
45 min
16: The Living Voice
Professor Sugrue attempts a summary and understanding of Plato's new hero, Socrates himself. This hero, as seen through the dialogues, is a deeply ironic character because his questions often lead to no conclusions; he is distrustful of the written work and yet that is how we come to know him.
43 min
Overview Course No. 463
About
Dr. Michael Sugrue is Professor of History at Ave Maria University. A graduate of the Great Books Program, he earned his B.A. in History from the University of Chicago and his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in History from Columbia University.
Prior to taking his position at Ave Maria University, Professor Sugrue taught at Princeton University, the City College of New York, Columbia University, Manhattan College, New York University, Hampton University, and Touro College. He served as the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University from 1992 to 1994.
Professor Sugrue was awarded the Chamberlain Fellowship, the President's Fellowship, the John Jay Fellowship, and the Meyer Padva Prize.
