Yin-Yang, Buddha and Plato’s Cave at the Dawn of the Covid Age
At the dawn of the “Covid Age” the prospect of a quantum-like leap into an unprecedented consolidation of what is known as the Global Society is overtaking…
Plato on the Fall of Ancient and Modern Greece
Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, warned us that there is nothing new under the sun. At least in terms of the current crisis in Greece,…
Glaucon’s Fate: History, Myth, and Character in Plato’s “Republic”
Perhaps the best measure of the richness and complexity of Plato’s Republic, the most influential work of political philosophy in the Western tradition, is the remarkably broad…
Plato on Wealth, Poverty, and the Conditions of Happiness
At least since the time of the ancient philosopher Plato, private property rights have posed challenges to those aspiring to craft a just political society. During the…
Prisons and Punishment
Gnosticism imagines that the disorder and conflicts of earthly existence can be overcome with gnosis – special knowledge; insight and learning. Ruth Gilmore Wilson, a prison abolitionist…
Knowledge, Sophistry, & Scientific Politics: Plato’s Dialogues. Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman
Knowledge, Sophistry, & Scientific Politics: Plato’s Dialogues. Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman. James M. Rhodes. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2020. Rhodes wants to see whether…
Plato’s Caves: The Liberating Sting of Cultural Diversity
Plato’s Caves: The Liberating Sting of Cultural Diversity. Rebecca LeMoine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. It is an exciting time to be a Plato scholar. The…
Introduction the Subfields of Political Science: Political Philosophy
In my previous posts, I explained how I try to introduce the activity of politics to students. Following my “great books” approach to introducing political science, I…
Reflections on Eva Brann’s “Paradoxes of Education in a Republic”
Paradoxes of Education in a Republic. Eva T. H. Brann. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1979. A few weeks back I suggested that Eva Brann’s Paradoxes of Education in…
Speech and Knowledge in Plato’s Hippias Major
Near the beginning of Greater Hippias, Socrates introduces an alter-Socrates (his intellectual conscience, we might say) who poses this question: “Socrates, how do you know what sorts…
Aristotle and Ethics
Ethics and Metaphysics Aristotle’s conception of ethics is consistent with Plato, his teacher’s notion that moral virtue is essential to human happiness and offers some useful and…
Katabasis in the Setting of Plato’s Symposium Revisited
Introduction In an earlier article (Steel 2004), I drew attention to the importance of descent imagery in the Symposium for building a more complete understanding of the…
Death or Tenure
Why Liberalism Failed. Patrick Deneen. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. Like Socrates in the Republic, my argument is about education or lack of education, paideia…
Political Consciousness and Polarization in the Philosophy of Eric Voegelin
The Problem of the Debate An unquestionable premise of democracy: public decisions are affected by public opinion. Daily observation of the manifestation of public debate may, however,…
Plato’s Crito and the Crisis of Sovereignty
The common reading of the Crito asserts that the dialogue examines the nature of just and unjust laws with contingent concerns for how a person should respond…