Is Plato Necessary for Salvation?
"It would seem that in no way can reading Plato be necessary for salvation, since Jesus Christ alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Yet Plato…
On the Deaths of Plato and Eric Voegelin
But there is another sort of old age too: the tranquil and serene evening of a life spent in peaceful, blameless, enlightened pursuits. Such, we are told,…
Philosophy and the Crisis of the Modern World
Ideas have consequences. Arguably, a precondition of having a workable, functioning and non-nihilistic culture rooted in a particular time and place, incorporating “a people” with some functioning…
Moral Conduct and Citizenship
Analysis of Book One Scene: 1990s American college core curriculum class in philosophy. Players: Professor and students Professor: Today I would like us to analyze the first…
The Philosopher as Citizen
The Usefulness of Plato’s Republic to the Philosopher The topic of this essay is the practical application of reading Plato's Republic in the life and work of…
Writing Exercises and the Republic
Another way to teach students to think critically is to have them do a lot of writing. Three professors from BYU, who have team-taught a writing and…
Learning Goals and Teaching Methods for Exploring the Republic
The obligation to teach students how to think effectively has been an important educational objective for several decades. "One of the teacher's greatest responsibilities is to cultivate…
Plato’s Republic in the Core Curriculum: Multiculturalism and the Canon Debate
The Issue of Multiculturalism Plato's Republic is under fire right now. Stanford University's core curriculum students are no longer required to read Plato's Republic because it represents…
For Love of Democracy: Eros, Reverence, and Ritual in Plato’s Laws
Both deontological and classical liberalism have been criticized by communitarian thinkers who contend that liberalism is rooted in an incoherent conception of the self because it fails…
Voegelin on Plato’s Laws
Alfred North Whitehead, a formidable philosopher in his own right, captured the essence and vision of Plato's philosophy when he wrote in Process and Reality: An Essay…
Eric Voegelin on Plato’s Laws (Part II)
The Substance of Plato’s Efforts to Communicate The great theme of the Laws is the God who governs the processes of order and history, who obliges, but…
Eric Voegelin on Plato’s Laws (Part I)
Scholars and students of the work of Eric Voegelin, the twentieth-century political philosopher and historian who often called for a renewed engagement with classical Greek thought, will…
Eric Voegelin’s Plato
Eric Voegelin was a first-rate scholar whose many writings span disciplinary divisions to speak to concerns ranging from politics and history to philosophy, psychology, and theology. Although…
The Laws Most Beautiful and Best
The Law Most Beautiful and Best: Medical Arguments and Magical Rhetoric in Plato's Laws. Randall Baldwin Clark. Lexington Books, 2003. The analogy of politics and medicine…
Knowing Persons
Knowing Persons: A Study in Plato. Lloyd P. Gerson, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. On the debate whether in antiquity the concept of the person is…