I checked into Rogue Classicism today for the first time in a while and discovered some podcasts on the history of philosophy from History of Philosophy without Gaps. According to the blogpost on Rogue Classicism, there were 14 podcasts on the preSocratics, Hippocrates, and the sophists, and now is moving on toward Plato.
I listened to some of the podcast on Parmenides. It is very simple and slightly condescending, but the ideas are clear, which is helpful. I will continue to report as I listen to more.
Showing posts with label Philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philosophy. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Monday, November 22, 2010
Appetitive: Podcasts on Plato
Today (and yesterday) I have not quite had the dedication necessary to write up the next installment of "Dates in the Platonic Corpus" yet (see my blogpost), but I have been rereading Zuckert's
section on the Laws
in order to write it up. It will be coming soon.
In the meantime, I thought I would post some links to some more traditional podcasts on Ancient Philosophy (and especially Plato). I have listened to some of the lectures from the UC Berkeley Ancient Philosophy class. I listened to a few of these last summer and I found them fairly interesting. In general, I do not entirely agree with David Ebrey's views on Plato (and his voice is really annoying), but he points out some interesting moments in the dialogues that I did not notice and his lectures are fairly engaging.
There are also, as it turns out, a number of podcasts that I had not stumbled upon until now. I have not listened to any of these, so I cannot recommend any of them, but I certainly will listen to them and review when I have time.
section on the Laws in order to write it up. It will be coming soon.In the meantime, I thought I would post some links to some more traditional podcasts on Ancient Philosophy (and especially Plato). I have listened to some of the lectures from the UC Berkeley Ancient Philosophy class. I listened to a few of these last summer and I found them fairly interesting. In general, I do not entirely agree with David Ebrey's views on Plato (and his voice is really annoying), but he points out some interesting moments in the dialogues that I did not notice and his lectures are fairly engaging.
There are also, as it turns out, a number of podcasts that I had not stumbled upon until now. I have not listened to any of these, so I cannot recommend any of them, but I certainly will listen to them and review when I have time.
- Philosophy 103 at CUNY. This is a class on Plato's Republic (or more accurately Politeia). There are both good and hostile reviews of this class, but I am not sure what side of the divide I fall on yet (having not listened to it).
- Lectures from University of Chicago. Two lectures on this list are about Plato: "On the parts and whole of Plato's Republic" by Anton Ford and Gabriel Richardson Lear's talk on Plato's philosophy of poetry. Both look great.
- Political Science 10 at UCLA. Reviewed on Anne is a Man.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Appetitive/Reasoning: Landmark Editions and Xenenphon
Looking for the Landmark Herodotus
to put in my last blogpost, when I happened upon the newest book in the landmark series, The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander
. Although Alexander's campaigns and the Hellenistic world are not my area of expertise or interest, I think the Landmark Series is incredible, and I am glad that they are branching out.
As someone who is not a particularly adept historian, the Landmark Herodotus and Thucydides
have been invaluable tools for my classes on the two texts because they provide so much context (and most importantly, maps). As I mentioned in my last blogpost, Robert Strassler, the editor of the Landmark Series, is giving a free talk on Herodotus on May 10th for the Marathon 2500 project (online).
I have vaguely considered whether or not I would like the Landmark Hellenika
(Xenophon) since my wonderful Greek History professor mentioned that Xenophon intended to finish Thucydides' unfinished work. After finishing my thesis on Plato and reading 20 of the 35 dialogues that were attributed to Plato, I decided to read Xenophon's Conversations of Socrates
. It seemed to me that I should read the only other surviving work of the once popular genre of the Socratic Dialogue. However, I found that although Xenephon provides interesting fodder for a comparison to Plato, his works lack the character depth, humor, and subtlety of Plato's works and is both stilted and boring.
Most of the humor comes from laughing at Xenephon, whose Socrates feels like a bizarre melding of Socrates' caricatured personality and Xenephon's aristocratic and prudish moralizing. There are places where Socrates inserts phrases such as "and that is how best to run an estate" in a similar way to Aeschylus' insertion of "I lost my little oil bottle" into Euripides' prologues in Aristophanes' Frogs
[1]. However, I realize that Xenephon is a valuable historical and literary source, especially because of his version of the Constitution of the Lakedaemonians [2] and his attempt to finish the story of the Peloponnesian Wars.
to put in my last blogpost, when I happened upon the newest book in the landmark series, The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander. Although Alexander's campaigns and the Hellenistic world are not my area of expertise or interest, I think the Landmark Series is incredible, and I am glad that they are branching out.As someone who is not a particularly adept historian, the Landmark Herodotus
and Thucydides have been invaluable tools for my classes on the two texts because they provide so much context (and most importantly, maps). As I mentioned in my last blogpost, Robert Strassler, the editor of the Landmark Series, is giving a free talk on Herodotus on May 10th for the Marathon 2500 project (online). I have vaguely considered whether or not I would like the Landmark Hellenika
(Xenophon) since my wonderful Greek History professor mentioned that Xenophon intended to finish Thucydides' unfinished work. After finishing my thesis on Plato and reading 20 of the 35 dialogues that were attributed to Plato, I decided to read Xenophon's Conversations of Socrates. It seemed to me that I should read the only other surviving work of the once popular genre of the Socratic Dialogue. However, I found that although Xenephon provides interesting fodder for a comparison to Plato, his works lack the character depth, humor, and subtlety of Plato's works and is both stilted and boring.Most of the humor comes from laughing at Xenephon, whose Socrates feels like a bizarre melding of Socrates' caricatured personality and Xenephon's aristocratic and prudish moralizing. There are places where Socrates inserts phrases such as "and that is how best to run an estate" in a similar way to Aeschylus' insertion of "I lost my little oil bottle" into Euripides' prologues in Aristophanes' Frogs
[1]. However, I realize that Xenephon is a valuable historical and literary source, especially because of his version of the Constitution of the Lakedaemonians [2] and his attempt to finish the story of the Peloponnesian Wars.Endnotes
- This is my all-time favorite ancient comedy and the scene I reference is particularly hilarious. I highly suggest it (although definitely read it with a cometary that explains the political references). You can download a free copy of the Greek from Project Gutenberg and a free copy of the English from Project Gutenberg (although I cannot vouch for the quality of the translation).
- Which can be found online here or, I think, can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Spirited/Reasoning: Questions about Plato and Xenephon
I am taking a brief respite from the conference write-up in order to rest my brain from this horrible day. I spent today proctoring an exam in 96 degree heat. While I was proctoring the exam, I read about the first third of the heavily-prefaced version of Xenephon's Socratic dialogues in Conversations of Socrates.
There are many interesting things both about Xenephon and what Robin Waterfield has to say about Xenephon. One of the most fascinating is Waterfield's claim that Socrates was guilty of violating the state religion. I will leave this spicy debate for another time.
My focus today is going to be this: why was Xenephon kicked out of Athens while Plato was not? (I would love to hear what people think if anyone wants to comment or email me at sulpicia3@hotmail.com).
This was a question that never occurred to me until today, mostly because I had no idea that Xenephon was actually exiled from Athens. I knew that Xenephon left Athens in 401 to live in Sparta (Waterfield 7) and that his children were educated there, but I was unaware that this exile was formalized. Apparently he returned to Althens in 365 after his formal exile was rescinded in 368 (Waterfield 7). According to Waterfield (who uses Diogenes Laertius, 2.51 as his source), Xenephon was charged on suspicion of pro-Spartan and pro-Oligartich tendencies (Waterfield 7), which must have been a pretty poisonous charge after the bloody reign of the Thirty Tyrants.
What is more striking is that this criticism of Xenephon, according to Waterfield, extended to all of Socrates' students. He states: "Not only were several members of Socrates' circle overt [1] or covert oligrarchs [2], but they were all, without exception, members of the upper classes" (Waterfield 6). Plato, too, is accused by modern scholars of being at least in favor of the Spartan form of government, both in the Republic
and in the Laws [3]. So what made Plato so different than Xenephon? He was closely tied to Socrates, he was wealthy and from a eupatrid family, there were disernable pro-oligarchic and perhaps pro-Spartan tendencies in his writing, and he may have been (not sure of the historical source on this) asked to be one of the Thirty Tyrants.
This is obviously puzzling. My answer, which at the moment is not very well-developed, is that the "discernable" pro-oligarchic and pro-Spartan tendencies in Plato are not his views, but rather a philosophical means of imparting information. Furthermore, I would argue that Plato's intellectual and rhetorical flair in his writing probably made him a popular figure, dispite his associations. This is a benefit Xenephon did not have. Finally, if the rumors that Plato did refuse an oligarchic position are true, than it is possible this differentiated him in the mind of the populace from the problems of Socrates' students. I don't have a solid answer yet.
. My focus today is going to be this: why was Xenephon kicked out of Athens while Plato was not? (I would love to hear what people think if anyone wants to comment or email me at sulpicia3@hotmail.com).
This was a question that never occurred to me until today, mostly because I had no idea that Xenephon was actually exiled from Athens. I knew that Xenephon left Athens in 401 to live in Sparta (Waterfield
7) and that his children were educated there, but I was unaware that this exile was formalized. Apparently he returned to Althens in 365 after his formal exile was rescinded in 368 (Waterfield 7). According to Waterfield (who uses Diogenes Laertius, 2.51 as his source), Xenephon was charged on suspicion of pro-Spartan and pro-Oligartich tendencies (Waterfield 7), which must have been a pretty poisonous charge after the bloody reign of the Thirty Tyrants.What is more striking is that this criticism of Xenephon, according to Waterfield, extended to all of Socrates' students. He states: "Not only were several members of Socrates' circle overt [1] or covert oligrarchs [2], but they were all, without exception, members of the upper classes" (Waterfield 6). Plato, too, is accused by modern scholars of being at least in favor of the Spartan form of government, both in the Republic
and in the Laws [3]. So what made Plato so different than Xenephon? He was closely tied to Socrates, he was wealthy and from a eupatrid family, there were disernable pro-oligarchic and perhaps pro-Spartan tendencies in his writing, and he may have been (not sure of the historical source on this) asked to be one of the Thirty Tyrants.This is obviously puzzling. My answer, which at the moment is not very well-developed, is that the "discernable" pro-oligarchic and pro-Spartan tendencies in Plato are not his views, but rather a philosophical means of imparting information. Furthermore, I would argue that Plato's intellectual and rhetorical flair in his writing probably made him a popular figure, dispite his associations. This is a benefit Xenephon did not have. Finally, if the rumors that Plato did refuse an oligarchic position are true, than it is possible this differentiated him in the mind of the populace from the problems of Socrates' students. I don't have a solid answer yet.
Endnotes
- Critias and Charmides were both members of Socrates' circle (Waterfield 38). See Plato's Charmides
for a fascinating portrayal (this is one of my favorite Platonic dialogues, but I will have to leave discussion of it for another blogpost).
- I don't know if Alcibiades was particularly covert, but he was not explicitly oligarchic so far as I know (I am happy to be corrected-- I am not much of an Alcibiades scholar) (Waterfield 38).
- I had a long debate with a friend in the classics lounge at school about this, which I probably lost. For reference, I was trying to portray Plato as hinting at, but not explicitly condoning the Spartan governmental system. Hopefully, there will be more on this in future posts as well.
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