This lecture explains the material to be covered in the course as a whole, its purpose, and its guiding thesis. We will examine the key innovations and insights of three important philosophers: Socrates, his student Plato, and Plato’s student Aristotle. Socrates was responsible for a fundamentally new way of philosophizing and, for all their originality, Plato and Aristotle were deeply indebted to Socrates. We will begin by examining two of Socrates’s contemporaries who wrote about him—Aristophanes and Xenophon—and then turn at greater length to consider Plato’s monumental portrait of his teacher. The final third of the course will be devoted to studying Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, the two works of his in which the influence of Socrates is clearest. Studying Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle is worthwhile not only because they were among the architects of what we call “the West,” but also because we may still learn from them things of vital importance to us as human being
This lecture explains some key concepts necessary to our examination of the Athenian philosopher Socrates. In the first of the lecture’s two parts, we discuss the idea of “philosophy,” especially in its relation to nature; the pre- Socratic efforts to discover the deepest cause responsible for the generation and existence of all things, be it atoms and void or some combination of fundamental elements (such as, earth, air, water, and fire); the necessary conflict between such philosophical inquiries and the authoritative explanations of the world that rely on the gods; and Socrates’s characteristic turn away from scientific speculation and toward a conversational analysis of “the human things,” or moral-political questions. In the second part, we discuss some characteristic features of ancient Greek comedy in general and Aristophanic comedy in particular, with specific attention to the comedy Aristophanes himself singled out as being his “wisest” work, the Clouds.
In Aristophanes’s comedic but wise treatment of Socrates in the Clouds, we see a rather old farmer who comes up with a scheme to rid himself of the crushing debts racked up by his horse-obsessed son: to send his wayward son to learn from Socrates, who apparently can teach you to speak so as to make any cause, just or unjust, triumph. The father and then the son both visit Socrates’s secretive school, but only the latter succeeds there, for he abandons his interest in horsemanship altogether and becomes an admirer of Socrates. The father’s initial joy at the prospect of eluding his creditors soon yields to despair at what his son has become, and he exacts his revenge by burning down Socrates’s school. The Clouds levels two fundamental criticisms at Socrates: One, because the philosopher has failed to think through how dangerous, both to the family and to the political community, his study of nature is, he has failed also to be as cautious or prudent as he should be; and two, Socrates cl
The second source of our knowledge of Socrates is the four Socratic writings of Xenophon, one of the most attractive authors of antiquity. To begin to appreciate the special charms of Xenophon, however, we must first take up the question of his changing reputation through the centuries and his peculiar or idiosyncratic manner of writing. After a period of neglect in the 19th century, Xenophon is once again attracting serious scholarly study and is once again highly regarded, as a writer and thinker, as he was in antiquity. His writing is characterized by a gentle wit and irony, one that prefers to emphasize the good things while downplaying—but not quite ignoring—the bad or nasty side of life. Such refinement, once it is seen as the product of a comprehensive understanding and not naiveté, can make Xenophon’s writing all the more attractive. Of the four writings he devoted to the subject of Socrates, the longest is the Memorabilia (or Recollections), which attempts to establish Socrate
Thus far we have stressed what has been called the Socratic “turn” or “revolution”—Socrates’s break with the scientist-philosophers before him which took the form of a new and more serious interest in moral and political concerns. That decisive break was occasioned by Socrates’s recognition of a problem pointed to in the Clouds: that he could not in fact give a convincing account of the cause of things in terms of natural necessity, an inability that means the orthodox religious account of those things might well have been correct. To salvage the possibility of philosophy, then, Socrates embarked on what he called his “second sailing.” In studying Xenophon’s Socratic writings, we of course must look for evidence of both the difficulty Socrates once encountered and his strategy to overcome it. The single most important writing in this respect is the Oeconomicus (or Skilled Household Manager), Xenophon’s account of the fateful day when Socrates began his intensive examination of moral op
We turn now to the single most important source of our knowledge of Socrates, his student Plato. Of the 35 dialogues that have come down to us from antiquity as Plato’s, almost all feature Plato’s teacher Socrates, and none features Plato himself in a speaking role. To begin our study of the wonders of the Platonic dialogue, we must first take up the question of how to read Plato and, closely allied with this, reflect on the unique literary form that is the Platonic dialogue. In the final part of the lecture, we turn to consider some first impressions of Plato’s Socrates and discuss in particular the trait for which the latter is famous or notorious, his irony.
With this lecture we begin our study of Plato and his presentation of Socrates. Because we, too, are interested in becoming the students of Socrates, we will begin by looking at the way Plato presents Socrates as a teacher of students, actual or potential. The most obvious place to begin is with Socrates’s attempts to teach Alcibiades, a historical figure who went on to have an astounding—and highly controversial—political career in the Peloponnesian War. Plato devotes four dialogues to Socrates’s relationship with Alcibiades, and we will look at each of these, paying particular attention to the Alcibiades I and to Alcibiades’s famous speech about Socrates, recorded in Plato’s Symposium. Since Alcibiades makes plain that Socrates ultimately disappointed him, and vice versa, we have to try to discover precisely what Socrates attempted to teach Alcibiades, and what he in turn failed to learn from Socrates.
From the Alcibiades I we are naturally led to the Republic, one of Plato’s most famous dialogues, the theme of which is the all-important question, “What is justice?” This lecture begins by noting some of the most prominent features of the Republic that appear at first glance, including its title, its setting, its cast of characters, and the action or drama with which it begins. Socrates and his friends first attempt to find an adequate definition of “justice,” beginning with the elderly Cephalus. When he proves unable to defend his commonsensical view that “justice” means telling the truth and giving back what you owe, his able son Polemarchus takes over. Just when it seems that the group has reached a happy consensus about justice, the rhetorician Thrasymachus heaps contempt on their discussion and challenges Socrates to refute the contention that justice is for fools: It is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger against the weaker. In this vivid way, Plato shows us that th
The chief purpose of this lecture is to set forth the full challenge Socrates faced to defend justice. We turn first to the conclusion to Thrasymachus’s powerful and vehement argument against the goodness of justice, as well as Socrates’s attempts to rebut it. Socrates himself states that he is not satisfied with what has been said, however, because they have been proceeding without a clear definition of “justice.” Yet before they can arrive at such a definition, Socrates first entertains two somewhat different but quite riveting attacks on justice from none other than Glaucon and Adeimantus, Plato’s brothers, who admire justice greatly. But they have been hearing for some time arguments against justice, of the kind the group has just heard from Thrasymachus, and they are eager to have Socrates refute them once and for all. Accordingly, each delivers the strongest case he can against justice because they, in contrast to Thrasymachus, want to hear the strongest case for justice.
Socrates proposes to discover what justice is and hence whether it is good by building the best city “in speech,” for it will be easier to spot justice in the bigger thing first—the political community—before looking for it in the smaller thing, the individual. Yet the fact that the Republic does not end in Book IV, with its official definition of “justice”, but continues for six more books, suggests that this definition does not solve all the difficulties on the table. It does, however, help us see with greater clarity the problem of justice: Justice must include a sense of duty or obligation, to a whole greater than oneself, as Socrates’s captured beautifully in his account of political justice. But justice must also be good and even a very great good for the just themselves, which Socrates captured very well in his account of individual justice. By the end of Book IV, however, the challenge of Thrasymachus remains: Can the two senses of justice be put together into a coherent whole?
This lecture will be devoted to exploring the chief subjects of books V–VII of the Republic, including the call for philosopher-kings; the doctrine of the ideas; and the famous Cave metaphor. To begin to understand these notoriously difficult sections, it is helpful to see that they are all a part of what Socrates means by the health of the individual soul, the definition of “justice” in the individual. In fact, with his call for philosopher-kings, Socrates quietly replaces the just human being with the philosopher as the manifestation of the healthy human being, a proposition that both the doctrine of the ideas and the Cave image are meant to explain. Socrates’s ultimate aim in the Republic is a defense of philosophy, and it is here that we begin to see most clearly his defense strategy.
Thrasymachus had praised the life of injustice over the life of justice, the latter, according to him, being fit only for the foolish and the weak. In the last three books of the Republic, Socrates turns to consider injustice and so prepares the way for his own comparison of justice with injustice, which constitutes his final answer to Thrasymachus. We will begin with Socrates’s vivid portrait of one of the defective kinds of regimes, namely democracy, and then turn to his comparison of the life of injustice at its peak, the life of the tyrant, with that of the life of justice at its peak, the life of the philosopher. Finally, we will look in some detail at the beautiful and quite powerful myth with which the Republic ends, the Myth of Er, the purpose of which is to strengthen the case for justice and leading a just life.
With this lecture, we continue our inquiry into Socrates as a teacher. One of the devices Plato uses to inform us about Socrates is to contrast him with his closest competitors, the sophists and rhetoricians, the famous itinerant teachers of subjects both practical and theoretical. By far the most famous sophist in antiquity was Protagoras, and the whole of this lecture is devoted to an examination of the Platonic dialogue named after him. After some introductory remarks about the Protagoras and its curious opening sections, we will consider Socrates’s introductory, but very revealing, conversation with Protagoras, in which Socrates questions whether Protagoras can really teach, as he claims to, the art of good citizenship or the skills specific to politics. We will also consider in some detail Protagoras’s subtle and subversive response, which takes the form of a creation myth and for which the dialogue is rightly famous. In it Protagoras not only makes the case for studying with soph
This lecture is principally concerned with Socrates’s complex response to Protagoras and his eventual victory over him. Socrates begins somewhat strangely, by probing whether (according to Protagoras) virtue is some one thing or whether it is composed of essentially different parts. This question strikes Protagoras as being entirely innocuous, until it dawns on him, a little too late, that his holding the virtues to be separate means that wisdom and justice need not go together: Socrates practically forces him to admit that the wise as such are not necessarily just! We will also consider the concluding section of the dialogue, in which Socrates reveals—to us and to Protagoras—that the sophist’s “sophisticated” contempt for justice and noble self-sacrifice cannot be squared with his genuine admiration of courage and the courageous. Even Protagoras, then, has failed to search his heart adequately, and he remains a far more moral man than he realizes.
From Socrates’s encounter with the most famous sophist of the day, we naturally turn to Socrates’s conversation with the most famous rhetorician, Gorgias. Although that conversation is only the first and shortest of what prove to be three conversations recorded in the Gorgias, it is in some ways the most fundamental. We will begin by looking at Socrates’s initial conversation with Gorgias, where they arrive at a definition of “rhetoric,” according to which it is the art of persuading an audience of something without, however, teaching them the truth about it. We will consider next Gorgias’s long speech, which is intended to be a sort of advertisement for his art and a demonstration of it. Finally, we will examine Socrates’s response to that advertisement, and bring out where Gorgias too proves not to be all that he claims.
Socrates’s conversation with Gorgias comes to an end when the young and brash Polus interjects himself into the proceedings: Unlike the too-squeamish Gorgias, he, Polus, will say the truth and hold back nothing. Rhetoric, according to him, is the art of persuading others so that you yourself may exercise the greatest possible power without fear of punishment. To drive home his point, he praises as supremely happy a certain notorious tyrant, who is as happy as he is unjust. With this argument, the Gorgias turns away from rhetoric and toward the question of the goodness of justice. Whereas Socrates insists, to Polus’s initial dismay, that committing injustice is the greatest evil for a human being, Polus maintains that successful or unpunished injustice is a very great good. Yet Socrates masterfully demonstrates that Polus retains a lingering respect for justice—he thinks it is noble, if not profitable—a respect that demonstrates his failure to have thought through what it would mean to
Much of this lecture is devoted to the third and final part of Plato’s Gorgias, which contains Socrates’s lengthy conversation with Callicles. However, we will begin with a summary of what we’ve learned thus far in Gorgias, and how its theme of justice develops and eventually becomes even more important than its initial theme of rhetoric. Then turning our attention to Callicles, we begin with a consideration of his quite sophisticated view of what is just by nature, according to which the strong dominate the weak naturally and therefore justly, we will also reflect on what might have led him to adopt this harsh view of the world. We will also examine Callicles’s quite harsh criticism of philosophy in general and of Socrates in particular, linking this criticism with his view of justice. The dialogue concludes with Socrates’s criticism of the principle that apparently guides Callicles’s life, that of hedonism, or the view that the greatest good for a human being is pleasure. For all of
The Meno is clearly connected with both the Protagoras and the Gorgias. The Protagoras culminates in Socrates’s assertion that it is necessary to ask the comprehensive question—“What is virtue?”—which happens to be the guiding question of the Meno; and we soon discover that young Meno has been the student of none other than Gorgias. The Meno as a whole falls into three parts, the first and longest part consisting of Meno’s three attempts, with Socrates, to discover an adequate definition of “virtue” or to answer the question, “What is virtue?” For although Meno wants to know first how virtue is acquired, Socrates insists that they must know first what it is, a surprisingly difficult question. In his attempts to define “virtue,” which we will track carefully in this lecture, Meno continually vacillates between understanding virtue as the greatest good for ourselves, on the one hand, and as the greatest good for which we should be willing to give up our own greatest good, on the other. T
In the first of this lecture’s three parts, we will take a closer look at the “recollection doctrine” of knowledge and its supposed proof, namely Socrates’s famous conversation with one of Meno’s slaves. Since the recollection doctrine prompts Meno not to give up the quest for a definition of “virtue,” the dialogue is permitted to continue, and in the next section Socrates does answer Meno’s original question as to whether virtue is teachable. Socrates being Socrates, however, does not do so in an entirely straightforward way: Socrates says yes, virtue is teachable, but then suddenly suggests that maybe virtue isn’t teachable after all. An important ambiguity in the term “virtue,” present since Meno’s attempts to nail down a definition, explains Socrates’s own contradictory answers here: Everything depends on what one means by “virtue.” For only if the virtue in question is rational can it be taught, strictly speaking. After considering this ambiguity, and the quite dramatic appearance
With this lecture, we begin to treat the four-dialogue sequence devoted to Socrates’s trial, conviction, and execution. The Euthyphro is set on the steps of the courthouse that Socrates is about to enter to attend a preliminary hearing prior to his trial. The question treated in the dialogue is of obvious importance to that trial, for he and Euthyphro discuss the question, “What is piety?” We will begin with an account of the dialogue’s most prominent features, especially the surprising circumstances surrounding it. Second, we will take up in turn each of the main arguments concerning piety. Third and finally, we’ll consider a summary of the dialogue showing the general approach Socrates took to the challenge that orthodox piety poses to the philosophic life, the life of reason.
With this lecture we begin our two-part treatment of what is probably the most famous and most widely read document in the history of Western philosophy, Plato’s Apology of Socrates to the Jury. After a few introductory remarks, we will begin to consider the first and longest part of the dialogue—what might be called the defense speech proper—in which Socrates attempts to refute the official charges against him. Yet it is striking how little he says about the two main charges against him. He never once asserts that he does believe in the gods in whom the city believes; and he never quite denies that there are young people who follow him and who learn from him, which amounts to an admission that he is indeed an influential teacher. More intriguing still is his insistence that there are earlier charges against him— dating back to Aristophanes’s Clouds! In dealing with these earlier accusers, Socrates gives a fascinating account of what prompted him one day to become the philosopher noto
The deepest and most revealing section of the Apology thus far is contained in Socrates’s digression concerning his mission to refute the Delphic oracle’s statement that no one is wiser than Socrates. The most important section of the rest of the dialogue is contained in a digression that is chiefly devoted to establishing Socrates’s justice, not only in the sense that he broke no law, but in the higher sense that he is dedicated to the good of others. More specifically, we will begin by considering Socrates’s second digression here and see what it tells about Socrates and his life. Second, we will look briefly at the two remaining sections of the dialogue: Socrates’s remarks after he has been convicted, on the one hand, and his remarks after he has been sentenced to death, on the other. Third and finally, we will reflect on the astonishingly persuasive defense of Socrates laid out in the Apology of Socrates. Though this defense did not succeed in the immediate circumstances, it has pr
This lecture is devoted to exploring the third of the four dialogues devoted to portraying the final days of Socrates: Plato’s Crito. The conversation recorded in the Crito takes place in the very early morning in Socrates’s jail cell between the prisoner and his old friend. We will consider first Crito’s arguments to Socrates to escape, then Socrates’s own arguments in response; and, third, the arguments of the laws of Athens—here given voice by Socrates—against escape. There are serious reasons to doubt whether Socrates’s arguments directed at his well- meaning but unphilosophic friend can be regarded as expressing his own views, or whether the arguments of the laws do so. Still, it is undeniable that Socrates abided by the conclusion of those arguments, namely to submit to his execution, and we will conclude with some tentative suggestions concerning his own reasons for doing so, chief among them his concern for his own reputation and, by extension, that of philosophy through the ag
We turn now to the fourth and final of the dialogues devoted to Socrates’s trial and execution, Plato’s Phaedo, which all but ends with the moving description of Socrates’s death. In the great bulk of the Phaedo, prior to this death scene, Socrates attempts to demonstrate that the soul is immortal. Accordingly, we will treat that demonstration and its significance. Yet we recall, from Lecture Two, that the Phaedo also includes Socrates’s very striking confession of his early interest in natural philosophy. Here Socrates not only admits that he was indeed a “pre-Socratic” philosopher, but also tells us why he inaugurated the change in philosophy that has come to be considered Socratic philosophizing. Our study of the Phaedo, then, will have two main purposes: to discuss the arguments for the immortality of soul, and to revisit Socrates’s extremely important autobiographical remarks. Both of these purposes together permit us to grasp somewhat better the nature of the change that Socrates
This lecture inaugurates the third and final section of our course, the section devoted to the thought of Plato’s greatest student, Aristotle. Today’s introductory lecture will accomplish the following four tasks: first, to sketch some of the highlights of Aristotle’s biography, of his life and work. We will then offer some provisional suggestions concerning the relation between Aristotle on the one hand, and Socrates and Plato on the other, and the sense in which one can speak of Aristotle as heir to the Socratic legacy. Third, we will make the case why we in the 21st century might turn with serious interest to the study of Aristotle, not as a mummified relic or merely historical artifact, but as a living source of guidance who can help us grapple, here and now, with some of the most fundamental human questions. Finally, and as a preparation for the next lecture, we will consider Aristotle’s somewhat strange manner of writing—a manner that makes special demands on us, his readers.
This lecture is devoted to an analysis of the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics. This is the proper place to begin our study of Aristotle’s political philosophy, above all because Book I offers a penetrating account of our longing for happiness, the final end of all our strivings; it speaks with great precision and great beauty of what we mean when we give voice to our deepest hope for happiness. It also offers a remarkable sketch of the serious alternatives available to us in our attempts to find happiness. The order of topics taken up in this lecture will mirror very closely the parts of Aristotle’s own argument in Book I of the Ethics. We will turn first to his introductory discussion of happiness and the good; then follow out his exploration of the meaning of the term “happiness”; and then finally explore some of the questions that Aristotle’s challenging account of happiness leaves for us to ponder, chief among them the sway that chance or fortune holds over our lives.
This lecture is devoted to exploring the idea of moral virtue, chiefly in the second and third books of the Nicomachean Ethics. It is necessary, to begin with, to say a few words about the idea of virtue in general and its two subspecies in particular, moral and intellectual virtue, a division for which Aristotle himself is responsible. We then turn to consider what is probably the most famous part of Aristotle’s ethical teaching, that of virtue understood as a mean between two extremes—courage, for example, being a mean between the extreme of cowardice on the one hand, and recklessness on the other. We conclude with some remarks on Aristotle’s intriguing account of voluntary and involuntary actions, or what we might call moral responsibility.
This lecture is devoted to exploring some of the most intriguing or perplexing aspects of the moral virtues. Aristotle maintains that there are eleven—and only eleven!—moral virtues, and we will begin by simply enumerating them, in the order in which Aristotle lists them, together with their corresponding vices. Our focus then shifts to three particular virtues: courage, magnanimity, and justice. Courage is the first moral virtue Aristotle treats, but it proves not to be the most impressive one: magnanimity, or “greatness of soul,” and Justice both lay claim to that title, and each represents the peak of the tendencies inherent in moral virtue or in the concern for moral virtue: the greatness of one’s own soul or its full development, and the correct dedication to the good of others, even at great cost to oneself.
This lecture is devoted to exploring the three main topics that appear in books VI and VII of the Nicomachean Ethics: the intellectual virtue that is prudence, or practical judgment (phronesis); the somewhat strange capacity called “continence” or “self-control”; and, finally, a lengthy discussion of pleasure. Prudence is the capacity to know what means are best to achieve a given end, namely morally virtuous action. Continence, by contrast, is not a virtue at all, neither moral nor intellectual, yet it may serve the cause of virtue: Continence is the capacity to withstand the pain of unsatisfied desire. As such, it bears a close resemblance to the moral virtue of moderation, for both are concerned with our response to pleasures. Accordingly, Aristotle turns to consider the case for pleasure as the proper goal of human life.
This lecture is devoted to exploring books VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics, which are dedicated to a single topic: friendship. Our investigation of friendship will focus on three questions or problems. First, what are the various kinds of friendship according to Aristotle, and what constitutes the best or peak friendship? Second, why does Aristotle’s inquiry into friendship suddenly take a distinctly political turn, and what does Aristotle’s comparison of kinds of friendship with kinds of political regimes mean to teach us about both? Third and finally, we will consider a problem we have seen in Aristotle’s presentation of moral virtue, a problem that returns in the discussion of friendship. We are clearly drawn toward both our own good or happiness on the one hand, and to nobility or right action for its own sake on the other. Just as we seek to be happy in and through friendship on the one hand, but also, in the best friendships, at least, we seek the good of the friend for the
This lecture considers the 10th and final book of Aristotle’s study of character and the good life, Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics. The 10th book has a very clear outline: The first five chapters are devoted to a second treatment of pleasure and, more precisely, of the question whether pleasure is the greatest good for a human being, the most pleasant life being the best life simply. The next three chapters—chapters 6, 7, and 8—can lay claim to being the peak or climax of the book as a whole, for they treat intellectual virtue, especially in its relation to happiness or the good life for a human being. Aristotle explicitly praises the activity of intellectual or contemplative virtue over that of moral virtue, and he goes so far as to suggest that the philosophic activity is the closest model we can follow to the gods themselves—for what other activity is worthy of gods? He even suggests that a kind of providence may attend those who philosophize—for what activity could be dearer to t
Since Aristotle himself, at the end of the Nicomachean Ethics, makes the case for turning from the analysis of character to political life, we will follow his lead by turning from the Ethics to the Politics. This lecture will comprise three main parts: First, an examination of the case for precisely this turn to the examination of political life; second, a sketch of Aristotle’s famous but also complex argument in the first book of the Politics, that human beings are “political animals” by nature; and third, a consideration of Aristotle’s Politics, Book II, where his critique of various regimes have claimed to be the best, regimes both actual and imagined, including the regime of Plato’s Republic.
Our main task today is to investigate the arguments of Book III of the Politics, which is probably the single most important book of the Politics, and certainly its most difficult. It has three clear parts: first, an inquiry into the citizen and citizenship; second, an analysis of the regime in its relation to justice and the common good; and third, an account of kingship in general and a certain kind of absolute kingship in particular. We will consider each of these in turn, but endeavor to show also how each fits together so as to form a sustained argument about the limits to the justice that can be found in any community.
Books IV, V, and VI of Aristotle’s Politics are sometimes referred to as the “practical” books, since they are most concerned with the actual practice of political life in general and with analyzing in particular the most common kinds of regime, oligarchies and democracies. For the time being, then, Aristotle abandons the standard or goal that has guided him in books II and III—the simply best regime—and looks instead to the variety of lesser kinds of communities that actual statesmen are most likely to encounter. In Book IV, Aristotle sketches the best practicable regime, which is based on the rule of the middle class. Book V is concerned with the causes of revolution and the ways to preserve regimes. And Book VI attempts to make the case, to democratic and oligarchic partisans, that moderation and the rule of law are goods they, too, should cherish.
This lecture examines the final two books, VII and VIII, of Aristotle’s Politics. Both are devoted exclusively to a discussion of the simply best regime or the regime in accord with what “one would pray for,” a concept that has guided Aristotle’s political science from the very beginning but becomes its focus only now. Our discussion will closely follow Aristotle’s own: first, an inquiry into the good life that must be the goal of the best regime; second, a look at the “stuff,” or the material, out of which the best regime will be formed; third, the nature of the regime itself or the form that “stuff” must take; and finally, the crucial topic of education in the best regime, the subject of all of Book VIII.
The advent of Socrates of Athens marked a pivotal moment in the history of Western philosophy. It has been our task to begin to understand the innovation for which Socrates is responsible. Dissatisfied with the efforts of the pre- Socratics to discover the elemental causes of all things and so to disprove the claim that gods are responsible for the world, Socrates turned to a new conversational or dialectical examination of moral and political opinion—his characteristic activity. Plato and Xenophon vividly portrayed this characteristic, which so irked his fellow citizens that it brought about his execution. Plato is obviously an inheritor of the Socratic legacy, for he took great pains to portray his teacher. But Aristotle too owed a debt to Socrates inasmuch as he combined a comprehensive interest in nature with the painstaking analysis of moral and political opinion, in a manner reminiscent of his teacher’s teacher. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle together constitute one of the highes
Dr. Robert C. Bartlett is Professor of Political Science at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he has taught since 1999. Before coming to Emory, he taught for three years in the core Western Civilization program at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. A graduate of the University of Toronto, with concentrations in Philosophy and Political Science, Professor Bartlett holds an M.A. in Classics and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Boston College.