Category Archives: Plato

Teaching in the Twenty-First Century I always read First Things with a grain of salt, but if you can get past the reflexive right-handedness of this essay, you’ll read some good things.? The editor is right when he notes that … Continue reading →

I hate to be the latest person to complain about fall break’s disappearing, but it really did throw off my Plato syllabus.? I packed entirely too much of the ending into the last day–in one session we attempted to discuss … Continue reading →

I seem to get a little less fiery each time I play Plato during this lesson.? I don’t know whether I’m just going soft or whether I’ve got more genuine pedagogical motives, but even without the grand pyrotechnics, Plato’s offensive … Continue reading →

We finally got to the most famous passage in Plato today, and I drew my now-well-rehearsed version of the Allegory of the Cave on the board for each group.? (It didn’t look nearly as cool as this picture.)? In 8:00 … Continue reading →

I forgot to write about yesterday’s class yesterday–I suppose I must have had too much on my mind. At the point in the dialogue that we read yesterday, Socrates’s interlocutors break off the big-picture argument and demand that he expand … Continue reading →

Ah, the history of marriage and sex.? We talked about the sexual scene in classical Athens today, a place and time when one educated man of means might have a wife and children at home, a prostitute or two he … Continue reading →

I’ve already stepped into character and become Socrates at least once per class, which means I’m going to have some fun this semester.? With one group I answered their objections that idealism, as a philosophy, is useless and their further … Continue reading →

Once again I pushed both sections right up to dismissal time, largely because my EMMA demo took longer than I had anticipated.? Next Tuesday will be a relatively easy day, as my only preparatory task will be to design some … Continue reading →

When August rolls around, all I’m going to have to do is to get photocopies run and add students to my database. I’ve already got the class calendar done, and I’m going to update paper assignments and plan the first … Continue reading →

We covered some safer ground, relatively speaking, in today’s classes.? First up was the single most famous bit of Republic, the allegory of the cave.? I’ve got my cave talk (and chalkboard diagram) down so solidly that it felt like … Continue reading →

I got to teach perhaps my favorite Republic lesson today, the one in which I take on the persona of Plato and go after democracy.? And as in previous classes, the reactions varied from students who got mad, students who … Continue reading →