80-104: Plato's Republic: Ethics, Psychology, and Society
Plato's Republic is arguably the first great philosophical treatise of the Western tradition, as well as one of its foremost literary masterpieces. It is here that the disciplines of ethics, psychology, political philosophy, philosophy of education, philosophy of art, metaphysics, and epistemology are born and it is also to this text that some trace the theoretical origins of feminism, totalitarianism, and communism. In this seminar we will read the Republic and a variety of contemporary texts in order to examine these origins in some detail. For instance, we will focus on Plato's psychology, contrasting it to Freud's theory of the id, ego, and superego in order to then explore the relevance of these differences to contemporary issues surrounding the role of social norms in the creation of body images and the use of enhancement technologies such as plastic surgery. We will also explore Plato's political philosophy, his conception of education and his claims about the moral value of art and literature.