acase@tulane.edu

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (February 28, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The goal of this thesis is ultimately to answer the two questions raised and left unresolved in Plato’s Protagoras: What is virtue? Is virtue teachable? Following the dramatic order of Plato’s dialogues as outlined by Catherine Zuckert, I intend to show that the Meno returns to the issues raised and left unresolved in the Protagoras, but now with the idea of recollection. My intention is to look at how the idea of recollection, developed and associated with eros in the intervening dialogues, can help explain the nature of virtue and its teachability. I believe that we can come to answer both questions, “What is virtue?” and “Is virtue teachable?” posed in the Protagoras and the Meno by drawing on the ideas of anamnesis and eros as they appear in the Meno, Phaedrus, and Symposium.

The goal of this thesis is ultimately to answer the two questions raised and left unresolved in Plato’s Protagoras: What is virtue? Is virtue teachable? Following the dramatic order of Plato’s dialogues as outlined by Catherine Zuckert, I intend to show that the Meno returns to the issues raised and left unresolved in the Protagoras, but now with the idea of recollection. My intention is to look at how the idea of recollection, developed and associated with eros in the intervening dialogues, can help explain the nature of virtue and its teachability. I believe that we can come to answer both questions, “What is virtue?” and “Is virtue teachable?” posed in the Protagoras and the Meno by drawing on the ideas of anamnesis and eros as they appear in the Meno, Phaedrus, and Symposium.

I will address the issue of Plato’s use of myths concerning the afterlife in the context of the ethical arguments of the Gorgias, Phaedo and Republic, and I will contend that while the arguments in each dialogue are aimed at convincing the rational part of the self, the myths are aimed at persuading the non-rational part of the self. In support of this interpretation, I will examine Plato’s views on the relation between the different parts of the soul and the relationship that poetry and myth have to philosophy. I will argue that Plato’s use of myth is a legitimate tactic in his project of moral education, given his views concerning the role that the non-rational parts of the self play in one’s moral life.

Rousseau notoriously praises ignorance and censures learning for the moral corruption that it has inflicted upon his age, yet he admits that the arts and the sciences are good in themselves. I consider the effects of learning and knowledge on moral education, in an effort to answer the following question: What is the role of ignorance in moral education for Rousseau? While some interpreters have acknowledged his sensitivity to various groups in society with regard to moral education, none has properly systematized the different types of ignorance that Rousseau praises or identified the benefits of those types of ignorance to various individuals and societies. I distinguish the savage’s ignorance from that of Socrates and identify another important type of ignorance, the benefits of which stem from our natural sentiment and innate curiosity.

The purpose of the present study is to signify the explanatory value of the Meno on the coherence as well as the disparateness of the Plato&rsquo / s early and middle dialogues. Indeed, the Meno exposes the transition on the content and form of these dialogues. The first part of the dialogue resembles the Socrates&rsquo / way of investigation, the so-called Elenchus, whereas Plato presents his own philosophical project in the second part of the dialogue. Three fundamental elements of Plato&rsquo / s middle dialogues explicitly arise for the very first time in the Meno, namely / the recollection, the hypothetical method and reasoning out the explanation. Therefore, the connexion of the early and middle dialogues can be understood better if the structure of the Meno is analyzed properly. In other words, the Meno is the keystone dialogue which enables the readers of Plato to sense the development in Socratic-Platonic philosophy.

Dissertation--Fachhochschule Potsdam, 2006 / Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-136).

Commentators of Plato's Symposium rarely recognize the importance of traditional Greek conceptions of Eros, paideia and arete in understanding Plato's critique of the various educational models presented in the dialogue. I will show how Plato contests these models by proposing that education should consist of philosophy. On this interpretation, ancient Greek pedagogy culminates in a philosophical education. For this new form of education, the dialogical model supplants the traditional practices of kleos and poetic mimsis, inextricably bound to archaia paideia and traditional forms of education. Plato's Socrates is searching for knowledge and immortality through an application of the philosophical method, one that relies on a conception of Eros and propagation. For Plato's Socrates, it is through Eros that ancient Greek paideia educates in matters of arete, but eros is not a passion for kleos or for a beautiful young man.

This thesis analyzes Books III and IV of Xenophon’s Memorabilia. The Memorabilia is Xenophon’s defense of Socrates or the philosophic life against Athens or the political community as such. In Book III, Xenophon presents six portraits of ambitious young men. These portraits, read closely, unveil the psychological nature of ambition and convey important lessons about the Socratic understanding of healthy politics, as a realm that is necessarily pious. Book IV’s four Socratic conversations with a dim-witted youth named Euthydemus both underscore the lessons of Book III and explore piety itself, as a phenomenon that is necessarily political. These sections of the Memorabilia may be read as an argument for the necessity of a fissure between healthy politics and philosophy – and as a bridge from the one to the other. / text