Course Description: Platonism is the vew that the underlying permanent abstract form of a thing which gives that thing its identity is more real than the examples of the thing so defined (or, in a later scaredycat version, that such forms really truly really really are real). For some reason Plato is usually thought of as a Platonist. Plato does give some arguments for the view and many others have also argued for it, in contexts ranging from foundations of mathematics to philosophy of fiction to philosophy of language. However, Plato also offers some crucial arguments against the view, and some consideration of his use of irony might also lead us to be suspicious regarding whether he really believed in Platonism himself. We'll look over the problems and relevant arguments, hoping to finally get it right. This is not just about figuring out what Plato really thought--we'll mainly be working on what we should think. To what extent is Platonism correct? We'll use some contemporary work, but mostly will concentrate on looking in the horse's mouth.

              This reading group continues a series on philosophical methods and Wittgenstein. Platonism may be a topic in which application of some Wittgensteinian insights will produce progress.  Wittgenstein suggests that, rather than focusing on answers or solutions to many philosophical problems ("What is knowledge, really?" "Can we ever know based on perceptions?" "Why should I be good?" "Why is there something rather than nothing?" "How is it possible for humans to communicate using language?"), we may be better off to step back and re-examine the problem itself. He finds after doing some of these re-examinations that some problems result from thinking in a mistaken way when we formulate the problem. That is, some philosophical problems rest on mistakes. There are different mistakes we can make, and we can describe the mistakes in different ways, so that investigating to find out whether a particular issue is based on a mistake might require several different kinds of thinking. That is, there is no one stake we can carry around to pound through the hearts of all these various problems.
              Wittgenstein remarks of some of these problems that the work on the problem is like doing therapy on a neurosis. I think this is because, among other things, we work to become conscious of our own thought processes in ways we find ourselves resisting. The goal of this kind of work is unlike much, perhaps most, traditional philosophical work in which we try to discover an answer to a philosophical problem--here we are trying to discover the confusions, assumptions, pictures, overextended analogies, and grammatical errors on which the problem rests, such that when we become clear about those mistakes we find we no longer have to ask the philosophical problem. We work, he remarks, not toward a solution but toward the problem's dissolving. Becoming clear about the problem prevents the problem from arising.  

Text and Materials: I recommend you get a collected essays of Plato, either the one edited by Hamilton and Cairns or the one edited by John Cooper. Used copies are easy to find, locally and online. If 30-50 bucks is too spendy, all the essays are available in serviceable translations online. The out-of-copyright translations by Benjamin Jowett will have an effect on your prose style (a little like reading the King James version of the Bible--more resonant, more periodic sentences, more rhythmic and chiasmic) which will impress your teachers and make them think you are weird. The servers vary in speed--MIT's usually seem faster (http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/index.html) than Tufts University's Perseus Project (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ )--but Perseus is much more complete and offers options for text vs. html and usually has more helpful notes (watch out for how large the blocks of text you open are--chunk by dialogue is usually better than chunk by page). Harvard's Loeb Classical Library edition translation by Fowler (as well as the Greek text Fowler uses) is sometimes available--it is a very carefully literal translation with some good explanatory footnotes. Some disagree, but I think the Hamilton and Cairns index is the best of the lot, and much better than using Google or Dogpile (and light years ahead of Ask.com or Altavista or Yahoo's search function). I do recommend a search using the HSU library's database page in Philosopher's Index for defenses and objections to Platonism, using a variety of keywords, but the main effect is likely to be an increased appreciation for Hamilton and Cairns' index.
              I will be putting several more contemporary documents up on Moodle, and will enable a forum on the class Moodle page. If you have any problems with access, let me know right away, and I can send you any documents via e-mail.

Course requirements and grading: Students must write, consistent with departmental guidelines for this kind of course, 7-10 pages (2000 to 2500 words) of graded work. I’ll set up one assignment, distributed at the first meeting, to be turned in 11 February (that’s our third meeting, the fourth week of classes), in which you choose one from three or four prompts I distribute and you write three pages or so. The rest of the writing requirement is due Friday of finals week. You may do the writing as a series of one-page papers on your own schedule or as a larger paper at the deadline, or as something in between those alternatives. One conspicuous possibility I'll promote is that some students will read essays on particular reading assignments in class in order to launch the discussions of those readings. I will provide some other suggestions for paper topics, but I am not going to nag or monitor your progress, and you are free to stay in denial about the writing requirements and your own satisfaction of those. I don't give incompletes. Also, attendance is required: Anyone who misses more than two sessions (out of fifteen total) will lower her or his grade by one third of a point, more than four by one letter grade. I'll ask seminar participants to volunteer to lead discussions of readings. It's not a requirement.
      Also, attendance is required: Anyone who misses more than two sessions (out of fifteen total) will lower her or his grade by one third of a point, more than four by one letter grade.

     Scheduling: The second and third meetings will be given to participants presenting either orally or as handouts arguments for Platonism, mainly from Plato's dialogues. We will attempt to separate the metaphysics of Platonic Forms from the epistemology of Forms: What are they, really? from How do we acquire knowledge of them? Perhaps Plato can help us with this separation task too. The rest of the course will be given to attacks, beginning with those in Plato's Parmenides, and then appraisals of how this steel cage match is going. We may give particular attention to Plato's use of myth and mythmaking on these issues. We may have to clean up at the end.