THE VIRTUE OF SŌPHROSUNĒ IN PLATO’S GORGIAS AND PHAEDRUS

This dissertation argues that the substantial differences in Plato’s accounts of virtue in the Gorgias and Phaedrus are best understood as adjustments that Socrates makes in order to have the most pedagogically and ethically valuable impact on the different interlocutors (each of which represents universal type of person) with whom he speaks. While Plato has Socrates give arguments about virtue, love, happiness, and so on that are strong when taken on their own, he also depicts Socrates tailoring these arguments with the aim of persuading his interlocutors to pursue a more virtuous life. The central example I focus on is the key differences between Socrates’ accounts of moderation (sōphrosunē) in the two dialogues. In the Gorgias, Socrates’ discussion of moderation emphasizes the importance of restraining one’s own desires, because in that context, he speaks with Callicles, who argues that the key to happiness involves letting one’s desires grow as large as possible and constantly fulfilling them, regardless of how many laws one must violate to do so. It makes sense for Socrates to defend this notion of moderation as self-restraint to Callicles, since souls like him must first value and cultivate the civic virtue of self-restraint in order to transition toward the pursuit of genuine moderation. In the Phaedrus, by contrast, Socrates speaks with a very different interlocutor. Unlike Callicles, Phaedrus does not reject Socrates’ conception of virtue, but he has not yet committed himself to it either. He has philosophical talents and inclinations, but he also feels attracted to the average rhetorician\u27s way of life. Given Phaedrus’ interests, talents, and openness to philosophy and virtue, Socrates criticizes the view that sōphrosunē is simply self-restraint, and he gives a richer, more multifaceted account of genuine sōphrosunē. He argues that this virtue is rooted in reverence and the activity of becoming like the divine in the context of a philosophical relationship and a philosophical life more broadly. Genuine sōphrosunē enhances our self-knowledge, our intimate relationships, our self-harmony, and it can provide illuminating insight into Being. Importantly, interpreting Plato’s dialogues from this perspective has contemporary relevance. My dissertation interprets Plato’s characters not only as his depictions of concrete persons (either real or fictional), but also as symbols for types of people who are common in both ancient and contemporary societies. In my view, the pedagogical dynamic between Socrates and his interlocutors mirrors the relationship between the dialogues themselves and their readers. That is, Plato constructs his discussions of virtue with the aim of pedagogically benefiting his readers, especially those who share at least some similarity with Socrates’ interlocutors

The Profiling of Threat Versus the Threat of Profiling

This speech covers three points. First, a brief summary of the failed federal criminal prosecution of Wen Ho Lee is given. Second, Wu talks about the racial profiling used in this case. Third, Wu talks about the possibilites for Asian Americans and other racial minorities to engage in principled activism to overcome these unfortunate trends

Ignorance of Law Is an Excuse - but Only for the Virtuous

It\u27s axiomatic that ignorance of the law is no excuse. My aim in this essay is to examine what the mistake of law doctrine reveals about the relationship between criminal law and morality in general and about the law\u27s understanding of moral responsibility in particular. The conventional understanding of the mistake of law doctrine rests on two premises, which are encapsulated in the Holmesian epigrams with which I\u27ve started this essay. The first is liberal positivism. As a descriptive claim, liberal positivism holds that the content of the law can be identified without reference to morality: one needn\u27t be a good man to perceive what\u27s lawful, Holmes tells us; one need only understand the consequences in store if one should choose to act badly. The nonnative side of liberal positivism urges us to see the independence of law from morality as a good thing. In a pluralistic society, the law should aspire to be comprehensible to persons of diverse moral views. What\u27s more, it should avoid embodying within itself a standard of culpability or blame that depends on an individual\u27s acceptance of any such view as orthodox; in a liberal society, even the bad man can be a good citizen so long as he lives up to society\u27s rules

Ignorance of Law Is an Excuse - but Only for the Virtuous

It\u27s axiomatic that ignorance of the law is no excuse. My aim in this essay is to examine what the mistake of law doctrine reveals about the relationship between criminal law and morality in general and about the law\u27s understanding of moral responsibility in particular. The conventional understanding of the mistake of law doctrine rests on two premises, which are encapsulated in the Holmesian epigrams with which I\u27ve started this essay. The first is liberal positivism. As a descriptive claim, liberal positivism holds that the content of the law can be identified without reference to morality: one needn\u27t be a good man to perceive what\u27s lawful, Holmes tells us; one need only understand the consequences in store if one should choose to act badly. The nonnative side of liberal positivism urges us to see the independence of law from morality as a good thing. In a pluralistic society, the law should aspire to be comprehensible to persons of diverse moral views. What\u27s more, it should avoid embodying within itself a standard of culpability or blame that depends on an individual\u27s acceptance of any such view as orthodox; in a liberal society, even the bad man can be a good citizen so long as he lives up to society\u27s rules

Against the Tide. A Critical Review by Scientists of How Physics and Astronomy Get Done

Nobody should have a monopoly of the truth in this universe. The censorship and suppression of challenging ideas against the tide of mainstream research, the blacklisting of scientists, for instance, is neither the best way to do and filter science, nor to promote progress in the human knowledge. The removal of good and novel ideas from the scientific stage is very detrimental to the pursuit of the truth. There are instances in which a mere unqualified belief can occasionally be converted into a generally accepted scientific theory through the screening action of refereed literature and meetings planned by the scientific organizing committees and through the distribution of funds controlled by "club opinions". It leads to unitary paradigms and unitary thinking not necessarily associated to the unique truth. This is the topic of this book: to critically analyze the problems of the official (and sometimes illicit) mechanisms under which current science (physics and astronomy in particular) is being administered and filtered today, along with the onerous consequences these mechanisms have on all of us.\ud \ud The authors, all of them professional researchers, reveal a pessimistic view of the miseries of the actual system, while a glimmer of hope remains in the "leitmotiv" claim towards the freedom in doing research and attaining an acceptable level of ethics in science

VCU voice (1990-12-14)

VCU Today, the University’s first official administrative organ, began as a somewhat irregular monthly publication but moved to a bi-weekly newspaper format in the 1980s. The newspaper changed its name to VCU Voice in 1988 and ten years later it appeared under the title UniverCity News. As it neared the end of its run as a physical newspaper, the publication became simply VCU News. These four publications were essentially the same periodical published under different titles by the Office of University Relations. VCU News appeared online for the first time in 2002.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/vcv/1042/thumbnail.jp

It looks like a lamplit vicious fairy land behind me: Robert Louis Stevenson and Scotland

This thesis concerns a man and his home country, exploring the physical, the emotional and the imaginative bonding of the two. The man is Robert Louis Stevenson. A frail, consumptive novelist, poet and Scot, who transcended his infirmities to create romantic heroes of magnificent adventures, and transcended his self-imposed exile by setting them amidst the heather. The country is Scotland, a country which nurtured and debilitated, inspired and repelled Stevenson. It was also one in which he was ultimately unable to survive. Stevenson was not solely a Scottish writer, just as he is not solely a children's writer. His work does reflect his peripatetic life, but the purpose of this thesis is to focus upon his Scottish fiction. It will argue that it was in these works that his imagination and his artistic skills fused best. Scotland’s influence upon Stevenson will be seen as twofold. Firstly, the geographical and historical impressions which were made upon him, and secondly, the traditions of superstion which so characterised its people. A study of Stevenson's non-fictional portrait of Edinburgh will be made to elucidate his continued impulse to write about Scotland and what it meant to be Scottish. Stevenson’s Scottish fiction will be shown as far more than the laments of a homesick ex-pat. In recognising the viciousness of his fairyland, perceiving the skull beneath the skin, Stevenson gave to his fiction and his Scotland a richness and vitality which might not have been possible had he been a comfortable resident of a comfortable Edinburgh house