Plato's Socrates

(Cross-listed as PHIL 150 and CLS 150). Faced with a death sentence, Socrates claimed that even the fear of death could not prevent him from doing what is right, offering as proof not words, but deeds. Taking Socrates' distinction between words and deeds, and focusing on the relationship between the arguments and the action, we will study the Laches, Symposium, Meno, Protagoras, and Republic, as well as the works recounting his last days, in an attempt to understand Plato's Socrates and his views regarding knowledge, virtue, justice, courage, and the care of one's soul.