"On the Question of Whether Plato's Phaedo Displays Philosophy in Two Registers: Benardetean Reflections"

A Lecture by Patrick Goodin, Howard University

Friday, December 9, 7:00 p.m., Great Hall

Quite early in the Phaedo Socrates famously describes philosophy, correctly understood, as the practice of dying and being dead, after which he goes on to discuss its meaning in detail. Out of this discussion emerges the two well-known arguments for the immortality of the soul: reincarnation and recollection. The two primary interlocutors, Cebes and Simmias, however, raise two powerful objections that compel Socrates to revise his understanding of philosophy. The question I wish to explore in this talk is whether the revised understanding is consistent with the first or constitutes philosophy in different register and what is the relationship between the two? 

Pat Goodin is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and the Director of the Caribbean Studies Program at Howard University. He chaired the Philosophy Department for twelve years and is a founding member of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He works and publishes in areas of Ancient Greek Philosophy and Africana Philosophy. Most recently, he coedited a volume, entitled The Eccentric Core: The Thought of Seth Benardete with Ronna Burger, published by Saint Augustine Press, 2018. The present talk is to be included in another planned volume on Benardete. HIs next project is a study tentatively entitled Aristotle's De Anima: On the Politics of Soul.