Political Philosophy by Fr. Schall: 52. Phaedo

This course was recorded in 2015 in an informal setting by Fr. Schall himself.

The Phaedo is the dialogue about the last day of Socrates. He is in jail. The boat returns so his execution takes place immediately. He spends his last day in conversation with the potential philosophers about why it is all right to die. He finally drinks the hemlock and dies. The man who dies is Socrates the philosopher, executed by his city. This sets up the platonic problem of why.

 

For over 35 years, Fr. James Schall taught Political Philosophy at Georgetown University, where he was legendary among generations of students.  If you want an experience of what those students enjoyed, this course is the place to begin.  Fr. Schall starts with Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics and then, with wisdom and wit, guides his listeners through the thought of the great Roman statesman Cicero, the French Catholic philosopher Yves Simon, the Old and New Testaments, the political thought of St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas on Law, Machiavelli, politics in the plays of Shakespeare, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Nietzsche, and finally, Plato’s masterwork, the Republic.  It is a historical and intellectual tour de force in 60 lectures.  What generations of students had to pay thousands of dollars in tuition to hear, you can now have in recorded lectures to listen to over and over again.  In preserving the lectures of Fr. Schall, we at the Catholic International University feel that we are fulfilling the mission set by our founder Ralph McInerny:  to make the best Catholic lectures available as widely as possible to the public. Please don’t miss this opportunity to engage in one of the greatest intellectual journeys you’ll ever take with one of this generation’s wisest guides.

catholicthinkers.org