Philosophy 290-2

The Seminar will study Plato’s Sophist, one of his latest works. In the search of the definition of the sophist the participants of the dialogue focus on central concepts such as being and not-being, on the nature of language, and on questions of methodology. The Sophist is by general consent one of Plato’s hardest, but also most rewarding works for the understanding of his philosophy. The seminar will provide a careful analysis of the arguments and a study of the dialogue’s unity and its relation to other Platonic works. At the same time a series of articles will be included that have contributed most to a better understanding of this complex dialogue in recent years.