AN INTERNET COURSE ON PLATO

The handsome bust above is of Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher who lived before Plato's time. I put it here because I want people to think it's Plato and be favorably disposed to him, at least for a moment. The guy (Plato) is out of favor now and needs every help he can get.

A while back I talked about Coursera, an internet school which offers free lectures and courses (graded or ungraded) on liberal arts subjects. Well, one of Coursera's latest offerings is a class on three of the dialogues of Plato. I'm not a Platonist but I grudgingly like the man because...Aaargh!... it's hard to finish that sentense. Plato's not a logician like Aristotle. What he has to offer is more subtle, more difficult to articulate. I'll give it a shot here, but I'm not confident that what I say will stand up to scrutiny.

Plato (that's him above) wants to be useful to real people in real situations. He believes in logic but he accepts the fact that real people are bound to culture and tradition and have a kind of in-built romantic bias. In order to reconcile all that he's willing to entertain ideas that are somewhat contradictory, something that Aristotle would never do.

If you were to tell Aristotle that you don't believe in ghosts but would be scared to spend a night in a haunted house, Aristotle might turn his back on you in disgust. Plato, on the other hand would be sympathetic, but...he might require you to at least try to find a unifying principal.

Plato's aware that accepting contradictions can lead to chaos so he emphasizes the need for  character and thoughtfulness. A philosopher should study mathematics so he has a good ground in logic, but he should also sharpen his intuition and be self-critical and pious. Most people aren't capable of this kind of self-discipline, which is why Plato didn't believe in democracy. Neither did his hero, Socrates (above). I do believe in democracy, but it's possible to enjoy Plato without agreeing with him.

Anyway, that's my understanding.  The class only started a couple of weeks ago. The teacher (above) is a little hard to take because he's always injecting his own jokes into the lectures...something Plato himself did. Anyway, I'll stay with him because I'm grateful to him for donating his time. I don't think he gets paid for this.

COURSERA'S COURSE ON GREEK MYTHOLOGY (REVISED)

N C Wyeth did a good job on the Odyssey. I wonder why none of the translations I've seen use these pictures?

These are oil paintings, approximately 4' X 3'.

Anyway, what I really want to talk about is Coursera's currently offered course in Greek and Roman Mythology.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, a word about Coursera....

Coursera provides free college-level courses on the internet. You can audit the courses by simply watching the videos, or you can participate at a higher level by reading the assigned texts, taking tests, writing papers graded mostly by peers, and participating in class discussion on the net.

The only fee is optional...if you pass the course you might want to pay $30 or so for a certificate verifying that fact. Selected courses are accepted for full credit by over 2,000 American colleges. You can drop out at any time and the drop won't be held against you. Records are only kept on courses the student has successfully completed. And it's all free, did I mention that?

I know what you're thinking, that no internet course can compete with live teaching. My answer to that is...well, of course not. There's obviously no substitute for live give and take and for the role model offered by a gifted teacher. This is for people who can't do that, or who want to audit a difficult course like calculus before taking it again for credit in a live class.



My family (minus me) is taking Peter Struck's 10 week course on Greek and Roman mythology right now, and they're loving it. This morning they were telling me about the way different critics interpreted the The Odyssey through the ages. A classical Greek critic interpreted it as an allegory of the way the gods work on us through different parts and artifacts of the body like bile or the spleen. Hume thought the book was nonsense and ought to be forgotten. Heine (the 19th Century romantic) thought the story was a door into what would later be called the subconscious. Fascinating!

Here's (below) the reading list for the class.

I didn't take the course because only Homer and Virgil and possibly Hesiod really interest me, but Struck looks like a good teacher and it might have been fun to see what he had to say about the others.



There's an introduction to English Common Law course coming up that I have my eye on. It's an odd subject for a cartoonist to take, and I have no intention of ever being a lawyer, but I love the parts I've read of Blackstone's commentaries, and I'm curious to know more. Besides, if the class doesn't keep my interest I can drop it, with no penalty.

BTW: Struck is using the Fagles translation of The Odyssey, which he defended on a video. Some of the students pushed for the newer Lombardo version. See what you think...