Platonism…

Harman has a nice post up on Plato’s Theaetetus. (I must have some blog rule that about one Sunday in five I end up commenting on Harman’s blog about five times in a day…) I should say that this is part of the reason I don’t teach Plato: I spend forever on him. I feel it an injustice to leave the Republic or the Gorgias or the Statesman without going through the various levels of humor. I could spend a semester just on Book I of the Republic. (I think I have!) Even the Laws, which is pretty dry comparatively, rewards this kind of reading/teaching.

It helps, too, that I had Michael Naas as a professor at DePaul. He’s mostly known for his translations of Derrida, but I think he’s easily one of the best teachers of Plato I’ve seen. There are actually a lot better readings of Plato out there now than in the era of “darn that Platonism” that Harman rightly derides, and Naas has an infectious regard for Plato. I remember after my first seminar with him, I made it a priority to grab my bulk collection of Platonic dialogues (the one everyone has on their shelf) and start at page one and go all the way through.

A side story would be that many of us had taken courses with Naas for several years on Plato. About my fourth year at DePaul, a rather ego-centric professor comes in with his entourage and gives a really lame “You know, you should read the Symposium not just in terms of its arguments, but also at the level of its literary performance” talk, as if he was uncovering gold in the California foothills. (And along the way, he made crucial errors about two of the speeches…) Look what I’ve found! A new Plato! You can read him again!

Who would have thought? I guess I read Plato as often as I can, but would never publish on him. I feel like there’s nothing much more that I could add, except as a literary version of a pointed index finger that says, “good stuff there…” And Naas himself doesn’t publish all that much on him considering, though he must have reams and reams of careful notes on all of his works. There must be something to that: there are certain figures I write on a lot that I rarely teach (e.g., Derrida, Nancy, etc.) and then figures I could spend forever teaching but would never write about.

But yeah, if you can’t get joy out of teaching one of Plato’s dialogues, then I’m pretty sure you might want to find another discipline. And a pulse.