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Crosslistings: COL 300 |
This course is a philosophical and literary examination of Plato's creation story, the TIMAEUS. Plato presents this creation story as a response to the creation in words of the ideal city in Plato's REPUBLIC. At the beginning of the TIMAEUS, Socrates says that he thinks that the ideal city which is described in the REPUBLIC is beautiful, but that he longs to see it alive and in motion, in much the way that one might long to see the portrait of a beautiful animal alive and in motion. The living and moving portrait of the ideal city of the REPUBLIC is the myth of Atlantis. But before that myth can be told, the world of that myth must be generated, and this is the creation story of the TIMAEUS. The following philosophical questions will be among those considered. What in the TIMAEUS is myth, and what is philosophy, what history, and what natural science, and how can we account for the differences? What are the scope and limits of our accounts of the physical world in which we find ourselves? In the TIMAEUS, our cosmos is made in the image of the eternal cosmos. What is imitation (mimesis) and how is an image related to its model? What kind of imitation is the TIMAEUS itself? What does one need to account for in telling a creation story? If the cosmos is beautiful, then why are there bad things in it?
Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.
COURSE FORMAT: Discussion
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA PHIL Grading Mode: Student Option
Prerequisites: PHIL201 Links to Web Resources For This Course.
Last Updated on MAR-18-2003
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459