Rebecca LeMoine

Classical antiquity has become a political battleground in recent years in debates over immigration and cultural identity-whether it is ancient sculpture, symbolism, or even philosophy. Caught in the crossfire is the legacy of the famed ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Though works such as Plato's Republic have long been considered essential reading for college students, protestors on campuses around the world are calling for the removal of Plato's dialogues from the curriculum, contending that Plato and other thinkers in the Western philosophical tradition promote xenophobic and exclusionary ideologies. The appropriation of the classics by white nationalists throughout history-from the Nazis to modern-day hate groups-appears to lend credence to this claim, and the traditional scholarly narrative of cultural diversity in classical Greek political thought often reinforces the perception of ancient thinkers as xenophobic. This is particularly the case with interpretations of Plato. While scholars who study Plato reject the wholesale dismissal of his work, the vast majority tend to admit that his portrayal of foreigners is unsettling. From student protests over the teaching of canonical texts such as Plato's Republic to the use of images of classical Greek statues in white supremacist propaganda, the world of the ancient Greeks is deeply implicated in a heated contemporary debate about identity and diversity.

Plato's Caves defends the bold thesis that Plato was a friend of cultural diversity, contrary to many contemporary perceptions. It shows that, across Plato's dialogues, foreigners play a role similar to that of Socrates: liberating citizens from intellectual bondage. Through close readings of four Platonic dialogues-Republic, Menexenus, Laws, and Phaedrus-Rebecca LeMoine recovers Plato's unique insight into the promise, and risk, of cross-cultural engagement. Like the Socratic "gadfly" who stings the "horse" of Athens into wakefulness, foreigners can provoke citizens to self-reflection by exposing contradictions and confronting them with alternative ways of life. The painfulness of this experience explains why encounters with foreigners often give rise to tension and conflict. Yet it also reveals why cultural diversity is an essential good. Simply put, exposure to cultural diversity helps one develop the intellectual humility one needs to be a good citizen and global neighbor. By illuminating Plato's epistemological argument for cultural diversity, Plato's Caves challenges readers to examine themselves and to reinvigorate their love of learning.

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Why, in Homer’s Odyssey, does the infamous Cyclops bear the name “Polyphemus” (“many-saying” or “many-voiced”), and why are two other characters—the Ithacan assembly and bard Phemius—described as “polyphemian”? This essay argues that Polyphemus’s name makes sense once we notice that he alone of the Cyclopes “speaks differently.” Through the figure of Polyphemus, the epic awakens us to the wondrousness of the capacity for humans to speak in their own, separate voices, reminding us that we could have been constituted otherwise. In calling the political assembly and bard “polyphemian,” the epic consequently provokes contemplation of the age-old dilemma of freedom of speech: the tension between the desire for a community that speaks with one voice, and the desire for a plurality of voices. Ultimately, the Odyssey implies that the freedom to speak differently is essential to the flourishing of human life, even if it allows for political instability.

Solicited and peer-reviewed work of creative political fiction for the 50th anniversary issue of the journal Political Theory. This piece imagines a dystopian future in which political theory courses have become purely performative, with professors and students reading from pre-approved scripts...

One of the most memorable features of Plato’s Republic is its apparent promotion of state censorship of music. Upon closer inspection, however, it is unclear whether this policy is meant to apply to city or soul—or both. This essay reads the Republic’s music censorship not as a practice of the state, but rather as a practice of the self, whereby individual reflection on music and its attendant pleasures awakens the rational part of the soul and habituates the person to the activity of reasoning. Although one might think that guarding citizens, and youths in particular, from exposure to “bad” music is essential for instilling the beliefs and behaviors most conducive to justice, such a policy is shown to be both unnecessary and counter-productive. As the conversation of the Republic itself dramatizes, justice entails confronting difficult tensions. Encouraging mindfulness towards music can facilitate the development of this important virtue.

After a long discussion in which the foreign sophist Hippias proves unable to define the beautiful, Plato's Hippias Major ends with Socrates proclaiming he has benefitted from their conversation for he now understands the proverb 'beautiful things are difficult.' To make sense of this puzzling conclusion, I argue that we must connect Socrates' claim to have 'benefitted' from conversing with Hippias to the dialogue's opening discussion on why it would be 'more beneficial' for the Spartans to allow Hippias to educate them. Investigating this link, it becomes clear that the dialogue aims to critique the Spartan ban on foreign education.

Though recent scholarship challenges the traditional interpretation of Plato as anti-democratic, his antipathy to cultural diversity is still generally assumed. The Menexenus appears to offer some of the most striking evidence of Platonic xenophobia, as it features Socrates delivering a mock funeral oration that glorifies Athens' exclusion of foreigners. Yet when readers play along with Socrates' exhortation to imagine the oration through the voice of its alleged author Aspasia, Pericles' foreign mistress, the oration becomes ironic or dissonant. Through this, Plato shows that foreigners can act as gadflies, liberating citizens from the intellectual hubris that occasions democracy's fall into tyranny. In reminding readers of Socrates' death, the dialogue warns, however, that fear of education may prevent democratic citizens from appreciating the role of cultural diversity in cultivating the virtue of Socratic wisdom.

In the vast scholarly literature on Plato and the poets, Plato’s engagement with non-Greek poetry has largely gone unexamined. This article fills that gap by exploring the role of non-Greek poetry in the Republic. It argues that, upon close examination, the music of the “beautiful” city in speech, Kallipolis, blends Greek and non-Greek elements. This suggests that Socrates’ warning not to allow changes in music is meant not to exclude foreign poetry, but, conversely, to ensure its inclusion. Socrates’ insistence that the ideal city not change from a form of music that, as it turns out, harmonizes the Greek and the non-Greek makes sense as a response to the Athenians’ segregation of Athenian and Thracian mousikē during the Bendideia. In contrast to the false harmony of the Bendideia, Socrates recommends a musical education that promotes a simple harmony of two cultures. Kallipolis is not Socrates’ final word, however. Rather, it represents a stepping-stone on the way towards the image of the cosmos that replaces the Homeric model: the eight distinct notes of the Sirens—matching the seven notes and repeated octave of the diatonic scale—forming a perfect harmony as presented in the Myth of Er.

Though Plato's Euthydemus is usually interpreted as an unambiguous attempt to discredit the sophists' teaching methods, I argue that the dialogue defends the role sophists play in philosophic education. Read in its dramatic context, the dialogue reveals that sophists offer a low-stakes environment for the testing and development of an important political virtue: moderation. The sophist's classroom facilitates the cultivation of moderation by simulating the agonistic conditions of the assembly or courtroom, where many encounter temptations to bully others verbally. By arousing one's inner bully, the sophists expose the limits of one's moderation. While not sufficient for developing moderation, such self-revelations constitute a necessary part of the process even for a philosopher like Socrates. Ironically, by bringing out the worst in their students, the sophists unknowingly supply a protreptic to philosophy.

Nearly twenty years ago, Martha Nussbaum’s Cultivating Humanity defended the Socratic method as a valuable tool for helping citizens engage in self-examination and thereby become more cosmopolitan or open to diversity. In response, some reviewers suggested the Socratic method may not be suitable for multicultural classrooms, that it may in fact be culturally imperialistic. Three main arguments form the basis of these critiques: (1) the “linguistic imperialism” critique, which posits that in assuming a particular language in which to frame the discourse (in Socrates’ case, Greek), the Socratic method privileges certain participants and cultural paradigms; (2) the “normative imperialism” critique, that in valuing critical thinking and the input of students the Socratic method presupposes the superiority of a particular set of norms; and (3) the “philosophic imperialism” critique, that the Socratic method is intrinsically imperialistic in its attempt to convert participants to the philosophic way of life. Attending to these critiques, this chapter argues that while the Socratic method is situated in a particular cultural milieu, it is one of the few teaching methods that allows for and thrives on difference, and that encourages reflection upon the method itself. Thus, the Socratic method provides an exceptional educational model for culturally diverse classrooms.

What can account for the renewal of interest in Socrates and Socratic philosophy in the nineteenth century? In The Socratic Individual, Ann Ward argues that nineteenth-century thinkers-namely, Søren Kierkegaard, John Stuart Mill, and Friedrich Nietzsche-returned to Socrates in reaction to G.W.F. Hegel's claim that philosophy as the search for wisdom becomes superfluous with the emergence of the perfectly rationalized, modern liberal state at the end of history. Challenging Hegel's deification of the modern state and concomitant putting to rest of Socratic skepticism, these nineteenth-century thinkers showed that the democratic age cannot thrive without the kind of individuality exemplified by the Socratic philosopher. While each recovers a different model of the Socratic individual, all three portray Socratic philosophy as encompassing more than the rational comprehension of universal truths.

https://voegelinview.com/the-need-for-a-new-socrates-a-review-of-ann-wards-the-socratic-individual/?fbclid=IwAR0C_VObRvZXGT9vFNzV_4KqUt6_dqD5JZFgzpSFuMABDSBL6ZXXvQjcxWQ

The place of foreigners in Plato's thought remains understudied despite the prevalence of foreign characters, myths, and practices throughout his dialogues. Attending to this gap in the scholarly literature, this dissertation challenges conventional depictions of Plato as hostile to diversity by showing that Plato makes a compelling case for why we should engage with foreigners: the epistemological benefits of cross-cultural engagement. Through exegetical readings of the Republic, Laws, Phaedrus, and Menexenus, I argue that Plato finds cross-cultural dialogue epistemologically beneficial owing to its ability to provoke us to philosophize together, an activity at once conducive to the quest for wisdom and generative of friendship. Put simply, conversations with foreigners perform the same role as the Socratic gadfly of stinging us into consciousness. This finding has major implications for the field of political theory and, specifically, for the role of the new subfield commonly referred to as comparative political theory. By demonstrating the centrality of cross-cultural dialogue to Plato's conception of political theory, this dissertation suggests that comparative political theory is not a deviation from the tradition of Western political theory, but a restoration of it. As such, reinvigorating the practice of political theory as a comparative enterprise may be more crucial than most political theorists think.

Note: This dissertation was revised and published as a book. It is recommended that you read the book instead (titled Plato's Caves: The Liberating Sting of Cultural Diversity). https://global.oup.com/academic/product/platos-caves-9780190936983?cc=us&lang=en&#