FYS 23 Self-Sacrifice in the History of Philosophy
Sometime in the year 399 BCE, the Athenian philosopher Socrates, convicted of impiety and corrupting the youth, fulfilled his death sentence by calmly draining a cup of poison hemlock, lifted to his mouth by his own hand. On June 1, 1310 CE, the French philosopher Marguerite Porete, deemed a heretic by a council of theologians, stood, according to one onlooker, "noble and devout" in the Place de Grève in Paris, moments before enduring the horror of being burned alive. Both refused numerous opportunities to avoid their fate. Socrates's rich friends repeatedly offered to buy his way out of trouble. Porete was afforded multiple opportunities to disown her writings and recant her views. Knowing full well the dangers they faced, both chose instead to sacrifice themselves for their convictions. Underlying their practice, the philosophical teachings of Socrates and Porete express theoretical viewpoints on the themes involved in their own fatal acts—the nature of the soul, justice, wisdom, nobility, and devotion—as well as on the very idea of self-sacrifice. In this seminar, we'll consider these two episodes, and how they relate, from both historical/practical and philosophical/theoretical vantage points. In the first part, we'll read the "first tetralogy" of Plato's dialogues—Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo—which recounts Socrates's final days and also serves as one of the finest introductions to philosophical inquiry available. In the second part, we'll read Porete's condemned Mirror of Simple Souls, a dazzlingly surreal work of apophatic mysticism that reports a conversation between personifications of Love, Reason, Soul, and other interlocutors. Throughout, we'll supplement this primary reading with selections from other thinkers in related contexts, as well as secondary literature from modern philosophers and historians.
Prerequisite
Open only to first year frosh