News & Publications
Santa Fe
Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series: Russell Winslow, “Human Nature and Democracy in Plato’s Republic”
WHAT: St. John’s College Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series
DESCRIPTION: The Graduate Institute Summer Lectures are given by St. John’s tutors, last about an hour, are followed by discussion, and are free and open to the public.
WHO: Russell Winslow, “Human Nature and Democracy in Plato’s Republic”
WHEN: Wednesday, July 2, at 3 p.m.
WHERE: Junior Common Room, Peterson Student Center, St. John’s College, 1160 Camino Cruz Blanca, Santa Fe NM
CONTACT: 984-6000 (St. John’s College Switchboard)
In his lecture, Russell Winslow disrupts the long established view that Plato’s commitment to aristocracy is absolute, and his disdain for democracy complete. Winslow shows that while it is indisputable that for Plato, the best human soul is the aristocratic soul, it is possible that the only way that the soul can be ordered aristocratically—i.e., can be responsible for and examine itself as regards its very being—is by being born in a city organized democratically. In the Republic, only a democracy provides the occasion for the developing soul to wakefully take on its self-responsibility as a member of the polis.