Athens and Jerusalem Talk
I’m giving a talk at the Athens and Jerusalem Conference in Lawrenceburg KY on Saturday, April 7, 2018 at 4:00 PM. The talk is titled “Platonic versus Christian Conceptions of the Self.” I plan to go through several key texts from the Phaedo and the Phaedrus in which Socrates makes it clear that the person, e.g. Cebes or Simmias, is identical with the soul rather than the soul–body composite which he calls “the human being” (ὁ ἄνθρωπος). This is in contrast to the standard Christian view that understands the person to be identical to the total soul–body composite and essentially human. Everyone is invited to join in, and the whole conference looks like it will be fun for anyone interested in the interplay between classical and Christian thought.