BA, Cornell University. MA, PhD, Pennsylvania State University. Davis works primarily in Greek philosophy, in moral and political philosophy, and in what might be called the “poetics” of philosophy. He is an author, translator, and editor of books and articles on a variety of philosophers from Plato to Heidegger and of literary figures ranging from Homer and the Greek tragedians to Saul Bellow and Tom Stoppard. SLC, 1977–
Previous Courses
Philosophy
Ancient Philosophy (Plato)
Intermediate, Seminar—Spring
This course will be devoted to a careful reading of one text. The goal of the course is twofold. First, it is designed to acquaint students in more than a superficial way with, perhaps, the seminal figure in the philosophical tradition. (The 20th-century philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, once remarked that the “safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.) This will force us to slow our usual pace of reading, to read almost painfully carefully, with a view to understanding Plato as he wrote and as he understood himself and not as a stage in a historical development. The second part of the goal of the course is to introduce and encourage this kind of careful reading. The text for Spring 2022 will be Plato’s Phaedo.
Faculty
Michael Davis