What Is Courage? Socrates, Language, and the Problem of Meaning

This evening class explores these questions through Plato’s dialogue Laches, using the discussion of courage as a gateway into much wider issues about language, knowledge, and authority. When Socrates asks for a strict definition of bravery, he raises a problem that later re-emerges in analytic philosophy with figures such as Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and Ludwig Wittgenstein: can words always be captured by strict definitions, or does language do more than simply label neatly defined concepts? We will consider whether the search for exact definitions is always productive, what this means for ideas such as art, music, and virtue, and how different models of language shape contemporary debates, including those surrounding artificial intelligence. Along the way, we examine the nature of expertise, the limits of authority, the role of trust in knowledge, and the Socratic method as a discipline of intellectual humility and moral self-scrutiny. Once again, no prior knowledge of philosophy is required. Further details here: https://www.adrianbrockless.com/evening-classes