Last week, a Texas university told a philosophy professor that he needed to remove certain passages from Plato’s Symposium from his Introduction to Philosophy course. The decision followed a vote barring courses from addressing - or “advocating” (depending on how you read it) - race or gender ideology, including topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.
Unsurprisingly, there was a significant amount of noise around this. As I started to read the various news reports, I found myself moving fairly quickly from confusion to disbelief.
My first reaction was quite simple: banning Plato from an introductory philosophy course is utterly absurd. Plato is the foundational Western philosopher. To study philosophy without Plato - uncensored - is like reading footnotes without the text. Nearly every major philosopher after him - Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Kant - is either extending Plato or arguing with him. You can’t follow the plot of philosophical inquiry if you…
