General Information
Course Description
9576 - The Seduction of Sophistry - Sophistry is not only a twisting of wisdom (Sophia) that was branded as erroneous or heretical by the iron tongue of logic of the strong arm of the Church; as seduction in languages, sophistry is also an exercise in refined danger, and an enactment of subtlety that thaws the congealment of totalizing drives; in all, it is a praxis of alertness, of tasteful playing, and of a brilliance leading to the loose ends of a difficult freedom.
The course combines the study of contemporary theoretical texts (Heidegger, Arendt, Deleuze, Derrida) with texts literary (Lucian, Apuleius, Rabelais, Melville, Thomas Mann, J.C. Oates), classical-philosophical (Plato's Sopist, Gorgias, and Parmenides; Kierkegaard's Diary of a Seducer), logical (Aristotle's De sophisticis elenchis) and rhetorical (Quintilian's Institutions, etc.)
