http://www.egs.edu Simon Critchley, philosopher and author, talking about Plato's "Republic," specifically books three and four, Socrates' expulsion of the poets from the city, diegesis and mimesis. In this lecture Simon Critchley discusses the concepts of identity, tyranny, poetry and affect in relationship to Homer, Martin Heidegger, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jürgen Habermas, Judith Butler, Aristotle, catharsis, gender difference focusing on the philosophy and its relation to grief, lamentation and the irrational. Public open lecture for the students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS Media and Communication Studies department program Saas-Fee Switzerland Europe. 2011. Simon Critchley.

Simon Critchley, Ph.D., is Chair and Professor of Philosophy at The New School, as well as a professor at the European Graduate School (EGS). Simon Critchley was born on February 27, 1960 in Hertfordshire, England. He is a world renowned scholar of Continental Philosophy and phenomenology. Much of his work examines the crucial relationship between the ethical and political within philosophy.

Simon Critchley's published work deals largely with disappointment and it's relationship to philosophy; chiefly, religious or political disappointment. Simon Critchley's published works include: Ethics-Politics-Subjectivity: Essays on Derrida (1999), Levinas, and Contemporary French Thought (1999), The Ethics of Deconstruction (2000), Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2001), On Humour (2002), Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance (2008), and The Book of Dead Philosophers (2008).