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Plato and the Divided Self
by Tad Brennan Charles Brittain Rachel BarneyPlato's account of the tripartite soul is a memorable feature of dialogues like the Republic, Phaedrus and Timaeus: it is one of his most famous and influential yet least understood theories. It presents human nature as both essentially multiple and diverse - and yet somehow also one - divided into a fully human 'rational' part, a lion-like 'spirited part' and an 'appetitive' part likened to a many-headed beast. How these parts interact, how exactly each shapes our agency and how they are affected by phenomena like eros and education is complicated and controversial. The essays in this book investigate how the theory evolves over the whole of Plato's work, including the Republic, Phaedrus and Timaeus, and how it was developed further by important Platonists such as Galen, Plutarch and Plotinus. They will be of interest to a wide audience in philosophy and classics.
Plato and the English Romantics (Routledge Library Editions: Plato)
by E Douka KabitoglouThis book tackles the problematic relationship between Platonic philosophy and Romantic poetry, between the intellect and the emotions. Drawing on contemporary critical theory, especially hermeneutics and deconstruction, the author shows that a dialogue between thinking and poetizing is possible. The volume yields many new insights into both Platonic and Romantic texts and forms an important work for scholars and students of Greek philosophy, Romantic literature and critical theory.
Plato and the Individual (Routledge Library Editions: Plato)
by David RankinThis book explores the life-history of the individual within the context of Plato’s social thought. The author examines Plato’s treatment of the principal crises in an individual life - birth, educational selection, sex, the individual’s contract with society, old age, death, and life after death – and provides an unprecedented analysis of Plato’s theory of genetics as it appears in the Timaeus. Comparisons are made with contemporary developments in anthropology, sociology, and comparative myth but without losing sight of the fact that Plato, whilst having much to say to the modern world, was not a modern.
Plato and the Invention of Life
by Michael NaasThough the question of life (whether bios or zōē) is not the explicit focus of any Platonic dialogue, it is, this book argues, an absolutely central and structuring question for all of Plato’s thought, and perhaps especially for his ontology. This is nowhere more evident than in the Statesman, where the central myth of the two ages sketches out not only two models of time and governance but two very different kinds and valences of life and being. Life Forms: Plato’s Statesman and the Invention of True Itself begins by offering a reading of Plato’s Statesman in order then to ask about the question of life and being in Plato’s thought more generally. By characterizing being (whether in the form of the Forms or the immortal soul) in terms of life, Plato in many of his later dialogues, including the Statesman, begins to discover—or, better, to invent—a notion of true or real life that would be opposed to all merely biological or animal life, a form of life that would be more valuable than everything we call life and every life that can actually be lived. This emphasis on life in the Platonic dialogues will, this work shows, at once illuminate the structural relationship between so many of Plato’s most time-honored distinctions (e.g., being and becoming, soul and body, etc.) and help explain the enormous power and authority that Plato’s thought has exercised, for good or ill, over our entire philosophical and religious tradition.
Plato and the Mythic Tradition in Political Thought
by Tae-Yeoun KeumAn ambitious reinterpretation and defense of Plato’s basic enterprise and influence, arguing that the power of his myths was central to the founding of philosophical rationalism.Plato’s use of myths—the Myth of Metals, the Myth of Er—sits uneasily with his canonical reputation as the inventor of rational philosophy. Since the Enlightenment, interpreters like Hegel have sought to resolve this tension by treating Plato’s myths as mere regrettable embellishments, irrelevant to his main enterprise. Others, such as Karl Popper, have railed against the deceptive power of myth, concluding that a tradition built on Platonic foundations can be neither rational nor desirable.Tae-Yeoun Keum challenges the premise underlying both of these positions. She argues that myth is neither irrelevant nor inimical to the ideal of rational progress. She tracks the influence of Plato’s dialogues through the early modern period and on to the twentieth century, showing how pivotal figures in the history of political thought—More, Bacon, Leibniz, the German Idealists, Cassirer, and others—have been inspired by Plato’s mythmaking. She finds that Plato’s followers perennially raised the possibility that there is a vital role for myth in rational political thinking.
Plato and the Post-Socratic Dialogue
by Charles H. KahnPlato's late dialogues have often been neglected because they lack the literary charm of his earlier masterpieces. Charles Kahn proposes a unified view of these diverse and difficult works, from the Parmenides and Theaetetus to the Sophist and Timaeus, showing how they gradually develop the framework for Plato's late metaphysics and cosmology. The Parmenides, with its attack on the theory of Forms and its baffling series of antinomies, has generally been treated apart from the rest of Plato's late work. Kahn shows that this perplexing dialogue is the curtain-raiser on Plato's last metaphysical enterprise: the step-by-step construction of a wider theory of Being that provides the background for the creation story of the Timaeus. This rich study, the natural successor to Kahn's earlier Plato and the Socratic Dialogue, will interest a wide range of readers in ancient philosophy and science.
Plato and the Stoics
by A. G. LongPlato was central both to the genesis of Stoic theory and to subsequent debates within the Stoa. These essays provide new and detailed explorations of the complex relationship between Plato and the Greek and Roman Stoic traditions, and together they show the directness and independence with which Stoics examined Plato's writing. What were the philosophical incentives to consulting and then returning to Plato's dialogues? To what extent did Plato, rather than Xenophon or Antisthenes, control Stoic reconstructions of Socrates' ethics? What explains the particular focus of Stoic polemic against Plato, and how strong is the evidence for a later reconciliation between Plato and Stoicism? This book will be important for all scholars and advanced students interested in the relationship between a major philosopher and one of the most important philosophical movements.
Plato and the Talmud
by Jacob HowlandThis innovative study sees the relationship between Athens and Jerusalem through the lens of the Platonic dialogues and the Talmud. Howland argues that these texts are animated by comparable conceptions of the proper roles of inquiry and reasoned debate in religious life, and by a profound awareness of the limits of our understanding of things divine. Insightful readings of Plato's Apology, Euthyphro, and chapter three of tractate Ta'anit explore the relationship of prophets and philosophers, fathers and sons, and gods and men (among other themes), bringing to light the tension between rational inquiry and faith that is essential to the speeches and deeds of both Socrates and the Talmudic sages. In reflecting on the pedagogy of these texts, Howland shows in detail how Talmudic aggadah and Platonic drama and narrative speak to different sorts of readers in seeking mimetically to convey the living ethos of rabbinic Judaism and Socratic philosophizing.
Plato and the Traditions of Ancient Literature
by Richard HunterExploring both how Plato engaged with existing literary forms and how later literature then created 'classics' out of some of Plato's richest works, this book includes chapters on such subjects as rewritings of the Apology and re-imaginings of Socrates' defence, Plato's high style and the criticisms it attracted, and how Petronius and Apuleius threaded Plato into their wonderfully comic texts. The scene for these case studies is set through a thorough examination of how the tradition constructed the relationship between Plato and Homer, of how Plato adapted poetic forms of imagery to his philosophical project in the Republic, of shared techniques of representation between poet and philosopher and of foreshadowings of later modes of criticism in his Ion. This is a major contribution to Platonic studies, to the history of Platonic reception from the fourth century BC to the third century AD and to the literature of the Second Sophistic.
Plato and the Virtue of Courage
by Linda R. RabiehWinner of the first Delba Winthrop Mansfield Award for Excellence in Political SciencePlato and the Virtue of Courage canvasses contemporary discussions of courage and offers a new and controversial account of Plato's treatment of the concept. Linda R. Rabieh examines Plato's two main thematic discussions of courage, in the Laches and the Republic, and discovers that the two dialogues together yield a coherent, unified treatment of courage that explores a variety of vexing questions: Can courage be separated from justice, so that one can act courageously while advancing an unjust cause? Can courage be legitimately called a virtue? What role does wisdom play in courage? What role does courage play in wisdom? Based on Plato's presentation, Rabieh argues that a refined version of traditional heroic courage, notwithstanding certain excesses to which it is prone, is worth honoring and cultivating for several reasons. Chief among these is that, by facilitating the pursuit of wisdom, such courage can provide a crucial foundation for the courage most deserving of the name.
Plato-Arg Philosophers
by J.C.B. GoslingThis book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.
Plato, Aristotle, and the Purpose of Politics
by Kevin M. CherryIn this book, Kevin M. Cherry compares the views of Plato and Aristotle about the practice, study, and, above all, the purpose of politics. The first scholar to place Aristotle's Politics in sustained dialogue with Plato's Statesman, Cherry argues that Aristotle rejects the view of politics advanced by Plato's Eleatic Stranger, contrasting them on topics such as the proper categorization of regimes, the usefulness and limitations of the rule of law, and the proper understanding of phronēsis. The various differences between their respective political philosophies, however, reflect a more fundamental difference in how they view the relationship of human beings to the natural world around them. Reading the Politics in light of the Statesman sheds new light on Aristotle's political theory and provides a better understanding of Aristotle's criticism of Socrates. Most importantly, it highlights an enduring and important question: Should politics have as its primary purpose the preservation of life, or should it pursue the higher good of living well?
Plato as Critical Theorist
by Jonny ThakkarWhat is the best possible society? How would its rulers govern and its citizens behave? Such questions are sometimes dismissed as distractions from genuine political problems, but in an era when political idealism seems a relic of the past, says Jonny Thakkar, they are more urgent than ever. A daring experiment in using ancient philosophy to breathe life into our political present, Plato as Critical Theorist takes seriously one of Plato’s central claims: that philosophers should rule. What many accounts miss is the intimate connection between Plato’s politics and his metaphysics, Thakkar argues. Philosophy is the activity of articulating how parts and wholes best fit together, while ruling is the activity that shapes the parts of society into a coherent whole conducive to the good life. Plato’s ideal society is thus one in which ideal theory itself plays a leading role. Today’s liberal democracies require not philosopher-kings legislating from above but philosopher-citizens willing to work toward a vision of the best society in their daily lives. Against the claim that such idealism is inherently illiberal, Thakkar shows that it is fully compatible with the liberal theories of both Popper and Rawls while nevertheless pushing beyond them in providing a new vantage point for the Marxian critique of capitalism.
Plato at the Googleplex
by Rebecca GoldsteinIs philosophy obsolete? Are the ancient questions still relevant in the age of cosmology and neuroscience, not to mention crowd-sourcing and cable news? The acclaimed philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein provides a dazzlingly original plunge into the drama of philosophy, revealing its hidden role in today's debates on religion, morality, politics, and science. At the origin of Western philosophy stands Plato, who got about as much wrong as one would expect from a thinker who lived 2,400 years ago. But Plato's role in shaping philosophy was pivotal. On her way to considering the place of philosophy in our ongoing intellectual life, Goldstein tells a new story of its origin, re-envisioning the extraordinary culture that produced the man who produced philosophy. But it is primarily the fate of philosophy that concerns her. Is the discipline no more than a way of biding our time until the scientists arrive on the scene? Have they already arrived? Does philosophy itself ever make progress? And if it does, why is so ancient a figure as Plato of any continuing relevance? Plato at the Googleplex is Goldstein's startling investigation of these conundra. She interweaves her narrative with Plato's own choice for bringing ideas to life--the dialogue. Imagine that Plato came to life in the twenty-first century and embarked on a multicity speaking tour. How would he handle the host of a cable news program who denies there can be morality without religion? How would he mediate a debate between a Freudian psychoanalyst and a tiger mom on how to raise the perfect child? How would he answer a neuroscientist who, about to scan Plato's brain, argues that science has definitively answered the questions of free will and moral agency? What would Plato make of Google, and of the idea that knowledge can be crowd-sourced rather than reasoned out by experts? With a philosopher's depth and a novelist's imagination and wit, Goldstein probes the deepest issues confronting us by allowing us to eavesdrop on Plato as he takes on the modern world.(With black-and-white photographs throughout.)
Plato Charmides
by Thomas G. West Grace Starry West PlatoThe Charmides is set in Athens just after the siege and battle of Potidaea (431 B.C.), the first important engagement of the long Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta.
Plato: A Complete Introduction: Teach Yourself
by Roy JacksonWritten by Dr Roy Jackson, who Senior Lecturer at the University of Gloucestershire, Plato: A Complete Introduction is designed to give you everything you need to succeed, all in one place. It covers the key areas that students are expected to be confident in, outlining the basics in clear jargon-free English, and then providing added-value features like summaries of key books, and even lists of questions you might be asked in your seminar or exam.The book uses a structure that mirrors the way Plato is taught on many university courses, with chapters including: the pre-socratics; Socrates; who was Plato?; can virtue be taught?; piety; the philosophical life; obeying the law of Athens; the Soul; knowledge as recollection; the forms; Plato's state; education and morality; Plato and art; the Later Period; Aristotle, Plato's great pupil; Neoplatonism; Plato and religion; Plato's legacy.
Plato, Diagrammatic Reasoning and Mental Models
by Susanna SaraccoThis book analyses the role of diagrammatic reasoning in Plato’s philosophy: the readers will realize that Plato, describing the stages of human cognitive development using a diagram, poses a logic problem to stimulate the general reasoning abilities of his readers. Following the examination of mental models in this book, the readers will reflect on what inferences can be useful to approach this kind of logic problem. Plato calls for a collaboration between writer and readers. In this book the readers will examine the connection between diagrams and discovery, realizing the important epistemic role of visualization. They will recognize the crucial role that diagrams play in problem solving. The logic problem elaborated by Plato is addressed considering the epistemic function of mental models. These models introduce to an advanced stage of cognitive development, in which reasoning uses in its investigations a higher-level of mathematical complexity, represented by structuralism.
Plato Dictionary
by Morris StockhammerThe companion volume to the well-known Aristotle Dictionary—a comprehensive and alphabetically organized glossary of the basic writings of Plato. For many years, Morris Stockhammer scanned through the dialogues of Plato in an effort to find and collect those pithy thoughts that represent the essence of Platonism. The perfect dictionary for philosophers and students of ancient philosophy, the Plato Dictionary includes explanations, definitions, and explications of Plato&’s vocabulary often using his own words to complete the description. Each entry also includes a citation from Plato&’s indispensable oeuvre. Morris Stockhammer was a lexicographer and historian known for his subject dictionaries on famous philosophers including Immanuel Kant, Plato, Karl Marx, and Thomas Aquinas. He also published on European economics and history.
Plato Dictionary
by Morris StockhammerIn this companion volume to the well-known Aristotle Dictionary, Morris Stockhammer offers a comprehensive and alphabetically organized glossary of the basic writings of Plato. For many years, the editor scanned through the dialogues of Plato in an effort to find and collect those pithy thoughts that represent the essence of Platonism. The perfect dictionary for philosophers and students of ancient philosophy, the Plato Dictionary includes explanations, definitions, and explications of Plato's vocabulary often using his own words to complete the description. Each entry also includes a citation from Plato’s indispensible oeuvre. Morris Stockhammer was a lexicographer and historian known for his subject dictionaries on famous philosophers including Immanuel Kant, Plato, Karl Marx, and Thomas Aquinas. He also published on European economics and history.
Plato Etc: Problems of Philosophy and their Resolution (Classical Texts in Critical Realism (Routledge Critical Realism))
by Roy BhaskarIn this concise text, Roy Bhaskar sets out to diagnose, explain and resolve the "problems of philosophy". Plato Etc. reviews all the main areas of the subject: the theory of knowledge and philosophy of science; the philosophy of logic and language; the philosophies of space, time and causality; the philosophy of the social and life sciences and of dialectic; ethics, politics and aesthetics; and the history and sociology of philosophy. Among the issues discussed are the problems of induction and universals, the question of relativism, Heidegger’s "scandal of philosophy" (the search for a proof of the reality of the external world), the nature of moral truth and the conundrum of free will and determinism. The last two chapters consist of a synoptic account of the development of Western philosophy from the pre-Socratics to poststructuralism. Plato Etc. seeks to revindicate the philosophical project, and to demonstrate that the author’s "dialectical critical realism" has the categorical power to remedy the problem fields of philosophy. The book serves both as a critical introduction to philosophy and as an invaluable resource for the scholar.
Plato Euthydemus
by Gregory A. Mcbrayer Mary P. Nichols Plato Denise SchaefferThe dialogue, in which Socrates converses with two sophists whose techniques of verbal manipulation utterly disengage language from any grounding in stable meaning or reality, is in many ways a dialogue for our times. Contemporary questions of language and power permeate the speech and action of the dialogue. The two sophists--Euthydemus and his brother Dionysodorus--explicitly question whether speech has any connection to truth and specifically whether anything can be said about justice and nobility that cannot also be said about their opposites.
Plato: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo (Hackett Classics Series)
by Plato G. M. A. Grube John M. CooperThe second edition of Five Dialogues presents G. M. A. Grube's distinguished translations, as revised by John Cooper for Plato, Complete Works. A number of new or expanded footnotes are also included along with an updated bibliography.
Plato for Everyone
by Aviezer TuckerHow do we decide what is good and bad? What is virtue? What constitutes a meaningful life? These are some of the intractable, still-relevant questions that the ancient Greek philosopher Plato grappled with 2,500 years ago. Unfortunately, Plato's dialogues, featuring his famous mentor Socrates, often prove difficult to understand for many contemporary readers. Students today miss the ancient cultural and historical references, and they have trouble following Plato's arguments as presented in dialogue format. This book remedies these problems by recasting five of Plato's dialogues into accessible and entertaining short stories in modern settings. The Euthyphro becomes a tale about a televangelist bent on disowning his son at a denominational boarding school in rural Virginia; the Crito - retitled "What do you have to do for your country?" - is focused on the question of whether a US citizen who considers a current war to be unjust should avoid a military draft by moving to Canada. In all of the stories (the Meno, the Statesman, and Phaedo are also included), the central character is Socrates, just as in the original dialogues, but here the maverick philosopher appears in twenty-first-century guise. The author, who has taught philosophy for many years, captures the tone, wit, and philosophical essence of Plato's dialogues in a modern English interpretation that is often amusing and fun to read. For instructors looking for an engaging way to interest undergraduates in Plato and for students who find the original works a bit daunting, this book offers an enlightening and enjoyable read.
Plato Goes to China: The Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism
by Shadi BartschThe surprising story of how Greek classics are being pressed into use in contemporary China to support the regime’s political agendaAs improbable as it may sound, an illuminating way to understand today’s China and how it views the West is to look at the astonishing ways Chinese intellectuals are interpreting—or is it misinterpreting?—the Greek classics. In Plato Goes to China, Shadi Bartsch offers a provocative look at Chinese politics and ideology by exploring Chinese readings of Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, and other ancient writers. She shows how Chinese thinkers have dramatically recast the Greek classics to support China’s political agenda, diagnose the ills of the West, and assert the superiority of China’s own Confucian classical tradition.In a lively account that ranges from the Jesuits to Xi Jinping, Bartsch traces how the fortunes of the Greek classics have changed in China since the seventeenth century. Before the Tiananmen Square crackdown, the Chinese typically read Greek philosophy and political theory in order to promote democratic reform or discover the secrets of the success of Western democracy and science. No longer. Today, many Chinese intellectuals use these texts to critique concepts such as democracy, citizenship, and rationality. Plato’s “Noble Lie,” in which citizens are kept in their castes through deception, is lauded; Aristotle’s Politics is seen as civic brainwashing; and Thucydides’s criticism of Athenian democracy is applied to modern America.What do antiquity’s “dead white men” have left to teach? By uncovering the unusual ways Chinese thinkers are answering that question, Plato Goes to China opens a surprising new window on China today.
Plató i un ornitorinc entren en un bar: Entendre la filosofia amb acudits
by Thomas Cathcart Daniel KleinPot haver-hi un llibre més original? Una aproximació a la filosofia a través d'acudits. Morty arriba a casa seva i es troba la dona i el seu millor amic Lou, despullats al llit. Quan Morty està a punt d'obrir la boca, Lou surt d'un salt del llit i li diu: «Abans que diguis res, amic meu, a qui creuràs, a mi o als teus ulls?» Lou planteja la pregunta sobre quina mena de dades són segures i per què. És fantàstic, diuen els autors, hi ha una colla d'acudits que ocupen el mateix terreny d'idees que les disciplines filosòfiques. Cathcart i Klein ens fan veure què significa la lògica, l'existencialisme, la relativitat, l'ètica, etc., a través d'aquest llibre ple de vida i d'historietes divertides. També les probabilitats i l'estadística. «Si has de pujar en un avió, i vols sentir-te segur, porta una bomba. Perquè les probabilitats que a l'avió hi hagi algú que en porti una altra són ínfimes».