Platonic Studies
Platonic Studies

Author: Gregory Vlastos

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-03-09

Total Pages: 499

ISBN-13: 0691226954

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This book consists of Gregory Vlastos' studies on a variety of themes in Plato's metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and social philosophy. Although many of the essays have appeared in various philosophical and classical journals or symposia, new in the volume are two major studies. One is on Plato's theory of love, exploring its metaphysical dimension and its far-reaching implications for personal and political relations. The other centers on semantic and logical problems in the Sophist; it offers solutions to crucial difficulties in this fundamental Platonic work. In these essays the author presents ideas which are likely to provoke comment and may be discussed as vigorously in scholarly journals as has some of his earlier work. The other papers, some of them extensively revised, comprise virtually all the author's published work on Plato, with the exception of a few papers easily accessible elsewhere. This second edition includes three additional essays and extensive notes that were not included in the original edition.

Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy
Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy

Author: Leo Strauss

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1983

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 0226777006

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One of the outstanding thinkers of our time offers in this book his final words to posterity. Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy was well underway at the time of Leo Strauss's death in 1973. Having chosen the title for the book, he selected the most important writings of his later years and arranged them to clarify the issues in political philosophy that occupied his attention throughout his life. As his choice of title indicates, the heart of Strauss's work is Platonism—a Platonism that is altogether unorthodox and highly controversial. These essays consider, among others, Heidegger, Husserl, Nietzsche, Marx, Moses Maimonides, Machiavelli, and of course Plato himself to test the Platonic understanding of the conflict between philosophy and political society. Strauss argues that an awesome spritual impoverishment has engulfed modernity because of our dimming awareness of that conflict. Thomas Pangle's Introduction places the work within the context of the entire Straussian corpus and focuses especially on Strauss's late Socratic writings as a key to his mature thought. For those already familiar with Strauss, Pangle's essay will provoke thought and debate; for beginning readers of Strauss, it provides a fine introduction. A complete bibliography of Strauss's writings if included.

Platonic Ethics, Old and New
Platonic Ethics, Old and New

Author: Julia Annas

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 9780801485176

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Julia Annas here offers a fundamental reexamination of Plato's ethical thought by investigating the Middle Platonist perspective, which emerged at the end of Plato's own school, the Academy. She highlights the differences between ancient and modern assumptions about Plato's ethics--and stresses the need to be more critical about our own. One of these modern assumptions is the notion that the dialogues record the development of Plato's thought. Annas shows how the Middle Platonists, by contrast, viewed the dialogues as multiple presentations of a single Platonic ethical philosophy, differing in form and purpose but ultimately coherent. They also read Plato's ethics as consistently defending the view that virtue is sufficient for happiness, and see it as converging in its main points with the ethics of the Stoics. Annas goes on to explore the Platonic idea that humankind's final end is "becoming like God"--an idea that is well known among the ancients but virtually ignored in modern interpretations. She also maintains that modern interpretations, beginning in the nineteenth century, have placed undue emphasis on the Republic, and have treated it too much as a political work, whereas the ancients rightly saw it as a continuation of Plato's ethical writings.

Who Speaks for Plato?
Who Speaks for Plato?

Author: Gerald Alan Press

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780847692194

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These essays examine a crucial premise of traditional readings of Plato's dialogues: that Plato's own philosophical dialogues can be read off the statements made in the dialogues by Socrates and other leading characters. The text argues that no character should be read as Plato's mouthpiece.

Platonic Studies
Platonic Studies

Author: Gregory Vlastos

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 1973-12-21

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 9780691100210

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This book consists of Gregory Vlastos' studies on a variety of themes in Plato's metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and social philosophy. Although many of the essays have appeared in various philosophical and classical journals or symposia, new in the volume are two major studies. One is on Plato's theory of love, exploring its metaphysical dimension and its far-reaching implications for personal and political relations. The other centers on semantic and logical problems in the Sophist; it offers solutions to crucial difficulties in this fundamental Platonic work. In these essays the author presents ideas which are likely to provoke comment and may be discussed as vigorously in scholarly journals as has some of his earlier work. The other papers, some of them extensively revised, comprise virtually all the author's published work on Plato, with the exception of a few papers easily accessible elsewhere. This second edition includes three additional essays and extensive notes that were not included in the original edition.

Studies in Plato and the Platonic Tradition
Studies in Plato and the Platonic Tradition

Author: Mark Joyal

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-28

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 1351897349

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This book, which honours the career of a distinguished scholar, contains essays dealing with important problems in Plato, the Platonic tradition, and the texts and transmission of Plato and later Platonic writers. It ranges from the discussion of issues in individual Platonic dialogues to the examination of Platonism in the Middle Ages. The essays are written by leading scholars in the field and reflect the current state of knowledge on the various problems under discussion. The collection as a whole testifies to the importance of the Platonic writings for the history of ideas, and to the vitality that the study of these writings continues to possess.

Dialogue and Dialectic
Dialogue and Dialectic

Author: Hans-Georg Gadamer

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1983-01-01

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9780300029833

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The author approaches Plato's dialogues as live discussions in which the concrete concerns of the participants define the horizons of discourse. He takes up such perplexing problems of Plato's though as the role of poetry in the state and the theory of ideal numbers and brings to them a fresh understanding. With its emphasis on the dialogue form and the dramatic situation, this work complements the main tendencies of the analytical tradition which dominates contemporary Anglo-Saxon writing on Plato.

A Platonic Theory of Moral Education
A Platonic Theory of Moral Education

Author: Mark Jonas

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-09-30

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1000195112

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Discussing Plato’s views on knowledge, recollection, dialogue, and epiphany, this ambitious volume offers a systematic analysis of the ways that Platonic approaches to education can help students navigate today’s increasingly complex moral environment. Though interest in Platonic education may have waned due to a perceived view of Platonic scholarship as wholly impractical, this volume addresses common misunderstandings of Plato’s work and highlights the contemporary relevance of Plato’s ideas to contemporary moral education. Building on philosophical interpretations, the book argues persuasively that educators might employ Platonic themes and dialogue in the classroom. Split into two parts, the book looks first to contextualise Plato’s theory of moral education within political, ethical, and educational frameworks. Equipped with this knowledge, part two then offers contemporary educators the strategies needed for implementing Plato’s educational theory within the pluralistic, democratic classroom setting. A Platonic Theory of Moral Education will be of interest to academics, researchers, and post-graduate students in the fields of: ethics; Plato scholarship; moral psychology; educational foundations; and the philosophy of education. This book would also benefit graduate students and scholars in teacher education. Mark E. Jonas is Professor of Education and Professor of Philosophy (by courtesy) at Wheaton College, US. Yoshiaki Nakazawa is Assistant Professor of Education at University of Dallas, US.

Plato's Natural Philosophy
Plato's Natural Philosophy

Author: Thomas Kjeller Johansen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2004-07-01

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1107320119

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Plato's dialogue the Timaeus-Critias presents two connected accounts, that of the story of Atlantis and its defeat by ancient Athens and that of the creation of the cosmos by a divine craftsman. This book offers a unified reading of the dialogue. It tackles a wide range of interpretative and philosophical issues. Topics discussed include the function of the famous Atlantis story, the notion of cosmology as 'myth' and as 'likely', and the role of God in Platonic cosmology. Other areas commented upon are Plato's concepts of 'necessity' and 'teleology', the nature of the 'receptacle', the relationship between the soul and the body, the use of perception in cosmology, and the work's peculiar monologue form. The unifying theme is teleology: Plato's attempt to show the cosmos to be organised for the good. A central lesson which emerges is that the Timaeus is closer to Aristotle's physics than previously thought.