Plato's dialogues frequently criticize traditional Greek myth, yet Plato also integrates myth with his writing. Daniel S. Werner confronts this paradox through an in-depth analysis of the Phaedrus, Plato's most mythical dialogue. Werner argues that the myths of the Phaedrus serve several complex functions: they bring nonphilosophers into the philosophical life; they offer a starting point for philosophical inquiry; they unify the dialogue as a literary and dramatic whole; they draw attention to the limits of language and the limits of knowledge; and they allow Plato to co-opt cultural authority as a way of defining and legitimating the practice of philosophy. Platonic myth, as a species of traditional tale, is thus both distinct from philosophical dialectic and similar to it. Ultimately, the most powerful effect of Platonic myth is the way in which it leads readers to participate in Plato's dialogues and to engage in a process of self-examination.
An innovative attempt to read Plato with the Talmud, and the Talmud with Plato, this book examines Platonic and Talmudic dialogues to show that in a sense they are not dialogic at all, but a monologic
Despite increasing interest in the figure of Socrates and in love in ancient Greece, no recent monograph studies these topics in all four of Plato's dialogues on love and friendship. This book provides important new insights into these subjects by examining Plato's characterization of Socrates in Symposium, Phaedrus, Lysis and the often neglected Alcibiades I. It focuses on the specific ways in which the philosopher searches for wisdom together with his young interlocutors, using an art that is 'erotic', not in a narrowly sexual sense, but because it shares characteristics attributed to the daimon Eros in Symposium. In all four dialogues, Socrates' art enables him, like Eros, to search for the beauty and wisdom he recognizes that he lacks and to help others seek these same objects of erôs. Belfiore examines the dialogues as both philosophical and dramatic works, and considers many connections with Greek culture, including poetry and theater.
Exploring 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.
Some philosophers argue that false speech and false belief are impossible. In the Sophist, Plato addresses this 'falsehood paradox', which purports to prove that one can neither say nor believe falsehoods (because to say or believe a falsehood is to say or believe something that is not, and is therefore not there to be said or believed). In this book Paolo Crivelli closely examines the whole dialogue and shows how Plato's brilliant solution to the paradox is radically different from those put forward by modern philosophers. He surveys and critically discusses the vast range of literature which has developed around the Sophist over the past fifty years, and provides original solutions to several problems that are so far unsolved. His book will be important for all who are interested in the Sophist and in ancient ontology and philosophy of language more generally.
This collection of twenty essays explores the relevance of myth and literary form in Plato's philosophy and by extension philosophy in general. They reflect on Plato's use of myth as and its importanc
This book defends the view that a mysterious plural phrase at Phaedo 74 shows that the Self-Predication Assumptionthe idea that each Form is supposed to have the very characteristic it is supposed to
This book argues that Plato's Charmides presents a unitary but incomplete argument intended to lead its readers to substantive philosophical insights. Through careful, contextually sensitive analysis of Plato's arguments concerning the virtue of sophrosyne, Thomas M. Tuozzo brings the dialogue's lines of inquiry together, carrying Plato's argument forward to a substantive conclusion. This innovative reading of Charmides reverses misconceptions about the dialogue that stemmed from an impoverished conception of Socratic elenchus and unquestioned acceptance of ancient historiography's demonization of Critias. It views Socratic argument as a tool intended to move its addressee to substantive philosophical insights. It also argues, on the basis of recent historical research, a review of the fragments of Critias' oeuvre and Plato's use of Critias in other dialogues, that Plato had a nuanced, generally positive view of Critias. Throughout, readers are alerted to textual difficulties whose pro
This study focuses on the ancient commentaries on Plato’s Phaedo by Olympiodorus and Damascius and aims to present the relevance of their challenging and valuable readings of the dialogue to Neoplaton
Ostensibly a discussion about love, the debate in the Phaedrus also encompasses the art of rhetoric and how it should be practised. This new edition contains an introductory essay outlining the argument of the dialogue as a whole and Plato's arguments about rhetoric and eros in particular. The Introduction also considers Plato's style and offers an account of the reception of the dialogue from its composition to the twentieth century. A new Greek text of the dialogue is accompanied by a select textual apparatus. The greater part of the book consists of a Commentary, which elucidates the text and makes clear how Plato achieves his philosophical and literary objectives. Primarily intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students of ancient Greek literature and philosophy, it will also benefit scholars who want an up-to-date account of how to understand the text, argument, style and background of the work.
In Plato's Apology, Socrates says he spent his life examining and questioning people on how best to live, while avowing that he himself knows nothing important. Elsewhere, however, for example in Plato's Republic, Plato's Socrates presents radical and grandiose theses. In this book Sandra Peterson offers a hypothesis which explains the puzzle of Socrates' two contrasting manners. She argues that the apparently confident doctrinal Socrates is in fact conducting the first step of an examination: by eliciting his interlocutors' reactions, his apparently doctrinal lectures reveal what his interlocutors believe is the best way to live. She tests her hypothesis by close reading of passages in the Theaetetus, Republic and Phaedo. Her provocative conclusion, that there is a single Socrates whose conception and practice of philosophy remain the same throughout the dialogues, will be of interest to a wide range of readers in ancient philosophy and classics.
Pieper distinguishes between Platonic stories in which Plato crystallizes mythical fragments from the mere stories which contain them, and Platonic myths, in which he purifies the proper mythical elem
The seminars were held at six annual meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature, and the first volume that emerged from them highlights the dissolution of traditionally rather firm boundaries for
Wear (classics, Franciscan U. of Steubenville, Ohio) presents a revision of her 2005 PhD dissertation at Trinity College, Dublin on the teachings of Syrianus, who succeeded Plutarch of Athens as head
The Cratylus, one of Plato's most difficult and intriguing dialogues, explores the relations between a name and the thing it names. The questions that arise lead the characters to face a number of major issues: truth and falsehood, relativism, etymology, the possibility of a perfect language, the relation between the investigation of names and that of reality, the Heraclitean flux theory and the Theory of Forms. This full-scale commentary on the Cratylus offers a definitive interpretation of the dialogue. It contains translations of the passages discussed and a line-by-line analysis which deals with textual matters and unravels Plato's dense and subtle arguments, reaching a novel interpretation of some of the dialogue's main themes as well as of many individual passages. The book is intended primarily for graduate students and scholars, in both philosophy and classics, but presupposes no previous acquaintance with the subject and is accessible to undergraduates.
This volume collects a set of papers on ancient Platonism that span the nine centuries between Plato himself and his commentator Olympiodorus in the 6th century, many of them less easy to obtain. Much
Plato's Meno and Phaedo are two of the most important works of ancient western philosophy and continue to be studied around the world. The Meno is a seminal work of epistemology. The Phaedo is a key source for Platonic metaphysics and for Plato's conception of the human soul. Together they illustrate the birth of Platonic philosophy from Plato's reflections on Socrates' life and doctrines. This edition offers new and accessible translations of both works, together with a thorough introduction that explains the arguments of the two dialogues and their place in Plato's thought.
Plato's Parmenides and Its Heritage presents in two volumes ground-breaking results in the history of interpretation of Plato's Parmenides, the culmination of six years of international collaboration
Why Plato Wrote argues that Plato was not only the world’s first systematic political philosopher, but also the western world’s first think-tank activist and message man.Shows that Plato w
The late Evans (logic and metaphysics, Queens U. Belfast, Ireland) introduces students and general readers to the main theses, concepts, and arguments of Plato. Emphasizing the role of arguments in hi
