Seit Dodds’ Anwendung des Begriffs „Schamkultur“ auf die griechische Kultur genießt das Thema Scham die besondere Aufmerksamkeit der Gräzisten. Basierend auf einer detaillierten Analyse der relevanten Belegstellen im gesamten platonischen Corpus und einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit den vorherigen einschlägigen Forschungen, versucht die vorliegende Arbeit Platons Konzeption der Scham systematisch zu erläutern, und zwar thematisch unter den folgenden vier Perspektiven: dem sokratischen elenchos, der Wahrheitsliebe, dem Moralverständnis sowie der Moralerziehung im Staat. Die Studie zielt einerseits darauf ab, aufzuzeigen, dass Platons Verständnis (...) von Scham nicht so unreif ist, wie man bislang dachte; andererseits möchte sie vor Augen führen, dass Platon Scham nicht, wie traditionell angenommen, als nur negativ erachtet, sondern ihre positive Rolle in verschiedenen Gebieten durchaus anerkennt. Es wird gezeigt, dass Scham und die ihr verwandten Emotionen von Bedeutung sowohl für den platonischen Sokrates als auch für die platonische Philosophie im Ganzen sind, auch wenn der Begriff „Schamkultur“ wohl keine zutreffende Bezeichnung für seine Zeit darstellt. (shrink)

This article updates “The State of the Question in the Study of Plato” (Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1996) based on research covering the years from 1995–2015. Its three major parts examine: (1) how the mid‐twentieth‐century consensus has fared, (2) whether the new trends identified in that article have continued, and (3) identify trends either new or missed in the original article. On the whole, it shows the continuing decline of dogmatic and nondramatic Plato interpretation and the expansion and ramification of (...) the more literary, dramatic, and nondogmatic “new Platonism.” What was a growing insurgency twenty years ago can now be described as a, if not the, dominant approach. (shrink)

Plato’s dialogues can be regarded as the most important documents of the extraordinary mimetic power of visual writing, i.e., writing capable of “showing” and “drawing images” by using words only. Thanks to the great lesson of the Attic theater, Plato makes his readers see: when reading the dialogues, they see not only the characters talking but owing to the visual power of mimetic writing, they also see that which the characters are actually talking about. There are numerous rhetorical devices employed (...) by Plato the writer that make this visual rendering of philosophy possible. In this text, I would like to bring an example from the Meno that illustrates the visual power of an implicit comparison. By “implicit comparison”, I mean the special kind of comparison that is not presented explicitly and fully in the text but that the text merely evokes and that, once evoked, contributes to determining the formation of the image. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show that Plato uses contradictions in the Republic as an impulse to think and to advance in the ascent to the Idea of the good. The procedure to dissolve the main contradictions in the text is that of aphairesis, complementary to that of prosthēsis. Also if they are explicitly named just at the beginning and at the end of the ascent, I will show that aphairesis and prosthēsis are consistently applied throughout the ascendant (...) argument of Republic I-VII. Starting with the separation of the opposites at the sensible level, the process will continue separating the rational and the irrational in the soul and culminate when explicitly naming the aphairesis of the One/Good at the intelligible level. As will be seen, the opposites in question are unity and indeterminate/indefinite multiplicity. But also if named, the culminating aphairēsis of the Idea of the Good will not be consistently developed in the Republic. Some important allusions to it will also be found in the Parmenides allowing us to solve the main unresolved contradictions in the Republic in consonance with the theory of principles of the agrapha dogmata. (shrink)

RESUMO O trecho entre 276b1 e 277b3 do diálogo Fedro tem sido usado como indício de uma dicotomia entre oralidade e escrita, que seria, por sua vez, signo de uma inconciliável relação entre a dialética e a escrita. Ambas são associadas, respectivamente, a uma atividade séria e a uma brincadeira ou jogo. Em nossa leitura, pretendemos mostrar não ser possível subscrever tal associação, tendo em vista que, por um lado, a passagem deve ser lida como uma espécie de síntese de (...) uma reflexão mais abrangente e, por outro, que nela se entreveem camadas de significação produzidas pelo diálogo intertextual. Nesse sentido, propomos uma interpretação que leva em conta uma análise imanente da passagem, mostrando que ela carece dos significantes para uma dicotomia oralidade vs. escrita, seguida de uma reflexão que a repõe no enquadre do diálogo, ao analisarmos os sentidos filosóficos da imagem do “Jardim de Adônis” e da oposição entre paidiá e spoudé ABSTRACT The passage between 276b1 and 277b3 of the dialogue Phaedrus has been used to indicate a dichotomy between orality and writing as a sign of an irreconcilable relationship between dialectics and writing. Both of them are associated respectively to a serious activity and a game. In our reading, we intend to show that it is not possible to subscribe to such association, considering, on the one hand, that the passage must be read as a kind of synthesis of a more comprehensive reflection and, on the other hand, that it is possible to see in this context layers of meaning produced by an intertextual dialogue. In this sense, we propose an interpretation which takes into account an immanent analysis of the passage, showing that it does not display signifiers for subscribing the dichotomy between orality and writing, followed by a discussion that puts it back in the overall context of the dialogue, by analysing the philosophical meaning of the image of the “Gardens of Adonis” and the opposition between paidiá and spoudé. (shrink)

Within the framework of the discussion about the existence of a spokesman in the Platonic dialogues, we look, in the first part, into the possible transfer of this spokesman’s function from Socrates to the Eleatic Stranger, identifying the contact and divergence points between both characters. In the second part, we try to show that this transfer has a dramatic staging at the beginning of the Sophist dialogue, where Socrates makes a demand that enables the Stranger to demonstrate his genuine philosophical (...) condition. (shrink)

Despite how revered Socrates is among many educators nowadays, he can seem in the end to be a poor model for them, particularly because of how often he refutes his interlocutors and poses leading questions. As critics have noted, refuting people can turn them away from inquiry instead of drawing them in, and being too directive with them can squelch independent thought. I contend, though, that Socrates' practices are more defensible than they often look: although there are risks in refuting (...) people and posing leading questions, Socrates has sensible ways of minimizing the risks, ways that are feasible even for teachers nowadays, and there are times when the risks are worth taking. I illustrate my point by discussing Plato's _Meno_. (shrink)