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)

Commentators of Plato’s Symposium rarely recognize the importance of traditional Greek conceptions of Eros, paideia and arête in understanding Plato’s critique of the various educational models presented in the dialogue. I will show how Plato contests these models by proposing that education should consist of philosophy. On this interpretation, ancient Greek pedagogy culminates in a philosophical education. For this new form of education, the dialogical model supplants the traditional practices of kléos and poetic mimēsis, inextricably bound to archaia paideia and (...) traditional forms of education. Plato’s Socrates is searching for knowledge and immortality through an application of the philosophical method, one that relies on a conception of Eros and propagation. For Plato’s Socrates, it is through Eros that ancient Greek paideia educates in matters of arête, but eros is not a passion for kléos or for a beautiful young man. Rather, eros is the passion for Beauty itself, a passion that is pursued through philosophical conversation with another, a life of arête. Thus, our investigation serves to define and criticize the various educational models and defend the claim that philosophy is best suited for educating the citizens of Athens. (shrink)