This selective and opinionated overview of English-language scholarship on the philosophical method(s) of Plato's Socrates discusses whether this Socrates has any expertise or method, how he examines others and why, and how he exhorts others to care about wisdom and the state of their soul.

Guided by the bold ambition to reexamine the nature of philosophy, questions about the foundations and origins of Plato’s dialogues have in recent years gained a new and important momentum. In the wake of the seminal work of Andrea Nightingale and especially her book Genres in Dialogue from 1995, Plato’s texts have come to be reconsidered in terms of their compositional and intergeneric fabric. Supplementing important research on the argumentative structures of the dialogues, it has been argued that Plato’s philosophizing (...) cannot be properly assessed without considering its intellectual debts. By detailed examinations of the practical, generic and textual origins of the dialogues, it has been shown how Plato’s chosen form of philosophical inquiry is deeply influenced by traditional forms of poetry, rhetoric, sophistry, and even medicine... (shrink)

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argues that moral disagreement and widespread moral bias pose a serious problem for moral intuitionism. Seneca’s view that we just recognise the good could be criticised using a similar argument. His approach to argumentation offers a way out, one that may serve as a model for a revisionary intuitionism.

This book promotes the research of present-day women working in ancient and medieval philosophy, with more than 60 women having contributed in some way to the volume in a fruitful collaboration. It contains 22 papers organized into ten distinct parts spanning the sixth century BCE to the fifteenth century CE. Each part has the same structure: it features, first, a paper which sets up the discussion, and then, one or two responses that open new perspectives and engage in further reflections. (...) Our authors’ contributions address pivotal moments and players in the history of philosophy: women philosophers in antiquity, Cleobulina of Rhodes, Plato, Lucretius, Bardaisan of Edessa, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Plotinus, Porphyry, Peter Abelard, Robert Kilwardby, William Ockham, John Buridan, and Isotta Nogarola. The result is a thought-provoking collection of papers that will be of interest to historians of philosophy from all horizons. Far from being an isolated effort, this book is a contribution to the ever-growing number of initiatives which endeavour to showcase the work of women in philosophy. (shrink)

In fragments from the Protrepticus, Aristotle offers three linked arguments for the view that philosophy is easy. According to an obvious normative worry, however, Aristotle also seems to think that the easiness of many activities has little to do with their choiceworthiness. Hence, if the Protrepticus seeks to exhort its audience to philosophize on the basis of philosophy’s easiness, then perhaps the Protrepticus provides the wrong sort of hortatory appeal. In response, I briefly situate Aristotle’s arguments in their dialectical context. (...) On this basis, I elucidate what sort of easiness Aristotle attributes to philosophy, and what difference Aristotle thinks philosophy’s easiness makes to its choiceworthiness. (shrink)

El presente artículo propone una lectura del Eutidemo de Platón a partir de la escena que tiene lugar en el prólogo del diálogo, en el cual un personaje misterioso critica a Sócrates y a los hermanos erísticos por la conversación que acaba de tener lugar. Defenderé que esta figura anónima esconde a Isócrates, quien en Contra los sofistas y Encomio de Helena había atacado a todos los discípulos de Sócrates por dedicarse a un tipo de actividad intelectual a su juicio (...) volcada a la pura disputa y sin utilidad para la vida cívica. Propondré que el Eutidemo constituye una respuesta a dicha crítica, en tanto que los dos modelos protrépticos de la obra le permiten a Platón distinguir su forma de emplear la dialéctica de la de otros de sus condiscípulos, principalmente los megáricos, así como sentar las bases de su proyecto filosófico-político fundado en el concepto de conocimiento. (shrink)

This paper explores the role the Panhellenic centers played in facilitating the circulation of wisdom in ancient Greece. It argues that there are substantial thematic overlaps among practitioners of wisdom , who are typically understood as belonging to different categories . By focusing on the presence of σοφοί at the Panhellenic centers in general, and Delphi in particular, we can acquire a more accurate picture of the particular expertise they possessed, and of the range of meanings the Greeks attributed to (...) the word σοφία. This approach seeks to challenge the conventional categories of modern scholarship and to offer a broader and more inclusive interpretive framework in its stead. One such thematic overlap is the way in which many σοφοί are described as exerting an almost uncanny, yet highly conventional ability to attract listeners and enchant them with their verbal performances. There is plenty of material to support the view that σοφοό, through tapping into the repository of σοφία that Delphi constituted and by aligning themselves with its authority, were seen as themselves being a conduit for a similar type of charismatic speech. (shrink)

En este trabajo me interesa abordar la figura del poeta legislador Solón, a fin de examinar la influencia que sus escritos pudieron haber ejercido sobre la concepción de la poesía forjada por Platón en _Leyes_. No se trata tanto de la poesía de Solón en sí misma como de lo que Platón supo leer en ella en términos de posibilidad para la conformación de un nuevo linaje poético. Partiendo de un breve examen de la figura de Solón y de algunos (...) de sus escritos, procuro dar cuenta de la influencia que aquel célebre legislador pudo haber ejercido sobre la figura platónica del poeta legislador. (shrink)

The paper starts with reflections on Plato’s critique of the poets and the preference many express for Aristotle’s view of poetry. The second part of the paper takes a case study of analytic treatments of ancient philosophy, including the ancient philosopher poets, to examine the poetics of analytic philosophy, diagnosing a preference in Analytic philosophy for a clean non-poetic style of presentation, and then develops this in considering how well historians of philosophy in the Analytic tradition can accommodate the contributions (...) of philosophers who wrote in verse. The final part of the paper reviews the current enthusiasm for decoding Empedocles’ vague and poetic descriptions of the cosmic cycle into a precise scientific periodicity on the basis of the recently discovered Byzantine scholia on Aristotle. I argue that this enthusiasm speaks to a desire for definite and clear numerical values in place of poetic motifs of give and take, and that this mathematical and scientific poetic is comparable to the preferred poetic of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

The first part of the present paper argues against any attempts to find a set of fixed points of a doctrine that could be ascribed to Socrates. The main thesis of the article has it that Socrates was part of a cultural movement that was marked by a tendency to rather raise questions than merely provide answers and boast about having a number of doctrines or doxai of their own. The second part of the paper concentrates on a number of (...) memorable innovations that eventually constituted Greek culture, e.g., the idea that it is possible and desirable to be in full control of oneself and, consequently, to shoulder responsibility for one’s deeds rather than merely avoid and deny it. Thus, Socrates and ancient Socratic literature are shown here to be a probable source of numerous ideas that the western civilization has built on for centuries, these being, for instance, the idea of the limits of our powers. Hence, the conclusion of the article is that it would be a serious mistake to exclude Socrates from this major cultural development, even though the thinker did produce neither a theory nor a body of theories. (shrink)

The gaps, fissures, and lapses of attention in a life—what I call “ordinary oblivions”—are fertile fragilities that present a compelling source for ethics. Plato, not Aristotle, is the ancient philosopher specially poised to speak to this feature of human life. Drawing upon poet C. K. Williams's idea that forgetting is a “looking away” that makes possible “beginning again,” I present a Platonic approach to ethics as an alternative to Aristotelian or virtue ethics. Plato's Phaedrus is a key source text for (...) this alternate picture; from it I suggest how we might construe Iris Murdoch's “task of seeing” in terms of the engagement with written form. Poetry is a central locale for such engagement, and thus suggests a kind of ethical praxis that arises from the theoretical emphases of my examination of forgetting, the unmoored self, remade other-regard, and sacred sources. (shrink)

The Helen of Gorgias is designed to provoke the aspiring speaker to consider his relationship with society as a whole. The speech's extreme claims regarding the power of logos reflect simplistic ideas about speaker-audience relations current among Gorgias' target audience, ideas reflected in an interpretive stance towards model speeches that privileges method over truth. The Helen pretends to encourage this conception of logos and interpretive stance in order to expose the intense desire and naïve credulity that drive a coolly technical (...) appraisal of model speeches. The Helen thus manifests, with a playfulness suited to its liminal position, a concern for the ethical and social formation of those who might accept the invitation to study logos. (shrink)

This paper examines the underlying genres of philosophy focusing especially on their pedagogical forms to emphasize the materiality and historicity of genres, texts and writing. It focuses briefly on the history of the essay and its relation to the journal within the wider history of scientific communication, and comments on the standardized forms of academic writing and the issue of 'bad writing'.

In Plato's Philebus the last section of the discussion on the falseness of pleasure is dedicated to those pleasures intrinsically mixed with pain. This paper focuses specifically on bodily mixed pleasures, an analysis that extends from 44d to 47c, while its focal point is 46-47c. By adopting the anti-hedonists' methodology, Socrates cunningly transforms his entire analysis of bodily mixed pleasures into a discourse on human disease, in which medical terminology prevails. Two major points are made in the reading suggested here. (...) Despite Socrates' quasi-medical language, a substratum of poetic discourse is underlying his analysis. Thus, a network of poetic associations—probably promptly recalled by Plato's audience—not only reveals the intertextual encounter between medical, philosophic and poetic discourses but also contributes to the interpretation of Socrates' analysis. Hence, the pathology of love as expressed through poetry illuminates the meaning, questionable in straightforward medical terms, of passage 46c6-d2, while it also reveals the unfolding unity underlying Socrates' analysis, otherwise thought to comprise three distinct medical cases. Ancient medical lore is important for the understanding of passage 46d7-47a1 on the affliction of knêsis and psôra, not only because it confirms the analogy between the physiology of knêsis and that of sexual arousal and climax, but also because it illuminates the specific medical treatment Socrates is describing. Thus, in the crucial debate about whether Plato uses the term aporiais or pyriais in 46e2, medical evidence seems to support the latter. The reading pyriais makes this complicated paragraph more comprehensible in terms of meaning and syntax, while stressing the importance of heat in the processes of both the curing of knêsis and of human orgasm. Besides, it further confirms the intertextual encounter between the Phaedrus and the Philebus. (shrink)

At 252e1 to 253c9 in Plato’s Sophist, the Eleatic Visitor explains why philosophy is a science. Like the art of grammar, philosophical knowledge corresponds to a generic structure of discrete kinds and is acquired by systematic analysis of how these kinds intermingle. In the literature, the Visitor’s science is either understood as an expression of a mature and authentic platonic metaphysics, or as a sophisticated illusion staged to illustrate the seductive lure of sophistic deception. By showing how the Visitor’s account (...) of the science of philosophy is just as comprehensive, phantasmatic and self-concealing as the art of sophistry identified at the dialogue’s outset, this paper argues in favor of the latter view. (shrink)

The figure of Socrates divides the history of Western thought into two parts. It inaugurates a model of philosophy that shaped all subsequent tradition with the sole force of its influence and the totemic aura from his tragic death. There were many accounts of what happened, but none of them overshadowed Plato's Apology of Socrates as a fundamental text for entering into the details of the trial and sentence. In this context, the opacity of this text is rarely taken into (...) account. It seems to be a testimonial document, a quasi-stenographic version of the process, but it is not. In fact, we are interested in referring to a fact that has been noted but not entirely dimensioned: Plato's Apology of Socrates presents similarities impossible to attribute to mere chance with Gorgias’ Apology of Palamedes. Why does this Platonic text present curious intertextual relationships with a rhetorical exercise based on mythical figures in the climate of the promotion of rhetoric? We will try to answer this question appealing to its link with the origin of the Socratic dialogue. (shrink)

Resumen Platón proyecta en la República un programa cultural que supone la redefinición del papel de la poesía tradicional en razón de su asociación con los regímenes democrático y tiránico. Esto, según pretendo mostrar, puede vincularse de manera legítima con la polémica anticirenaica de Platón contra Aristipo. Para ello, por un lado, exploraré los rasgos del biotipo tiránico y su régimen concomitante en la República VIII-IX y, por otro, analizaré sus vínculos con los planteamientos anticirenaicos en el Gorgias. Este examen (...) permitirá ofrecer claves de análisis para dos pasajes muy discutidos de la República IX: el símil del ascensor y el número del tirano, que cobran una nueva luz a partir de la consideración de esta polémica intrasocrática.Plato put forward in Republic a cultural program which implies the redefinition of the role of traditional poetry due to its association with the democratic and tyrannical regimes. I intend to show that this point is connected with the anti-cyrenaic arguments that Plato raises against Aristippus. On the one hand, I will study the features of the tyrannical biotype and its correspondent regime in Republic VIII-IX, and, on the other, I will analyze its links with the anti-cyrenaic arguments in Gorgias. This exam will allow us to offer some clues to better understand two widely debated passages in Republic IX: the analogy of the lift and the tyrant’s number. Both acquire a new perspective when this intra-socratic polemic is taken into account. (shrink)

Pretendemos mostrar que, no Górgias, diálogo dedicado à crítica da retórica, as frequentes alusões de Sócrates à compleição do corpo, bem como o uso recorrente de metáforas corpóreas para referir-se ao que, por analogia, passa-se com a alma servem de ferramenta retórica para fazer frente à retórica de Górgias. Desse modo, ao mesmo tempo em que chamamos atenção para a maneira como Platão se vale das armas do adversário justamente para atacá-lo, ressaltamos o papel imprescindível do corpo como evidência da (...) alma na filosofia platônica. Com isto, nosso intuito é reforçar a vertente interpretativa segundo a qual Platão pode ser entendido mais como um pensador que parte dos problemas prementes de seu tempo para daí nos conduzir a reflexões filosóficas – no diálogo em questão, as consequências políticas de uma paidéia pautada numa retórica sofística –, do que como um filósofo comprometido apenas com uma metafísica transcendente. (shrink)

Greek literature prior to Plato featured two conceptions of education. Learning takes place when people encounter “teacher-guides”—educators, mentors, and advisors. But education also occurs outside of a pedagogical relationship between learner and teacher-guide: people learn through painful experience. In composing his dramatic dialogues, Plato appropriated these two conceptions of education, refashioning and fusing them to present a new philosophical conception of learning: Plato’s Socrates is a teacher-guide who causes his interlocutors to learn through suffering. Socrates, however, is not presented straightforwardly (...) as a pedagogical success story. Socrates’ failures are, paradoxically, part of what makes him an ideal literary model for a philosophical teacher-guide. Plato requires his readers to question why Socrates’ interlocutors are not converted to philosophers. (shrink)

Platonic dialogues are self-concealing, presenting ideas by indirection or in riddling form, often exploring a difficulty or aporia without arriving at a solution. Since philosophers have begun to see Plato's work as imbued with irony, double meaning, and ambiguity, literary techniques that accommodate such layered meanings become a necessary adjunct to interpretation. The dialogue Politicus explores through an aporetic process a central Platonic concern, the relation between ideal and real. Close analysis of the important section dealing with law and constitutions (...) reveals some of the complexity. By his wayward conduct of the argument, the Eleatic stranger repeatedly forces reevaluation of earlier arguments or conclusions. At the close of the cosmic myth , the Stranger warned against confusing the divine monarch, a true shepherd, with his mortal counterpart, the best ruler, whose discovery is the aim of the dialogue. The distinction that was made then is simple in context, but complex in view of the conclusion at 303b8-c5 that the participants in all governments except the ideal monarchy are supreme wizards and fakers. The truly real statesman thus recedes into a distance remote from the world of practical politics, while the familiar regimes are marked as irretrievably flawed and inauthentic. The ability of the fake statesmen to deceive by impersonating the true king also means that it may be impossible to make the crucial distinction between king and tyrant, since either may disregard the laws. The strange fable of legalism run wild confirms the ludicrous and destructive results of rigid obedience to law, but concludes that rigidity is necessary to the false regimes. The corollary is that seekers after truth, like Socrates or even the Stranger himself, must always be rejected by law-based societies. (shrink)

In the third book of Republic, Plato analyzed the epic, the tragedy and the dithyramb styles of narration, explaining a little how is the lógos of what the poets say. Aristotle dealt with it when he talked about the poetic lexis, at times in the Poetic, stating that the dialogue is the meter discovered by the tragedy, and at other times in the Rhetoric, stating that the dialogue is the most dramatic way to write. Before this general aspect of exchanges (...) among the characters, the notion of imitation of the Socratic talks in Plato deserves new reflections, mainly aiming to understand what is being disputed in the quarrel between philosophy and poetry in the tenth book of Republic and, also, how much Plato radically goes apart from a simple drama. (shrink)

This paper offers a new reading of Plato’sLachesthat examines the dialogue’s philosophical approach not only to courage but also to two literary texts that both formed and questioned traditional Athenian views of it: Homer and Thucydides. In the middle of Plato’sLaches, the eponymous character claims that the courageous man “should be willing to stay in formation, to defend himself against the enemy, and to refuse to run away.” Socrates responds by wondering whether a man can be courageous in retreat. He (...) cites Homer’s description of Aeneas’ horses that “know how to pursue and flee quickly this way and that”, a quotation that appears twice in theIliad: once at 5.222-3 when Aeneas refuses to retreat from the rampaging Diomedes and again at 8.106-8 when Diomedes retreats from Hector, despite their belief that to do so is cowardly. On the surface, it seems that the contexts of the Homeric line do not match Socrates’ argument. This paper will argue that Socrates’ apparent ‘miscue’ is both intentional and purposeful because it signals a correspondence between the Homeric scenes and Thucydides’ narrative of the Battle of Mantinea that invites criticism of Homer’s place in the value systems of contemporary Athens. Plato signals a philosophical reading of Homer’sIliadand of Thucydides’ description of the Battle of Mantinea, through which we are invited to evaluate not only the traditional model of Athenian education, embodied by the former, but also its application in fifth-century Athens, as revealed by the latter. This paper, therefore, demonstrates that the philosophical and literary strategies behind Plato’s decision to ‘misuse’ Homer reveal a disjunction between wisdom and manliness in the Athenian cultural tradition that philosophy aims to resolve. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article explores the role of Isocrates in Plato’s Euthydemus, with special attention given to M.M. McCabe’s defense of Socratic philosophy against the sophistic challenges of Euthydemus and Dionysodoros. I defend two main theses: (1) Isocratean philosophy refutes what McCabe calls ‘chopped logos’ (a sophistic theory of logic and meaning) and (2) Isocratean philosophy, like its Socratic rival, is committed to reflection and to the consistency of logoi but, unlike its Socratic rival, it is committed to them for strictly (...) pragmatic reasons. As support for these theses, I argue that Isocrates holds a pragmatic theory of truth, that Isocratean philosophy meets all the requirements of what McCabe calls a ‘reflective commitment,’ and that Isocrates’ particular brand of pragmatism avoids the unscrupulous opportunism that worries McCabe about pragmatism generally. I conclude with considerations about how Isocrates figures into the central themes and drama of the Euthydemus. (shrink)

Readers of Plato since antiquity have generally taken Socrates’ intellectual autobiography in the Phaedo as a signal of his turn away from the study of natural philosophy. They have turned instead to characters such as Timaeus for evidence of Plato’s pursuit of physics. This article argues that Plato’s Socrates himself developed a philosophy of nature in his criticism of Anaxagoras and his subsequent philosophic pursuits. Socrates’ autobiography places the study of nature in a foundational position within the development of his (...) philosophic method. In the Apology, Socrates further elaborated his investigation into nature through his understanding of theology. Finally, in the Phaedrus, Socrates connects the study of nature with the study of rhetoric as tools for virtue. Therefore, Plato’s Socrates does not reject or abandon physics, as has often been suggested, but rather, he incorporates it into his own philosophic project and challenges its practitioners to connect their own inquiries with human affairs. (shrink)

What role, if any, does dialectic play in Aristotle’s epistemology in the Topics? In this paper I argue that it does play a role, but a role that is independent of endoxa. In the first section, I sketch the case for thinking that dialectic plays a distinctively epistemological role—not just a methodological role, or a merely instrumental role in getting episteme. In the second section, I consider three ways it could play that role, on two of which endoxa play at (...) least a co-starring role. But in the third section, I argue that endoxa don’t play that co-starring role, by arguing for a deflationary account of what endoxa are. For that reason, the third view emerges as the most plausible; but the third view is, I’ll suggest, Platonic. (shrink)

This is a study of Plato's use of the character Socrates to model what philosophy is. The study focuses on the Apology, and finds that philosophy there is the love of wisdom, where wisdom is expertise about how to live, of the sort that only gods can fully have, and where Socrates loves wisdom in three ways, first by honoring wisdom as the gods' possession, testing human claims to it, second by pursuing wisdom, examining himself as he examines others, to (...) achieve a more well justified set of beliefs about how to live, and third by trying to live wisely, insofar as he can, which includes exhorting others to care about living wisely than anything else. The essay also includes some suggestions about how Plato criticizes and revises this model of philosophy outside the Apology. (shrink)

Plato is commonly considered a metaphysical dualist conceiving of a world of Forms separate from the world of particulars in which we live. This paper explores the motivation for postulating that second world as opposed to making do with the one we have. The main objective is to demonstrate that and how everything, Forms and all, can instead fit into the same world. The approach is exploratory, as there can be no proof in the standard sense. The debate between explaining (...) Plato’s ontology with a single world and requiring a two-world model to make sense of the same thing is typically about scouring the Platonic corpus for evidence and turning to Aristotle for help where we need it. The aim here is to dig deeper than what either of them, or anyone else, has said or implied about the number or worlds, searching instead for any insight that might be gained from the way Forms are supposed to exist versus what we ourselves might understand by existence. Although the paper is, at its most basic level, about the existence of the Forms, the intention is not to prove that they exist, nor to evaluate the proofs and objections already on record, but to consider how they might exist and what follows if they do. Dialogue toward consensus on why we think the Forms exist, and why we think they do not, could perhaps provide a smoother “second sailing” in waters where we have been unable to agree whether they do and where they would if they did. (shrink)

In his essay, “The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking,” Heidegger proposes the existence of uncharted avenues for intellectual exploration that transcend the confines of metaphysical philosophy. He articulates a more contemplative form of thinking, distinct from the incessant rationalization that permeates traditional discourse, transcending the dichotomy of rational and irrational thought. 2 In typical Heideggerian fashion, this paper lacks a central thesis but embarks on a journey to delve into Heidegger's relentless pursuit of novel modes of thought. (...) Along this path, it also addresses the enduring bias within the realm of philosophy towards non-Western philosophies, specifically those rooted in the Indic tradition. This inquiry encompasses three essential facets: Andrea Nightingale's examination of Plato's role in shaping the philosophical discipline, Steven Burik's exploration of the link between early and later Heidegger's assertions about the culmination of philosophy and comparative philosophical thought, and Mehta's illuminating juxtaposition of Heideggerian Being with the concept of Vedāntic Brahman. (shrink)

This article argues that the Phaedo is written as a new sort of story of how a hero faces death; this story provides an alternative to existing tragedy, as understood by Plato. The opening of the Phaedo makes clear that two features that Plato closely associates with tragedy, pity and lamentation, are inappropriate responses to Socrates’ impending death, and that tuchē (chance) did not affect his happiness. This is the first step in the dialogue’s sustained engagement with tragedy. Tragedy for (...) Plato falls under the category of stories about heroes and gods. Plato wrote the Phaedo so that we would see Socrates as a philosophical hero, a replacement for traditional heroes such as Theseus or Heracles. I argue that in fact the Phaedo meets every requirement in Republic Books 2–3 for how to tell stories about heroes and gods and so belongs to the same broad category as tragedy. Within this framework, it tells its new story of how the true hero faces death. (shrink)

The paper argues that thumos, which is never explicitly mentioned as a part of the soul in the Symposium, plays a major role in the dialogue. In light of the Republic’s characterization of thumos as the source of emotions such as of love of honor, love of victory, admiration for courage, shame, anger, and the propensity to become indignant at real or imaginary wrongs, the paper argues that both Phaedrus’ speech and the speech of Alcibiades are shaped by thumoeidetic motivations. (...) While Phaedrus’ stress on shame, honor, glory and courage aims at proving that Eros inspires virtue, the speech of Alcibiades shows that thumoeidetic motivations are not sufficient to shape a noble character. The dependence on recognition, the ambiguous role played by shame, and the tension between what is admirable and what just happens to be admired are implicit shortcomings in Phaedrus’ speech. When the same themes come back in Alcibiades’ speech they work as negative counterpoints to Phaedrus’ main arguments. Alcibiades’ obsession with power and victory dominates his ambivalent encomium of Socrates. The speech does not reveal who Socrates really is. Rather, it shows how the philosophical life can be misunderstood when reason’s best ally takes over in the souls of men. (shrink)

A new translation and edition of Aristotle's Protrepticus (with critical comments on the fragments) -/- Welcome -/- The Protrepticus was an early work of Aristotle, written while he was still a member of Plato's Academy, but it soon became one of the most famous works in the whole history of philosophy. Unfortunately it was not directly copied in the middle ages and so did not survive in its own manuscript tradition. But substantial fragments of it have been preserved in several (...) works by Iamblichus of Chalcis, a third century A.D. neo-Pythagorean philosopher and educator. On the basis of a close study of Iamblichus' extensive use and excerption of Aristotle's Protrepticus, it is possible to reconstruct the backbone of the lost work, and then to flesh it out with the other surviving reports about the work from antiquity (for example in Alexander of Aphrodisias and other ancient commentators on Aristotle). It is also possible to identify several papyrus fragments of the work, and many references and literary allusions in later authors, especially Cicero, whose own lost dialogue Hortensius was a defense of philosophy modeleld on Aristotle's. (shrink)

Las experiencias de justicia transicional en la antigüedad griega muestran hasta qué punto las emociones pueden jugar un papel específico en el restablecimiento social de la memoria, la justicia y la verdad. A partir de un estudio de fuentes clásicas provenientes de Atenas, Dicea y Nacone, el propósito del presente trabajo es identificar la ficción afectiva sobre la que reposan estos marcos institucionales: al proyectar el plano emocional desde los individuos hasta la colectividad, se produce una instalación política del páthos (...) que, mediante la planificación, procura superar los efectos traumáticos de la guerra civil y diseñar una comunidad emocional basada en las virtudes de la reconciliación. (shrink)

Here I aim to show how the views on the body in Plato´’s Symposium must be considered not as contradictory but as complementary. The three main thesis of this paper are: a) The body is essential for the triggering of “erôs”, insofar as sexual attraction to beautiful bodies is the most natural way in which anyone can start to develop an erotic experience. b) The ascent towards beauty itself implies detachment from a particular body as such in order to move (...) to an appraisal of it from a wider, more general understanding. c) Additionally the loving relationship between Socrates and beautiful young men shows that the physical dimension of “erôs” is never completely eradicated by Plato but, on the contrary, it works as an essential trigger of desire. (shrink)

This paper argues that Socrates does not claim to be a political expert at Gorgias 521d6-8, as many scholars say. Still, Socrates does claim a special grasp of true politics. His special grasp (i) results from divine dispensation; (ii) is coherent true belief about politics; and (iii) also is Socratic wisdom about his own epistemic shortcomings. This condition falls short of expertise in two ways: Socrates sometimes lacks fully determinate answers to political questions, and he does not grasp the first (...) principles of politics. (shrink)

Despite Diotima’s irresistible virtues and attractiveness across the millennia, she spells trouble for philosophy. It is not her fault that she has been misunderstood, nor is it Plato’s. Rather, I suspect, each era has made of Diotima what it desired her to be. Her malleability is related to the assumption that Plato invented her, that she is a mere literary fiction, licensing the imagination to do what it will. In the first part of my paper, I argue against three contemporary (...) ‘majority views’ about Diotima that I regard as false. The first is that we can be certain she is fictional;1 a second is that Diotima is our best evidence for Plato’s feminism; the third, that she is Plato’s mouthpiece for the higher mysteries in the Symposium. After I have set aside what I regard as false, I proceed in the second half of my paper to develop Diotima’s positive contribution to philosophical psychology, her naturalistic account of the psyche as mortal, unified, and developmental. Whether the view Plato assigns to her is one that he held I do not pretend to know; but it is a powerful, defensible, and coherent view that inspired positive aspects of Freudian psychology in the twentieth century. Freud’s insight, in fact, makes clear how erōs can be developed in relation to the bad as well as the good. (shrink)

Resumen: Mientras que en Banquete Platón presenta a Éros como un daímon metaxý, i.e. como una divinidad intermedia e intermediaria entre dioses y hombres, en Fedro lo caracteriza, en cambio, como un theós -un dios. Procuraremos mostrar aquí que esto no implica, sin embargo, un cambio doctrinal substancial sino que se trata de dos aproximaciones distintas pero complementarias respecto a la verdadera naturaleza de Éros. Según el Fedro, si bien éros puede permanecer en una expresión puramente física, sin desarrollar su (...) aspecto divino, es posible también que, debido al intenso deseo sexual por el bello muchachito, el amante recuerde la Forma de la belleza y crezcan en él las alas del Éros divino. Pero únicamente los dioses nunca pierden las alas de sus almas y están regularmente en pleno contacto con las Formas. Las almas humanas deben adquirirlas, y aun así, con riesgo a perderlas, quedando entonces en un lugar “intermedio” -metaxý- como el Éros de Banquete.: Although in the Symposium Plato describes Erôs as a daimôn-metaxy, i.e. as an intermediate and intermediary divinity between gods and men, in the Phaedrus it is said that Erôs is a theos -a god. I will try to show that these different descriptions do not imply a substantial change of mind but work as two complementary views about the true nature of Erôs. According to the Phaedrus, although erôs can remain just at a physical level and not develop its divine power, it is also possible that, thanks to the same intense, sexual desire for the beautiful boy, the lover recollects the Form of beauty and so grows divine Erôs`s wings. However, only the gods never lose their wings and so are in regular, full contact with the Forms. The human souls need to acquire the wings and even so take the risk of losing them; they are then in an intermediate state -metaxy- like Erôs in the Symposium. (shrink)