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)

In this paper, I defend that the historiographical category of eclecticism is a correct way to describe the epistemology and the exegetical activity of the Anonymous commentator on Plato’s Theaetetus. In addition, I show that the interpretation of the platonic philosophy presented in this text not only presupposes an eclectic philosophical attitude, but also offers a conscious defense of a positive and philosophically relevant form of eclecticism. By eclecticism, I understand a method of inquiry based on the deliberate use of (...) hypotheses and arguments from different philosophical traditions. My claim is that Anon. intends to lay ground of his way of doing philosophy by attributing it to Plato and the platonic tradition. In doing so, Anon. provides us with a positive understanding of eclecticism as a legitimate methodology of philosophical investigation. (shrink)

Scholarship on ancient skepticism has undergone a remarkable renaissance in the last three decades. Specialists in ancient philosophy have explored the complex history of the Greco‐Roman skeptical traditions and discussed difficult philological and exegetical issues. But they have also assessed the philosophical significance of the various ancient skeptical outlooks. In this first paper, I provide a general presentation of this area of study, while in the two subsequent articles I will focus on some of the topics that have been the (...) object of much attention in the recent literature on ancient skepticism. (shrink)