"Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. Plato's retelling of the discourses between Socrates and his friends on such (...) subjects as love and desire, truth and illusion, spiritual transcendence and the qualities of a good ruler, profoundly affected the ways in which we view human relationships, society and leadership - and shaped the whole tradition of Western philosophy."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Much of the debate about Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato has focused on the separability of the Forms. Here the dispute has to do with the ontological status of the Forms, in particular Plato’s claim for their ontological priority in relation to perceptible objects. Aristotle, however, also disputes the explanatory and causal roles that Plato claims for the Forms. This second criticism is independent of the first; even if the problem of the ontological status of the Forms were (...) resolved to Aristotle’s satisfaction, this second criticism would still stand. The problem here is not that there is no room for Aristotle’s four causes in Plato’s ontology; on the contrary, antecedents for all four can be found in Plato’s works. The problem, instead, is that Plato’s Forms fail to meet the general requirements that Aristotle sets out for the material, efficient, formal, and final causes of perceptible objects. Hence, even if the Forms were immanent in perceptible objects, they would still explain nothing about them. (shrink)

Forms and Concepts is the first comprehensive study of the central role of concepts and concept acquisition in the Platonic tradition. It sets up a stimulating dialogue between Plato s innatist approach and Aristotle s much more empirical response. The primary aim is to analyze and assess the strategies with which Platonists responded to Aristotle s (and Alexander of Aphrodisias ) rival theory. The monograph culminates in a careful reconstruction of the elaborate attempt undertaken by the Neoplatonist Proclus (6th (...) century AD) to devise a systematic Platonic theory of concept acquisition.". (shrink)

Studies Plato's approach to argumentation, exploring his role as logician, rhetorician, and dialectician in a way that sees these three aspects working together.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Love offers a wide array of original essays on the nature and value of love. The editors, Christopher Grau and Aaron Smuts, have assembled an esteemed group of thinkers, including both established scholars and younger voices. The volume contains thirty-three essays addressing both issues about love as well as key philosophers who have contributed to the philosophy of love, such as Plato, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Murdoch. The topics range from central issues about (...) the nature and variety of love, the possibility of its rational justification, and whether it is an emotion, to the significance of love for law, economics, morality, and free will. The volume also contains an introduction to the subject as well as essays on love’s relation to jealousy, biotechnology, religion, knowledge, and several other topics. This wide-ranging handbook will be a key resource for specialists working on the philosophy of love, and a helpful guide for those looking to learn more about the area. (shrink)

Plato's dialogues are usually understood as simple examples of philosophy in action. In this book Professor Rowe treats them rather as literary-philosophical artefacts, shaped by Plato's desire to persuade his readers to exchange their view of life and the universe for a different view which, from their present perspective, they will barely begin to comprehend. What emerges is a radically new Plato: a Socratic throughout, who even in the late dialogues is still essentially the Plato (and (...) the Socrates) of the Apology and the so-called 'Socratic' dialogues. This book aims to understand Plato both as a philosopher and as a writer, on the assumption that neither of these aspects of the dialogues can be understood without the other. The argument of the book is closely based in Plato's text, but should be accessible to any serious reader of Plato, whether professional philosopher, classicist, or student. (shrink)

Why has thinking about politics over the centuries been quite so intertwined with thinking about educational theory and practice? This book draws together a fascinating mix of educational pioneers and thinkers to answer this question and more.

Sôphrosunê ("self-discipline") is the often-forgotten sibling of justice, wisdom, courage, and piety in discussions of canonical Greek virtues. Christopher Moore shows that during the classical period it was the object of significant debate--about its scope, its feel, its practical manifestations, and its value. By interpreting sôphrosunê as a commitment to norm-following, we see that these pointed discussions of the virtue, previously ignored as parodic moralizing or expressions of political propaganda, are in fact concerned with the ideal of human agency. (...) These discussions query the way we become fully responsible for our actions. Greek thinking about sôphrosunê becomes thinking about self-constitution, our crucial capacity to act on the general reasons that we come to identify with as our own. This perspective explains sôphrosunê's inclusion in Plato's canon of virtues, and before that its frequent appearance in funerary inscriptions, elegiac poetry, tragic drama, and historiography. It also explains the analytic attention given to it by Heraclitus, the Sophists, the historians, Socrates, Xenophon, and Plato. Moore deals principally with the classical period, though the book includes one chapter addressing earlier poetry and another addressing the virtue in two gender-sensitive post-classical works. An appendix deals with the epigraphic material. For the Greeks (and perhaps for us) there is a virtue of agency, an acquirable capacity to be guided by what's best. Hardly just a concern for reticence and reserve, commitment to sôphrosunê is a commitment to whatever it is that makes us truly ourselves. (shrink)

Plato's Utopia Recast is an illuminating reappraisal of Plato's later works, which reveals radical changes in his ethical and political theory. Christopher Bobonich examines later dialogues, with a special emphasis upon the Laws, and argues that in these late works, Plato both rethinks and revises the basic ethical and poltical positions that he held in his better-known earlier works, such as the Republic. This book will change our understanding of Plato. His controversial moral and political (...) theory, so influential in Western thought, will henceforth be seen in a new light. (shrink)

Plato's Utopia Recast is an illuminating reappraisal of Plato's later works, which reveals radical changes in his ethical and political theory. Christopher Bobonich examines later dialogues, with a special emphasis upon the Laws, and argues that in these late works Plato both rethinks and revises the basic ethical and political positions that he held in his better known earlier works, such as the Republic. This book will change our understanding of Plato. His controversial moral and (...) political theory, so influential in Western thought, will henceforth be seen in a new light. (shrink)

Plato's Theaetetus and Sophist are two of his most important dialogues, and are widely read and discussed by philosophers for what they reveal about his epistemology and particularly his accounts of belief and knowledge. Although they form part of a single Platonic project, these dialogues are not usually presented as a pair, as they are in Christopher Rowe's new and lively translation. Offering a high standard of accuracy and readability, the translation reveals the continuity between these dialogues and (...) others in the Platonic corpus, especially the Republic. The supporting introduction and notes help the reader to follow the arguments as they develop, explaining their structure, context and interpretation. This new edition challenges current scholarly approaches to Plato's work and will pave the way for fresh interpretations both of Theaetetus and Sophist and of Plato's writings in general. (shrink)

Theory and practice, reason and revelation, ancients and moderns are the key themes running through the eighteen studies of the literature of political philosophy in Reason's Inquisition. Alfarabi is a pivotal figure, but the range is wide, from Plato and Thucydides to Shakespeare and Hobbes, extending to such contemporary figures as Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin.

Abstract:In the Phaedrus, Plato provides an intriguing dramatic detail immediately before Socrates's first speech. "I shall veil myself to speak," Socrates declares, "so that I may run through the speech as quickly as possible and may not be at a complete loss from a sense of shame as I look towards you." In this essay, I argue that Socrates's veiling illustrates how authors of dialogic literature about philosophical topics subtly use dramatic and literary details to suggest preferred philosophical takeaways.

From Plato's Timaeus onwards, the world or cosmos has been conceived of as a living, rational organism. Most notably in German Idealism, philosophers still talked of a 'Weltseele' (Schelling) or 'Weltgeist' (Hegel). This volume is the first collection of essays on the origin of the notion of the world soul (anima mundi) in Antiquity and beyond. It contains 14 original contributions by specialists in the field of ancient philosophy, the Platonic tradition and the history of theology. The topics range (...) from the 'obscure' Presocratic Heraclitus, to Plato and his ancient readers in Middle and Neoplatonism (including the Stoics), to the reception of the idea of a world soul in the history of natural science. A general introduction highlights the fundamental steps in the development of the Platonic notion throughout late Antiquity and early Christian philosophy. Accessible to Classicists, historians of philosophy, theologians and invaluable to specialists in ancient philosophy, the book provides an overview of the fascinating discussions surrounding a conception that had a long-lasting effect on the history of Western thought. (shrink)

Long understudied, Plato's Laws has been the object of renewed attention in the past decade and is now considered to be his major work of political philosophy besides the Republic. In his last dialogue, Plato returns to the project of describing the foundation of a just city and sketches in considerable detail its constitution, laws and other social institutions. Written by leading Platonists, the essays in this volume cover a wide range of topics central for understanding the Laws, (...) such as the aim of the Laws as a whole, the ethical psychology of the Laws, especially its views of pleasure and non-rational motivations, and whether and, if so, how the strict law code of the Laws can encourage genuine virtue. They make an important contribution to ongoing debates and will open up fresh lines of inquiry for further research. (shrink)

The study reconstructs the concept of the image as the basic concept of Plato's philosophy. Within the overall framework of this philosophy of the image, the appearance of the invisible in itself rather than the depiction of the likewise visible proves to be its uniform core. The picture thus moves into the direct vicinity of the body and is finally integrated into the ontology of the sequence of dimensions. This implies far-reaching reinterpretations of the line and cave parables as (...) well as art criticism and establishes systematic references to the ontology of ideas, to the philosophy of language and the doctrine of parables as well as to Plato's own dialogue design. Plato's concept of the image is thus not merely a deprecating figure of thought, but constitutively dialectical: he formulates not only the differentiation of reality, but also the connection between the sensual and the spiritual, and consequently the unity of reality. Understanding the sensual world as an image does not mean declaring it meaningless or worthless, but to really come to terms with it. (shrink)

The paper has two main aims, one larger and one slightly narrower. The larger aim is to undermine further a tendency that has dogged the interpretation of Platonic political philosophy in modern times, despite some dissenting voices: the tendency to begin from the assumption that Plato¿s thinking changed and developed over time, as if we already had privileged access to his biography. The slightly narrower aim is to reply to two charges of intellectual parricide made against Plato. The (...) first is explicit and well known: that he recommended political structures of a sort that would exclude the free-ranging philosophical inquiry sponsored by Socrates. The second is implicit in the standard reading of the Politicus, and says that Plato actually came to approve (however reluctantly) of Athens¿ execution of his teacher. I argue that the relevant passage (Plt. 297C - 302B) has been misunderstood, and that it is in fact fully consistent with the blanket criticism we find in the Republic of all existing forms of constitution. The Athenian democracy still got it wrong, both in general, and in making the particular decision to kill off old Socrates. I also argue that so far from proposing to abolish Socratic inquiry, Plato¿s political works as a whole (Republic, Politicus and Laws included) are actually designed to show the need for it. (shrink)

Truth Matters is the first full-length introduction to response-dependence, a topic that has become a main focus of interest for philosophers across a wide range of disciplines and subject areas.The response-dependence claim, in brief, is to provide a 'third way' between the realist (or objectivist) conception of truth as always potentially transcending the limits of human ascertainment and the anti-realist (or verificationist) case that truth cannot possibly transcend those limits since then we could never acquire or manifest a knowledge of (...) it.While setting out the issues clearly and concisely, Norris also provides some relevant background history to this current debate, including discussion of its sources and analogues in Plato, Locke, Kant and Wittgenstein. His book offers invaluable guidance for student readers in search of a reliable introductory survey of the field. Among those with a more specialist interest it may sometimes provoke disagreement, as when Norris argues that the response-dependence approach often goes along with a disguised anti-realist bias and hence fails to make good on its 'third-way' promise. However, its combination of wide-ranging coverage with clarity of focus and depth of philosophical treatment will be welcomed.Key Features:*Clear, accessible account of some complex philosophical issues;*First book-length study of the response-dependence debate;*Informative discussion of its pre-history in philosophers from Plato to Hume, Locke and Kant;*Aimed at readers seeking a reliable, well-informed introductory account while relevant to those with a more specialist knowledge of the topic. (shrink)

Aristotle attaches particular significance to the homonymy of many central concepts in philosophy and science: that is, to the diversity of ways of being common to a single general concept. His preoccupation with homonymy influences his approach to almost every subject that he considers, and it clearly structures the philosophical methodology that he employs both when criticizing others and when advancing his own positive theories. Where there is homonymy there is multiplicity: Aristotle aims to find the order within this multiplicity, (...) and believes that doing so is crucial to scientific inquiry and philosophical progress.Christopher Shields investigates and evaluates Aristotle's approach to questions about homonymy, characterizing the metaphysical and semantic commitments necessary to establish the homonymy of a given concept. Then, in a series of case-studies, Shields examines in detail some of Aristotle's principal applications of homonymy--to the body, sameness and oneness, life, goodness, and being. Shields's aim is not only to give a fuller understanding of Aristotle's methodology and to illuminate his specific doctrines in a variety of areas, but to show that this methodology remains fruitful today. (shrink)

Discusses Derrida's writings on Plato, Kant, Hegel, Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Freud.

The ‘traditional’ interpretation of the Receptacle in Plato’s Timaeus maintains that its parts act as substrata to ordinary particulars such as dogs and tables: particulars are form-matter compounds to which Forms supply properties and the Receptacle supplies a substratum, as well as a space in which these compounds come to be. I argue, against this view, that parts of the Receptacle cannot act as substrata for those particulars. I also argue, making use of contemporary discussions of supersubstantivalism, against a (...) substratum interpretation that separates substratum and space in the Timaeus. (shrink)

The paper offers an interpretation of a disputed portion of Plato’s Theaetetus that is often called the Secret Doctrine. It is presented as a process ontology that takes two types of processes, swift and slow motions, as fundamental building blocks for ordinary material objects. Slow motions are powers which, when realized, generate swift motions, which, in turn, are subjectively bundled to compose sensible objects and perceivers. Although the reading of the Secret Doctrine offered here—a new version of the “Causal (...) Theory interpretation”—is not without problems, these problems are acknowledged in Plato’s text, confirming that this interpretation is correct. (shrink)

This original new book argues for a reassessment of Plato's challenge to the arts. Plato was the first great figure in Western philosophy to assess the value of the arts; he argued in the Republic that traditionally accepted forms of poetry, drama, and music are unsound. While this view has been widely rejected, Janaway argues that Plato's hostile case is a more coherent and profound challenge to the arts than has sometimes been supposed. Denying that Plato (...) advocates "good art" in any modern sense, Janaway seeks both to understand Plato's critique in the context of his own philosophy and to locate him in today's philosophy of art, showing how issues in aesthetics arise from responses to his charges. (shrink)

Among the instances of apparent illiberality in Plato's Republic, one stands out as especially curious. Long before making a forced return to the cave, and irrespective of the kinds of compulsion operative in such a homecoming, the philosopher-king has been compelled to apprehend the Good (Rep. VII.519c5-d2, 540a3-7). Why should compulsion be necessary or appropriate in this situation? Schooled intensively through the decades for an eventual grasping of the Good, beginning already with precognitive training in music and art calculated (...) to equip the guardian with a natural affinity towards the good and beautiful (Rep. III.401d3-402a4), the fully mature guardian might be expected to leap towards the Good when it is first opportune. For the Good is, according to Plato, the greatest thing to be learned (megiston mathêma; Rep. VI.504e4-5, 505a2). Reflection on these questions permits us to develop a richer appreciation of the forms of necessitation and compulsion Plato envisages for his guardians, which turn out to be primarily merely hypothetical instances of nomic necessitation. It follows that many of Plato's appeals to compulsion are neither coercive nor objectionably authoritarian. (shrink)

Le passage, au livre II de la République, décrivant ce que Glaucon, un des principaux interlocuteurs de Socrate, considère avec dédain comme une cité seulement digne de porcs, est en réalité central dans la stratégie globale de Platon. Le Socrate de Platon nomme de fait cette cité la cité « véritable » et « saine », et cela est vrai pour Platon comme pour Socrate – ce que démontre le présent article. La « belle cité », Callipolis, que Socrate souhaite (...) ériger dans la suite de la République, est donc par conséquent une cité moins « véritable », et les développements concernant l ’âme et la justice qui se fondent sur elle (au livre IV) sont, de même, des développements qui n’embrassent pas la vérité de l’âme ni de la justice. Dans leur nature vraie et essentielle, ni la cité ni l ’âme ne sont divisées en parties, que ces parties s’opposent ou coopèrent ; et la justice non plus ne peut être absolument définie, au sens de sa nature véritable, en terme de coopération entre les parties d’une âme divisée. Si nous regardons rétrospectivement l’ensemble de la démonstration à partir du livre X, le dernier de la République, tous ces éléments semblent être anticipés dans la description de la « cité des porcs » et sa suite immédiate. (shrink)

In book IX of the Republic, Socrates offers a strange mathematical calculation, which claims to prove that the tyrant lives exactly 729 times less pleasantly than the king. For the first time, a complete and detailed reconstruction of this difficult text and its underlying structure is offered in the present article. It thereby proves that the distinction between ‘pleasure’ and the ‘image of pleasure’ is one among the keys to understanding the passage. It is furthermore shown how the whole calculation (...) is based on Plato’s ontology of dimensions and therefore proves that this theorem can be taken into account at least already for the time of the Republic. (shrink)

One of the distinctions that Plato in the Laws stresses most heavily in his discussion of the proper relation between the individual citizen and the laws of the city is that between persuasion and compulsion. Law, Plato believes, should try to persuade rather than compel the citizens. Near the end of the fourth book of the Laws, the Athenian Stranger, Plato's spokesman in this dialogue, asks whether the lawgiver for their new city of Magnesia should in making (...) laws ‘explain straightaway what must and must not be done, add the threat of a penalty, and turn to another law, without adding a single bit of encouragement or persuasion [παραμυθας δ κα πειθος … ν] to his legislative edicts’ . A few lines later, the Athenian Stranger himself condemns such a procedure as ‘the worse and more savage alternative’ . The better method is for the laws themselves to try to persuade the citizens to act in the manner that they prescribe. And as a means of doing this, Plato proposes attaching preludes to particular laws and to the legal code as a whole: such preludes will supplement the sanctions attached to the laws and will aim at persuading the citizens to act in the way that the laws direct for reasons other than fear of the penalties attached to the law. Such a practice, Plato believes, is an innovation: it is something that no lawgiver has ever thought of doing before . And we have no reason to think that Plato is here excluding his earlier self, e.g. the Plato of the Republic and the Politicus, from this criticism. (shrink)

Why did Plato put his philosophical arguments into dialogues, rather than presenting them in a plain and readily understandable fashion? A group of distinguished scholars here offer answers to this question by studying the relation between form and argument in his late dialogues. These penetrating studies show that the literary structure of the dialogues is of vital importance in the ongoing interpretation of Plato.

In Plato's Republic, the Analogy of the Sun famously points out that as the Idea of the Good relates to the knowable Forms so does the Sun to the visible things. Yet, no one has ever questioned whether the consequences claimed to be caused by the sun – among them especially the vital genesis of all physical things – can, based on Plato's philosophy, actually be caused by the material body of the sun. Taking this as a point (...) of departure, the present article looks into whether one can reveal more of the Analogy, just as Socrates himself frequently emphasises the incompleteness of his presentation. The article thus develops a series of detailed arguments to propose a differentiation of each analogical relation into two subrelations, which imply a transcendent principle and an immanent representation of this principle on both sides of the Analogy. Implementing this differentiation bears the potential to solve existing tensions within the interpretation of Republic VI and VII, it allows for further systematic considerations about, among others, the Good and the Beautiful and it may help to contextualise Plato's Analogy historically. (shrink)

From Plato to Postmodernism presents the cultural history of the West in one concise volume. Nearly four thousand years of Western history are woven together into an unfolding story in which we see how movements and individuals contributed to the philosophy, literature and art that have shaped today's world. The story begins with the West's Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian origins, moving through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment and Romanticism to twenty-first century postmodernity. The author covers key figures such as Moses, (...) Michelangelo, Mozart and Marx, setting them in context and highlighting their main contributions. Illustrations and a comprehensive glossary help explain important terms such as ‘gothic', ‘baroque', ‘stream of consciousness' and ‘the death of God', and clarify movements such as Neoplatonism, Renaissance humanism and existentialism. -/- For students, this book bridges the gap between what is taught in schools and the cultural knowledge required at university, providing an indispensible grounding in the story of Western culture. For all readers, it offers an invitation to take an enjoyable tour through the fascinating history of Western thought, literature and art. (shrink)