The author attempts to show that Plato continued to hold his theory of Forms in his later period by arguing that analysis of the late dialogues reveals their assumed existence. The objects of knowledge considered in the later dialogues have the basic traits attributed to the Forms in the middle and early dialogues. The Forms are not known by "intuition" or "acquaintance," but as that which is required for λόγος. The result of this approach is a kind of Kantian interpretation (...) of Plato—that the Forms are definitive of our experience of things, not of the things themselves.—R. J. W. (shrink)

The author attempts to show that Plato continued to hold his theory of Forms in his later period by arguing that analysis of the late dialogues reveals their assumed existence. The objects of knowledge considered in the later dialogues have the basic traits attributed to the Forms in the middle and early dialogues. The Forms are not known by "intuition" or "acquaintance," but as that which is required for λόγος. The result of this approach is a kind of Kantian interpretation (...) of Plato—that the Forms are definitive of our experience of things, not of the things themselves.—R. J. W. (shrink)

‘Philosophical dialogue’ indicates both a form of philosophical inquiry and its corresponding literary genre. In its written form, it typically features two or more characters who engage in a discussion concerning morals, knowledge, as well as a variety of topics that can be widely labelled as ‘philosophical’. Our philosophical dialogue takes place in Krakow, Poland. It is a rainy morning and two strangers are waiting at a tram stop. One of them is dressed neatly, and cannot (...) stop fidgeting with his closed umbrella. The other was caught unprepared by the morning downpour and water is dripping from his worn, soaked jacket. (shrink)

Do the later Platonic dialogues abandon the earlier doctrine of forms? If not, do the forms, as the objects or contents of thought, have any relation to experienced things? Schipper, in this lucid and scholarly study of the Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, Philebus, and Timaeus, maintains that Plato continues to assume the essentials of the earlier doctrine of forms, and that while he offers no complete and explicit answer to the second question, the later dialogues do provide clues which are consistent (...) with each other. In formulating this answer, Schipper suggests that sensible things can be considered in two aspects: as immediately sensed and as known by means of the forms; the two aspects are united by the perceiving and knowing mind. However, this seems to be merely a restatement of the problem. Her other, more provocative suggestion is that forms are not discovered by an intellectual perception, but are assumed or posited as demanded by logos or argument in order to explain and define experienced things. Thus the interrelated forms can apply to things without being immanent in them. Although the treatment of the dialogues is careful, the book is primarily a spiritless exegesis of the text, together with an account of what other scholars have said. It is bereft of an index.—S. A. S. (shrink)

RESUMO:Não é incomum que se tome o diálogo de Schelling conhecido como Clara por um estoque de proposições filosóficas, do qual se arrancam aquelas mais apropriadas para a tese que se queira sustentar. Procuramos nos afastar desse tipo de procedimento. Tomando seriamente seu tratamento literário, trata-se antes de investigar esse diálogo, apreendendo-o como um modelo, ensaiado pelo filósofo, para uma crítica do presente. Para tanto, analisamos a oscilação entre diálogo e narrativa, de modo a compreender sua composição e princípio formal, (...) o que acarreta uma reflexão, interna à obra, sobre o tempo histórico, o qual se apresenta numa dialética entre inatualidade e presente. ABSTRACT:It is not unusual that Schelling’s dialogue known as Clara is taken for a stock of philosophical propositions from which one may pluck ideas appropriate for the thesis one wishes to defend. In this article, we try to move away from this type of procedure. Taking Schelling’s literary treatment seriously, our purpose is to investigate this dialogue by looking upon it as a model, put forth by the philosopher, for a critique of the present. We therefore analyze the oscillation between dialogue and narrative in Clara in order to understand its composition and formal principle. This oscillation entails a reflection on historical time and presents a dialectic between inactuality and the present. (shrink)

The paper argues that Plato’s dialogue form creates a Quinean “opaque context” that segregates the assertions by Plato’s characters in the dialogues from both Plato and the real world with the result that the dialogues require a hermeneutical interpretation. Sec. I argues that since the assertions in the dialogues are located inside an opaque context, the forms of life of the characters in the dialogues acquires primary philosophical importance for Plato. The second section argues that the thesis of (...) Sec. I coheres with the claim in Plato’s Seventh Letter that since philosophical truth is incommunicable by means of language it is of primary importance for philosophers to develop proper “schemes of living”. Sec. III argues since the forms of life of the characters portrayed in the dialogues is of primary philosophical importance for Plato, and since hermeneutical methods are required to interpret emerging forms of life, Plato’s dialogues are positively crafted to be read hermeneutically. Sec IV argues that Heidegger, who is famous for seeing Plato’s views as antithetical to his own hermeneutical approach, is mistaken, and that Plato’s real views are, in principle, more akin to Heidegger’s views than he thinks. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Arthur A. Krentz DRAMATIC FORM AND PHILOSOPHICAL CONTENT IN PLATO'S DIALOGUES AN intriguing innovation in the history of philosophical discourse is Plato's employment ofdramatic dialogues as his deliberately chosen means ofcommunication. Throughout the history of philosophy scant attention has been focused on this feature of Plato's works. Recently, however, some students of Plato's writings contend that it is crucial for interpreters to give careful attention to the (...) dialogue form in order to reach an essential understanding of the philosophical content. Thus WernerJaeger, commenting in 1934 on the importance of the form of Aristotle's philosophical works, mentions as an aside that, "Even in the case of Plato, the importance of the form for the understanding of his particular thought has often been overlooked for long periods; departmental philosophers and students ofliterature in particular are always prone to consider it as something literary which had no material significance for Plato, in spite of the fact that it is unique in die history of philosophy. By now, however, most persons know mat the study of the development of the form ofhis writing is one of me main keys to a philosophical understanding of him." ' In spite ofJaeger's contention that most contemporary interpreters of Plato are aware of the significance of investigating the dramatic form for an understanding of a dialogue's content, a survey of the literature on Plato shows that interpreters often abandon such a concern in their own approach to his dialogues. For example, many interpreters treat dialogues as treatises, ignoring the dramatic features in order to concentrate on the examination of the logical, epistemológica!, ethical or other philosophical aspects of the argumentation in a single dialogue or group ofdialogues; as a result interpreters tend to separate the content from the form of Plato's works.2 The effect of this approach is one-sided, for, although such interpretations attempt to do justice to the arguments, they ignore the dramatic features of the dialogues and their bearing on an interpretation of die philosophical substance. Currently a growing number of interpreters of Plato in Europe and North America hold that a consideration of the form of Plato's dialogues is important 32 Arthur A. Krentz33 for an understanding oftheir content and philosophical message.3 1 am in agreement with this position and in this article I consider some reasons that may have led Plato to adopt dialogue as his medium of philosophical expression and attempt to show how attention to the dialogue form shapes the interpretation of their content. Unlike his philosophical predecessors who cast their writings in the form of extended poems, aphorisms, or treatises "On Nature," Plato wrote dramas. That the dramatic form ofhis writings is not incidental to his philosophical purposes becomes apparent as one considers how Plato presents philosophy in a fundamentally different way from that of his predecessors and successors who adopted the essay and treatise as the paradigm ofphilosophical communication. In a philosophical work such as a treatise, an author ordinarily attempts to state his own position on issues under discussion as clearly and as forcefully as possible. This, however, is not the primary aim of Plato's works, for certain features of his dramas indicate that he deliberately concealed his own views. Of special note in this regard is the fact that Plato never speaks on his own behalf in the discourses he creates. There is no character named "Plato" unequivocally declaring the author's own position.4 Instead a variety of interlocutors ask questions, investigate philosophical problems, and puzzle over solutions while Plato remains noticeably silent. This silence of Plato indicates that he did not regard the unequivocal presentation of his own views to be of paramount importance. If this had been his aim, Plato had only to write a dialogue which included himselfas one ofthe characters clearly stating his own position. Having engaged in many philosophical discussions with Socrates and with his own students, Plato could have written a dialogue based on such conversations. His not doing so is sufficient to show that he did not use his writings as a primary vehicle for transmitting his own position in his own words. Nor did Plato use... (shrink)

Plato, in his dialog Charmides, presents the question of how society can determine whether a person who claims superior expertise in a particular field of knowledge does, in fact, possess superior expertise. In the modern era, society tends to answer this question by funding institutions (universities) that award credentials to certain individuals, asserting that those individuals possess a particular expertise; and then other institutions (the journalistic media and government) are expected to defer to the credentials. When, however, the sequential reasoning (...) and theorizing and conclusion-stating of generation after generation of credential-bearing experts (i.e., scientists) leads to the assertion of the truth of statements that large segments of society find to be in conflict with the statements of persons who have earned credentials of expertise bestowed by an alternative institutional structure (i.e., religious teachers), representatives of the people are put to a choice. And when the conflicting statements present substantial implications for the moral and sexual behavior of people in the society, addressing the conflict brings into play not only the highest intellectual speculations and analyses, but also the most animal emotions and motivations. This paper, taking the form of a dialog, presents a scientist (Avram Codosia) named after an ancient Jewish patriarch and makes him a supplicant to a U.S. Senator (Helen Astartian) named after a pagan goddess. The stakes turn out to be not merely financial and intellectual, but personal and moral, involving the scientist's son (Isaac), an art student, and the senator's niece (Halia), a philosophy student. In a four-phase encounter, the paper hopes to offer some innovative observations on age-old issues and to stimulate productive new thinking on questions that too often seem to be debated by means of repetitions of the same old points. (shrink)

There is a mystery at the heart of Plato's Parmenides. In the first part, Parmenides criticizes what is widely regarded as Plato's mature theory of Forms, and in the second, he promises to explain how the Forms can be saved from these criticisms. Ever since the dialogue was written, scholars have struggled to determine how the two parts of the work fit together. Did Plato mean us to abandon, keep or modify the theory of Forms, on the strength of (...) Parmenides' criticisms? Samuel Rickless offers something that has never been done before: a careful reconstruction of every argument in the dialogue. He concludes that Plato's main aim was to argue that the theory of Forms should be modified by allowing that forms can have contrary properties. To grasp this is to solve the mystery of the Parmenides and understand its crucial role in Plato's philosophical development. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Philosophy and Religion in Plato's Dialogues by Andrea NightingaleMarina Berzins McCoyAndrea Nightingale. Philosophy and Religion in Plato's Dialogues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. 308. Hardback, $39.99.Andrea Nightingale has written a scholarly work that will prove indispensable to restoring the centrality of religion and theology to Platonic philosophy. She demonstrates that Plato uses the language of Greek religion to inform his metaphysics and his very (...) conception of philosophy. She deftly interweaves classical scholarship with close readings of a wide range of texts in order to build her claims. She gives especially good treatments of Eleusinian mysteries and Orphic ritual. She also explores the way in which the epiphanic nature of the encounter with the Forms has a transforming influence on the philosopher's soul.In the introduction, Nightingale presents an overview of key "divinity markers" (8–23) present in the dialogues—occurrences in which the Forms are described as godlike, references to Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries, poetic narratives of epiphanic encounters, and references to the sacred spectacle. She also assesses why these references are so often overlooked in contemporary scholarship, noting many contemporary scholars' unfamiliarity with the specific nature of Greek religion, and a general movement toward secularism in philosophy. She acknowledges some notable exceptions (e.g. Mark McPherran's work), but she might have given attention to others as well. Specifically, Jill Gordon's Plato's Erotic World: From Cosmic Origins to Human Death (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) characterizes Platonic philosophy in terms of both striving for and alienation from the divine, and Ross Romero's Without the Least Tremor: The Sacrifice of Socrates in Plato's Phaedo (Albany: SUNY Press, 2009) on religious sacrifice in the Phaedo is another example. Still, Nightingale is accurate in her assessment of the field's tendency to ignore religious language or to assimilate it too quickly to later monotheistic traditions. Her book convincingly argues that religious language can serve a philosophical purpose in suggesting how union with Beauty and the Good is experienced. The book as a whole provides precious information about many connections between Greek religion and culture that add depth and richness to particular Platonic passages.Chapter 1 sketches out a theory of the Forms and argues that as a group they are treated as "divine." The Phaedo connects the Forms to concepts of eternality, unchangingness, and intelligibility (50). Human beings can connect with the Forms through contemplation (51). Similarly, the Republic describes the Forms as divine and the soul that contemplates them as undergoing a kind of divinization. The Form of the Good is the highest divinity, and its pursuit is an encounter with the divine. Nightingale notes that this does not mean that the Good can be grasped completely. But insofar as we can contemplate the Forms, Plato thinks that we can come to know the Good and become more like it.In chapter 2, Nightingale turns to the topic of human longing, focusing on the Symposium. We humans, Plato believes, have two different but related kinds of longing for immortality. While human beings long for a divine kind of immortality that is ultimately unreachable, they can have a partial kind of immortality through desiring the Good and giving birth to "children" of the soul. The vision of the Beautiful can be a kind of divine epiphany that leads to wonder. Nightingale delves more deeply into the concept of epiphany through texts such as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysius and Herodotus, as well as sanctuary inscriptions. Epiphanies validate the Greek religious system. Similarly, Plato's metaphysics is validated [End Page 149] by a philosophical vision of the Forms. Nightingale's detailed account of Eleusinian mysteries brings together a wide range of source material with which many philosophers will be unfamiliar, and which is especially valuable for scholars seeking to interpret Platonic passages that allude to the mysteries. Nightingale also offers an engaging interpretation of Alcibiades as one who has encountered the divine in Socrates yet failed to understand it, and so has "profaned" the mysteries in the context of human relationship (107–13).Chapter 3 examines Socrates's accounts of the soul and immortality in the Phaedo. Whereas those... (shrink)

By scholarly consensus, extant fragments from, and testimony about, Aristotle’s lost dialogue Eudemus provide strong evidence for thinking that Aristotle at some point defended the human soul’s unqualified immortality (either in whole or in part). I reject this consensus and develop an alternative, deflationary, speculative, but textually supported proposal to explain why Aristotle might have written a dialogue featuring arguments for the soul’s unqualified immortality. Instead of defending unqualified immortality as a doctrine, I argue, the Eudemus was most (...) likely offering a dramatically engaging propaedeutic to the sort of philosophical inquiry about the soul and its prospects that Aristotle pursues more scientifically in the De anima and Parva naturalia. (shrink)

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, South America hosts the world’s greatest di­versity of plants and most animal groups, as well as a variety of environmental movements, involving urban and rural communities. South American academic philosophy, however, has given little consideration to this rich biocultural context. To nourish an emergent regional environmental philosophy three main sources can be identified. First, a variety of ancient and contemporary ecological worldviews and practices offer a rich biocultural array of South American (...) environmental thought that can be disclosed and valued through the work of cultural anthropology, liberation philosophy, liberation pedagogy, liberation theology, ecofeminism, and biocultural conservation. Second, some recent academic environmental philosophy research and teaching teams have been formed in South American universities with the support of the interdisciplinary United Nations Environmental Programme or based on the individual interests of some scattered scholars. Third, social movements have increasingly demanded the incorporation of environmental values into regional policies and decision-making processes. These three sources can foster intercultural, international, and transdisciplinary dialogues to further develop a South American environmental philosophy grounded in its precious biocultural diversity. (shrink)

In this paper, I support the perspectivist reading of the Platonic dialogues. The dialogues assert an objective truth toward which we are meant to strive, and yet acknowledge that we as seekers of this truth are always partial in what we grasp of its nature. They are written in a way to encourage the development of philosophical practice in their readers, where “philosophical” means not only having an epistemic state in between the total possession of truth and its absence, but (...) also growing in selfknowledge as being that kind of a being. I take up three particular qualities of the dialogue: they are multilayered, multivocal, and mimetic. Devices such as Platonic irony, multiple characters’ voices, and a reformulated notion of mimesis that encourages the development of rationality and autonomy are central to Platonic rhetoric and philosophy. (shrink)

This 1995 book takes as its starting point Plato's incorporation of specific genres of poetry and rhetoric into his dialogues. The author argues that Plato's 'dialogues' with traditional genres are part and parcel of his effort to define 'philosophy'. Before Plato, 'philosophy' designated 'intellectual cultivation' in the broadest sense. When Plato appropriated the term for his own intellectual project, he created a new and specialised discipline. In order to define and legitimise 'philosophy', Plato had to match it (...) against genres of discourse that had authority and currency in democratic Athens. By incorporating the text or discourse of another genre, Plato 'defines' his new brand of wisdom in opposition to traditional modes of thinking and speaking. By targeting individual genres of discourse Plato marks the boundaries of 'philosophy' as a discursive and as a social practice. (shrink)

This paper explores Plato’s views on the purpose of rhetorical form by surveying the way in which Socrates engages in speechmaking at several points in the Gorgias. I argue that Socrates has nothing in principle against the use of a long speech as part of the practice of philosophical inquiry and argument, provided that the speech is geared toward understanding. This reflects a key and relatively unremarked distinction that Socrates makes in the Gorgias between persuasion that comes from being (...) convinced and persuasion that comes from being taught. The kind of long speeches that Socrates objects to are those that have a conviction-based purpose. However, this leaves open the use of a wide variety of rhetorical techniques—pieces of argument, speechifying, analogy, myth, and exhortation—that have a teaching-based purpose, which is precisely the sort of rhetoric that Socrates licenses in the dialogue. (shrink)

In this paper, I support the perspectivist reading of the Platonic dialogues. The dialogues assert an objective truth toward which we are meant to strive, and yet acknowledge that we as seekers of this truth are always partial in what we grasp of its nature. They are written in a way to encourage the development of philosophical practice in their readers, where “philosophical” means not only having an epistemic state in between the total possession of truth and its absence, but (...) also growing in selfknowledge as being that kind of a being. I take up three particular qualities of the dialogue: they are multilayered, multivocal, and mimetic. Devices such as Platonic irony, multiple characters’ voices, and a reformulated notion of mimesis that encourages the development of rationality and autonomy are central to Platonic rhetoric and philosophy. (shrink)

In ancient Greece, philosophers developed new and dazzling ideas about divinity, drawing on the deep well of poetry, myth, and religious practices even as they set out to construct new theological ideas. Andrea Nightingale argues that Plato shared in this culture and appropriates specific Greek religious discourses and practices to present his metaphysical philosophy. In particular, he uses the Greek conception of divine epiphany - a god appearing to humans - to claim that the Forms manifest their divinity epiphanically (...) to the philosopher, with the result that the human soul becomes divine by contemplating these Forms and the cosmos. Nightingale also offers a detailed discussion of the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Orphic Mysteries and shows how these mystery religions influenced Plato's thinking. This book offers a robust challenge to the idea that Plato is a secular thinker. (shrink)

Traditional Plato scholarship, in the English-speaking world, has assumed that Platonic dialogues are merely collections of arguments. Inevitably, the question arises: If Plato wanted to present collections of arguments, why did he write dialogues instead of treatises? Concerned about this question, some scholars have been experimenting with other, more contextualized ways of reading the dialogues. This anthology is among the first to present these new approaches as pursued by a variety of scholars. As such, it offers new perspectives on Plato (...) as well as a suggestive view of Plato scholarship as something of a laboratory for historians of philosophy generally. The essays gathered here each examine vital aspects of Plato’s many methods, considering his dialogues in relation to Thucydides and Homer, narrative strategies and medical practice, images and metaphors. They offer surprising new research into such much-studied works as _The Republic_ as well as revealing views of lesser-known dialogues like the _Cratylus_ and _Philebus_. With reference to thinkers such as Heidegger, Gadamer, and Sartre, the authors place the Platonic dialogues in an illuminating historical context. Together, their essays should reinvigorate the scholarly examination of the way Plato’s dialogues “work”—and should prompt a reconsideration of how the form of Plato’s philosophical writing bears on the Platonic conception of philosophy. (shrink)

If philosophy weaves its speeches by distinguishing the basic elements of human experience and then collecting them into significant wholes, Dorter's wise book exemplifies the essential movement of philosophical thought. This polished, scholarly, insightful study explores the unity, not only of the four dialogues mentioned in its title, but in an important sense of the Platonic corpus as a whole. Dorter's fresh defense of the unorthodox view that in the so-called later dialogues Plato "retained the theory [of forms] in (...) all its essentials" constitutes an important contribution to Platonic studies. This is not all. The Plato that emerges from Dorter's study is no longer a primitive practitioner of modern techniques of analysis, but a thinker who challenges all of the major alternatives on the contemporary philosophical scene. In reacquainting us with the distinctive shape of Plato's metaphysics, Dorter opens up a possibility that is scarcely acknowledged in current philosophical discourse, namely, that "ontological thinking may lead to moral or spiritual transformation". His book will be of interest to anyone willing to entertain the idea that philosophy can improve the soul. (shrink)

Two eminent French philosophers discuss German philosophy—including the legacy of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Adorno, Fichte, Marx, and Heidegger—from a French perspective. In this book, Alain Badiou and Jean-Luc Nancy, the two most important living philosophers in France, discuss German philosophy from a French perspective. Written in the form of a dialogue, and revised and expanded from a 2016 conversation between the two philosophers at the Universität der Künste Berlin, the book offers not only Badiou's and Nancy's (...) reinterpretations of German philosophers and philosophical concepts, but also an accessible introduction to the greatest thinkers of German philosophy. Badiou and Nancy discuss and debate such topics as the legacies of Kant, Hegel, and Marx, as well as Nietzsche, Adorno, Fichte, Schelling, and the unavoidable problem of Heidegger and Nazism. The dialogue is contentious, friendly, and often quotable, with strong—at times passionate—positions taken by both Badiou and Nancy, who find themselves disagreeing over Kant, for example, and in unexpected agreement on Marx, for another. What does it mean, then, to conduct a dialogue on German philosophy from a French perspective? As volume editor Jan Völker observes, “German philosophy” and “French philosophy” describe complex constellations that, despite the reference to nation-states and languages, above all encompass shared concepts and problems—although these take a range of forms. Perhaps they can reveal their essential import only in translation. (shrink)

What makes Christopher P. Long’s study of Aristotle’s ontology especially rewarding is that it is philosophically motivated. The goal is not simply to “get right what Aristotle said,” but rather to think in dialogue with Aristotle, which implies a willingness to think beyond and even against him. Long makes the general philosophical motivation of his book perfectly clear: it is the desire to find “a way between the totalizing tendencies of modernism and the anarchy of postmodernism”. This is an (...) ethical motivation, since for Long justice requires both a recognition of the fundamental autarchy of each being and a recognition of principles. But why turn back to an ancient Greek philosopher in this contemporary debate? The reason is that Long sees Aristotle as pointing “to a form of knowledge that is neither totalizing nor anarchic”. This third way of knowing is described by Long as a matter of conceptualizing the individual in such a way as to acknowledge its singularity and not reduce it to the mere instantiation of a concept. It is to see the individual neither as an inexplicable singularity nor as only the particular instantiation of a universal. Long finds this neither/nor in Aristotle’s concept of the τόδε τι, which he at one point aptly describes as “the very conceptualization of that which always escapes the concept” : “The term τόδε τι designates this individual emerging out of its isolated singularity, prior to its being reduced to particularity, the mere instantiation of a dominating concept”. Thus we get the following account of what a non-totalizing and non-anarchic form of knowledge would be like and therefore of what Long seeks to find in Aristotle. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews Kenneth Dorter. Form and Good in Plato's Eleatic Dialogues: The "'Parmenides," "Theaetetus," "Sophist," and "Statesman." Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994. Pp. x + 256. Cloth, $45.00. Dorter's title suggests an engagement with Eieaticism, and, certainly in three of" the dialogues, Parmenides was much on Plato's mind. In a book otherwise sensitive to implications of dramatic setting for the argument, little is said (...) of Eleaticism. If the "Eleatic" in the title was selected instead of "critical" for purposes of neutrality (x), "form" and "good" are more revealing of Dorter's approach. The introduction gives a rendering of revisionist and unitarian arguments about the late dialogues, pondering the effects of interpretive style, while Dotter attempts to retain some element of interpretive neutrality without disguising his own preference for finding a reaffirmation, not a critical rejection of the forms. About the forms Dorter would extract two fundamental claims, conspicuous throughout his commentary: forms are "universals, instances of 'sameness' in reality" and "values, articulations of the goodness of reality" (l 5)Keeping these two points in view, Dorter sees all four dialogues united by the method of hypothesis as outlined in the Phaedo, supplemented in the latter two by the more rigorous method of division. Dorter follows the analytic interpretive tradition in taking the Parmenides to raise serious criticisms against the theory of forms; all criticisms have, however, rejoinders anticipated in the middle dialogues. It seems Socrates, being but a boy at the time, is too young to formulate responses to the attack, if not too young to fully and accurately articulate the theory under attack. The generation of contradiction upon contradiction out of the hypotheses about the one illustrates negatively that the unity of form, in particular the form of the good, is indispensible. Forms are recovered in a hypothetical exposition carried on throughout the subsequent three dialogues, each representing a hypothesis that responds one step more adequately than the previous dialogue in the series, each dialogue itself comprising a progression of hypotheses. The Theaetetus argues by reductio for the forms. While the theory of universal flux allows that all things are produced by mixture, a process of"parentage" (75ff.), knowledge is missing one parent, the forms, which are not admitted in the dialogue. Nevertheless, each failed account of knowledge comes closer to the truth, the most promising account being the definition of knowledge as true opinion with an account, where the account is an analysis into parts. This fails in Dorter's view because, in assuming the whole to be nothing other than the parts, it does not say how parts can be intelligible apart from a prior whole. A reader might find it as hard to say how this is a hypotheti- [679] 680 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:4 OCTOBER 1995 cal advance over the criticisms of the Parmenidesas to say how the Theaetetusshould be called an "Eleatic" dialogue. The Sophist then reintroduces form, but in its epistemological aspect alone. Extensive use is made of the method of division, presented in the commentary as a rigorous method for precise definition, yet the Sophistfails to distinguish sophistry from philosophy. Two reasons are given. The final division locates sophistry under the productive, rather than the acquisitive arts. (The commentary indicates no surprise at sophistry being categorized as an art at all.) Moreover, the method of division makes no use of value, the real distinguishing feature of the two types of art, although Dorter argues that allusion is made to value through references to the Republic'stheory of soul. The Statesman fills in the missing feature by introducing measurement against the standard of the mean as opposed to relative measurement, finally reintegrating both features that Dorter considers salient aspects of Platonic forms: universality (sameness) from the Sophistand now value (the mean) in the Statesman. The commentary finds that the use of division in the Statesman, where it is not strictly dichotomous, evidences a "decline from the rigor and precision of the divisions in the Sophist"(l 8 l), despite the rejection of division by strict halving in the Phaedrusand in Aristotle. Lack of rigor is not, however, a reproach in Dorter's... (shrink)

This book is an attempt to meet the arguments of scholars who have denied that within the Philebus, generally recognized as a late dialogue, the theory of Forms of the middle dialogues is advocated or plays an important role. Accordingly, instead of a commentary on the argument of the Philebus as a whole, Benitez presents a painstaking analysis of those passages that promise to shed light on Plato's metaphysical and epistemological views at the time of the writing of the (...) Philebus. The result is not for the casual reader, since much of the book is devoted to a careful examination of the Greek text and alternative interpretations. Nonetheless this book will prove profitable for all who are interested in Platonic metaphysics, for Benitez concentrates on developing cogent interpretations of the One-Many problems and the Heavenly Tradition and the Fourfold Classification, two of the most difficult and provocative passages in the Platonic corpus. (shrink)

The article deals with the practical philosophy of Hryhorii Savych Skovoroda from the point of view of the leading trends of modern philosophical thought: the «rehabilitation of practical philo- sophy» and the communicative turn in philosophy, the components of which are the neo-Socratic dialogue, the philosophy of communication, and the ethics of discourse. The interpretation of Skovoroda’s philosophy is carried out not only in accordance with the principle «know yourself» as a method of knowledge, but (...) primarily in the dimension of the Socratic dialogue, when the methods of morals and elenctics are used in the joint search for truth, solving moral problems. The dialogic nature of Skovoroda’s method consists in searching for the truth together with other people through argumentation, the truth that also appears as a moral category. The article shows the actualization of Skovoroda’s philosophy in the pre-Soviet, Soviet and modern periods of the study of his work in independent Ukraine. The main thesis of the work consists in the statement that Skovoroda did not reduce philosophy to life, but raised life itself to philosophy. Philosophy was his life — a practical philosophy of life that formed his dialogical habitus. Socratic dialogue appears in philosophy, in everyday practices of communication with people, in particular, in the itinerant habitus of the thinker. Traveling is an important element of his philosophy, his life, and his habitus. The itinerant nature of Skovoroda’s habitus takes his dialogues beyond epistemology, transferring the dialogue to a practical, or rather, moral-practical plane. Skovoroda as an educator, relying on the habitus of Ukrainian culture and dialogic practices, transcends this habitus, elevating it to the habitus of reason. The work asserts the opinion about the need and necessity to develop and practice neo-skovorodinian dialogue as a component of the worldwide trend of development of dialogic practical philosophy and dialogic civilization. The article shows not only the significance of Skovoroda’s philosophy as a historical-philosophical phenomenon, but also its role in modern philosophical research in Ukraine, as well as the national liberation struggles of the Ukrainian people in the fight against Russia’s aggressive policy. (shrink)

The Caribbean is a site where multiple cultures, peoples, waysof thinking and acting have come together and where new formsof philosophy are emerging. The promise of Caribbean philoso-phy lays in its ability to give shape to an intellectual tradition which is both true to and beneficial to Caribbean peoples whilesimultaneously being provocative enough to engage wisdom-seekers of various geographies and identities. I argue that onlyby pursuing a “New Dialogic” which engages the philosophicaltraditions of Africans, African Americans, and Native Ameri-cans (...) can we hope to assert a unique philosophy of value toCaribbean peoples and cultures. The highest form of Caribbeanphilosophy thus must be plural and dialogical. Unfortunately,dialogues in philosophy have been typically characterized bya fixation with Europe, and a lack of consideration of otherphilosophical traditions or sources. The “New Dialogic” thatI propose here involves a more dynamic model of dialogue toopen or intensify different and multiple avenues of conceptualelaboration. I provide general guidelines or principles for this“New Dialogic” and demonstrate the extent to which Caribbeanphilosophers can both contribute to the expansion of this projectand be aided by it in their formulations of the field. (shrink)

In this article, I propose to integrate indigenous knowledges in the Philosophy for/with Children theory and practice. I make the claim that it is possible to treat indigenous knowledges, not only as topics for philosophical dialogues with children but as presuppositions of the philosophical activity itself within the Community of Inquiry. Such integration is important for at least three (3) reasons: First, recognizing indigenous ways of thinking and seeing the world informs us of other non-dominant forms of knowledges, methods (...) to produce knowledge and criteria to determine knowledge. Second, the dominance of western standards of producing and determining knowledge, especially in non-western societies, needs to be reduced, balanced and informed by local knowledges and experiences. And third, indigenous knowledges reinforce a culturally responsive P4wC that responds to the challenges arising in multicultural and ethnically diverse classrooms. There are two (2) possible intersections where such integration may take place, namely: a) Epistemology, where I claim that the integration of a “presentational epistemology” immanent in indigenous patterns of thinking provides a counterweight to Lipman’s strong adherence to analytic-representational epistemology, and b) Pedagogy, which takes shape in an “indigenized” Community of Inquiry that highlights the values of interconnectedness, situatedness and relationality. (shrink)

Hughes’ second major work can be read as an amplification of his first work, The Texture of the Divine, in which attention was paid to “secondary” themes in Jewish philosophy pertaining to aesthetics, poetics, and rhetoric; these themes have often been marginalized in histories of Jewish philosophy. In both works, Hughes focuses upon the importance of cultural history in understanding philosophical texts, exploring motifs and tropes often left out of more mainstream histories of Jewish philosophy. In The (...) Art of Dialogue, he argues that, inasmuch as a text’s content cannot be separated from its form, we must become more sensitive to why particular thinkers chose the form of dialogue over others: what did this genre allow the thinker to accomplish, and how are the literary features of the dialogue instrumental in the construction of philosophical arguments? Hughes notes that Jewish thinkers were more apt to employ the dialogue during periods in which it was popular in non-Jewish writings. Although the dialogue form itself has had a venerable history in Jewish thought, Hughes argues that there is no evidence that Jewish philosophers looked to this body of rabbinic literature when composing their own dialogues.To make his case that Jewish writers were influenced by their non-Jewish peers, Hughes examines a number of works, drawn from various periods in Jewish. (shrink)

I FORMS IN THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHYSICISTS Plato's dialogue Parmenides carried in the classification of Thrasyllus the editorial subtitle nepi i6«ov, ...

In this article I propose a conception of empowering educational dialogue within the framework of humanistic education. It is based on the notions of Humanistic Education and Empowerment, and draws on a large and diverse repertoire of dialogues—from the classical Socratic, Confucian and Talmudic dialogues, to the modern ones associated with the works of Nietzsche, Buber, Korczak, Rogers, Gadamer, Habermas, Freire, Noddings and Levinas. These forms of dialogue—differing in their treatment of and emphasis on the cognitive, affective, moral (...) and existentialist elements—have become more dominant in recent educational discourse and practice—an intellectual phenomenon that calls for a more analytic and reflective elaboration of the essential elements that constitute educational dialogues. Hence it is the purpose of this article to elucidate the distinguishing marks of true dialogues, to set them within the normative discourse of humanistic education and empowerment, and to offer a normative and stipulative conception of empowering educational dialogue that can be utilized in the various intellectual and practical spheres of humanistic education—a paradigm,working definition, and outline for contemporary teachers in their quest to develop their students’ sensibilities and sensitivities, and empower their ability to live complete, autonomous, authentic, moral and dignified human lives. (shrink)

Philip Quinn, John A. O’Brien Professor at the University of Notre Dame from 1985 until his death in 2004, was well known for his work in the philosophy of religion, political philosophy, and core areas of analytic philosophy. Although the breadth of his interests was so great that it would be virtually impossible to identify any subset of them as representative, the contributors to this volume provide an excellent introduction to, and advance the discussion of, some of (...) the questions of central importance to Quinn in the last years of his working life. Paul J. Weithman argues in his introduction that Quinn’s interest and analyses in many areas grew out of a distinctive and underlying sensibility that we might call “liberal faith.” It included belief in the value of a liberal education and in rigorous intellectual inquiry, the acceptance of enduring religious, cultural, and political pluralism, along with a keen awareness of problems posed by pluralism, and a deeply held but non-utopian faith in liberal democratic politics. These provocative essays, at the cutting edge of epistemology, the philosophy of religion, philosophical theology, and political philosophy, explore the tenets of liberal faith and invite continuing engagement with the philosophical issues. “Philip Quinn was admired enormously throughout the world of professional philosophy.... His reputation for rigor, his tireless service to the profession, and his essentially ‘non-dogmatic,’ but philosophically sophisticated faith is widely admired... The essays in this volume are first-rate contemporary philosophy along with an excellent introduction to Quinn’s work.” —_Charles Taliaferro, St. Olaf College_ "The papers that form _Liberal Faith_ give insightful treatments of three types of questions: first, how can we conscientiously believe something when there are many people we admire who do not believe it, and what is the underlying relation here between justification and rationality; second, what does it mean to desire union with God, and can Christians properly believe in the possibility of eternal self-annihilation; third, how should liberal democracy accommodate the religious convictions of its members, whether some comprehensive doctrine such as a religion is required to justify a commitment to human equality, and whether there is an absolute moral prohibition on the state use of torture. The volume has an unusually good introduction putting the papers into dialog with each other and with the work of Philip Quinn. The papers are cohesive because the central themes of Philip Quinn's work hold together into a picture of how Christianity and Liberal Democracy fit together." —_John Hare, Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology, Yale Divinity School _ “This is a collection of high quality essays dealing with various topics related to Philip Quinn’s work. The book makes an original contribution by virtue of its individual papers, each of which is new. These essays will be of interest to scholars and students who followed Quinn’s work, especially in philosophy of religion and political philosophy.“ —_John Greco, The Leonard and Elizabeth Eslick Chair in Philosophy, Saint Louis University _. (shrink)

Aaron W. Hughes presents the first major study of dialogue as a Jewish philosophical practice. Examining connections between Jewish philosophy, the literary form in which it is expressed, and the culture in which it is produced, Hughes shows how Jews understood and struggled with their social, religious, and intellectual environments. In this innovative and insightful book, Hughes addresses various themes associated with the literary form of dialogue as well as its philosophical reception: Why did various (...) thinkers choose dialogue? What did it allow them to accomplish? How do the literary features of dialogue construct philosophical argument? As a history of philosophical form, context, and practice, this book will interest scholars and students working at the intersections of religious studies, philosophy, and literature. (shrink)

The ontological distinctiveness of a work of art, which consists, among other things, in the fact that it creates its own universe, does not preclude a work of art from occasionally pointing beyond the unity of this very universe. This may take place in a direct way, say, when a statement that occurs within the context of the aesthetic universe created by the author is intelligible if it is attributed to the author herself, but not within the aesthetic universe. The (...) parabases delivered by the chorus in Old Comedy are a well-known example, and, since the transgression of illusions has a special affinity to the nature of the comical and the direct contact with the audience was expected at this point, they are aesthetically warranted. (shrink)

In this bold book, Jonas Grethlein proposes a new dialogue between the fields of Classics and aesthetics. Ancient material, he argues, has the capacity to challenge and re-orientate current debates. Comparisons with modern art and literature help to balance the historicism of classical scholarship with transcultural theoretical critique. Grethlein discusses ancient narratives and pictures in order to explore the nature of aesthetic experience. While our responses to both narratives and pictures are vicarious, the 'as-if' on which they are premised (...) is specifically shaped by the form of the representation. Form emerges as a key to how narratives and pictures constitute an important means of engaging with experience. Combining theoretical reflections with close readings, this book will appeal to art historians as well as to textual scholars. (shrink)

While Philosophy for/with Children (P4wC) provides a better alternative to the usual ‘banking’ model of education, questions have been raised regarding its applicability in non-western contexts. Despite its adherence to the ideals of democratic dialogue, not all members of a Community of Inquiry (COI) will be disposed to participate in the inquiry, not because they are incapable of doing so, but because they are positioned inferiorly within the group thereby affecting their efforts to speak out on topics that (...) are meaningful to them. In this article, I claim that it is essential to integrate positionality in P4wC research/practice. Aside from its role in helping a practitioner/researcher choose the appropriate method and materials that match the unique contexts of children, it also increases one’s awareness of the subtle forms of epistemic injustice that could leak in the COI, as well as the other subtle ways in which children are marginalized. In this regard, a P4wC researcher/practitioner must have a higher degree of sensitivity towards her positionality as this inevitably gets entangled with the positionality of children. I present some ‘areas’ in which the importance of positionality in the COI manifests, namely, restructuring classroom power relations, navigating a multi-ethnic classroom, facilitating meaning-making, and modeling reflective thinking. (shrink)

Ethics consultation in institutions of the healthcare system has been given a standard form based on three pillars: education, the development of guidelines and concrete ethics consultation in case conferences. The spread of ethics committees, which perform these tasks on an organizational level, is a remarkable historic achievement. At the same time it cannot be denied that modern ethics consultation neglects relevant aspects of care ethics approaches. In our essay we present an “ethics of care” approach as well as (...) an empirical pilot project—“Ethics from the bottom up”—which organizes ethics consultation based on this focus. Findings and philosophy of the project will be discussed as far as relevant for ethics consultation in the healthcare system. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.1 (2002) 84-106 [Access article in PDF] Irony in the Platonic Dialogues Charles L. Griswold, Jr. I INTERPRETERS OF PLATO have arrived at a general consensus to the effect that there exists a problem of interpretation when we read Plato, and that the solution to the problem must in some way incorporate what has tendentiously been called the "literary" and the "philosophical" sides of Plato's (...) writing. The problem is created by the fact that Plato wrote in dialogue form, indeed a specific type of dialogue form. The solution must somehow combine into a coherent theory of the "meaning" of the dialogues, the ways in which these texts work (such as the use of imagery, metaphor, myth, allusion, irony, as well as argument). At the same time, there exists enormous disagreement about how one ought to move from these general observations to interpretation of a particular text. 1The problem of interpretation lies not merely in the fact that Plato wrote dialogues. That alone would not necessarily present any hermeneutical issues of unusual difficulty. Plato's distinctive use of the dialogue form creates the difficulties. The genre that we might call "the Platonic dialogue" is distinguished by several relevant characteristics.First, there is no character called "Plato" who speaks in any of the dialogues; indeed, "Plato" is mentioned twice in the entire corpus, once as being absent (Pho. 59b10), and once as being present (Apol. 38b6). Authorial anonymity is thus an important feature of the dialogues. 2 At least ab initio, we are not justified in identifying Plato with any one of his characters. Indeed, there are positive reasons why he cannot be identified even with Socrates, as I will discuss below. 3 Plato is absent from his own texts; no simple act of reading them will allow us to ascertain what his views are. 4 It does not follow that Plato's views are [End Page 84] entirely absent from the dialogues—say, in the form of some mysterious "esoteric teaching"—and that they cannot be elicited by a complex act of reading. Just how Plato's views are to be extracted has been, again, the subject of a very long debate. 5 I myself think that Plato's views can be so elicited. 6 But the fact of his anonymity as author means that "Plato's meaning" is not ascertainable in the way that, say, "Kant's meaning" may be ascertainable in the Critique of Pure Reason.A second feature of Plato's dialogues contributes to the interpretive puzzle. The dialogues are clearly fictional in character. They are not—they could not be—transcriptions of conversations which took place. Some dialogues could not have taken place even when the interlocutors were historical figures (for example, at the Phaedrus' ostensible dramatic date the real Phaedrus was not in Athens). Not only are many of the characters entirely fictional, there is clear evidence that even "Socrates" is very much a fictionalized version of the historical character. I am referring not just to the famous statement in the (possibly inauthentic) Second Letter, 7 but to the fact that the Socrates of Plato's dialogues is presented as being a super-human character. This is evident from Alcibiades' description of him in the Symposium as well as from a number of subtle fictions. For example, Plato has Socrates narrate the entirety of the Republic from memory, without a single moment of hesitation or (so far as the reader can tell) any lapse of memory. This fantastic feat is complemented by Socrates' equally fantastic stamina in conversation. The lengthy Protagoras, for example, is narrated in its entirety by Socrates immediately after the dialogue itself has occurred. Socrates never shows any fatigue of any sort. It is not just hyperbole to say that Plato's Socrates is heroic; he is carefully compared, in passages I cannot examine here, to both Achilles and Odysseus. Socrates' absolute calm and self-control before death also evidence his superhuman character. The relation between the historical Socrates and the Platonic Socrates is the source of much fruitful controversy. It suffices for... (shrink)

This book proposes to rethink the relationship between philosophy and literature through an engagement with Plato’s dialogues. The dialogues have been seen as the source of a long tradition that subordinates poetry to philosophy, but they may also be approached as a medium for understanding how to overcome this opposition. Paradoxically, Plato then becomes an ally in the attempt “to overturn Platonism,” which Gilles Deleuze famously defined as the task of modern philosophy. Max Statkiewicz identifies a “rhapsodic (...) mode” initiated by Plato in the dialogues and pursued by many of his modern European commentators, including Nietzsche, Heidegger, Irigaray, Derrida, and Nancy. The book articulates this rhapsodic mode as a way of entering into true dialogue _, which splits any univocal meaning and opens up a serious play of signification both within and between texts. This mode, he asserts, employs a reading of Plato that is distinguished from interpretations emphasizing the dialogues as a form of dogmatic treatise, as well as from the dramatic interpretations that have been explored in recent Plato scholarship—both of which take for granted the modern notion of the subject. Statkiewicz emphasizes the importance of the dialogic nature of the rhapsodic mode in the play of philosophy and poetry, of Platonic and modern thought—and, indeed, of seriousness and play. This highly original study of Plato explores the inherent possibilities of Platonic thought to rebound upon itself and engender further dialogues. (shrink)

What does David Hume do with the dialogue form in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion? I pursue this question in the context of a partial taxonomy of uses for the dialogue form in philosophy in general—although I want to emphasize the word “partial.” My driving concern here is Hume’s use of dialogue, not to list all possible uses of dialogue or to draw conclusions about the uses of dialogue in philosophy in general. (...) My question sits between two other related questions: a biographical and historical question, “What did Hume intend to do with the dialogue form?” and a question about reception by his audiences, “What did Hume actually achieve with the dialogue form?” Both of these are worthwhile questions.. (shrink)

The paper presents an innovative approach to teaching philosophy, which the authors name as a comicsophy approach to teaching philosophy. Such creative application of comics in the teaching of philosophy fully corresponds to the skandalonic and dialogical character of philosophy itself. The methodical value of using comics in philosophy teaching is manifested exactly in comics’ distinctly skandalonic character. The skandalon is a methodical process that seeks to provoke students' curiosity by questioning something that otherwise seemed (...) unquestionable, self-evident, to present it in a new light, in order to make it the subject of critical questioning and reflection. Given the visuality of the comics, its fun and root in popular culture, it is an excellent motivational tool for philosophical reflection and understanding of reality, philosophical issues, ideas and concepts in teaching philosophy. By introducing comics as recognizable products of pop culture close to students' reading interest and experience in teaching philosophy, it is easier for them to connect what they learn in school with real life, ie to apply what they have learned in everyday life situations. Comics can be used as a source of information, a form of learning new content, as well as a basis for encouraging dialog and discussion in the classroom. Also, students can individually or in pairs/groups create comics on specific philosophical topics, thus developing creative, critical and collaborative thinking. The paper presents specific criteria for evaluating comics on philosophical issues that students create in philosophy classes. (shrink)

In the sixteenth-century book Utopia, Thomas More argues that philosophers can play an effective role in the public sphere. This article builds from More’s argument to develop a theory of public philosophy centered on dialogue or rhetoric. It contrasts this public philosophy with the disciplinary form of philosophy that emerged in the twentieth century. The discipline constitutes philosophers as experts and limits them to a dialogue only with their peers. By contrast, public philosophers can (...) be in dialogue with anyone involved in a public issue. The article discusses some key challenges to doing public philosophy. It then gives an account of the methods and central features of field philosophy, one kind of public philosophy. (shrink)

Engaging in dialogue with African philosophy, I respond to questions raised by Thaddeus Metz on characteristics of Confucian philosophy in comparison with African philosophy. First, in both Confucian philosophy and African philosophy, harmony/harmonization and self-realization coincide in the process of person-making. Second, Confucians accept that sometimes it is inevitable to sacrifice individual components in order to achieve or maintain harmony at large scales; the point is how to minimize such costs. Third, Confucians give family (...) love a central place in the good life before extend love to the rest of the world. Fourth, the Confucian philosophy of gender equality is based on appropriate division of labor consistent with its yin-yang philosophy, rather than equal split of power in the family. Fifth, in the Confucian view, hierarchy and harmony do not necessarily contradict each other, though hierarchy is not essential to all forms of harmony. The two can co-exist. (shrink)

This article argues the following points. (1) It is necessary to affirm that all of humanity has always sought to address certain `core universal problems' that are present in all cultures. (2) The rational responses to these `core problems' first acquire the shape of mythical narratives. (3) The formulation of categorical philosophical discourses is a subsequent development in human rationality, which does not, however, negate all mythical narratives. These discourses arose in all the great urban neolithic cultures (even if only (...) in initial form). (4) Modern European philosophy confused its economic, political and cultural domination, and the resulting crises in other philosophical traditions, with a Eurocentric universality claim, which must be questioned. (5) In any case there are formal universal aspects in which all regional philosophies can coincide, and which respond to the `core problems' at an abstract level. (6) All of this impels entry into a new age of inter-philosophical dialogue, respectful of differences and open to learning from the useful discoveries of other traditions. (7) A new philosophical project must be developed that is capable of going beyond Eurocentric philosophical modernity, by shaping a global trans - modern pluriverse, drawing upon the `discarded' (by modernity) own resources of peripheral, subaltern, postcolonial philosophies. Key Words: Al-Jabri • dialogue • Eurocentric • Fornet-Betancourt • Hountondji • inter-philosophical • myth • narrative • rationality • Ricoeur • transmodern. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the epistemological positions of Philo and Cleanthes in the Dialogues. I find that Philo's attitude towards skepticism mirrors that of the first Enquiry, most notably in its endorsement of mitigated skepticism, and its treatment of religious reasoning as distinctly discontinuous with science and philosophy. Meanwhile, Cleanthes's epistemological framework corresponds to that of the Treatise, most notably in its adoption of something like the Title Principle, and its treatment of some forms of religious reasoning as (...) broadly continuous with science and philosophy. It is not merely that the epistemological systems of the Treatise and Enquiry are echoed in Cleanthes's and Philo's positions respectively; these frameworks seem to clarify, provide a substantive basis for, and render more complete their somewhat piecemeal statements on this topic in the Dialogues. Thus, Philo's and Cleanthes's dispute is not limited to the theological, but extends to the epistemological. -/- . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 325 Recapitulations: Essays in Philosophy. By THOMAS PRUFER. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1993. Pp. 112. $34.95 (cloth). Re-reading and pondering this little volume, it is hard not to remember John Milton's commendation of a good book as "the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." This is, indeed, the distillation of a life's intense (...) reflection on the central issues of philosophy, parceled out misleadingly in a collection of essaysmisleadingly, because (as the preface asserts) the collection is not a heap. It is not a heap or agglomeration, despite the essays having been published over a period of thirty years, partly because the author gathered them together, organized, and revised them before his untimely death, and partly because they are unified by the pervasiveness and centrality of the careful reflection on the inflections that philosophers have effected in the sense of the word "being" and the word "nature." Indeed, it might have been entitled Nature and Being or Physis kai Einai. The essays are arranged chronologically, from ancients to modems. In tracking their philosophical themes, the author is constantly and perceptively attentive to the form of the language in which thought comes to expression: to the form (and genre) of the texts and to the ways in which language is troped into philosophical uses. So the first essay is on "The Dramatic Form of Plato's Phaedo," and deals with the way the dialogue's narrative framework interacts with the dramatic discussion. And the last essay deals with the relation between structure and story in Waugh's Brideshead Revisited ("The Death of Charm and the Advent of Grace"). In between these are eleven essays on Oedipus and the Poetics, Aristotle, solitude and creation, nature in Epicurus and Hobbes, Augustine's Confessions, comparisons of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Leo Strauss, and studies of Hume, Husserl, and Heidegger. Most of them are brief: dense because condensed, shipped to essentials. They demand attentive reading, but they repay it. Three philosophers are foci or axes: Aristotle, Aquinas, and Heidegger. Aristotle serves as a foil, a reference point for the inflections that-in particular -Aquinas and Heidegger bring to the senses of "nature" and "being." In addition, Husserl serves as a foil for Heidegger, so that each illuminates the other. For Aristotle, although separate being-the noesis noeseos-is primary being, it is necessary that it not be the only sense of "being." It is necessary that "being" mean being in common to many and being in common with many. Separate being is part of the whole of what is. But, for Aquinas, although it is true that God is not the only sense of "being," it is meaningful 326 BOOK REVIEWS (though false) to say that "being" means not God and others but God alone. God cannot not be, but for creatures-even necessary creatures, those with no intrinsic potentiality not to be-their being is a gift, an act ofliberality and generosity by God. That means that God's necessity is utterly different from the necessity of necessary creatures, which not only can be annihilated but which form a whole with all other creatures, which are complemented and completed by other created beings. A greater whole is formed by what complements, but as Aquinas wrote: "Created good added to uncreated good does not result in something greater." Moreover, God's necessary nature, unlike that of the necessary nature of separate being, is not opposed to, does not exclude, the freedom to create. Nor is that freedom to create (or not to create) an indeterminacy or arbitrariness in God's nature. God does not act in order to gain what He lacks or does not have, but as willing to communicate what He has. As Prufer summarizes: For Aquinas the superahundant and therefore necessary and self-sufficient goodness of God is His freedom,... freedom that is free-of-and-for whether or not there be many others, freedom that is free.to be generous because, being self-sufficient, it need not be generous. One of the most interesting essays reflects on this understanding of God... (shrink)