DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Socratic Discourses" by Plato, Xenophon. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

The idea of the philosopher-statesman finds its first literary expression in Plato's Republic, where Socrates, facing the ‘third wave’ of criticism of his ideal State, how it can be realized in practice, declares2 that it will be sufficient ‘to indicate the least change that would affect a transformation into this type of government. There is one change’, he claims, ‘not a small change certainly, nor an easy one, but possible.’ ‘Unless either philosophers become kings in their countries, or those (...) who are now called kings and rulers come to be sufficiendy inspired with a genuine desire for wisdom; unless, that is to say, political power and philosophy meet together, … there can be no rest from troubles for states.’. (shrink)

The idea of the philosopher-statesman finds its first literary expression in Plato's Republic, where Socrates, facing the ‘third wave’ of criticism of his ideal State, how it can be realized in practice, declares2 that it will be sufficient ‘to indicate the least change that would affect a transformation into this type of government. There is one change’, he claims, ‘not a small change certainly, nor an easy one, but possible.’ ‘Unless either philosophers become kings in their countries, or those (...) who are now called kings and rulers come to be sufficiendy inspired with a genuine desire for wisdom; unless, that is to say, political power and philosophy meet together, … there can be no rest from troubles for states.’. (shrink)

I Have argued elsewhere, and still believe, that the Phaedo was written before Plato's first journey to Italy, when the strong Pythagorean influences displayed in that dialogue were reaching him through the Pythagorean centres on the Greek mainland, in particular Phleius and Thebes; and that in the Republic and Phaedrus it is possible to trace equally strong Pythagorean influence but different in detail, because Plato had now come into contact with the Pythagoreans who still remained in Italy, particularly (...) Archytas. The most remarkable of these influences from whatever source was the doctrine of the immortality and transmigration of the soul, which we know to have been held by the earliest Pythagorean society, and the account of the soul's experience in the world below. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Aristotelianism of Locke's PoliticsJ. S. MaloyThose, then, who think that the positions of statesman, king, household manager, and master of slaves are the same are not correct. For they hold that each of these differs not innly in whether the subjects ruled are few or many... the assumption being that there is no difference between a large household and a small city-state.... But these claims are not true.Aristotle, (...) Politics, 1252a1The Power of a Magistrate over a Subject may be distinguished from that of a Father over his Children, a Master over his Servant, a Husband over his Wife, and a Lord over his Slave. All which distinct Powers happening sometimes together in the same Man, if he be considered under these different Relations, it may help us to distinguish these Powers one from another, and show the difference betwixt a Ruler of a Common-wealth, a Father of a Family, and a Captain of a Galley.Locke, Two Treatises of Government, 2.22 [End Page 235]When the political theory of John Locke first appeared in print in 1689, the imposing authority of Aristotle stood ready to defeat it. So believed many of Locke's critics, at any rate. After his death in 1704, when it was confirmed that the internationally renowned author of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding had also written the anonymously published Two Treatises of Government, Locke was widely taken to represent a distinctive type of political theory based on individual rights and the social contract. Learned opposition to this sort of voluntaristic account of politics has often rested on Aristotle, "the Philosopher," the ancient authority on the human instinct for sociability and the hierarchal communities arising therefrom. Within the modern academy "liberals," "communitarians," and "republicans" have again made a habit of pronouncing the names of Locke and Aristotle in tones of antagonism. In broad outline the reasons have not changed in two or three centuries ago: the first stands for natural-rights individualism and the second for an organic conception of community.3What are we to make of this conventional opposition in light of the awkward fact that the second of Locke's Two Treatises, "Of Civil Government," takes the reclamation of the Aristotelian conception of political power as its principal purpose? Locke announced in the opening chapter of that essay that his chief target, Robert Filmer, had misunderstood the nature of distinctively political relationships, mainly by ignoring the differences between authority in political society and authority within the family (L 2.1–2). Locke alleged that this basic conceptual mistake of the Filmerian theory of "absolute" and "arbitrary" government was the source of its disastrous practical ramifications, which he had summed up in the first Treatise as "Chains for all Mankind" (L 1.1). Filmer, in turn, had taken Plato's side in the debate about political and familial rule which Aristotle had joined in the opening lines of his Politics (A 1252a). Though a perceptive reader long ago noticed the Aristotelianism of Locke's response to Filmer—Locke and Algernon Sidney were the "two famous men" to whom Rousseau alluded as having defended Aristotle against Filmer's Platonic notions of power—no modern scholar has attempted a full explanation of the significance of Locke's intervention in this debate.4 [End Page 236]The analysis below will show that Aristotle was the classic source for both the principal theoretic argument of Locke's second Treatise and the method employed to pursue it, i.e. using analogies of power for conceptual comparison and distinction. But my argument for the Aristotelianism of Locke's politics will rest on contextual as well as textual grounds. Not only was Locke pursuing an evident variation on the central theme of bk. 1 of Aristotle's Politics; he was far from alone in doing so. This sort of project was by the 1680s typical of radical constitutionalist writing in Europe, including not only English Whigs like Sidney and James Tyrrell but also a long line of writers on both sides of the English Channel, stretching back at least a century, who deployed a particular interpretation of Aristotle in the service... (shrink)

In his celebrated masterpiece, Symposium, Plato imagines a high-society dinner-party in Athens in 416 BC at which the guests - including the comic poet Aristophanes and, of course, Plato's mentor Socrates - each deliver a short speech in praise of love. The sequence of dazzling speeches culminates in Socrates' famous account of the views of Diotima, a prophetess who taught him that love is our means of trying to attain goodness. And then into the party bursts the drunken (...) Alcibiades, the most popular and notorious Athenian of the time, who insists on praising Socrates himself rather than love, and gives us a brilliant sketch of this enigmatic character. The power, humour, and pathos of Plato's creation engages the reader on every page. This new translation is complemented by full explanatory notes and an illuminating introduction. (shrink)

ιλοκαλομέν τε γρ μετ' ετελείας κα ιλοσοομεν νευ μαλακίαας. πλούτ τε ργου μλλον και ἢ λόγου κόμπ χρώμεθα, κα τ πένεσθαι οχ μολοσεν τιν ασχρόν, λλ μ διαεύγειν ργ ασχιον νι τε τος ατος οκείων μα κα πολιτικν πιμέλεια, κα τέροις πρς ργα τετραμμένοις τ πολιτικ μ νδες γνναι. J. Kakridis has seen in this famous passage a reflection of the popular debate, conducted most memorably by Amphion and Zethus in Euripides' Antiope and Callicles and Socrates in Plato's Gorgias, (...) over the respective merits of the vita activa and vita contemplativa. Normally the intellectual is faulted as lazy and helpless, the politician as an ignorant busybody; yet Pericles, according to Kakridis, claims that Athenians avoid these faults and combine the traits of both lives at their best. This interpretation accords well with the idealism of the funeral oration, but it falters over what Pericles places between philosophy and politics, viz. πλοτος. Kakridis must struggle to account for the transition directly from philosophy to wealth, on the assumption that πλούτ τε…χρώμεθα serves to amplify νευ μαλακίας, while νιτε…πιμέλεια extends the description of the non-intellectual life from the private sphere of trade to the public one of politics. (shrink)

This slender volume attempts to determine the role of logic in Heidegger’s thought and its incompatibility with logic as others understand it, so as to show that Heidegger’s overcoming of logic entails an overturn of philosophy as conceived since Plato. Fay carries this out in six steps: 1) Heidegger’s critique of logic is motivated by metaphysics’ forgetfulness of Being and by the need for a fundamental ontology of alëtheia; 2) the primacy of the preconceptual, prelogical grasp of Being shows (...) that not logic but "the command of Being," grasped "by a thankful gesture of acceptance", rules thought; 3) discussion of "Nothing" in Wegmarken, Carnap’s attacks thereupon, and Heidegger’s counterclaims; 4) discussion of the devolution from truth as the bond of physis-alëtheia-logos to truth as correspondence; 5) a Heideggerian view of the development of symbolic logic and its relation to technicity; 6) the overcoming of technicity in Heidegger’s meditation on language. Professor Fay concludes that Heidegger’s reflection on logos is incompatible with logic as ordinarily understood but that the attempt to overcome traditional logic delivers Heidegger’s thought not to irrationalism but to the original sense of logos. (shrink)

This edition of Martin Ostwald's revised version of J. B. Skemp's 1952 translation of _Statesman_ includes a new selected bibliography, as well as Ostwald's interpretive introduction, which traces the evolution in Plato's political philosophy from _Republic_ to _Statesman to Laws_--from philosopher-king to royal statesman.

Volume 36 contains papers and commentaries presented to the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy during academic year 2019-20. Works: _Republic 7, Topics 1.2, Nicomachean Ethics 3.5, Isis and Osiris_. Topics: types of dialectic, political philosophy, voluntary, hermeneutical retrieval, wanted emotions.

Volume 36 contains papers and commentaries presented to the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy during academic year 2019-20. Works: _Republic 7, Topics 1.2, Nicomachean Ethics 3.5, Isis and Osiris_. Topics: types of dialectic, political philosophy, voluntary, hermeneutical retrieval, wanted emotions.

At the beginning of Book II of the Republic, Glaucon and Adeimantus ask Socrates to tell them what it is to be just or unjust, and why a man should be the former. Socrates suggests in reply that they consider first what it is for a polis to be just or unjust—a polis is bigger than an individual, he says, so its justice should be more readily visible. Now if we were to view in imagination a polis coming into existence, (...) he goes on, we should see also its justice and injustice coming into existence, and this might help us to discover what these qualities are. (shrink)

IN Plato’s eyes, unity was a prime requisite of civil society: “there is no greater good than whatsoever binds the State together into one”. Plato carried his conception of unity to an extreme; for his organic conception has the defect of postulating members who are means to the life of the rest, and do not share in that life. And yet Plato argues from his organic conception of the state to the conclusion, that as in an organism (...) part must be proportioned to suit part, and all to suit the whole—as no part must grow unduly, lest every part should suffer—so in a State class must be proportioned to class, and all classes be adjusted to the good of the whole. (shrink)

The high moral tone of Horace's Reguhls ode makes it unsurprising that the poet should employ the traditional imagery of philosophers, both in the speech of Regulus and in the final simile. I should like here to point out some instances which seem to have escaped the notice of commentators.This passage is intended to illustrate the lost ‘virtus’ of the prisoners in Carthage, who, Regulus claims, will be of no greater use to the Romans if ransomed since they were cowardly (...) enough to surrender in the first place. For the first image of dyeing wool Kiessling–Heinze refer the reader to Lucretius 6.1074–7:purpureusque colos conchyli iungitur unacorpore cum lanae, dirimi qui non queat usquam,non si Neptuni fluctu renovare operam des,non mare si totum velit eluere omnibus undis.This gives the first hint that the image belongs to the philosophical tradition, though it does not seem to occur in the extant remains of Epicurus. This is confirmed by a passage of Plato, who at Rep. 429d ff. has an elaborate image taken from the dyer's art. The Guardians of the ideal city are to be carefully selected and prepared like wool for the dyeing process of education; then, as good wool keeps its colour after dyeing, so the Guardians will keep right opinions when they are taught them. The image is summarized by Socrates at 430a ff. (shrink)

J.L. Ackrill's work on Plato and Aristotle has had a considerable influence upon ancient philosophical studies in the late twentieth century. This volume collects the best of Ackrill's essays on the two greatest philosophers of antiquity. With philosophical acuity and philological expertise he examines a wide range of texts and topics--from ethics and logic to epistemology and metaphysics--that continue to be in the focus of debate.

In a recent article, C. H. Kahn addresses an ‘old scholarly myth’, namely the idea that Book I of the Republic began life as an earlier, independent dialogue and was subsequently adapted to serve as a prelude to the much longer work that we know. The case for this hypothesis rests both on stylometric considerations and on the many ‘Socratic’ features that Book I, unlike the rest of the Republic, shares with Plato's earlier works. Having disposed of the positive (...) arguments in favour of the ‘myth’, Kahn turns to the contrary—and in his view overwhelming—evidence that Book I was composed from the start as an integral part of the longer Republic. He catalogues 12 passages in Book I, accounting for roughly half its length, whose full significance will, he argues, only emerge if they are seen as instances of prolepsis, deliberate anticipations of what is to come in later books. (shrink)

The high moral tone of Horace's Reguhls ode makes it unsurprising that the poet should employ the traditional imagery of philosophers, both in the speech of Regulus and in the final simile. I should like here to point out some instances which seem to have escaped the notice of commentators.This passage is intended to illustrate the lost ‘virtus’ of the prisoners in Carthage, who, Regulus claims, will be of no greater use to the Romans if ransomed since they were cowardly (...) enough to surrender in the first place. For the first image of dyeing wool Kiessling–Heinze refer the reader to Lucretius 6.1074–7:purpureusque colos conchyli iungitur unacorpore cum lanae, dirimi qui non queat usquam,non si Neptuni fluctu renovare operam des,non mare si totum velit eluere omnibus undis.This gives the first hint that the image belongs to the philosophical tradition, though it does not seem to occur in the extant remains of Epicurus. This is confirmed by a passage of Plato, who at Rep. 429d ff. has an elaborate image taken from the dyer's art. The Guardians of the ideal city are to be carefully selected and prepared like wool for the dyeing process of education; then, as good wool keeps its colour after dyeing, so the Guardians will keep right opinions when they are taught them. The image is summarized by Socrates at 430a ff. (shrink)

In both Plato and Thomas Aquinas, we find proposals to understand piety or religion as justice toward God/the gods. One issue with this proposal is what can be called the problem of human-divine reciprocity: Since justice would seem to require human beings to make a return for what they have received from God/the gods, how can this be done without implying God/the gods lack something that human beings can supply? I outline the account of piety/religion as justice toward the (...) divine in both Plato and Aquinas, noting how the reciprocity problem arises along the way. Then I defend a proposed solution drawn from Aquinas: that glory, or the manifestation of divine goodness, is what God seeks in pious human action, yet without implying any benefit to God thereby. (shrink)

‘ANY state of mind in which anyone takes a great interest is very likely to be called “knowledge”, because no other word in psychology has such emotive virtue’, wrote Ogden and Richards apropos of those who claim that art affords us a kind of knowledge uniquely its own. While one may agree with the implications of this remark, and it is a salutary warning to anyone tempted to make extravagant claims for art, it does less than justice to the intentions (...) of those who make these claims. They are at least facing up to a real problem—a problem which has troubled philosophers since the time of Plato. For, beyond doubt, the arts have been held in high regard in every society with a well developed culture. To dismiss art as mere entertainment or pleasant deception or fantasy gratification or play only raises the question why intelligent and educated people take such trivial stuff seriously, why they consider it important and often find it profound. One way of meeting this problem is to say that art gives us a special kind of knowledge or insight which other branches of human learning—history, science and even philosophy—do not and cannot give us. This may not be a solution to the problem, but it is a view that deserves to be taken seriously, and I propose in this article to consider one aspect of it. (shrink)

Outstanding translations by leading contemporary scholars--many commissioned especially for this volume--are presented here in the first single edition to include the entire surviving corpus of works attributed to Plato in antiquity. In his introductory essay, John Cooper explains the presentation of these works, discusses questions concerning the chronology of their composition, comments on the dialogue form in which Plato wrote, and offers guidance on approaching the reading and study of Plato's works. Also included are concise introductions by (...) Cooper and Hutchinson to each translation, meticulous annotation designed to serve both scholar and general reader, and a comprehensive index. This handsome volume offers fine paper and a high-quality Smyth-sewn cloth binding in a sturdy, elegant edition. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to explore the ethical and social impact of augmented visual field devices, identifying issues that AVFDs share with existing devices and suggesting new ethical and social issues that arise with the adoption of AVFDs. Design/methodology/approach This essay incorporates both a philosophical and an ethical analysis approach. It is based on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, philosophical notions of transparency and presence and human values including psychological well-being, physical well-being, privacy, deception, informed consent, ownership and property (...) and trust. Findings The paper concludes that the interactions among developers, users and non-users via AVFDs have implications for autonomy. It also identifies issues of ownership that arise because of the blending of physical and virtual space and important ways that these devices impact, identity and trust. Practical implications Developers ought to take time to design and implement an easy-to-use informed consent system with these devices. There is a strong need for consent protocols among developers, users and non-users of AVFDs. Social implications There is a social benefit to users sharing what is visible on their devices with those who are in close physical proximity, but this introduces tension between notions of personal privacy and the establishment and maintenance of social norms. Originality/value There is new analysis of how AVFDs impact individual identity and the attendant ties to notions of ownership of the space between an object and someone’s eyes and control over perception. (shrink)

Plotinus’ account of matter in Ennead III 6[26] 11-15 serves two purposes. The terms, evil and ugly, present the negative side of matter’s causality, providing for the change characteristic of the sensible world and the possibility of ontological evil and privation as well as of moral evil among human beings. The receptacle and other images from Plato’s Timaeus present the positive side of this causality, matter as allowing for the presence of forms in the bodies of the sensible world. (...) Plotinus explicitly articulates the linguistic problem surrounding the nature of matter, since language is derived from the corporeal and thus needs constant correction when applied to matter as incorporeal. His use of language, thus, always has two phases, first, capturing the nature of matter as aptly as possible, and second, highlighting the difference between matter and the image, analogy, or metaphor used to help explain it. (shrink)

This long-awaited new edition contains eight of the dialogues of Plato, and is the first in a new five-volume complete edition of his works in the OCT series.

The freedom, in Latin libertas, is the object of philosophical reflection since Plato. Yet as the determined philosophical direction it took the form of the „liberalism” on the turning point of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, represented by two philosophers: Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). Among contemporary scholars Isaiah Berlin is standing out. From his point of view the philosophical problem of the freedom should be examined in two aspects: the negative freedom i.e. the attribute of not (...) hindered freedom in making choices and the positive freedom as opportunity of being the master of one’s own fate. The author of the article, after critical demonstrating the conception of liberalism, sketches the theory of freedom from the position of Christian ethics. As a starting point he takes the conception of man as a person whose rational activities take on the form of twofold freedom of choice. In the psychological aspect, this freedom assumes the ambivalent form of doing good or evil, however in the moral aspect it turns out to be freedom put in order by the hierarchy of objective moral values. In this meaning the freedom also organizes the whole free man's activity and becomes creative strength of his moral personal perfection. It also defines the crucial sense of Christian philosophical science of truth about freedom. (shrink)

Passmore examines a number of kinds of argument frequently used by philosophers, in an attempt to find out whether there is any kind of reasoning which is especially appropriate for philosophy. He discusses the ways in which philosophers have used deduction, induction, reminders about obvious facts, infinite regress arguments, paradigm case arguments, claims that certain views are self-refuting, and accusations of meaninglessness. Numerous illustrations of these moves in argument, drawn from philosophers from Plato to Popper, help to make this (...) an interesting essay in the philosophy of philosophy.--J. B. S. (shrink)

It was Plato who informed the Greek philosophical tradition of how the King of Egypt declared that writing will inevitably “implant forgetfulness in men’s souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks”. Plotinus likewise knew how these “wise men of Egypt” therefore chose to inscribe only one image in their temples and thus “manifested the non-discursiveness of the (...) intelligible world”. Sara Rappe reminds us that such passages are not infrequent throughout the history of Neoplatonism, suggesting how Plato and his followers struggled to understand the proper use of the written word, the role of images and symbol, as well as the very possibility of the transmission of truth itself. Focusing on the question: “How is intuitive wisdom communicated, especially within the context of a philosophy that repudiates language but continues to practice speculative metaphysics?”, Rappe has produced a helpful work aimed at examining the Neoplatonic hermeneutic. (shrink)

Plotinus knew that evils “wander about mortal nature and this place forever” and Schäfer begins his analysis of evil in the Enneads with a very helpful survey of the philosophical schools and literary tradition of ancient Greece which influenced Plotinus. These opening pages thus treat χαχόν as understood by Heraclitus, Plato, and Sophocles. Schäfer stresses the quasi-dualism present in these earlier thinkers in order to show how Plotinus’ insistence that all is derived from a single origin, the One, forced (...) him to give a more precise account of evil’s origins. He therefore set out to explain how the individuality caused by material substantiation is that which brings about an Unwissenheit und Harmoniestörung. The human soul becomes enamored by that which is good and an instance of the One-on-a-lower-level; paradoxically, therefore, evil is brought about not by some competing substance of the One but by its own emanated beauty. As the soul freely chooses diversity over unity, it finds itself more and more “fanned out”, forgetful of its true origin. (shrink)

These six lectures from the twentyfirst Thomas Spencer Jerome Lectures, an annual series exploring various dimensions of Roman life, provide an invaluable reflection on the relationship, Pelikan’s “counterpoint,” between Genesis and the Timaeus down through the ages. How did the only Platonic dialogue known in its entirety during the Middle Ages influence Judaeo-Christian cosmology? Pelikan chooses to answer this question by first discussing “Classical Rome: ‘Description of the Universe as Philosophy’” and Lucretius’ theological and literary contributions to the history of (...) cosmogonic speculation. In rejecting divine causality, Lucretius’ atomism made room for natural science and for a teleology without explicit reference to direct heavenly agency. Talk of the divine was thus interpreted apophatically and the poetry of de Rerum Natura allowed the truths of what remains for us a “likely story” to be conveyed without a historical or anthropomorphic literalness. Lucretius’ indebtedness to Epicurean materialism is obvious and as Pelikan stresses, “it was from Athens that classical Rome learned to think philosophically about cosmogony”. In “Athens: Geneseôs Archê as ‘The Principle of Becoming’,” Pelikan poses the fundamental questions: Why was the cosmos created? And according to what model had it been created? Plato’s answer is of course that the world of becoming is an image of an immutable and perfect model. This patterning is due to God as Goodness and his willing that all things act together for a purpose. Chapter 3 continues this inquiry with “Jerusalem: Genesis as a ‘Likely Account’ of One God Almighty Maker.” Here Pelikan focuses in on Jerusalem’s contribution of the imago Dei. While the Timaeus defines “the terms of the counterpoint,” Genesis sets “the outline and sequence” of creation, the crowning achievement of which is the rational and sovereign human person. Therefore, whereas Plato may have understood the entire universe to be in God’s image, Moses reserved this exalted position for humanity alone, a dignity Pelikan treats in his discussion of free moral choice. (shrink)