We re-examine the geometry lesson in the Meno, focusing on the interaction between interlocutors in the practice of recollection. We appeal to an analogy with interactive memory to suggest how Plato could think that inquiry could be successful even when participants have no awareness of what would satisfy their inquiry. This exposes a feature of recollection that needs no metaphysical assumptions, and which emphasises interaction. This feature, which has escaped the notice of philosophers, is more fundamental to the Meno than (...) a theory of innate ideas. Such a theory may be superimposed on the view about interactive memory we describe for the Meno, but to focus on Plato’s epistemological theory without first understanding what he has to say about the social dimensions of memory is putting the cart before the horse. (shrink)

This paper corrects the common misconception that Meno's slave (in Plato's dialogue of that name) is a boy. The first part of the paper shows how long-standing and widespread that misconception is. The description of Meno's slave as a "slave-boy" goes back at least to Benjamin Jowett, and the phrase is still commonly seen today in books and journal articles in philosophy and classics generally, even in presses and journals with the highest reputation. The paper then shows that the Greek (...) term pais, often translated as "boy", is when addressed to slaves used to indicate their condition, not their age. When the text of the Meno is examined carefully, it is clear that there is no evidence that Meno's slave is a boy. In fact, it is clear that the expression "boy" is used in relation to his condition, not in relation to his age. It thus demeans us to refer to Meno's slave as a "slave-boy" or just "boy", since it either displays our ignorance about the use of the term pais or, worse, makes us complicit in using a term of condescension. The paper concludes by suggesting that the proposed correction is philosophically significant, since it opens an investigation into Plato's depiction of slaves that is otherwise blocked by supposing the slave to be a boy. (shrink)

Scholars have puzzled over the fact that Plato’s criticisms of poetry are themselves contained in mimetic works. This paper sheds light on that phenomenon by examining an analogous one. The Symposium contains one fable which is criticised by means of another which is thought to represent Plato’s own view. Diotima’s fable, however, is suspended within a larger narrative that invites us to examine and question it. The Symposium thus affords opportunity to observe Plato’s criticisms of a genre and the qualifications (...) that must be made regarding his own use of it. In particular, the Symposium emphasises that stories have no automatic claim to authority, whether they are told by a poet, or a priest or a philosopher. The upshot for Plato’s dialogues is that they remain always a starting point for philosophy: they are neither specimens of philosophical poetry nor philosophy per se. (shrink)

Both Ancient Chinese and Greek philosophers provide accounts of the life lived well: a Confucian junzi, a Daoist sage and a Greek phronimos. Cultivation in Early China and Ancient Greece engages in comparative, cross-tradition scholarship and investigates the processes associated with cultivating or nurturing the self in order to live such lives. -/- By focusing on the processes rather than the aims of cultivating a good life, an international team of scholars investigate how a person develops and practices a way (...) of life. They look at what is involved in developing practical wisdom, exercising reason, cultivating equanimity and fostering reliability. Using the thought of those thinkers central to both traditions, including Plato, Confucius, Han Fei and Marcus Aurelius, they examine themes of harmony, balance and beauty, and highlight the different concerns of scepticism across both traditions. They also discuss the action of doing as an indispensable method of learning. As a result, Cultivation in Early China and Ancient Greece is a valuable collection opening up new lines of inquiry in ethics and demonstrating the importance of drawing on philosophical ideas from across cultural traditions. (shrink)

This chapter reviews the philosophy and religion dialectic from the end of the sixth century BCE through the second century CE, focusing on theology, mythology, and personal religious experience. It suggests that the familiar philosophy–religion dichotomy has acquired some of its plausibility from scholars who misunderstand the nature of religion and draw their concept of ancient philosophy too narrowly. The chapter stresses instead the interrelation of philosophy and religion, with special attention to how some philosophers incorporated religious thought into their (...) own views. The chapter argues that philosophers generally saw themselves as commending a modified understanding of their own religious heritage. (shrink)

It has become customary to begin any discussion of the Alcibiades with a review of its puzzling features. Any way you look at it, the Alcibiades is a strange dialogue. Stylistically it is peculiar, not only because it contains some unique terms,2 but also because it contains similarities to early, middle and even late dialogues. These similarities are distributed to different parts of the dialogue, prompting some scholars to maintain that the Alcibiades was written piecemeal, perhaps by different authors (cf. (...) Clark 1955). On most accounts of the Alcibiades, however, it resembles, or seems to have been written to resemble, an early Socratic dialogue. But this too is odd, since stylometric studies tend to place it at least among the middle dialogues, and in many cases after the Republic. A relatively late dating also fits with the conjectures of many scholars on the basis of anachronisms, allusions and other considerations. (shrink)

Philosophy and Literature is an internationally renowned refereed journal founded by Denis Dutton at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch. It is now published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Since its inception in 1976, Philosophy and Literature has been concerned with the relation between literary and philosophical studies, publishing articles on the philosophical interpretation of literature as well as the literary treatment of philosophy. Philosophy and Literature has sometimes been regarded as iconoclastic, in the sense that it repudiates academic pretensions, (...) insidious jargon and institutional vogue. Dutton, who remains the editor, still writes a regular column. A distinctive feature of Philosophy and Literature was the annual Bad Writing Contest, held from 1995–98, which sought to identify (and publish) the ‘most stylistically lamentable passages’ of academic prose, often to great amusement. (shrink)

Many of Plato’s dialogues explicitly discuss matters that today fall under the umbrella of aesthetics. Literary criticism occupies a prominent place in the Ion, Menexenus, Symposium, Republic, Phaedrus and Laws . Arguments about the standard of aesthetic judgement occupy most of the Hippias Major , as well as portions of the Smp. and the second book of theLg. Some dialogues even venture into territory that we might describe as ‘pure aesthetics’, in that they dis-cuss specific perceptible properties of form, colour (...) or sound (Hp. Ma. 298 ff.;Philebus 51c), the manner by which art objects appear as they do to spectators (Sophist 236a), the characteristics of an artwork purely in terms of art (Lg. 667d) or the ontological status of art objects ( R. 596a ff.). A few dialogues inci-dentally discuss painting, sculpture or music (narrowly construed), by way of illustrat-ing a more general topic (R. 472d ff.;Phlb. 17d;Critias 107b), and some dialogues, such as theGorgias andTimaeus , delineate or at least prominently display the aims, condi-tions and principles of art (technê , q.v.). Thus it can be said that aesthetic themes are prom-inent throughout the works of Plato. There are two dimensions of Plato’s aesthetics, however, that are arguably more fundamen-tal to his philosophy than any of the specific themes just mentioned. They are the dimen-sions ofmimêsis (q.v.), or representation, and the dimension ofmousikê , or ‘music’ in the broad sense that includes all the arts (q.v. music). When these are taken into con-sideration it becomes plain that aesthetics is not just prominent in, but central to Plato’s thought. (shrink)

In this paper I use the traditional image of Plato as swan to suggest that interpreting Plato should not be a matter of getting to know what his doctrines are (a doctrinal approach), but rather a of getting to know Plato himself (a knowledge by acquaintance approach). I argue that the dialogues encourage the knowledge by acquaintance approach and discourage the doctrinal approach, through the use of Platonic anonymity, Platonic irony and Platonic self-effacement. I point out how the knowledge by (...) acquaintance approach values the rich diversity of historical opinions about Plato, whereas the doctrinal approach seeks to resolve such diversity once and for all. Even though the doctrinal approach has powerful tools at its disposal—such as the testimony of Aristotle, the principle that the main speaker in a dialogue is Plato’s mouthpiece, and stylometric analysis—the product of a doctrinal approach is a brand of Platonism that is weak, rigid, and ultimately dispensable. The philosophy of Plato is worthy of more respect than that, and it repays such respect with wider understanding. (shrink)

This article examines some of the ways in which Plato conveys a concern with peace and what conceptions of peace he has a concern with. I first consider Plato’s attitude to war and its conventional opposite, peace. In this context we find very little concern with peace at all and, by contrast, a somewhat disturbing emphasis on the importance of war. However, if we turn from war to a different type of conflict, faction, we find a distinct difference. Plato considers (...) faction unproductive because of the internal divisions it sustains. Yet Plato does not specifically call the opposite of faction ‘peace’; instead, he uses terms that have different extensions for us, such as δικαιοσύνη. Nevertheless, it is possible to outline a positive Platonic conception of peace by tabling a set a of peace-related terms. I distinguish three categories of terms that describe conditions of peace, dispositions of peacefulness, and relations of peace, where such relations result from the expression of peaceful dispositions. My examination suggests that positive peace, for Plato, is founded on the unity and integrity of character. Only when individuals are at peace with themselves can peace within society be achieved. (shrink)

In this paper I will begin by exploring the context in which objectoriented aesthetics arose. I will set object-oriented aesthetics against another focus which I shall call "activity-oriented aesthetics", in which the excellence of an artistic production lies in the artist's activity. This activity is merely expressed in the finished work, even when the work is overwhelmingly admirable. Excellent artistic activity originates and persists in the artist's manner, execution and style. 1 Just as there is a special case of object-oriented (...) aesthetics in which objective beauty is the fundamental aesthetic concept, there is a special case of activity-oriented aesthetics in which artistic beauty/ a property of the artist's activity, becomes the fundamental aesthetic concept. Artistic beauty is beauty that radiates from the activity of an artist. It is visible directly in the activity itself, but it is also visible in the work through and to which it is transmitted. (The combination of activity and work I shall call 'artistic production'.). (shrink)

This paper describes adjustments to teaching practice after migrating from the North American to the Australasian higher education sector. Although the particular experience described is individual and personal, the discoveries and adjustments made can be useful to anyone who faces the experience of academic migration, or even to any teacher. Key adjustments recommended include emphasis on inquiry over information, patient attention to the individuality of learners and teachers, and shared practice of the values of sympathetic understanding, fairness and intellectual humility. (...) These recommendations are not new – in fact the paper takes pains to show how ancient they really are – but they can serve as reminders to teachers facing the insecurity of the global higher education environment. (shrink)

When I was asked to contribute an issue to the Literature and Aesthetics series on great thinkers in aesthetics, I did not appreciate how difficult it might be to put together a volume on Plato. Originally my plan was simply to call the volume Plato’s Aesthetics, or Plato on Art and Beauty. I came to realise, however, that Plato was not driven to write about art from an interest in aesthetics (at least not aesthetics as we know it), and that (...) the terms ‘art’ and ‘beauty’ are very inaccurate descriptors for what Plato was “on about”, as they say here in Australia. The fact is that Plato is concerned with all sorts of matters that walk under the umbrella of literature and aesthetics—poetry, drama, myth, music, painting, perspective, attractiveness, organicity, creativity, criticism, truth, and philosophy—and the terms ‘aesthetics’, ‘art’, and ‘beauty’ convey only a small portion of them. What was needed was a more comprehensive conception of Plato’s interest. (shrink)

From the late Classical period until the Nineteenth Century, Plato was admired for his inspiration and vision, rather than for his theories and argumentation. Then with the advent of analytic philosophy in the Twentieth Century, the pendulum swung hard in the other direction. Plato’s myths were largely ignored. The drama of his dialogues was considered insignificant. The theory of forms and the theory of recollection (as a gloss on immortality) became the pillars of Platonism, and the journals became filled with (...) careful, logical analyses of Platonic principles, theories, and hypotheses. Recently even mainstream Plato scholars have tried to redress the overemphasis on Platonic theory, but they have limited themselves mostly to arguing that image, myth, and characterisation are important to the interpretation of Plato in addition to concepts, theories, and dialectic. This paper argues that myth and dialogue play a much more central role in Platonic philosophy than is currently accepted. There is evidence that Plato treats the dialogues themselves as framing myths, within which all action and dialogue is treated as mimesis, rather than as direct presentation of Plato’s logoi. If this is correct, then each of Plato’s works is organised around the representation of a comprehensive poetic vision not stated in, but rather only through, the action of the dialogue. (shrink)