Download or read book Plato on the Value of Philosophy written by Tushar Irani and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-30 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores Plato's views on what an 'art of argument' should look like, investigating the relationship between psychology and rhetoric.
Download or read book The Value of Philosophy written by Bertrand Russell and published by . This book was released on 2017-10-05 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Value of Philosophy" is one of the most important chapters of Bertrand's Russell's magnum Opus, The Problems of Philosophy. As a whole, Russell focuses on problems he believes will provoke positive and constructive discussion, Russell concentrates on knowledge rather than metaphysics: If it is uncertain that external objects exist, how can we then have knowledge of them but by probability. There is no reason to doubt the existence of external objects simply because of sense data.
Download or read book Plato s Natural Philosophy written by Thomas Kjeller Johansen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-07-01 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plato's dialogue the Timaeus-Critias presents two connected accounts, that of the story of Atlantis and its defeat by ancient Athens and that of the creation of the cosmos by a divine craftsman. This book offers a unified reading of the dialogue. It tackles a wide range of interpretative and philosophical issues. Topics discussed include the function of the famous Atlantis story, the notion of cosmology as 'myth' and as 'likely', and the role of God in Platonic cosmology. Other areas commented upon are Plato's concepts of 'necessity' and 'teleology', the nature of the 'receptacle', the relationship between the soul and the body, the use of perception in cosmology, and the work's peculiar monologue form. The unifying theme is teleology: Plato's attempt to show the cosmos to be organised for the good. A central lesson which emerges is that the Timaeus is closer to Aristotle's physics than previously thought.
Download or read book Plato at the Googleplex written by Rebecca Goldstein and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2014 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein provides a dazzlingly original plunge into the drama of philosophy, revealing its hidden role in today's debates on religion, morality, politics, and science.
Download or read book Plato and the Body written by Coleen P. Zoller and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2018-07-11 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an innovative reading of Plato, analyzing his metaphysical, ethical, and political commitments in connection with feminist critiques. For centuries, it has been the prevailing view that in prioritizing the soul, Plato ignores or even abhors the body; however, in Plato and the Body Coleen P. Zoller argues that Plato does value the body and the role it plays in philosophical life, focusing on Plato’s use of Socrates as an exemplar. Zoller reveals a more refined conception of the ascetic lifestyle epitomized by Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus, Gorgias, and Republic. Her interpretation illuminates why those who want to be wise and good have reason to be curious about and love the natural world and the bodies in it, and has implications for how we understand Plato’s metaphysical and political commitments. This book shows the relevance of this broader understanding of Plato for work on a variety of relevant contemporary issues, including sexual morality, poverty, wealth inequality, and peace. Coleen P. Zoller is Professor of Philosophy at Susquehanna University.
Download or read book Plato on the Value of Philosophy written by Tushar Irani and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-30 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plato was the first philosopher in the western tradition to reflect systematically (and often critically) on rhetoric. In this book, Tushar Irani presents a comprehensive and innovative reading of the Gorgias and the Phaedrus, the only two Platonic dialogues to focus on what an 'art of argument' should look like, treating each of the texts individually, yet ultimately demonstrating how each can best be understood in light of the other. For Plato, the way in which we approach argument typically reveals something about our deeper desires and motivations, particularly with respect to other people, and so the key to understanding his views on the proper practice of argument lies in his understanding of human psychology. According to this reading, rhetoric done well is simply the practice of philosophy, the pursuit of which has far-reaching implications for how we should relate to others and how we ought to live.
Download or read book Plato and Nietzsche written by Mark Anderson and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-08-28 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is commonly known that Nietzsche is one of Plato's primary philosophical antagonists, yet there is no full-length treatment in English of their ideas in dialogue and debate. Plato and Nietzsche is an advanced introduction to these two thinkers, with original insights and arguments interspersed throughout the text. Through a rigorous exploration of their ideas on art, metaphysics, ethics, and the nature of philosophy, and by explaining and analyzing each man's distinctive approach, Mark Anderson demonstrates the many and varied ways they play off against one another. This book provides the background necessary to understanding the principle matters at issue between these two philosophers and to developing an awareness that Nietzsche's engagement with Plato is deeper and more nuanced than it is often presented as being.
Download or read book Plato on Pleasure and the Good Life written by Daniel Russell and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2005-09-15 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Daniel Russell examines Plato's subtle and insightful analysis of pleasure and explores its intimate connections with his discussions of value and human psychology. Russell offers a fresh perspective on how good things bear on happiness in Plato's ethics, and shows that, for Plato, pleasure cannot determine happiness because pleasure lacks a direction of its own. Plato presents wisdom as a skill of living that determines happiness by directing one's life as a whole, bringing aboutgoodness in all areas of one's life, as a skill brings about order in its materials. The 'materials' of the skill of living are, in the first instance, not things like money or health, but one's attitudes, emotions, and desires where things like money and health are concerned. Plato recognizes thatthese 'materials' of the psyche are inchoate, ethically speaking, and in need of direction from wisdom. Among them is pleasure, which Plato treats not as a sensation but as an attitude with which one ascribes value to its object. However, Plato also views pleasure, once shaped and directed by wisdom, as a crucial part of a virtuous character as a whole. Consequently, Plato rejects all forms of hedonism, which allows happiness to be determined by a part of the psyche that does not direct one'slife but is among the materials to be directed. At the same time, Plato is also able to hold both that virtue is sufficient for happiness, and that pleasure is necessary for happiness, not as an addition to one's virtue, but as a constituent of one's whole virtuous character itself. Plato thereforeoffers an illuminating role for pleasure in ethics and psychology, one to which we may be unaccustomed: pleasure emerges not as a sensation or even a mode of activity, but as an attitude - one of the ways in which we construe our world - and as such, a central part of every character.
Download or read book The Republic written by Plato and published by The Floating Press. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Republic is Plato's most famous work and one of the seminal texts of Western philosophy and politics. The characters in this Socratic dialogue - including Socrates himself - discuss whether the just or unjust man is happier. They are the philosopher-kings of imagined cities and they also discuss the nature of philosophy and the soul among other things.
Download or read book Conversation and Self Sufficiency in Plato written by A. G. Long and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-11 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A. G. Long presents a new account of the importance of conversation in Plato's philosophy. He provides close studies of eight dialogues, including some of Plato's most famous works, and traces the emergence of internal dialogue or self-questioning as an alternative to the Socratic conversation from which Plato starts.
Download or read book The Problems of Philosophy written by Bertrand Russell and published by Barnes & Noble Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immensely intelligible, thought-provoking guide by Nobel prize-winner considers such topics as the distinction between appearance and reality, the existence and nature of matter, idealism, inductive logic, intuitive knowledge, many other subjects. For students and general readers, there is no finer introduction to philosophy than this informative, affordable and highly readable edition. An intelligible and stimulating guide to those problems of philosophy that he believes will provoke positive and constructive discussion.
Download or read book Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar written by Thomas Cathcart and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-06-24 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This New York Times bestseller is the hilarious philosophy course everyone wishes they’d had in school. Outrageously funny, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar... has been a breakout bestseller ever since authors—and born vaudevillians—Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein did their schtick on NPR’s Weekend Edition. Lively, original, and powerfully informative, Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar... is a not-so-reverent crash course through the great philosophical thinkers and traditions, from Existentialism (What do Hegel and Bette Midler have in common?) to Logic (Sherlock Holmes never deduced anything). Philosophy 101 for those who like to take the heavy stuff lightly, this is a joy to read—and finally, it all makes sense! And now, you can read Daniel Klein's further musings on life and philosophy in Travels with Epicurus and Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change it.
Download or read book The Pleasures of Reason in Plato Aristotle and the Hellenistic Hedonists written by James Warren and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-27 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did ancient philosophers understand the relationship between human capacities for thinking and our experiences of pleasure and pain?
Download or read book Understanding Plato s Republic written by Gerasimos Santas and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-02-04 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding Plato’s Republic is an accessible introduction to the concepts of justice that inform Plato’s Republic, elucidating the ancient philosopher's main argument that we would be better off leading just lives rather than unjust ones Provides a much needed up to date discussion of The Republic's fundamental ideas and Plato's main argument Discusses the unity and coherence of The Republic as a whole Written in a lively style, informed by over 50 years of teaching experience Reveals rich insights into a timeless classic that holds remarkable relevance to the modern world
Download or read book Plato and the Individual written by Robert William Hall and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study of Plato's theory of the individual, I propose to show that Plato is deeply concerned with the achievement by each person of the moral excellence appropriate to man. Plato exhibits profound interest in the moral well being of each individual, not merely those who are philosophically gifted. Obviously my study is in opposition with a traditional line of interpretation which holds that Plato evinces small concern for the ordinary individual, the "common man" of today. According to this interpretation Plato's chief interest, shown especially in the Republic, is with the philosophically endowed, whose knowledge penetrates to and embraces the realm of forms; this is a world which must remain for the common man an unfathomable mystery in its totality. Although he is unable to grasp the knowledge of the forms necessary for genuine morality, the ordinary individual may, if he is fortunate enough to live in a polis ruled by philosophers, gain a sort of secondary or "demotic" morality. Through the me chanical development of the right kind of habits, through faithful obedience to the decrees of the rulers and the laws of the polis, the many who are incapable of comprehending the true bases of morality will attain a second best, unreflective morality accompanied by happi ness.
Download or read book Three Dialogues written by Plato and published by Cosimo, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three Dialogues is a collection of three Socratic dialogues by the philosopher Plato: Protagoras, Philebus, and Gorgias. Protagoras is an argument between the elderly and celebrated sophist Protagoras and Socrates about the nature of sophists and virtue. Philebus, written between 360 and 347 BC and one of the last Socratic dialogues, features Socrates (rare for a late dialogue), Philebus, and Protarchus. It centers on the value of pleasure versus knowledge, and focuses in the end on the inherent value of philosophy and reason over drama and poetry: a wholly philosophical idea. Finally, Gorgias is an argument between a philosopher and rhetorician, emphasizing the art of persuasion as necessary for gaining legal and political advantages. All three dialogues are also available in the Cosimo omnibus editions of The Works of Plato. One of the greatest Western philosophers who ever lived, PLATO (c. 428-347 B.C.) was a student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle. Plato was greatly influenced by Socrates' teachings, often using him as a character in scripts and plays (Socratic dialogues), which he used to demonstrate philosophical ideas. Plato's dialogues were and still are used to teach a wide range of subjects, including politics, mathematics, rhetoric, logic, and, naturally, philosophy.
Download or read book Eryxias written by Plato and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2019-11-29 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eryxias by Plato is a spurious Socratic dialogue. It is set in the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios, and features Socrates in conversation with Critias, Eryxias, and Erasistratus (nephew of Phaeax). The dialogue concerns the topic of wealth and virtue. The position of Eryxias that it is good to be materially prosperous is challenged when Critias argues that having money is not always a good thing. Socrates then shows that money has only a conventional value.
