Download or read book Retracing the Platonic Text written by John Russon and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written from a Continental perspective, Retracing the Platonic Text reveals dimensions of the dialogues that are not addressed by traditional philosophy. These essays by prominent scholars focus on the texts' literary elements, in particular challenges to contemporary interpretations of the Platonic dialogue as a whole. The result illustrates the depth of Platonic thought and the debt of all philosophy to it. Retracing the Platonic Text is a pioneering effort in demonstrating how Continental philosophy both reflects and expands upon Greek philosophy.
Download or read book A Less Familiar Plato written by Kevin Corrigan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-06-30 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides new views of perception; embodiment; the Good/Forms; art, imagination, and the divine; interdialogue connections and unwritten teachings
Download or read book Language Ideology and the Human written by Dusan Radunović and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Language, Ideology, and the Human: New Interventions redefines the critical picture of language as a system of signs and ideological tropes inextricably linked to human existence. Offering reflections on the status, discursive possibilities, and political, ideological and practical uses of oral or written word in both contemporary society and the work of previous thinkers, this book traverses South African courts, British clinics, language schools in East Timor, prison cells, cinemas, literary criticism textbooks and philosophical treatises in order to forge a new, diversified perspective on language, ideology, and what it means to be human. This truly international and interdisciplinary collection explores the implications that language, always materialising in the form of a historically and ideologically identifiable discourse, as well as the concept of ideology itself, have for the construction, definition and ways of speaking about 'the human'. Thematically arranged and drawing together the latest research from experts around the world, Language, Ideology, and the Human offers a view of language, ideology and the human subject that eschews simplifications and binary definitions. With contributions from across the social sciences and humanities, this book will appeal to scholars from a range of disciplines, including sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, law, linguistics, literary studies, philosophy and political science.
Download or read book Socrates and the Fat Rabbis written by Daniel Boyarin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-09-28 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What kind of literature is the Talmud? To answer this question, Daniel Boyarin looks to an unlikely source: the dialogues of Plato. In these ancient texts he finds similarities, both in their combination of various genres and topics and in their dialogic structure. But Boyarin goes beyond these structural similarities, arguing also for a cultural relationship.In Socrates and the Fat Rabbis, Boyarin suggests that both the Platonic and the talmudic dialogues are not dialogic at all. Using Michael Bakhtin’s notion of represented dialogue and real dialogism, Boyarin demonstrates, through multiple close readings, that the give-and-take in these texts is actually much closer to a monologue in spirit. At the same time, he shows that there is a dialogism in both texts on a deeper structural level between a voice of philosophical or religious dead seriousness and a voice from within that mocks that very high solemnity at the same time. Boyarin ultimately singles out Menippean satire as the most important genre through which to understand both the Talmud and Plato, emphasizing their seriocomic peculiarity.An innovative advancement in rabbinic studies, as well as a bold and controversial new way of reading Plato, Socrates and the Fat Rabbis makes a major contribution to scholarship on thought and culture of the ancient Mediterranean.
Download or read book Platonic Writings Platonic Readings written by Charles L. Griswold Jr. and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Socratic and Platonic Political Philosophy written by Christopher P. Long and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-28 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Gorgias, Socrates claims to practice the true art of politics, but the peculiar politics he practices involves cultivating in each individual he encounters an erotic desire to live a life animated by the ideals of justice, beauty and the good. Socratic and Platonic Political Philosophy demonstrates that what Socrates sought to do with those he encountered, Platonic writing attempts to do with readers. Christopher P. Long's attentive readings of the Protagoras, Gorgias, Phaedo, Apology, and Phaedrus invite us to cultivate the habits of thinking and responding that mark the practices of both Socratic and Platonic politics. Platonic political writing is here experienced in a new way as the contours of a politics of reading emerges in which the community of readers is called to consider how a commitment to speaking the truth and acting toward justice can enrich our lives together.
Download or read book Poetic Justice written by Jill Frank and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-01-26 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Plato set his dialogs, written texts were disseminated primarily by performance and recitation. He wrote them, however, when literacy was expanding. Jill Frank argues that there are unique insights to be gained from appreciating Plato’s dialogs as written texts to be read and reread. At the center of these insights are two distinct ways of learning to read in the dialogs. One approach that appears in the Statesman, Sophist, and Protagoras, treats learning to read as a top-down affair, in which authoritative teachers lead students to true beliefs. Another, recommended by Socrates, encourages trial and error and the formation of beliefs based on students’ own fallible experiences. In all of these dialogs, learning to read is likened to coming to know or understand something. Given Plato’s repeated presentation of the analogy between reading and coming to know, what can these two approaches tell us about his dialogs’ representations of philosophy and politics? With Poetic Justice, Jill Frank overturns the conventional view that the Republic endorses a hierarchical ascent to knowledge and the authoritarian politics associated with that philosophy. When learning to read is understood as the passive absorption of a teacher’s beliefs, this reflects the account of Platonic philosophy as authoritative knowledge wielded by philosopher kings who ruled the ideal city. When we learn to read by way of the method Socrates introduces in the Republic, Frank argues, we are offered an education in ethical and political self-governance, one that prompts citizens to challenge all claims to authority, including those of philosophy.
Download or read book Myth and Philosophy in Plato s Phaedrus written by Daniel S. Werner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-09 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plato's dialogues frequently criticize traditional Greek myth, yet Plato also integrates myth with his writing. Daniel S. Werner confronts this paradox through an in-depth analysis of the Phaedrus, Plato's most mythical dialogue. Werner argues that the myths of the Phaedrus serve several complex functions: they bring nonphilosophers into the philosophical life; they offer a starting point for philosophical inquiry; they unify the dialogue as a literary and dramatic whole; they draw attention to the limits of language and the limits of knowledge; and they allow Plato to co-opt cultural authority as a way of defining and legitimating the practice of philosophy. Platonic myth, as a species of traditional tale, is thus both distinct from philosophical dialectic and similar to it. Ultimately, the most powerful effect of Platonic myth is the way in which it leads readers to participate in Plato's dialogues and to engage in a process of self-examination.
Download or read book Plato s Socrates as Narrator written by Anne-Marie Schultz and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2013-06-07 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores Socrates’ role as narrator of the Lysis, Charmides, Protagoras, Euthydemus, and Republic. New insights about each dialogue emerge through careful attention to Socrates’ narrative commentary. These insights include a re-reading of the aporetic ending of the Lysis, a view of philosophy as a means of overcoming tyranny in the Charmides, a reconsideration of virtue in the Protagoras, an enhanced understanding of Crito in the Euthydemus, and an uncovering of two models of virtue cultivation (self-mastery and harmony) in the Republic. This book presents Socrates’ narrative commentary as a mechanism that illustrates how the emotions shape Socrates’ self-understanding, his philosophical exchanges with others, and his view of the Good. As a result, this book challenges the dominant interpretation of Socrates as an intellectualist. It offers a holistic vision of the practice of philosophy that we would do well to embrace in our contemporary world.
Download or read book Politics Money and Persuasion written by John Russon and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Politics, Money, and Persuasion, distinguished philosopher John Russon offers a new framework for interpreting Plato's The Republic. For Russon, Plato's work is about the distinctive nature of what it is to be a human being and, correspondingly, what is distinctive about the nature of human society. Russon focuses on the realities of our everyday experience to come to profoundly insightful assessments of our human realities: the nature of the city, the nature of knowledge, and the nature of human psychology. Russon's argument concentrates on the ambivalence of logos, which includes reflections on politics and philosophy and their place in human life, how humans have shaped the environment, our interactions with money, the economy, and the pursuit of the good in social and political systems. Politics, Money, and Persuasion offers a deeply personal but also practical kind of philosophical reading of Plato's classic text. It emphasizes the tight connection between the life of city and the life of the soul, demonstrating both the crucial role that human cognitive excellence and psychological health play in political and social life.
Download or read book Plato and Levinas written by Tanja Staehler and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-09-11 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like Plato, Emmanuel Levinas believed that ethics was the most fundamental philosophical discipline. Levinas's approach to ethics begins in the encounter with the other as the most basic experience of responsibility. He acknowledges the necessity to move beyond this initial, dyadic encounter, but has problems extending his approach to a larger dimension, such as community. To shed light on this dilemma, Tanja Staehler examines broader dimensions which are linked to the political realm, and the problems they pose for ethics. Staehler demonstrates that both Plato and Levinas come to identify three realms as ambiguous: the erotic, the artistic, and the political. Staehler argues that these ambiguous dimensions can contribute to revealing the Other’s vulnerability without diminishing the fundamental role of unambiguous ethical responsibility.
Download or read book Plato s Dialectic at Play written by Kevin Corrigan and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-10-29 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Symposium is one of Plato’s most accessible dialogues, an engrossing historical document as well as an entertaining literary masterpiece. By uncovering the structural design of the dialogue, Plato’s Dialectic at Play aims at revealing a Plato for whom the dialogical form was not merely ornamentation or philosophical methodology but the essence of philosophical exploration. His dialectic is not only argument; it is also play. Careful analysis of each layer of the text leads cumulatively to a picture of the dialogue’s underlying structure, related to both argument and myth, and shows that a dynamic link exists between Diotima’s higher mysteries and the organization of the dialogue as a whole. On this basis the authors argue that the Symposium, with its positive theory of art contained in the ascent to the Beautiful, may be viewed as a companion piece to the Republic, with its negative critique of the role of art in the context of the Good. Following Nietzsche’s suggestion and applying criteria developed by Mikhail Bakhtin, they further argue for seeing the Symposium as the first novel. The book concludes with a comprehensive reevaluation of the significance of the Symposium and its place in Plato’s thought generally, touching on major issues in Platonic scholarship: the nature of art, the body-soul connection, the problem of identity, the relationship between mythos and logos, Platonic love, and the question of authorial writing and the vanishing signature of the absent Plato himself.
Download or read book Plato and Tradition written by Patricia Fagan and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-31 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plato’s dialogues are some of the most widely read texts in Western philosophy, and one would imagine them fully mined for elemental material. Yet, in Plato and Tradition, Patricia Fagan reveals the dialogues to be continuing sources of fresh insight. She recovers from them an underappreciated depth of cultural reference that is crucial to understanding their central philosophical concerns. Through careful readings of six dialogues, Fagan demonstrates that Plato’s presentation of Socrates highlights the centrality of tradition in political, erotic, and philosophic life. Plato embeds Socrates’s arguments and ideas in traditional references that would have been familiar to contemporaries of Socrates or Plato but that today’s reader typically passes over. Fagan’s book unpacks this cultural and literary context for the proper and full understanding of the philosophical argument of the Platonic dialogues. She concludes that, as Socrates demonstrates in word and deed, tradition is essential to successful living. But we must take up tradition with a critical openness to questioning its significance and future. Her original and compelling analyses may change the views of many readers who think themselves already well versed in the dialogues.
Download or read book Plato s Protagoras written by Olof Pettersson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-11-30 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a thorough study and an up to date anthology of Plato’s Protagoras. International authors' papers contribute to the task of understanding how Plato introduced and negotiated a new type of intellectual practice – called philosophy – and the strategies that this involved. They explore Plato’s dialogue, looking at questions of how philosophy and sophistry relate, both on a methodological and on a thematic level. While many of the contributing authors argue for a sharp distinction between sophistry and philosophy, this is contested by others. Readers may consider the distinctions between philosophy and traditional forms of poetry and sophistry through these papers. Questions for readers' attention include: To what extent is Socrates’ preferred mode of discourse, and his short questions and answers, superior to Protagoras’ method of sophistic teaching? And why does Plato make Socrates and Protagoras reverse positions as it comes to virtue and its teachability? This book will appeal to graduates and researchers with an interest in the origins of philosophy, classical philosophy and historical philosophy.
Download or read book Of Myth Life and War in Plato s Republic written by Claudia Baracchi and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2002-01-10 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Baracchi has identified pivotal points around which the Republic operates; this allows a reading of the entire text to unfold.... a very beautifully written book." -- Walter Brogan "... a work that opens new and timely vistas within the Republic.... Her approach... is thorough and rigorous." -- John Sallis Although Plato's Republic is perhaps the most influential text in the history of Western philosophy, Claudia Baracchi finds that the work remains obscure and enigmatic. To fully understand and appreciate its meaning, she argues, we must attend to what its original language discloses. Through a close reading of the Greek text, attentive to the pervasiveness of story and myth, Baracchi investigates the dialogue's major themes. The first part of the book addresses issues of generation, reproduction, and decay as they apply to the founding of Socrates' just city. The second part takes up the connection between war and the cycle of life, employing a thorough analysis of Plato's rendition of the myth of Er. Baracchi shows that the Republic is concerned throughout with the complex but intertwined issues of life and war, locating the site of this tangled web of growth and destruction in the mythical dimension of the Platonic city.
Download or read book Plato s Socrates on Socrates written by Anne-Marie Schultz and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-03-19 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Plato's Socrates on Socrates: Socratic Self-Disclosure and the Public Practice of Philosophy, Anne-Marie Schultz analyzes the philosophical and political implications of Plato’s presentation of Socrates’ self-disclosive speech in four dialogues: Theaetetus, Symposium, Apology, and Phaedo. Schultz argues that these moments of Socratic self-disclosure show that Plato’s presentation of “Socrates the narrator” is much more pervasive than the secondary literature typically acknowledges. Despite the pervasive appearance of a Socrates who describes his own experience throughout the dialogues, Socratic autobiographical self-disclosure has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. Plato’s use of narrative, particularly his trope of “Socrates the narrator,” is often subsumed into discussions of the dramatic nature of the dialogues more generally rather than studied in its own right. Schultz shows how these carefully crafted narrative remarks add to the richness and profundity of the Platonic texts on multiple levels. To illustrate how these embedded Socratic narratives contribute to the portrait of Socrates as a public philosopher in Plato’s dialogues, the author also examines Socratic self-disclosive practices in the works of bell hooks, Kathy Khang, and Ta-Neishi Coates, and even practices the art of Socratic self-disclosure herself.
Download or read book Plato s Reasons written by Christopher W. Tindale and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2023-12-01 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores Plato's implicit understanding of argumentation by reviewing his standing as a logician, rhetorician, and dialectician. The question of his "standing" on these matters is approached on his terms (gleaned from the dialogues) rather than simply from the judgments of commentators. Traditionally, arguments are distinguished as logical, rhetorical, or dialectical, and the source of these distinctions is taken to be Aristotle. This book proceeds on the assumption that Aristotle's tripartite theory of argumentation did not arise in a vacuum and explores the different degrees to which substantive antecedents of parts of that model can be traced to Plato.
