This volume explores the tremendous influence of Plato's Phaedrus on the philosophical, religious, scientific and literary discussions in the first two millennia of the dialogue's reception history. It will appeal to readers interested in the Ph.

This first full-length study of the Arabic reception of Plato's Timaeus considers the role of Galen of Pergamum in shaping medieval perceptions of the text as transgressing disciplinary norms. It argues that Galen appealed to the entangled cosmological scheme of the dialogue, where different relations connect the body, soul, and cosmos, to expand the boundaries of medicine in his pursuit for epistemic authority – the right to define and explain natural reality. Aileen Das situates Galen's work on disciplinary (...) boundaries in the context of medicine's ancient rivalry with philosophy, whose professionals were long seen as superior knowers of the cosmos vis-à-vis doctors. Her case studies show how Galen and four of the most important Christian, Muslim, and Jewish thinkers in the Arabic Middle Ages creatively interpreted key doctrines from the Timaeus to reimagine medicine and philosophy as well as their own intellectual identities. (shrink)

Review of Fine G..Тhe Oxford Handbook of Plato.Oxford: Oxford University Press.

This article questions a longtime credo concerning Plato’s Laws, namely that the three choruses introduced in Book 2 are institutions of the dialogue’s political project. A detailed analysis of relevant passages shows that the evidence is insufficent. Rather, it is argued, this part of Book 2 is essentially plurivalent: on three separate semantic layers, the choruses illustrate political, moral-psychological and key educational issues of the Laws. Apart from explaining the disappearance of the choruses after Book 2, the proposed (...) reading aims to bring to light an impressively artful philosophical and literary strategy of Plato’s. (shrink)

That philosophy and medicine provide complementary forms of knowledge of the same subject is attested several times, by many authors, in various ways. For examp.

Some commentators argue that the Laws does not have a clear organization, and use this as evidence to show that Plato left the dialogue incomplete or that old age had decreased the philosophical quality of his writing. However, the Laws can be shown to be answering a lucid question according to a discernable logical structure, and the specific proposals set forth can be understood as corresponding to this structure. The Laws constitutes part of an actual political founding. (...) As such, the dialogue treats the acts of lawgiving, and not the nature of laws themselves. The Athenian stranger, evidently a philosopher, presents an account of lawgiving that is alternative to the traditional understanding of lawgiving as transmitted by divinely inspired poetry (624b, 747e). (shrink)

"The articles in this volume are a selection of the papers presented at the Sixth Symposium Platonicum of the International Plato Society, under the auspices of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and of the Faculty of Humanities of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. They reflect the breadth of topics and the range of problems present in Plato's Laws : problems of editing and literary form, rhetoric and style, Homeric quotations ; the Socratic influence ; soul and (...) motion ; pleasure, virtue and happiness, ethics and education, gender ; public offices, economics, and philosophy of history ; political philosophy and religion. Addressed are also the historical and literary contexts of the Laws and its later repercussions."--taken from back cover. (shrink)

The Laws was Plato's last work, his longest, and one of his most difficult. In contrast to the Republic, which presents an abstract ideal not intended for any actual community, the Laws seems to provide practical guidelines for the establishment and maintenance of political order in the real world. With this book, the distinguished classicist Seth Benardete offers an insightful analysis and commentary on this rich and complex dialogue. Each of the chapters corresponds to one of the (...) twelve books of the Laws, illuminating the major themes and arguments, which have to do with theology, the soul, justice, and education. The Greek word for law, "nomos," also means musical tune. Bernardete shows how music--in the broadest sense, including drama, epic poetry, and even puppetry--mediates between reason and the city in Plato's philosophy of law. Most broadly, however, Benardete here uncovers the concealed ontological dimension of the Laws, explaining why it is concealed and how it comes to light. In establishing the coherence and underlying organization of Plato's last dialogue, Benardete makes a significant contribution to Platonic studies. (shrink)

The beginning of the fifteenth century marks a new stage in the reception of the Platonic dialogues in the Latin West. Throughout the medieval period only four dialogues of Plato--the Timaeus, Phaedo, Meno, and part of the Parmenides--were accessible to Latin readers, and the study of Plato was almost wholly confined to the first of these texts, which is chiefly concerned with natural philosophy. In the first half of the fifteenth century this situation changed dramatically: six new dialogues or (...) parts of dialogues were translated by Leonardo Bruni, the Republic was translated three times, George of Trebizond made versions of the Laws, the Epinomis, and the Parmenides, and a dozen other dialogues were made available in Latin by various other translators. With the work of Marsilio Ficino, who published in 1484 the first translation of the Complete Works, the translation activity of the fifteenth century come to fruition. ;The renewed interest in translating Plato in the early fifteenth century was not however at first a renewal of Platonism. The translation of Plato made part of a cultural program whose premisses were in fact foreign to Platonic thought; Plato was instead put to the task of showing that pagan literature was compatible with Christianity, or read as a wise sage full of melodious maxims in usum scholarum, or so twisted as to endorse with his authority some political belief of the translators. These ulterior motives had their influence on the translations themselves, which were frequently excerpted, bowdlerized, or otherwise expurgated of inappropriate sentiments. Such philosophical understanding of Plato as the early humanists displayed was derived from the Philosophica of Cicero. ;It is only with the Plato-Aristotle controversy of mid-century that some more sophisticated understanding of Platonic philosophy begins to emerge. Despite the central role Plato played in his apocalyptic theology, George of Trebizond does not seem to have had a very firm grasp of Platonic thought, but his opponent in the controversy, Cardinal Bessarion, was able to draw upon the philosophical sagacity of the Byzantine and Western scholastic traditions, and produced a more penetrating, if at times incoherent, interpretation of Plato's thought. It is only with Marsilio Ficino however that philosophical understanding was combined with the philological attainments necessary to produce a respectable translation of Plato, and this may account for the great success Ficino's translations enjoyed in subsequent centuries. (shrink)

Plato's Republic covers a very wide range of philosophical topics, many of them also addressed in other Platonic dialogues. The papers in this volume, arising from the Institute of Classical Studies research seminar in ancient philosophy in 2007-2008, illustrate the range and diversity of responses to the Republic in antiquity. These responses show, for example, how in criticizing the doctrine of the tripartite soul Aristotle is as much concerned with the Timaeus as with the Republic, how Cicero regarded the (...) Republic and the Laws as complementing one another, and how Proclus treated the discussion of music in the Republic alongside the account of cosmic music in the Timaeus. Other papers examine the interpretations of the myth of Er offered by the Middle Platonist Alcinous and by Porphyry, and Proclus' place in the ancient reception of the Republic. (shrink)

The presence of slavery in the Laws has puzzled and distressed many of Plato's admirers. However, before passing judgment on Plato's attitude toward slavery, we must first have a clear idea of the legal status of the slave under Plato's law, and compare it with the slave's position under Greek law of Plato's day. This work sets out to do just that, as well as to provide a good account of Greek law, much of which (...) has been lost over the course of history. (shrink)

Among the educative games of Plato’s Cretan city, choral performances have a prominent role. This paper examines the function of play (παιδιά) in the choral education in virtue in Plato’s Laws. I reconstruct the notion of play as it is elaborated throughout this dialogue, and then show how it contributes to solving the problem of virtue acquisition in the Athenian’s account of moral education through songs and dances. I argue that play in the Laws is best understood an (...) imitative activity that is intrinsically pleasurable, ordered by rules and patterns of repetition, and undertaken for its own sake by a player whose psychic condition is childish. Thus interpreted, we are in a better position to see why choruses must be engaged in playfully. Because the self-likening (ὁμοίωσις) process choral performances aim at requires pleasure and because pleasure normally obtains when there is a concordance between one’s character and the imitations, virtue acquisition is best secured if the imitations of virtue in choruses are performed playfully. (shrink)

In 191O Wilamowitz suggested that the account of the election of the first Magnesian officials is a conflation of two originally separate sets of proposals. After long neglect his arguments have been resurrected, with one major modification and in more detail, by Morrow. I intend to argue that both commentators are fundamentally mistaken, and that, properly interpreted, the passage yields limited but valuable information about Plato's plans for coping with the problems of founding a state from scratch. These plans (...) are not simply of theoretical interest: as D. A. Russell has remarked, the Laws is our best guide to the policies and practices of the constitutional advisers sent out by the Academy. (shrink)

In twelve dense and detailed chapters, corresponding to the twelve chapters of the Laws, Seth Benardete provides both a commentary and interpretation of Plato’s last work. His “primary purpose... is to try to uncover its concealed ontological dimension and explain why it is concealed and how it comes to light”. Through a comparison with many of the Socratic dialogues, particularly the Republic and the Phaedrus, and with frequent reference to Greek mythology, history, tragedy, and philosophy, the author reveals layers (...) of meaning and references that presentthe Laws, contrary to customary opinion, as a rich and philosophically provocative book. (shrink)

Butterworth here offers a perfectible translation of the Political Regime and a commendable, skilled rendition of the Summary of Plato's Laws. These two texts are published together and in this order because the contrast between their respective contents and methods would show that only in the last fourth of the first, as opposed to the whole of the second, "does Alfarabi consider political life as it usually is", that is, shorn of what Leo Strauss's disciples regard as metaphysical (...) humbug. Metaphysics, they contend, is synonymous with Neoplatonism, which, in turn, is synonymous with specious religious rhetoric. In Butterworth's opinion, Alfarabi resorted to it as a veil, opaque and gilded enough to keep his... (shrink)

Based on the author's thesis (doctoral) from Universiteit, Leiden, 2014.

Most readers of Plato’s dialogues would probably think of him as likely to approve more of the old masters than of new art. The old masters were on the whole far more realistic than modern painters—compare, say, Velázquez Innocent X (1650) with Matisse The Snail (1953)2—and Plato often seems to take issue with an artist if he departs even slightly from realism. A long section of the Ion, for example, is dedicated to showing that experts in charioteering, medicine, and other (...) areas make the best judges about what poets say on those subjects, ostensibly because only experts can tell how realistically the poet represents chariots, medical treatments and the like.3 Even more telling is the view, famously expressed in the Republic, which suggests that painters should paint things according to what they actually look like:. (shrink)

The merit of Plato’s Laws remains largely untapped by those seeking genuinely collaborative models of the doctor–patient tie as alternatives to paternalism and autonomy. A persistent difficulty confronting proposed alternatives has been surpassing the notion of pronounced intellectual and values asymmetry favoring the doctor. Having discussed two prominent proposals, both of which evince marked paternalism, I argue that reflection on Plato yields four criteria that a genuinely collaborative model must meet and suggest how the Laws addresses them. In (...) the process, the Laws’ doctor–patient tie is shown to be far more nuanced than interpreters have previously observed. Although Plato’s account will not solve our own quandaries, it illustrates how one might retain asymmetry of a kind without capitulating to familiar oppositional modalities. Through this account, I hope to show that the Laws merits fuller inclusion in contemporary discussions than it has heretofore received. (shrink)

These dramatized, unabridged versions of Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo present the trial, imprisonment, and execution of Socrates, who Phaedo said was the "wisest, best, and most righteous person I have ever known."In the Euthyphro Socrates approaches the court where he will be tried on charges of atheism and corrupting the young. On the way he meets Euthyphro, an expert in religious matters. Socrates challenges Euthyphro's claim that ethics should be based on religion.In the Apology Socrates presents his (...) own defense. He explains why he has devoted his life to challenging the most powerful and important people, a process that has generated great resentment and has led to his indictment. He insists that instead of being punished he should be rewarded for his services to his fellow citizens. Socrates fails in his attempt to avoid the death sentence, but his friend Crito has bribed the guards offers him a way to escape. In the third dialogue Crito tries to persuade Socrates that it is right to flee from the unjust sentence imposed on him. In the course of their conversations they probe the foundations of civil and moral law, and treat issues that are as relevant to our time as to theirs.The Phaedo presents Socrates' final conversation. What will become of him once he drinks the poison prescribed for his execution? Socrates and his friends examine several arguments to prove that the death of the body does not kill the soul. (shrink)

A dialogue between a foreign philosopher and a powerful statesman outline Plato's reflections on the family, the status of women, property rights, and criminal law.

Tarán’s case against the authenticity of Epinomis depends on the claim that it is incompatible with Plato’s Laws. Behind this claim is the uncritical assumption that the Athenian Stranger of Laws speaks for Plato. While the Athenian Stranger of Epinomis clearly does not do so, the same is equally true, albeit more difficult to detect, of the Stranger in Laws. Once the Athenian is recognized as both ambitious and impious, a reconstruction of the last sentence of Epinomis (...) — on which Tarán’s incompatibility thesis principally rests — reveals the theological-political continuity between the two dialogues: the Stranger is intent on bringing the city into being while securing divine sanction for his own code of laws and divine honours for himself. Plato appended the Epinomis to the Laws in order to make it easier for the student to recognize the Stranger’s intentions as well as to draw attention to Book VII of the Laws, the centre of the dialogue once Epinomis is recognized as its thirteenth book; it is here that the Stranger describes how a mathematical and astronomical man may become a god to other men. (shrink)

Logic is concerned with the design or structure of arguments. It describes the forms of valid argument and is concerned with the public presentation and reception of arguments. Hence it has a close connection with politics and the public sphere, and with rhetoric as the science of persuasion. Philosophers have analysed the objective conditions of validation, that is, the justifiability of assertions about the world. This quest for objective and scientific validity in argumentation about the nature of reality dominated (...) much of the development of logic in the 20th century. Logical arguments are held to be successful as a result of the ‘force of reason’ rather than because one's opponents have been bribed or coerced. Logic involves the study of the abstract, deductive moves in argumentation rather than an empirical study of how actual arguments are conducted. However, there is also a tension between rhetoric and philosophy; Plato drew a clear distinction between knowledge and persuasion. Logic is intended to give security to the former. The historical drift of logic is towards abstraction, especially the use of mathematical forms of representation. The study of logic is an important component of any project on encyclopaedic knowledge, that is, with knowledge that circulates in the public sphere, but the globalization of culture has raised an important problem about the universalistic claims of traditions of logic, namely, are there different forms of logical reasoning? (shrink)

In the Laws, Plato argues that legislation must not only compel, but also persuade. This is accomplished by prefacing laws with preludes. While this procedure is central to the legislative project of the dialogue, there is little interpretative agreement about the strategy of the preludes. This paper defends an interpretation according to which the strategy is to engage with citizens in a way that anticipates their progress toward a more mature evaluative outlook, and helps them grow into it. (...) This paper shall refer to this strategy as proleptic engagement. While the virtuous ways of life required by law are intimately connected to happiness, the preludes do not persuade by spelling out this connection. Rather, they persuade by telling citizens what they need to hear so that they can come to appreciate this connection for themselves, in the context of their own lives. While the preludes are many and varied, this paper argues that all preambular material can be understood as proleptic engagement. (shrink)

Long understudied, Plato's Laws has been the object of renewed attention in the past decade and is now considered to be his major work of political philosophy besides the Republic. In his last dialogue, Plato returns to the project of describing the foundation of a just city and sketches in considerable detail its constitution, laws and other social institutions. Written by leading Platonists, the essays in this volume cover a wide range of topics central for understanding the (...) Laws, such as the aim of the Laws as a whole, the ethical psychology of the Laws, especially its views of pleasure and non-rational motivations, and whether and, if so, how the strict law code of the Laws can encourage genuine virtue. They make an important contribution to ongoing debates and will open up fresh lines of inquiry for further research. (shrink)

Readers of Plato have often neglected the Laws because of its length and density. In this set of interpretive essays, notable scholars of the Laws from the fields of classics, history, philosophy, and political science offer a collective close reading of the dialogue "book by book" and reflect on the work as a whole. In their introduction, editors Gregory Recco and Eric Sanday explore the connections among the essays and the dramatic and productive exchanges between the contributors. This (...) volume fills a major gap in studies on Plato’s dialogues by addressing the cultural and historical context of the Laws and highlighting their importance to contemporary scholarship. (shrink)

Plato's Cretan City is a thorough investigation into the roots of Plato's Laws and a compelling explication of his ideas on legislation and social institutions. A dialogue among three travelers, the Laws proposes a detailed plan for administering a new colony on the island of Crete. In examining this dialogue, Glenn Morrow describes the contemporary Greek institutions in Athens, Crete, and Sparta on which Plato based his model city, and explores the philosopher's proposed regulations concerning property, (...) the family, government, and the administration of justice, education, and religion. He approaches the Laws as both a living document of reform and a philosophical inquiry into humankind's highest earthly duty. (shrink)

Recent scholarship on Stoic political thought has sought to explain the relationship between Zeno’s Republic and the concept of a natural law regulating a cosmic city of gods and human beings that is attributed to later Stoics. This paper provides a reassessment of this relationship by exploring the underappreciated influence of Plato’s Laws on Zeno’s Republic and, through Zeno, on the subsequent Stoic tradition. Zeno’s attempt to remove perceived inconsistencies in Plato’s treatment of ‘law’ and ‘nature’ established a philosophical (...) framework that overturned the republicanism of Plato and Aristotle; this same framework established the preconditions for the cosmic city of gods and human beings regulated by natural law. Thus, the early Stoic tradition on the topic of natural law is characterized by continuity rather than by discontinuity. (shrink)

"-- M. J. Silverthorne,The Humanities Association Review Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of ...

Plato’s Laws include what H.L.A. Hart called the ‘classical thesis’ about the nature and role of law: the law exists to see that one leads a morally good life. This paper develops Hart’s brief remarks by providing a panorama of the classical thesis in Laws. This is done by considering two themes: (1) the extent to which Laws is paternalistic, and (2) the extent to which Laws is naturalistic. These themes are significant for a number of (...) reasons, including because they show how Laws might be viewed as a sophisticated forerunner of natural law theory. The upshot is that Plato's metaphysical commitments about legal ontology allow him to base the truth of legal propositions on the way they relate to the truth of corresponding moral propositions. (shrink)

1 The Roots of the Laws Perhaps the most ready assumption of any reader of the Laws-it only because of its title-is that its primary purpose is to provide a ...

The much-anticipated anthology on Plato’s_Timaeus_—Plato’s singular dialogue on the creation of the universe, the nature of the physical world, and the place of persons in the cosmos—examining all dimensions of one of the most important books in Western Civilization: its philosophy, cosmology, science, and ethics, its literary aspects and reception. Contributions come from leading scholars in their respective fields, including Sir Anthony Leggett, 2003 Nobel Laureate for Physics. Parts of or earlier versions of these papers were first presented at (...) the _Timaeus_ Conference, held at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in September of 2007._ To this day, Plato’s _Timaeus_ grounds the form of ethical and political thinking called Natural Law—the view that there are norms in nature that provide the patterns for our actions and ground the objectivity of human values. Beyond the intellectual content of the dialogue’s core, its literary frame is also the source of the myth of Atlantis, giving the West the concept of the “lost world.” From Platonic space to Presocratic vortices, from Philosopher-Kings to Craftsman-Gods and from modern physics to the myth of Atlantis, _One Book, The Whole Universe_ presents in one volume the most up-to-date and penetrating scholarship on Plato’s _Timaeus_ by some of the greatest minds alive today. Contributors__ _Ann Bergren Gábor Betegh Sean Carroll Alan Code Zina Giannopoulou Verity Harte Thomas Kjeller Johansen Charles H. Kahn Anthony J. Leggett Anthony A. Long Stephen Menn Richard D. Mohr Kathryn A. Morgan Alexander P.D. Mourelatos Ian Mueller Thomas M. Robinson Barbara M. Sattler Allan Silverman Jon Solomon Anthony Vidler Matthias Vorwerk Donald Zeyl. (shrink)