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Socrates As Citizen?: The Implications Of Socratic Eros For Contemporary Models Of Citizenship, Jeremy John Mhire

Jeremy Mhire

This dissertation evaluates the appropriateness of using Socrates as a model for contemporary citizenship. I examine the question of Socrates' civic character by inquiring about the relation of the philosopher (or political scientist) to the city (that is, to political life) without taking for granted that they share a common aim or purpose. Instead, I prepare the discussion with an examination of the treatment of Socrates by the comic poet Aristophanes in the Clouds. I suggest that Socrates' famed eros, his unwavering love of wisdom, was a problem, one that threatened the very foundations of political society. By conceiving of …

Introduction To The Transaction Edition, The Genesis Of Winspear5s Thought, Anthony Preus

Anthony Preus

No abstract provided.

Writing And Imitation: Greek Education In The Greco-Roman World, Rubén R. Dupertuis

Ruben R Dupertuis

The imitation of a handful of accepted literary models lies at the core of the Greco-Roman educational process throughout all of its stages. While at the more advanced levels the relationship to models became more nuanced, the underlying principle remained the imitation of those authors who had achieved greatness. Quintilian explains the rationale as follows:

For there can be no doubt that in art no small portion of our task lies in imitation, since although invention came first and is all-important, it is expedient to imitate whatever has been invented with success. And it is a universal rule of life …

Socratizing Paul: The Portrait Of Paul In Acts, Rubén R. Dupertuis

Ruben R Dupertuis

The Acts of the Apostles is poorly named because it is primarily the acts of only two apostles: Peter and Paul (and Paul is not actually considered to be an "apostle" by Luke, the author of Acts). Furthermore, it is Paul who emerges as the hero of the narrative, as well over half of Acts is devoted to his journeys and exploits. The portrait of Paul in Acts is striking for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that letter writing, the activity for which Paul appears to have been known, is completely absent. In Acts Paul …

Critical Moments In Classical Literature [Review], Lawrence Kim

Lawrence Kim

Critical Moments in Classical Literature is a curious book; deeply learned, elegantly written, and filled with subtle observations on a vast array of texts, but also somewhat diffuse, elusive, and in the end frustrating. On the face of it, the subtitle, Studies in the Ancient View of Literature and its Uses, is a good description of the book’s six chapters, each focused on a text constituting a ‘critical moment’ in ancient literary criticism: (1) Aristophanes’ Frogs, (2) Euripides’ Cyclops, (4) Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ On Imitation, (5) Longinus’ On the Sublime, and (6) Plutarch’s How the …

Aesthetics Into The Twenty-First Century, Curtis Carter

Curtis Carter

The new concerns facing aestheticians in the twenty-first century require serious attention if the discipline is to maintain continued viability as an intellectual discipline. Just as art changes as cultures develop, so must aesthetics. In support of this view is a personal account of evolving engagement with aesthetics and the factors that led to embracing change and a plurality of practices as essential to the health of aesthetic today. A brief examination of the state of aesthetics as it has evolved in the American Society for Aesthetics since its inception in the 1940s will follow. These two lines of development, …

The Problem Of Sovereignty, International Law, And Intellectual Conscience, Richard L. Lara

Richard Louis Lara

The concept of sovereignty is a recurring and controversial theme in international law, and it has a long history in western philosophy. The traditionally favored concept of sovereignty proves problematic in the context of international law. International law’s own claims to sovereignty, which are premised on traditional concept of sovereignty, undermine individual nations’ claims to sovereignty. These problems are attributable to deep-seated flaws in the traditional concept of sovereignty. A viable alternative concept of sovereignty can be derived from key concepts in Friedrich Nietzsche’s views on human reason and epistemology. The essay begins by considering the problem of sovereignty from …

In The Mood For A Little Dialogue?, Raam P. Gokhale

Raam P Gokhale

A Dialogue About Whether or Not to Dialogue

The Failure Of Evolution In Antiquity, Devin Henry

Devin Henry

This paper traces the emergence and rejection of evolutionary thinking in antiquity. It examines Empedocles' original theory of evolution and why his ideas failed to gain traction among his predecessors.

Optimality And Teleology In Aristotle's Natural Science, Devin Henry

Devin Henry

In this paper I examine the role of optimality reasoning in Aristotle’s natural science. By “optimality reasoning” I mean reasoning that appeals to some conception of “what is best” in order to explain why things are the way they are. We are first introduced to this pattern of reasoning in the famous passage at Phaedo 97b8-98a2, where (Plato’s) Socrates invokes “what is best” as a cause (aitia) of things in nature. This passage can be seen as the intellectual ancestor of Aristotle’s own principle, expressed by the famous dictum “nature does nothing in vain but always what is best for …

Asking For Plato's Forgiveness. Floyer Sydenham: A Platonic Visionary Of 18th-Century Britain, Kyriakos N. Demetriou

Kyriakos N. Demetriou

Floyer Sydenham (1710–1787), the eminent British Platonist, has been unduly neglected in the interpretative historiography of the modern Platonic tradition. Amid a climate of indifference, he set out to offer the first complete English translation of the Platonic dialogues, begging for subscriptions that never materialized. He died in debtors’ prison on April 1, 1787. Between 1759 and 1780 he managed to translate nine dialogues incorporating a large number of explanatory notes and linguistic emendations to the existing texts. Set in the context of the intellectual and discursive tradition of the era, Sydenham’s Platonism expanded on Lord Shaftesbury’s teleological views of …

Can The Love Of Learning Be Taught?, R. Nillsen

Professor Rodney Nillsen

This paper is an expanded version of a talk given at a Generic Skills Workshop at the University of Wollongong, and was originally intended for academic staff from any discipline and general staff with an interest in teaching. The issues considered in the paper include the capacity of all to learn, the distinction between learning as understanding and learning as information, the interaction between the communication and the content of ideas, the tension between perception and content in communication between persons, and the human functions of a love of learning. In teaching, the creation of a fear-free environment is emphasised, …

נבואה והסדר המדיני המושלם: התיאולוגיה המדינית של ליאו שטראוס Prophecy And The Perfect Political Order: The Political Theology Of Leo Strauss, Haim חיים O. Rechnitzer רכניצר

Haim O Rechnitzer חיים א. רכניצר

The theological-political problem, the inherent tensions between religion, human intellect and political society are the focus of the book Philosophy and the Perfect Political Order: the Political Theology of Leo Strauss. Strauss, (1899-1973) one of the greatest scholars of political philosophy, never produced an independent philosophy. Instead, his philosophical thought is entwined within commentary on the works of Maimonides, Hobbes, Spinoza, Nietzsche and others. In this book, it is reconstructed through a comprehensive investigation of his works. Strauss placed himself in opposition to his teachers and colleagues Herman Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, and Martin Buber. He challenged their syntheses of Judaism …

Dialectic And Dialogue In Plato: Revisiting The Image Of "Socrates-As-Teacher" In The Hermeneutic Pursuit Of Authentic Paideia, James Magrini

James M Magrini

No abstract provided.

Heidegger's Caves: On Dwelling In Wonder, Mary-Jane V. Rubenstein

Mary-Jane Rubenstein

No abstract provided.

"Via Platonica Zum Unbewussten. Platon Und Freud", Wien: Turia + Kant, 2012 (Pdf: Inhaltsverzeichnis, Vegetti Vorwort, Einleitung)., Marco Solinas

Marco Solinas

Utopian Thought And The Law Of Nations, Stas Getmanenko

Stas Getmanenko

Thomas More in his conversation with Raphael Hythloday agreed with Plato that “nations will be happy, when either philosophers become kings, or kings become philosophers.” Some five hundred years following More’s sojourn to the New Isle of Utopia, the “philosophers” remain in search of a societal order that would appropriately reflect and encompass the humanity’s best social and political contrivances. Inasmuch as humanity remains governed by law, and “[a]ll laws are promulgated for this end, that every man may know his duty,” the quest for a modern Utopia is then appropriately placed in the purview of jurisprudence. This legal article …

A Sharp Eye For Kinds: Collection And Division In Plato's Late Dialogues, Devin Henry

Devin Henry

This paper focuses on two methodological questions that arise from Plato’s account of collection and division. First, what place does the method of collection and division occupy in Plato’s account of philosophical inquiry? Second, do collection and division in fact constitute a formal “method” (as most scholars assume) or are they simply informal techniques that the philosopher has in her toolkit for accomplishing different philosophical tasks? I argue that Plato sees collection and division as useful tools for achieving two distinct goals – generating real definitions and discovering the basic natural kinds of a given domain of knowledge – both …

From Slumdog To Maddog, Raam P. Gokhale

Raam P Gokhale

A hearing in the court of Sanity

Averting The Captain Vere “Veer”: Billy Budd As Melville’S Republican Response To Plato, Robert E. Atkinson

Robert E. Atkinson Jr.

This article shows how Melville’s Billy Budd, rightly one of law and literature’s most widely studied canonical texts, answers Plato’s challenge in Book X of the Republic: Show how “poets” create better citizens, especially better rulers, or banish them from the commonwealth of reasoned law. Captain Vere is a flawed but instructive version of the Republic’s philosopher-king, even as his story is precisely the sort of “poetry” that Plato should willing allow, by his own republican principles, into the ideal polity. Not surprisingly, the novella shows how law’s agents must be wise, even as their law must be philosophical, if …

Chapter Ii. The First Christian Negative Theology: Justin And Clement, Raoul Mortley

Raoul Mortley

[Chapter Contents]: Justin, transcendence and the inefficacy of names, 34; Ps. Justin, Exhortation to the Greeks on names and multiplicity in language, 35; Clement on language and silence, 36; Clement's view of discourse, 38; language as concealment, 39; the Gnostic understands language, perceiving its secret significance, 40; the via negativa, 42; abstraction and the unities of Plato's Parmenides, 43.

Chapter Iii. Thought As Sight, Raoul Mortley

Raoul Mortley

Chapter Contents: Nous - Omitted by Snell 61; von Fritz on intellect as vision and intuition 61; thought as holistic perception 62; thought and being are identical 63; critique of Guthrie's discussion of Parmenides66; Anaxagoras' vous as Being 68; Empedocles' thought like sensation 69; Democritus 71; Plato on truth and thought 72; Plato on intellect as a cause 75; conclusion 76.

The Platonic Legend [In Greek], Kyriakos N. Demetriou

Kyriakos N. Demetriou

This is the first study ever on the history of modern Platonic exegesis in Greek, and would hopefully introduce the “Rezeptionsgechichte” discipline into Greek academia. What I am trying to prove is a simple, albeit controversial thesis, namely that the existence of so many conflicting accounts about Plato’s philosophy proves that George Grote’s argument put forward in the 1860s (in a nutshell, that Plato had no distinct philosophical system to establish apart from a consistent aim running through the dialogues, that of expounding a philosophical method -- not a doctrine), is still compellingly legitimate. The existence of many “Platonisms” (in …

Book Review, Eric Heinze

Prof. Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London

Book Review: Randall Baldwin Clark, "The Law Most Beautiful and Best: Medical Argument and Magical Rhetoric in Plato’s Laws", Lexington Books, 2004 (pp. 178 + xiv) Randall Clark has distinguished himself among a growing number of scholars taking a new look at theories of law in ancient Greek texts. The review examines a number of original features of Clark’s approach, and shows how the book sheds new light on important themes in Plato’s Republic and Laws.

Psiche: Platone E Freud. Desiderio, Sogno, Mania, Eros, Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2008 (Pdf: Indice)., Marco Solinas

Marco Solinas

The Status Of Classical Natural Law: Plato And The Parochialism Of Modern Theory, Eric Heinze

Prof. Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London

The concept of modernity has long been central to legal theory. It is an intrinsically temporal concept, expressly or implicitly defined in contrast to pre-modernity.

Legal theorists sometimes draw comparisons between, on the one hand, various post-Renaissance positivist, liberal, realist or critical theories, and, on the other hand, the classical natural law or justice theories of antiquity or the middle ages, including such figures as Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine or Aquinas. Many theorists, however, while acknowledging superficial differences among the various classical theories, fail to appreciate the variety and complexity of pre-modern thought. Unduly simplifying pre-modern understandings of law, they end …

Epinomia: Plato And The First Legal Theory, Eric Heinze

Prof. Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London

In comparison to Aristotle, Plato’s general understanding of law receives little attention in legal theory, due in part to ongoing perceptions of him as a mystic or a totalitarian. However, some of the critical or communitarian themes that have guided theorists since Aristotle already find strong expression in Plato’s work. More than any thinker until the 19th and 20th centuries, Plato rejects the rank individualism and self-interest which, in his view, emerge within democratic legal culture. He rejects schisms between legal norms and community values, institutional separation of law from morals, intricate regimes of legislation and adjudication, and a culture …

La Sublimazione Dell’Eros. La “Repubblica” E Freud, In "Chronos", 25 (2007), Pp. 69-92., Marco Solinas

Marco Solinas

No abstract provided.

La Paternità Dell’Eros: Il “Simposio” E Freud, In G. Ugolini (Hg. A Cura Di), "Die Kraft Der Vergangenheit – La Forza Del Passato", Hildesheim-Zürich-New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 2005, Pp. 231-241., Marco Solinas

Marco Solinas

No abstract provided.

Desideri: Fenomenologia Degenerativa E Strategie Di Controllo, In Mario Vegetti (A Cura Di), "Platone. La Repubblica", Napoli: Biblipolis, 2005, Vol. Vi, Pp. 471-498., Marco Solinas

Marco Solinas

No abstract provided.