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A Platonic Model Of The Soul-Body Relationship, Kenneth Dorter

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

In presenting a unified overview of Plato's conception of soul I do not intend to suggest that Plato's undogmatic and unsystematic approach to philosophy can be reduced in a systematic dogma. The model I develop is meant to be taken not dogmatically but instrumentally, as a basis for relating to one another the various things that Plato says about the soul. It is furthermore based upon a conviction that the progressive development of Plato's conception …

Plato On Mind And Morality In Nature, Joan Kung

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

The view that values and virtues, whether independently real or merely conventional, are no part of nature and are to be studied in a discipline distinct from sciences which investigate the natural world goes nearly unquestioned in our time. I shall argue that it is challenged by Plato in his criticism of Anaxagoras.

Courage In Plato’S Earlier Dialogues, Nicholas P. White

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

Beginning in his earlier works. Plato attempted to give an account of virtue and of the particular virtues. including courage. which receives special attention in the Laches and the Protagoras. I want to explore a number of aspects of the virtue of courage about which I think that philosophers are still not fully clear. I am afraid that some of our lack of clarity results from the way in which Socrates and Plato began the …

Socrates’ Practice Of Elenchos In The Charmides, W. Thomas Schmid

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

There is a common, but false conception of Socrates' practice of dialectical examination. This conception depicts him as a relentless critic, a "despotic logician" (Nietzsche) guided by a moral purpose. Socrates is said to aim not at truth but at refutation — at proving, step by step, and often with a display of malicious irony, that the interlocutor's thought is inconsistent, that he "doesn't know what he is talking about.' Richard Robinson says that the …

The Inquiry Into Aitiai In Plato’S Phaedo, Michael L. Morgan

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

There is a feature of Socrates' intellectual autobiography in the Phaedo that has not been sufficiently clarified by commentators on that passage. Most students of the dialogue have taken the text to describe Socrates' disenchantment with mechanical reasons or explanations, his disappointment with Anaxagoras' failure to provide sound teleological explanations, and his eventual turning to explanations involving the separated Forms. In very rough terms, to be sure, Socrates' tale is thought to be about his …

Program: 10th Annual Baker Philosophy Colloquium, University Of Dayton

University of Dayton Review

Program listing for the 10th annual Baker Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981. Visiting presiding philosophers: David Gallop of Trent University and Nicholas P. White of the University of Michigan.

Happiness And Function In Plato’S Republic, Richard Mohr

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

The casual reader of the Republic may not notice that the primary purpose of the whole dialogue is to discuss happiness rather than virtue; more precisely the purpose is to discuss what consequences various conceptions of justice or manners of life have for our understanding of what happiness is. This purpose is explicitly stated in Book V just prior to the introduction of the philosopher-king at 472c: "Our purpose was, with these models (of justice …

The Horns Of Dilemma: Dreaming And Waking Vision In The Theaetetus, Rosemary Desjardins

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

With these disarmingly simple words, addressed to Theaetetus towards the end of the dialogue named in his honor, Plato introduces what surely looks like a gratuitous puzzle. Occurring as an apparent digression just before the expected denouement of the discussion, the passage now known as Socrates' Dream is first elaborately developed, then to all intents and purposes elaborately, precisely, and definitively refuted. After which, the thread of the discussion is picked up where it was …

Cover And Table Of Contents, University Of Dayton

University of Dayton Review

No abstract provided.

Socratic Psychotherapy, Anthony Preus

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

Was Socrates a psychotherapist? Attempting to answer this question may lead toward a better understanding of Socrates as reported by Plato (and perhaps by Aristophanes and Xenophon), and it may help to clarify our own notion of psychotheraphy. Contra, it may be argued that psychotherapy as we understand it was invented by Charcot and Freud, so it would be anachronistic to ascribe it to any of the ancients; interpreted, this means that our concept of …

The Two-Worlds Argument And The Development Of Plato’S Metaphysics, William J. Prior

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

In the final argument of the first part of the Parmenides, Plato raises an objection to the separate existence of Forms. This argument, which I shall call the "Two Worlds Argument" (TWA), takes up more space than any of the other arguments against the Theory of Forms (TF), occupying almost two Stephanos pages (133a-134e). It is, moreover, the only argument in the series about which Plato permits Parmenides to offer an editorial comment, the …

Birth And Death In Parmenides And Plato, David Gallop

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

At a turning point in the Phaedo (95e) Socrates says that the objections of his interlocutor, Cebes, call for a thorough inquiry into the reason (aitia) for coming-to-be (genesis) and destruction (phthora.) In this paper I wish to explore some philosophical antecedents of this inquiry, with a view to clarifying its significance in the Phaedo context, and ventilating it as a conceptual issue in its own right.

The Socratic Argument Against Akrasia In The Protagoras, Donald Zeyl

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

In a famous argument at the end of the Protagoras Socrates undertakes to show (a) that the thesis that one can act contrary to what one knows to be best is "absurd," given the explanation of such actions as being due to the agent's being "overcome by pleasure," and given the hedonistic standards of evaluation to which most people are committed; and (b) that the correct explanation of such actions is that they are due …

Plato’S Theaetetus As Dialectic, Ronald Polansky

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

Plato's Theaetetus, having episteme (knowledge or science) as its principal topic, attracts considerable interest. Two lines of interpretation dominate the literature. Each provides a way for explaining the two most prominent features of the dialogue — that it fails to define knowledge and that Socrates refrains from introducing the forms to help himself out. The majority of commentators, adhering to the standard view of Plato — that he has a doctrine of forms which …

Logical Truth In Plato, Robin Smith

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

In his works on the history of logic, I.M. Bochenski passes rather harsh judgment on Plato's practical competence in logic. His earlier Ancient Formal Logic claims that the dialogues are so full of "elementary blunders" that "the reading of them is almost intolerable to a logician." Some of the harshest censure has been removed from the later History of Formal Logic, but Bochenski still regards Plato as struggling inordinately hard to " solve logical …

Introduction, Jane S. Zembaty

University of Dayton Review

In the spring of 1981, the Philosophy Department of the University of Dayton held its 10th annual colloquium. The topic was Plato. Following its usual procedure, the department invited two prominent philosophers, David Gallop of Trent University and Nicholas P. White of the University of Michigan, to serve as Visiting Presiding Philosophers. It also sent out a call for papers. The eighty-plus papers submitted were subjected to blind reviewing; nine were selected for reading at the colloquium.

The Analysis Of “Being” In Plato, Henry Teloh

University of Dayton Review

Editor's note: After blind peer review, this paper was selected for reading at the University of Dayton's 10th annual Philosophy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28, 1981.

While ancient philosophers do not thematize the notion of existence, medieval philosophers do. Aristotle, for example, thinks that to be is to be in some category; it is to be predicatively something. Aquinas, on the other hand, because of a scriptural commitment to creationism, radically distinguishes necessary and contingent existents.

Kafka’S “Die Verwandlung” And Its Natural Model: An Alternative Reading, G. Thomas Mann

University of Dayton Review

Perhaps no twentieth-century literary work from German-speaking Europe has attracted more attention worldwide than Franz Kafka's "Die Verwandlung." Since it was first published in 1912, this bizaare tale of the traveling salesman who awakes one morning to discover he has been transformed into a huge bug has consistently elicited powerful responses from its readers. Some have judged it disgusting and perverse, while others have regarded it as profound, prophetic, or puzzling. Virtually all, however, have found it provocative. As a result, its readership has steadily grown until today it belongs to the expected reading of the so-called educated person, not …

Cover And Table Of Contents, University Of Dayton

University of Dayton Review

No abstract provided.

Christianity: Hypocrisy And Honesty In The Afro-American Novel Of The Mid-19th Century, Rennie Simson

University of Dayton Review

A hundred years ago one of the most difficult and important tasks confronting white men involved in the institution of slavery was to convince themselves that the human beings they imported as slaves were not human beings in the same sense that they were. They found this task somewhat difficult because their eyes and ears contradicted their attempts to relegate the black man to a subhuman status. Not only did the blacks look human, but they had demonstrated courage and intelligence and shared experiences like those of the whites. The white man was thus compelled to look elsewhere than to …

Goethe's 'An Den Mond' And The Lyrical Idiom Of The German Evening Poem, Kenneth G. Negus

University of Dayton Review

Goethe's 'An den Mond,' first published in its final version in 1789, is generally considered a culmination of his art of the lyric. It also represents the first supreme achievement in the development of his special art of the evening poem during his thirties, the later phases being in his sixties (West-ostlicher Divan) and in his late seventies (Dammrung senkte sich von oben …' and 'Dem aufgehenden Vollmond'). Like several of his most well-known evening lyrics, it is a moon poem.

Gottfried Keller’S Representation Of Human Society, Richard Leister

University of Dayton Review

The titles of two of Gottfried Keller's stories express two extremes of social background: lowly piece-workers ("Die drei gerechten Kammacher") and nobility ("Die arme Baronin"). These extremes suggest the gamut of social backgrounds which are represented in Keller's stories. But not only worker and nobleman, also rich and poor, proud and humble, young and old, generous and miserly are heroes and heroines in his stories.

The Image Of The School In Heinrich Boll’S Early Works, Henry C. Helmke

University of Dayton Review

The school experience has been a prominent motif in German writing for many years, and naturally, the image of the institution differs according to the social and political values held by the respective authors. Goethe, in his fiction, depicts the school experience as beneficial and the teachers as helpful and understanding. Heine, on the other hand, is highly critical of the German educational system. Over the years, especially in that writing which is critical of the socio-political climate in Germany, the picture painted of the school has changed with the changing concerns of German authors, but it has generally been …

Molloy: Beckett’S “Nourishing And Economical Irish Stew”, Keith Cushman

University of Dayton Review

In this essay I propose to discuss Moran's stew as paradigm for the novel Molloy. After all, as Beckett had learned from Joyce, "the more carrots you chop, the more turnips you slit, the more murphies you peel, the more onions you cry over, the more bullbeef you butch, the more mutton you crackerhack, the more potherbs you pound, the fiercer the fire and the longer your spoon and the harder you gruel with more grease to your elbow the merrier fumes your new Irish stew." Beckett had of course already peeled a Murphy. In Molloy, he creates a concoction …

“Salomon Saith”: Bacon’S Uses Of Solomon In The 1625 Essayes, Joan Wylie Hall

University of Dayton Review

A basic feature of Bacon's style in the Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall is his allusion to wise men — persons who serve as authorities and even as models for the reader. Bacon's many citations in the fifty-eight essays range from such modern authors as Machiavelli and Rabelais to such ancient writers as Virgil and St. Paul. Yet one authority stands above all others: Solomon, the most frequently named of Bacon's several wise men. That Solomon was for the Renaissance the epitome of wisdom is of course well known. Bacon himself displayed a lasting interest in Solomon, from …

Balancing: Between Perfect Order And Chaos (A Reflection Provoked By The Reading Of Mrozek’S Tango), Carroll C. Kearley

University of Dayton Review

Even though assimilation is a characteristic feature of life, the life we live in community ought not to be evaluated primarily by the criterion of how much it can assimilate. Assimilation is not an end in itself, but is a process whereby a living thing incorporates nutrients into its own organic integrity. Incorporation of healthy nutrients leads to a flourishing that is proper to a particular kind of living thing. A carrot will assimilate minerals that will enable it to become a flourishing carrot. A community, a most complex form of life, also needs its nutrients; and its nutrients are …

An Introduction To The Dramas Of Ilse Langner, Jerry Glenn

University of Dayton Review

In his "Nachwort" to Ilse Langner's drama Frau Emma kampft im Hinterland, Wolfgang Weyrauch observes: "Ich habe nie begriffen, warum die 'Pioniere in Ingolstadt' der Marieluise Fleisser immer wieder gespielt werden (nichts gegen sie, alles fur sie), und 'Frau Emma kampft im Hinterland' von Ilse Langner nicht." Although Fleisser and Langner differ in several respects — the nature and quantity of their literary works and their reception after the mid- 1960s — they still have much in common. Both were born about the turn of the century, enjoyed notable theatrical successes during the Weimar Republic, and experienced difficulties during …

Middle Class Ideology And The Autonomous Self: The Emergence Of The Novel In Europe And Africa, Richard Bjornson

University of Dayton Review

There is no single source of the novel as a literary genre, nor is there any single ideology which is most appropriate to it. Narrative techniques and devices associated with the novel are present in earlier epics, romances, novella collections, travel accounts, fables, miscellanies, jest books, lives of saints, and chronicles, just as most ideological perspectives have at one time or another found expression in the novel. Nevertheless, novel-writing has tended to develop in different places, when similar socio-cultural concerns were beginning to surface; in particular, it can often be identified with an emergent belief that individuals constitute a primary …