Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Institution
-
- Binghamton University (20)
- Trinity University (8)
- College of DuPage (4)
- University of Richmond (3)
- Chapman University (2)
-
- Fordham University (2)
- Gettysburg College (2)
- Marquette University (2)
- Ouachita Baptist University (2)
- Assumption University (1)
- City University of New York (CUNY) (1)
- Dominican University of California (1)
- Louisiana State University (1)
- Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School (1)
- Marshall University (1)
- Maurer School of Law: Indiana University (1)
- Molloy University (1)
- Sacred Heart University (1)
- Stephen F. Austin State University (1)
- Taylor University (1)
- The University of San Francisco (1)
- University of Kentucky (1)
- University of Michigan Law School (1)
- University of Nebraska - Lincoln (1)
- University of Rhode Island (1)
- University of Windsor (1)
- Western University (1)
- Publication Year
- Publication
-
- The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter (18)
- Philosophy Faculty Research (8)
- Philosophy Scholarship (4)
- Faculty Publications (2)
- Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research (2)
-
- Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications (2)
- Philosophy Faculty Scholarship (2)
- Political Science Faculty Publications (2)
- Articles (1)
- Articles by Maurer Faculty (1)
- Book Chapters (1)
- Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship (1)
- Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research (1)
- English Faculty Publications (1)
- Faculty Works: PHI (2010-2021) (1)
- Humanities Faculty Research (1)
- Philosophy (1)
- Philosophy & Theory (1)
- Philosophy Department Faculty Works (1)
- Philosophy Faculty Publications (1)
- Philosophy Faculty Works (1)
- Philosophy Graduate Research (1)
- Philosophy Presentations (1)
- Philosophy Publications (1)
- Philosophy Student Projects (1)
- Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications (1)
- Presentations and Lectures (1)
- Publications and Research (1)
- Research Resources (1)
- Senior Honors Projects (1)
Articles 1 - 30 of 63
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Euthyphro & The Third Horn, Elias Seeman
Euthyphro & The Third Horn, Elias Seeman
Philosophy Student Projects
One of the most interesting questions in Christian ethics is known as the Euthyphro problem. Put simply, the question is "is something good just because God commands it, or does God command something because it is good." It is a question of the foundation of morals. Typically, there are two responses to this problem, both of which I find unsatisfying. In the paper, I propose a third way of understanding the dilemma.
Dialogue Concerning The Existence And Nature Of God, Theodore J. Szpakowski
Dialogue Concerning The Existence And Nature Of God, Theodore J. Szpakowski
Student Publications
This fictional work is based on Euthyphro by Plato and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. It mimics the dialogue style of these authors and places Socrates, Cleanthes, and Philo at Gettysburg College to discuss the existence and nature of God along with the author, a Gettysburg College student. In doing so, it shows how the questions asked by Plato and Hume are relevant today.
Plato’S Market Optimism, Brennan Mcdavid
Plato’S Market Optimism, Brennan Mcdavid
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
Despite the extensiveness of top-down control in his ideal city, Plato takes seriously the idea that the market does not require total regulation via legislation and that participants in the market may be capable of self-regulation. This paper examines the discussion of market regulation in the Republic and argues that the philosopher rulers play a very limited role in regulating market activities. Indeed, they are concerned only with averting excesses of wealth and poverty. The rules and regulations that are foundational to the daily functioning of the market – enforcement of contracts, resolution of disputes, etc. – are endogenous to …
“Meddling In The Work Of Another”: Πολυπραγμονεῖν In Plato’S Republic, Brennan Mcdavid
“Meddling In The Work Of Another”: Πολυπραγμονεῖν In Plato’S Republic, Brennan Mcdavid
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
The second conjunct of the Republic’s account of justice—that justice is “not meddling in the work of another”—has been neglected in Plato literature. This paper argues that the conjunct does more work than merely reiterating the content of the first conjunct—that justice is “doing one’s own work.” I argue that Socrates develops the concept at work in this conjunct from its introduction with the Principle of Specialization in Book II to its final deployment in the finished conception of justice in Book IV. Crucial to that concept’s development is the way in which the notion of “another” comes to …
Moral Virtue As A Requisite For Illumination In The Platonic Tradition, Kristian Sheeley
Moral Virtue As A Requisite For Illumination In The Platonic Tradition, Kristian Sheeley
Philosophy Graduate Research
This paper traces the development of the idea that we must cultivate moral virtue in order to attain some degree of illumination regarding the nature of reality. I use the term “illumination” to cover a range of meanings intended by the philosophers I discuss, such as the “acquisition of wisdom” (Phaedo, 65a), the “sight” of divine beauty (Symposium, 210d–212b), or a mystical experience involving God or divine reality. Although this theme appears in many texts from the Platonic tradition, I focus on three major stages of its development. First, I show how Plato provides the basic …
George Carlin As Philosophy: It’S All Bullshit. Is It Bad For Ya?, Kimberly S. Engels Phd
George Carlin As Philosophy: It’S All Bullshit. Is It Bad For Ya?, Kimberly S. Engels Phd
Faculty Works: PHI (2010-2021)
This chapter explores the comedy of George Carlin (1937–2008) as a powerful statement about the value of truth over ignorance. Carlin challenged his audience to confront the truth, regularly using clever rhetorical strategies to force viewers to grapple with inconvenient realities about the world in which they lived. This chapter examines historical and contemporary philosophical arguments for the importance of the pursuing truth over comforting fictions. I begin with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which argues it is preferable to know reality as it truly is over appearances of the truth, even when it’s painful or difficult. I then discuss …
Socrates As A Philosophical Exemplar, Aria Mia Loberti
Socrates As A Philosophical Exemplar, Aria Mia Loberti
Senior Honors Projects
In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates famously denied being a teacher. Nonetheless, others took him to be a teacher, and there is no doubt that his attempts to encourage people to philosophy are pedagogical. So, we are presented with a puzzle—one that is still with interpreters today, despite important work on the issues (e.g., Nehamas 1985, 1992). In this project, I approach these issues from a different angle, asking not whether Socrates is a teacher (or whether philosophy can be taught) but considering Socrates as a philosophical exemplar. I contend that this question will help us to understand not only Socrates but …
Plato's Bed: Essence And Archetype In The Theory Of Forms, John Thorp
Plato's Bed: Essence And Archetype In The Theory Of Forms, John Thorp
Philosophy Presentations
The Theory of Forms is a thread that runs through nearly all of Plato’s intellectual career, being variously elaborated, nudged, and tweaked along the way. The project summarized in this poster argues that there is a serious ambiguity underlying the entire theory, an ambiguity that Plato himself never really noticed; at different times he was pursuing two different understandings of the Forms: as archetypes on the one hand, and as essences on the other. Each of these understandings has serious drawbacks.
A Series Of Footnotes To Plato's Philosophers, Kevin M. Cherry
A Series Of Footnotes To Plato's Philosophers, Kevin M. Cherry
Political Science Faculty Publications
In her magisterial Plato's Philosophers, Catherine Zuckert presents a radically new interpretation of Plato's dialogues. In doing so, she insists we must overcome reading them through the lens of Aristotle, whose influence has obscured the true nature of Plato's philosophy. However, in her works dealing with Aristotle's political science, Zuckert indicates several advantages of his approach to understanding politics. In this article, I explore the reasons why Zuckert finds Aristotle a problematic guide to Plato's philosophy as well as what she sees as the character and benefits of Aristotle's political theory. I conclude by suggesting a possible reconciliation between …
Mimesis And Clinical Pictures: Thinking With Plato And Broekman Through The Production And Meaning Of Images Of Disease, Marjolein Oele
Mimesis And Clinical Pictures: Thinking With Plato And Broekman Through The Production And Meaning Of Images Of Disease, Marjolein Oele
Philosophy
This paper contends, following Plato and Broekman, that (1) seeing images as images is crucial to theorizing medicine and that (2) considering clinical pictures as images of images is a much-needed epistemic complement to the domineering view that sees clinical pictures as mirrors of disease. This does not only offer epistemic, but also ethical benefits to individual patients, especially in those cases where patients suffer from chronic, debilitating, and terminal illnesses and where medicine provides no, or limited, answers in terms of treatment, intervention, and meaning. By creating room for a theory of clinical pictures that rightfully emphasizes its pictorial …
Classical Philosophical Approaches To Lying And Deception, James E. Mahon
Classical Philosophical Approaches To Lying And Deception, James E. Mahon
Publications and Research
This chapter examines the views of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle on lying. It it outlines the differences between different kinds of falsehoods in Plato (real falsehoods and falsehoods in words), the difference between myths and lies, the 'noble' (i.e., pedigree) lie in The Republic, and how Plato defended rulers lying to non-rulers about, for example, eugenics. It considers whether Socrates's opposition to lying is consistent with Socratic irony, and especially with his praise of his interlocutors as wise. Finally, it looks at Aristotle's condemnation of lies, and asks whether lies to enemies, and self-deprecating lies by the magnanimous person, are …
Interpreting Karl Jaspers' "Phenomenological" Plato Transcending The Bounds Of The Doctrinal Scholarly Tradition, James Magrini
Interpreting Karl Jaspers' "Phenomenological" Plato Transcending The Bounds Of The Doctrinal Scholarly Tradition, James Magrini
Philosophy Scholarship
Focusing on Karl Jaspers' important reading of Plato, I make the case for the re-conceptualization of Plato as a non-doctrinal philosopher, by means of phenomenological-existential readings of his dialogues related to contemporary Continental thought. The essay builds upon Jaspers' largely overlooked phenomenological-existential readings of both Plato and Socrates in relation to Platonic scholarship emerging from the contemporary phenomenological tradition. I focus on a speculative interpretation of Jaspers' non-doctrinal Plato by analyzing four components of his prescient reading, which is an invaluable historical and philosophical document of Platonic scholarship that precedes contemporary Continental phenomenological approaches to Platonic interpretation by a span …
Plato's Machiavelli: Reconsidering Callicles' Speech In Plato's Gorgias, Steven Thomason
Plato's Machiavelli: Reconsidering Callicles' Speech In Plato's Gorgias, Steven Thomason
Presentations and Lectures
Although often dismissed as a villain, Callicles’ views about philosophy, politics, and human nature expressed in his speech in Plato’s Gorgias criticizing Socrates turn-out to be similar to Socrates’ own thoughts about philosophy, politics, and human nature when compared to Socrates’ arguments in other dialogues such as the Republic. However, Socrates obfuscates these similarities through his use of rhetoric in the latter part of the dialogue in order to conceal a more fundamental disagreement about the priority and relationship of philosophy and politics. This similarity and obfuscation constitutes an important and overlooked teaching of Plato’s Gorgias.
The Form Of Politics: Aristotle And Plato On Friendship By John Von Heyking, Nalin Ranasinghe
The Form Of Politics: Aristotle And Plato On Friendship By John Von Heyking, Nalin Ranasinghe
Philosophy Department Faculty Works
Heyking’s ascent from Aristotle to Plato implies that something Platonic was lost in Aristotle’s accounts of friendship and politics. Plato’s views on love and soul turn out to have more in common with early Christianity. Stressing differences between eros and thumos, using Voegelin’s categories to discuss the Platonic Good, and expanding on Heyking’s use of Hermes, I show how tragic culture and true politics can be further enhanced by refining erotic friendship, repudiating Augustinian misanthropy, positing minimum doctrines about soul and city, and basing reason on Hermes rather than Apollo.
Emerson On Plato: Literary Philosophy, Dialectic, And The Temporality Of Thought, Jesse I. Bailey
Emerson On Plato: Literary Philosophy, Dialectic, And The Temporality Of Thought, Jesse I. Bailey
Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications
For Emerson, Plato is the quintessential philosopher. I will argue that, to the extent that Emerson wanted his essays to have philosophical depth, he considered his work to be an extension of the work found in Plato’s dialogues.
Plato’S Socrates, Local Hermeneutics, And The Just Community Of Learners: Socratic Dialectic As Inclusive Democratic Discourse, James Magrini
Plato’S Socrates, Local Hermeneutics, And The Just Community Of Learners: Socratic Dialectic As Inclusive Democratic Discourse, James Magrini
Philosophy Scholarship
In previous papers I have brought philosophical hermeneutics in conversation with critical hermeneutics, in order to open the potential for Gadamer’s “moderate hermeneutics” to be re-considered as a potential democratic practice of discourse with the potential of transforming social situations that are unjust and inequitable (Magrini, 2015; 2014). Emerging from this conceptual/theoretical “textual” analysis of philosophical hermeneutics and critical hermeneutics, I offer a reading of the ancient Socratic practice of dialectic as a form of critical, inclusive, and constructive democratic dialogue, i.e., an expression of local normative hermeneutics grounded in a form of understanding that occurs through consensus and negotiation …
Facilitating An Ethical Disposition (Hexis) As “Care Of The Soul” In A Unique Ontological Vision Of Socratic Education, James M. Magrini
Facilitating An Ethical Disposition (Hexis) As “Care Of The Soul” In A Unique Ontological Vision Of Socratic Education, James M. Magrini
Philosophy Scholarship
This essay adopts a Continental philosophical approach to reading Plato’s Socrates in terms of a “third way” that cuts a middle path between doctrinal and esoteric readings of the dialogues. It presents a portrait of Socratic education that is at odds with contemporary views in education and curriculum that view Plato’s Socrates as either the teacher of a truth-finding method or proto-fascist authoritarian. It argues that the crucial issue of attempting to foster an ethical disposition (hexis) is a unique form of education, in terms of “care of the soul,” that unfolds only within the context of sustained dialectic interrogation. …
Antonio T. De Nicolás: Poet Of Eternal Return, Christopher Key Chapple
Antonio T. De Nicolás: Poet Of Eternal Return, Christopher Key Chapple
Research Resources
This book includes essays in honor of Professor Antonio de Nicolas.
Reflections On Reading Plato And Aristotle At Lancaster, Daniel R. Denicola
Reflections On Reading Plato And Aristotle At Lancaster, Daniel R. Denicola
Philosophy Faculty Publications
While serving as a Visiting Fellow at Lancaster University, I was asked to lead an informal seminar on Classical Philosophy. It was to be a reading group of postgraduate students and staff, focusing on two foundational texts of Western civilization: Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. I happily accepted. The resulting two-hour, weekly sessions over Michaelmas Term were lively times of philosophical effervescence, full of probative questions, interesting interpretations, diverse evaluations, vigorous debates, and shared insights. Postmodernists engaged in the holy act of Interpreting the Text, we nonetheless strained to grasp the “true meaning” of the texts, to extend our …
Busting Myths About ‘Species’, Charles H. Pence
Busting Myths About ‘Species’, Charles H. Pence
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Rhetoric And Platonism In Fifth-Century Athens, Damian Caluori
Rhetoric And Platonism In Fifth-Century Athens, Damian Caluori
Philosophy Faculty Research
There are reasons to believe that relations between Platonism and rhetoric in Athens during the fifth century CE were rather close. Both were major pillars of pagan culture, or paideia, and thus essential elements in the defense of paganism against increasingly powerful and repressive Christian opponents. It is easy to imagine that, under these circumstances, paganism was closing ranks and that philosophers and orators united in their efforts to save traditional ways and values. Although there is no doubt some truth to this view, a closer look reveals that the relations between philosophy and rhetoric were rather more complicated. …
The Motion Of Intellect On The Neoplatonic Reading Of Sophist 248e-249d, Eric D. Perl
The Motion Of Intellect On The Neoplatonic Reading Of Sophist 248e-249d, Eric D. Perl
Philosophy Faculty Works
This paper defends Plotinus’ reading of Sophist 248e-249d as an expression of the togetherness or unity-in-duality of intellect and intelligible being. Throughout the dialogues Plato consistently presents knowledge as a togetherness of knower and known, expressing this through the myth of recollection and through metaphors of grasping, eating, and sexual union. He indicates that an intelligible paradigm is in the thought that apprehends it, and regularly regards the forms not as extrinsic “objects” but as the contents of living intelligence. A meticulous reading of Sophist 248e-249d shows that the “motion” attributed to intelligible being is not temporal change but the …
Ideal And Ordinary Language In Plato's Cratylus, Franco Trivigno
Ideal And Ordinary Language In Plato's Cratylus, Franco Trivigno
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
Interpreters of Plato’s Cratylus are faced with a puzzle. If Socrates’ etymologies (397a-421c) are intended to be parodies, as many have thought,[1] what is the status of the imitation theory of letters (421c-427d), which provides the theoretical foundation for etymology and, as some have thought, indicates Plato’s ambition to construct an ideal language?[2] In this paper, I focus on three questions: [1] whether Plato thought that imitation provided a suitable basis for an ideal language; [2] whether Plato thought that the development of an ideal language would be philosophical possible or desirable; [3] whether he thought that ordinary …
We Should Always Call The Receptacle The Same Thing: Timaeus 50b6-51b6, Christopher Buckels
We Should Always Call The Receptacle The Same Thing: Timaeus 50b6-51b6, Christopher Buckels
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
Plato’s Timaeus is a challenge to understand and to interpret, but its central ontological innovation, a third kind in addition to the standard Platonic categories of Being and Becoming, is, even according to Timaeus himself, a murky and difficult topic. I endeavor to shed a meager light on this shadowy entity, the Receptacle of all Becoming, by examining an argument Timaeus gives for the claim that “we should always call it the same thing” (50b6-7).[1] This claim comes immediately after the famous gold analogy, about which I will say only a few words, and so it also closely follows …
Politics And Philosophy In Aristotle's Critique Of Plato's Laws, Kevin M. Cherry
Politics And Philosophy In Aristotle's Critique Of Plato's Laws, Kevin M. Cherry
Political Science Faculty Publications
Whether on matters of politics or physics, Aristotle's criticism of his predecessors is not generally considered a model of charitable interpretation. He seems to prefer, as Christopher Rowe puts it, "polemic over accuracy" (2003, 90). His criticism of the Laws is particularly puzzling: It is much shorter than his discussion of the Republic and raises primarily technical objections of questionable validity. Indeed, some well-known commentators have concluded the criticisms, as we have them in the Politics, were made of an earlier draft of the Laws and that Plato, in light of these criticisms, revised the final version. I hope …
Dialectic And Dialogue In Plato: Revisiting The Image Of "Socrates-As-Teacher" In The Hermeneutic Pursuit Of Authentic Paideia, James Magrini
Dialectic And Dialogue In Plato: Revisiting The Image Of "Socrates-As-Teacher" In The Hermeneutic Pursuit Of Authentic Paideia, James Magrini
Philosophy Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Disciplinary Permeations: Complicating The "Public" And The "Private" Dualism In Composition And Rhetoric, Erica E. Rogers
Disciplinary Permeations: Complicating The "Public" And The "Private" Dualism In Composition And Rhetoric, Erica E. Rogers
Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research
As Composition and Rhetoric rose in disciplinary status and academic legitimacy the discourse practice of negation, the positioning of texts in oppositional binaries that set the “new” over the “old,” the “novel” over the “familiar,” became embedded in academic tradition, seeming to be an inherited part of scholarship instead of an individual’s rhetorical choice and deliberate ethos strategy. Negation, when one idea or set of ideas constructed by another is critiqued, advocated, and/or redeveloped by another scholar, is a discourse practice firmly established in the Rhetorical Tradition as part of Socratic dialogues, reappears in “modern rhetoric”, and remains today as …
Voldemort Tyrannos: Plato’S Tyrant In The Republic And The Wizarding World, Anne Collins Smith, Owen M. Smith
Voldemort Tyrannos: Plato’S Tyrant In The Republic And The Wizarding World, Anne Collins Smith, Owen M. Smith
Faculty Publications
In the Harry Potter novel series, by J. K. Rowling, the character of Lord Voldemort is the dictatorial ruler of the Death Eaters and aspiring despot of the entire wizarding community. As such, he serves as an apt subject for the application of Plato’s portrait of the tyrant in Republic IX. The process of applying Plato to Voldemort, however, leads to an apparent anomaly, the resolution of which requires that we move beyond the Republic to the account of beauty presented by Plato in the Symposium. In doing so, we shall find that while Plato can help us to understand …
Politeia As Citizenship In Aristotle, John J. Mulhern
Politeia As Citizenship In Aristotle, John J. Mulhern
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
Recent studies of the citizen and citizenship in Aristotle, such as those of Hansen, Morrison, and Collins, have focused attention on a somewhat neglected topic in Aristotle’s work. While a definitive treatment of this topic awaits a comprehensive catalogue of the uses of politeia in the Politica and the Ath. at least, with over 500 occurrences in the Politica alone, in this paper I contribute to the catalogue project by considering some examples of Aristotle’s use of politeia in idioms from earlier Greek literature which express participation in citizenship, giving a share in citizenship, and so on. I consider also …
Law, Philosophy, And Civil Disobedience: The Laws' Speech In Plato's 'Crito', Steven Thomason
Law, Philosophy, And Civil Disobedience: The Laws' Speech In Plato's 'Crito', Steven Thomason
Articles
Plato's 'Crito' is an examination of the tension between political science, a life devoted to the rational discourse and the critique of politics, and the demands of allegiance and service to the city. The argument Socrates makes in the name of the laws is not just meant to persuade Crito. Rather, it is a philosophic defense of the city itself, the philosophic response to Socrates' own speech in the Apology defending philosophy. This speech reveals the dangers and problems of a life devoted to philosophy when reason is directed to politics and calls into question the values and way of …