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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
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.
Law, Philosophy, And Civil Theodicy: An Interpretation Of Plato's Epinomis, Steven Thomason
Law, Philosophy, And Civil Theodicy: An Interpretation Of Plato's Epinomis, Steven Thomason
Presentations and Lectures
Scholars have mostly neglected Plato’s Epinomis. To my knowledge no one has attempted an interpretation of the dialogue as a whole in recent memory. In part this is because some scholars have argued that the Epinomis was not written by Plato. However, this is not the opinion of many prominent Plato scholars of the last century and a half. For example, George Grote, Paul Friedlander, A.E. Taylor, and Paul Shorey all considered it an authentic Platonic dialogue. Additionally, its authenticity was hardly doubted by ancient commentators. The main argument made for its not being authentic is not interpretational but alleged …