Classics Commons^™

Platonism Of The Future, Patrick L. Miller

Sophia and Philosophia

Buying textbooks, writing syllabi, and putting on armor. This is how many students and teachers prepared to return to campus this past fall. The last few years have witnessed an intensifying war for the soul of the university, with many minor skirmishes, and several pitched battles. The most dramatic was last spring at Evergreen State, shortly before the end of the spring semester.[1] Perhaps the most dramatic since then has been at Reed College.[2] There is no shortage of examples, filling periodicals left and right. Wherever it next explodes, this war promises more ferocity, causing more casualties—careers, programs, ideals.

We Scholars, Mark Anderson

Sophia and Philosophia

As a graduate student in my late twenties, I began one winter to experience attacks of migraine fever while conducting research preliminary to the writing of my doctoral thesis. Long hours sitting alone in the basement rooms of university libraries, hunched over a creaking desk, chasing down references to obscure manuscripts, translating ancient languages from small-print editions of old books, copying extended extracts into my notes, formulating and recording my own insights and arguments—all this intellectual labor executed while hidden away from the sun drained me of the vigor I’d acquired as a child on walking tours with my father. …

A Mathematician Reads Plutarch: Plato's Criticism Of Geometers Of His Time, John B. Little

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This essay describes the author's recent encounter with two well-known passages in Plutarch that touch on a crucial episode in the history of the Greek mathematics of the fourth century BCE involving various approaches to the problem of the duplication of the cube. One theme will be the way key sources for understanding the history of our subject sometimes come from texts that have much wider cultural contexts and resonances. Sensitivity to the history, to the mathematics, and to the language is necessary to tease out the meaning of such texts. However, in the past, historians of mathematics often interpreted …

Human And Asinine Postures In Apuleius’ Golden Ass, Timothy M. O'Sullivan

Classical Studies Faculty Research

This article examines the ways in which Apuleius’ Metamorphoses thematizes the contrast between the prone posture of the ass and the upright posture of the human. A long philosophical tradition, starting with Plato and Xenophon, argued that the human body was especially constructed for celestial contemplation, while the quadruped body was more suited for baser activities such as eating and sex. Physical posture thus becomes another way for Apuleius to emphasize the “unphilosophical” nature of Lucius-as-ass. Moreover, in Book 11, numerous references to celestial contemplation give the theme an ironic climax. Apuleius uses these celestial allusions, I argue, as further …

Nietzsche's Views On Plato Pre-Basel, Daniel Blue

Sophia and Philosophia

In an essay published in 2004[1] Thomas Brobjer surveyed Nietzsche’s attitudes toward Plato and argued that, far from entering into a dedicated agon with that philosopher, he had little personal engagement with Plato’s views at all. Certainly, he did not grapple so immediately and fruitfully with him as he did with Emerson, Schopenhauer, Lange, and even Socrates. Instead, he merely “set up a caricature of Plato as a representative of the metaphysical tradition … to which he opposed his own.”[2] This hardly reflects the view of Nietzsche scholarship in general, but Brobjer argued his case vigorously by ranging broadly over …

The Sophist In The Cave: Education Through Names In Plato's Republic, Daniel Propson

Wayne State University Dissertations

The Cratylus is often considered an isolated dialogue in Plato’s corpus, and the major theses of the Cratylus are often seen as disposable and problematic elements in Platonic thought. When one carefully compares this dialogue, however, to Plato’s comments elsewhere about rhetoric and dialectic, a set of fascinating connections emerge. In this dissertation, I argue that the Republic ought to be read in light of the Cratylus. In the former dialogue, Plato is vitally concerned with the use of accurate language in his republic, a fact most clearly brought out by his accusation against demagogues: that they “give names” to …

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.

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 …

Truth And Falsehood In Plato's Sophist, Michael Oliver Wiitala

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

This dissertation is a study of the ontological foundations of true and false speech in Plato’s Sophist. Unlike most contemporary scholarship on the Sophist, my dissertation offers a wholistic account of the dialogue, demonstrating that the ontological theory of the “communing” of forms and the theory of true and false speech later in the dialogue entail one another.

As I interpret it, the account of true and false speech in the Sophist is primarily concerned with true and false speech about the forms. As Plato sees it, we can only make true statements about spatio-temporal beings if it …

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

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 …

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

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 …

Logos And Psyche In Plato's Phaedo, Jesse I. Bailey

Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

In this dissertation I argue that, according to the Phaedo, the ψυχή should not be understood as a reified, quasi-physical entity which can travel to another τόπος upon separation from the body; that is, the soul should not be understood as what came to be called a “spiritual substance.” Rather, I will show that the Phaedo presents the proper ontology of the soul to be based in an understanding of its characteristic activity. I will argue that this activity is revealed to be the gathering of multiplicities (‘parts’) into the intelligible unities (‘wholes’) which we experience. This gathering occurs in …

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

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Religious Revolution? How Socrates' Theology Undermined The Practice Of Sacrifice, Anna Lannstrom

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Mark McPherran and Gregory Vlastos argue that Socrates’ theology threatened Athenian sacrificial practices because it rejected the do ut des principle (aka the principle of reciprocity). I argue that their arguments are flawed because they assume that the Athenians understood sacrifice as something like a commercial transaction. Drawing upon scholarship in anthropology and religious studies, I argue that we need to revise that understanding of sacrifice and that, once we do, McPherran’s and Vlastos’ arguments no longer show that Socrates would have been a significant threat to the practice of sacrifice. Finally, I argue that McPherran’s Socrates does undermine sacrifice, …

A Problem For The Political Reading Of Plato's Republic, Mason Marshall

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

On one of the most common readings of the Republic, Plato means for us to agree with Socrates and his interlocutors that their aristocratic city is the just polis. For convenience, I call this the political reading. It is no wonder, of course, that this interpretation is as common as it is, since it might be one of the most natural interpretations of the Republic. I argue, though, that it faces a serious problem: Socrates and his interlocutors’ argument for the justice of the aristocratic city has certain deficits, and—more important—there is considerable evidence that Plato was aware of at …

Critical Moments In Classical Literature [Review], Lawrence Kim

Classical Studies Faculty Research

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 …

Justice And The Justification Of War In Ancient Greece: Four Authors, Tristan K. Husby

Classics Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Democracy In Plato's Republic: How Bad Is It Supposed To Be?, Mason Marshall

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Scholars have typically thought that in the Republic democracy is supposed to be worse than timarchy and oligarchy. But lately, certain commentators have denied that it is. Is it, then? I argue that pursuing this question leads us to a dead end, because it is not clear how bad democracy is supposed to be in the Republic. Perhaps a debate on this topic would help us answer other questions, whatever they might be; but otherwise it would be fruitless. To make my case, I marshal the strongest available evidence that democracy is supposedly better than timarchy and oligarchy. Next I …

Citizenship And Participation In Government In Ancient Greek Political Thought, Anthony Preus

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

Sections cover a historical account of citizenship, comments on Plato's account of citizenship, the political motivation of Aristotle's definition of citizenship, and the historical consequences of Aristotle's definition of citizenship.

Resembling Nothing: Image And Being In Plato, Yancy Hughes Dominick

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

A crucial application of Plato’s views on the use of images in philosophy occurs through the use of the image relationship as an image for the relation of forms and particulars. The relation of a picture to the object it depicts, or that between a reflection and what it reflects, can be seen as analogous to the relation of a particular to the form in which it participates. Although the attack on the image model as analogous to the relation of forms and particulars in the Parmenides threatens to undermine any reliance on that model, this essay will present a …

Eudaimonism And The Demands Of Justice, Andrew Payne

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

The ancient eudaimonists were not misguided when they gave a prominent place to the human function in their ethical theory. Most modern reconstructions of eudaimonism do not employ the human function in this way. Though this gives them the appearance of being more streamlined and plausible, they fail to unify a life which respects the demands of justice. It is evident that in the Republic and other ancient ethical works humans are presented as acting out of concern for the good of others. They show respect for justice and act from altruistic motivation, and this is one source of value …

The ‘Digression’ In Plato’S Theaetetus: A New Interpretation, David Levy

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In this paper I argue that the “digression” (Tht. 172D-177C) plays a central role in Plato’s overall critique of Protagoras’s measure doctrine. Properly understood, the digression itself constitutes an argument against accepting a particular interpretation of the measure doctrine. This argument is based upon the unacceptable moral and political consequences that result from an institutional validation of extreme conventionalism. Commentators, such as Robin Waterfield and Gilbert Ryle, who dismiss this passage as pointless, and translators, such as Gwynneth Matthews, who omit the passage entirely, fail to draw the important connections among the measure doctrine, the Athenian legal system …

Collapsing The Philosophy/Rhetoric Disjunct: Nietzsche, Plato And The Perspectival Turn, Ned Vankevich

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Often overlooked within the standard views of academe lie hidden a number of tacit assumptions. Until the time of Nietzsche, the status of rhetoric as a discourse formation in Western intellectual history was often colored by the unflattering view generated by Plato in a number of his dialogues. In this thesis I present a case that revisits Plato and Nietzsche with an eye toward understanding the reasons why these two highly influential figures in contemporary philosophy adopt the views they advocate. In doing so, I attempt to illumine the reason Plato forms a fundamental split between philosophy and rhetoric and …

Athetizing The Catharsis Clause In The Poetics, Gregory Scott

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

I start with Aristotle’s theory of definition in order to claim that Aristotle could not reasonably have included the catharsis clause in the definition of tragedy on his own strictures. Moreover, in case we could solve this problem, I expose some very serious shortcomings that result in the Poetics itself, which are never or rarely acknowledged, if the catharsis clause is kept. Finally, given statements of Strabo and Plutarch, I suggest that the clause was probably a mistaken interpolation by an editor who repaired a damaged Aristotelian manuscript or who imagined that he was augmenting deficient Aristotelian doctrine. M.D. Petrusevski …

Sex & Mysticism In Plato, John Thorp

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

It is a commonplace that Plato seems to entertain two rather different pictures of our access to knowledge of the forms. On the one hand there is anamnesis, remembering a knowledge that we had before our incarnation and that we have since forgotten – thus the Phaedo and the Meno. On the other, there is something that looks far more like abstractive generalization from sensible particulars – the Symposium is the best example, though there are elements of it also in the Republic and the Sophist. This paper argues that there is also a third epistemological model at work, …

Change And Contrariety: Problems Plato Set For Aristotle, Charles Young, James Bogen

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Plato's views on change and contrariety arise from concerns about definition and explanation in the aporetic Socratic dialogues that find more systematic analysis and resolution in the more constructive dialogues that follow. After developing these concerns, analyses, and solutions, we sketch Aristotle's quite different treatment of the same and other related issues.

Plato: Symposium (Review), John T. Kirby

Classics Articles and Papers

An abstract for this item is not available.

A Rhetorical Analysis Of Plato's Phaedrus, Kathryn King Barber

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.