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Articles 1 - 10 of 10
Full-Text Articles in Ancient Philosophy
Plato's Critique Of Scientific Management In Charmides, Kenneth Knies
Plato's Critique Of Scientific Management In Charmides, Kenneth Knies
Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications
I discover resources in Plato’s Charmides for a critique of management as a form of knowledge. After interpreting in a practical register Critias’ idea of a science that would comprehend all sciences without understanding any of their objects (166c – 175a), I argue that the paradoxes with which Socrates confronts this idea can be overcome. With reference to F.W. Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management, I show how this overcoming depends upon transforming productive activity so that it no longer requires the knowledge of products that characterizes techne. As Socrates foresaw, a science that has all ways of working as …
Emotion In Plato's Trial Of Socrates, Thomas W. Moody
Emotion In Plato's Trial Of Socrates, Thomas W. Moody
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
My dissertation argues that Plato composed the figure of Socrates as a three-dimensional literary character who experiences and confronts emotions in ways that other studies have overlooked. By adopting a dramatic, non-dogmatic mode of reading the dialogues and emphasizing the literary elements of the texts and their dramatic connections, this dissertation offers a new and compelling portrait of Socrates in the dialogues that relate his finals weeks of life: Theaetetus, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. This study in turn provides new insights into the genre of Plato’s texts and demonstrates how he exploited the dramatic …
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 …
Aristotle's Quarrel With Socrates: Friendship In Political Thought, John Boersma
Aristotle's Quarrel With Socrates: Friendship In Political Thought, John Boersma
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Friendship played an outsized role in ancient political thought in comparison to medieval and modern political philosophies. Most modern scholarship has paid relatively little attention to the role of friendship in ancient political philosophy. Recently, however, scholars are increasingly beginning to investigate classical conceptions of friendship. My dissertation joins this growing interest by examining the importance of friendship in the political thought of Socrates and Aristotle. Specifically, I analyze the divergent approaches that Socrates and Aristotle take to politics and trace these distinct approaches to their differing conceptions of friendship. Through an examination of two Platonic dialogues—the Lysis and the …
Martin Luther King Jr. In Dialogue With The Ancient Greeks, Timothy Joseph Ph.D.
Martin Luther King Jr. In Dialogue With The Ancient Greeks, Timothy Joseph Ph.D.
Classics Department Faculty Scholarship
To mark the start of Black History Month, a Classicist reflects on the inspiration King drew from ancient Greek culture.
A Religious Revolution? How Socrates' Theology Undermined The Practice Of Sacrifice, Anna Lannstrom
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, …
Ratiocination And Socrates' Daimonion: A Practical Solution, Anthony K. Jensen
Ratiocination And Socrates' Daimonion: A Practical Solution, Anthony K. Jensen
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
Socrates's commitment to 'follow the argument wherever it leads' seems to be at odds with his notorious 'divine sign' or daimonion. It appears in several dialogues as a divine force that Socrates cannot help but to obey, even in some cases where no negative consequences would seem to have otherwise obtained. This paper explores the meaning of the daimonion in the religious and cultural contexts of early Greece, concluding that the scope of the daimonion is restricted to Socrates' practical activities rather than his theoretical engagements.
Socratic Perfectionism Ii, George Rudebusch
Socratic Perfectionism Ii, George Rudebusch
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
This paper is part two of an argument that Socrates is an agent-neutral perfectionist (like J. S. Mill) rather than an agent-relative perfectionist (e.g. in Crime and Punishment, the egoist Raskolnikov and the altruist Sophie). The argument is based on Plato's Lysis.
Aristotle On Akratic Action: How Rational Is It?, Patrick Mooney
Aristotle On Akratic Action: How Rational Is It?, Patrick Mooney
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
My answer to the question asked in the paper’s title is: akratic action-acting contrary to what one believes or knows is the best course of action open to one, or “weakness of will”—is not rational at all, according to Aristotle (here restricting myself to his discussion of akrasia in the Nicomachean Ethics, VII. 1-3). In saying that it is ‘not rational at all,’ I have in mind that there is no “intellectual,” or “cognitive,” faculty at work which so much as helps to bring about the akratic act-there is, in other words, no way in which the akrates “figures out” …
Hiccups And Other Interruptions In The Symposium, George Kimball Plochmann
Hiccups And Other Interruptions In The Symposium, George Kimball Plochmann
The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter
The hoped-for result of my study will be to discover that the genius of philosophy and that of literature do not change places, yet are somehow the same; and if this conclusion involves getting rid of certain textbook conceptions of either philosophy or literature, this too will be all to the good.