Other Classics Commons^™

The Name And Its Significance: An Examination Of Names In Aristotle’S And Plato’S Philosophy Of Language, Matthew Blain

Honors Bachelor of Arts

In the early 20th century, philosophy underwent a “linguistic turn,” in which philosophy, humanities, and even sciences made a redoubled focus on language itself. This turn was quite comprehensive, focusing on nearly every aspect of language such as meaning, reference, truth and falsity, logic, and the connection of language and reality. This renewed focus garnered a significant amount of attention and thought in the 20th century by some of its most prominent thinkers of both the analytic and even continental traditions. In the analytic tradition, Wittgenstein, in his Tractatus, saw language as the logical limit of our known world, out …

Footnotes To Footnotes: Whitehead's Plato, Nathan Oglesby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the presence of Plato in the philosophical expressions of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). It was Whitehead who issued the well-known remark that “the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists in a series of footnotes to Plato" -- the purpose of this project is to examine the manner in which Whitehead positioned himself as one such footnote, with respect to his thought itself, and its origins, presentation and reception.

This examination involves: first, an explication of Whitehead’s cosmology and metaphysics and their ostensibly Platonic elements (consisting chiefly in the Timaeus); second, investigation …

Mode Of Operations: A Critique Of The Agonistic View Of Greek Musical Modes In Plato And Aristotle, Robert Crawford

Honors Bachelor of Arts

Music has the power to transcend the confines of mere spatial geometry into the bounds of philosophy and emotion. In the views of the ancient philosophers Plato and Aristotle, music, namely the Greek modes, is valuable pedagogically in two ways: first, as a means to knowing the Good, e.g., the Dorian and Phrygian modes, and second as a means for suiting people for political life. Since their goal is to educate future rulers, Plato and Aristotle need to heighten some but censor other musical modes, e.g., the Lydian and Aeolian modes, due to some of the unsavory feelings, or affects, …

A Psychological And Philosophical Understanding Of Death: An Analysis Of Platonic And Epicurean Philosophy In Modern America, Alexina Hupp

Honors Bachelor of Arts

The following research intends to discuss various issues surrounding death, first, by examining the study of death through the history of psychology, then through two separate philosophical accounts from Plato and Epicurus. Plato and Epicurus offer a conversation about the universality of death and how death ought to be considered and conceived by a society. This conversation between differing views suggests two varying ideas about how to cope with death; one offers a spiritual approach, wherein the soul is immortal and the other offers a scientific approach that death represents the end of all life, with absolutely no hope of …

Asking For Plato's Forgiveness. Floyer Sydenham: A Platonic Visionary Of 18th-Century Britain, Kyriakos N. Demetriou

Kyriakos N. Demetriou

Floyer Sydenham (1710–1787), the eminent British Platonist, has been unduly neglected in the interpretative historiography of the modern Platonic tradition. Amid a climate of indifference, he set out to offer the first complete English translation of the Platonic dialogues, begging for subscriptions that never materialized. He died in debtors’ prison on April 1, 1787. Between 1759 and 1780 he managed to translate nine dialogues incorporating a large number of explanatory notes and linguistic emendations to the existing texts. Set in the context of the intellectual and discursive tradition of the era, Sydenham’s Platonism expanded on Lord Shaftesbury’s teleological views of …

Plato The Poet, Francis James Flanagan

Honors Bachelor of Arts

Plato’s dialogue genre contains within it literary elements not normally associated with a philosophical work. In the creation of his dialogue, Plato combined the literary aspects of drama—specifically setting and characterization—and rhetoric with the Socratic Method to create a genre that was new to philosophy. An examination of the usage of these elements in a Platonic dialogue, specifically Symposium, in comparison to Xenophon’s Symposium reveals the unique nature of Plato’s dialogue.

The Platonic Legend [In Greek], Kyriakos N. Demetriou

Kyriakos N. Demetriou

This is the first study ever on the history of modern Platonic exegesis in Greek, and would hopefully introduce the “Rezeptionsgechichte” discipline into Greek academia. What I am trying to prove is a simple, albeit controversial thesis, namely that the existence of so many conflicting accounts about Plato’s philosophy proves that George Grote’s argument put forward in the 1860s (in a nutshell, that Plato had no distinct philosophical system to establish apart from a consistent aim running through the dialogues, that of expounding a philosophical method -- not a doctrine), is still compellingly legitimate. The existence of many “Platonisms” (in …

Reconsidering The Platonic Cleitophon, Kyriakos N. Demetriou

Kyriakos N. Demetriou

This article unravels the riddle of the Platonic "Cleitophon" through an examination of S.R. Slings' "Plato, Clitophon" (Cambridge University Press, 1999). It examines the history of the reception of this dialogue from the 19th century to present day Platonic analytic and interpretative approaches.

The Development Of Platonic Studies In Britain And The Role Of The Utilitarians, Kyriakos N. Demetriou

Kyriakos N. Demetriou

The British utilitarians are not generally considered explorers of classical Greek thought. This paper examines the contribution of James Mill, John Stuart Mill, and George Grote to the development of Platonic studies in nineteenth-century Britain. Their understanding of Platonic philosophy challenged prevalent interpretations, and caused a fruitful debate over long neglected aspects of Plato's thought. Grote's Platonic analysis, which comes last in order of time, cannot, of course, be considered in isolation from the relevant debates in Germany. Grote, the erudite historian of ancient Greece, paid considerable attention to the arguments of the German classicists, put forward in many cases …