This essential reference text on the life, thought and writings of Plato uses over 160 short, accessible articles to cover a complete range of topics for both the first-time student and seasoned scholar of Plato and ancient philosophy.
It is organized into five parts illuminating Plato's life, the whole of the Dialogues attributed to him, the Dialogues' literary features, the concepts and themes explored within them and Plato's reception via his influence on subsequent philosophers and the various interpretations of his work. This fully updated 2nd edition includes 19 newly commissioned entries on topics ranging across comedy, tragedy, Xenophon, metatheatre, gender, musical theory, animals, Orphism, political theory, religion, time, Hellenistic philosophy and post-Platonic ancient commentaries. It also features revisions to the majority of articles from the 1st edition, including 8 which have been completely re-written, and 12 which have had the references substantially revised.
Reflecting the growing diversity of Plato scholarship across the world, this edition includes contributions from a wide range of scholars who enrich the field and provide students and scholars with a vital resource for study and reference.
Author(s): Gerald A. Press, Mateo Duque
Edition: 2
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Year: 2023
Language: English
City: London
Tags: Plato
List of contributors xi
Acknowledgements xix
List of dialogue abbreviations xx
How to use this book xxiii
Introduction 1
1 PLATO’S LIFE, HISTORICAL, LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHIC CONTEXT 9
Plato’s life 9
Aristophanes and intellectuals 12
Comedy 14
Education 16
Eleatics 18
Isocrates and logography 20
Orality and literacy 23
Poetry (epic and lyric) 25
Pre-socratic philosophers 27
Pythagoreans 31
Rhetoric and speechmaking 34
Socrates (historical) 36
Socratics (other than Plato) 39
The Sophists 42
Xenophon 45
2 THE DIALOGUES 49
The Platonic corpus and manuscript tradition 49
Alcibiades 1 51
The Apology of Socrates 53
Charmides 56
Clitophon 59
Cratylus 61
Crito 63
Dubia and Spuria (Alcibiades 2, Hipparchus, Minos, Rival Lovers,
Axiochus, Definitions, On Justice, On Virtue, Demodocus, Eryxias, Sisyphus) 66
Epinomis 70
Euthydemus 73
Euthyphro 76
Gorgias 78
Hippias Major 81
Hippias Minor 83
Ion 85
Laches 87
Laws 89
Letters 91
Lysis 93
Menexenus 96
Meno 98
Parmenides 101
Phaedo 103
Phaedrus 106
Philebus 109
Politicus (Statesman) 111
Protagoras 114
Republic 116
Sophist 122
Symposium 125
Theaetetus 127
Theages 130
Timaeus and Critias 132
3 IMPORTANT FEATURES OF THE DIALOGUES 135
Anonymity 135
Characters 137
Comedy 140
Drama 143
History 145
Emotions (pathē, pathēmata) 147
Humour 148
Irony 151
Language 153
Literary composition 155
Musical structure 157
Myth (muthos) 160
Pedagogical structure 162
Pedimental structure 165
Play (paidia) 167
Proleptic composition 169
Reading order 171
Socrates (the character) 173
Tragedy 175
4 CONCEPTS, THEMES AND TOPICS TREATED IN THE DIALOGUES 179
Account (see Logos) 179
Aesthetics 179
Akrasia (incontinence, weakness of will) 181
Animals 184
Antilogy and eristic 186
Aporia 189
Appearance and reality 191
Argument (see Logos) 194
Art (technē) 194
Beauty (kalon) 196
Being and becoming (on, onta; gignesthai) 199
Cause (aitia) 201
Cave, the allegory of the 204
Character 206
City (polis) 208
Convention (see Law) 210
Cosmos (kosmos) 210
Cross-examination (see Elenchus) 212
Daimōn 212
Death 216
Definition (see Logos) 218
Desire (appetite, epithumia) 218
Dialectic (dialektikē) 221
The divided line 224
Education 226
Elenchus (cross-examination, refutation) 228
Epistemology (knowledge) 230
Eristic (see Antilogy and Eristics) 233
Erōs (see Love) 233
Eschatology 233
Ethics 235
Eudaimonia (see Happiness) 238
Excellence (virtue, aretē ) 238
Forms (eidos, idea) 240
Friendship (philia) 243
Gender 245
Goodness (the good, Agathon) 248
Happiness (eudaimonia) 251
Hermeneutics 253
Idea (see forms) 256
Image (eikōn) 256
Imitation (see Mimēsis) 258
Incontinence (see Akrasia) 258
Inspiration 258
Intellectualism 261
Justice (dikaion, dikaiosunē) 263
Knowledge (see Epistemology) 266
Language 266
Law, convention (nomos) 269
Logic 271
Logos (account, argument, definition) 274
Love (erōs) 276
Madness and possession 279
Mathematics (mathēmatikē) 281
Medicine (iatrikē) 284
Metaphysics (see Ontology) 287
Metatheatre 287
Method 289
Mimēsis (imitation) 292
Music 294
Mysteries 297
Myth (muthos) 300
Nature (phusis) 302
Nomos (see Law) 304
Non-propositional knowledge 304
The one (to hen) 306
Ontology (metaphysics) 308
Orphism 311
Paiderastia (pederasty) 313
Participation 315
Perception and sensation (aisthēsis, aisthanomai) 319
Philosophy and the philosopher 321
Phusis (see Nature) 324
Piety (eusebeia, hosios) 324
Pleasure (hēdonē) 326
Poetry (poiēsis) 329
Politics and the (figure of the) Politicus 331
Reality (see Appearance and reality) 334
Reason 334
Recollection (anamnēsis) 337
Refutation (see Elenchus) 340
Rhetoric (rhetorikē) 340
Self-knowledge 342
Sensation (see Perception and sensation) 344
The Sophists 344
Soul (psychē) 347
The sun simile 350
Theology 352
Time 353
Virtue (see Excellence) 355
Vision 355
Weakness of will (see Akrasia) 358
Women 358
Writing 361
5 LATER RECEPTION, INTERPRETATION AND INFLUENCE OF PLATO AND THE DIALOGUES 365
Section A: Plato in the Ancient World 365
Ancient hermeneutics 365
Aristotle 368
Academy of Athens, ancient history of 371
Jewish Platonism (ancient) 374
Neoplatonism and its diaspora 377
Section B: Plato in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 380
Medieval Islamic Platonism 380
Medieval Jewish Platonism 383
Medieval Christian Platonism 386
Renaissance Platonism 388
The Cambridge Platonists 391
Section C: Plato in Modern and Contemporary Philosophy 393
Early modern philosophy from Descartes to Berkeley 393
Nineteenth-century German idealism 395
Nineteenth-century Plato scholarship 398
Developmentalism 400
Compositional chronology 402
Analytic approaches to Plato 406
Vlastosian approaches 409
Continental approaches 412
Straussian readings of Plato 414
Plato’s unwritten doctrines 416
Esotericism 418
The Tübingen approach 420
Anti-Platonism, from ancient to modern 422
References 427
Index 510
