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Author: Robert William Hall Publisher: Springer ISBN: 9401193754 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
In this study of Plato's theory of the individual, I propose to show that Plato is deeply concerned with the achievement by each person of the moral excellence appropriate to man. Plato exhibits profound interest in the moral well being of each individual, not merely those who are philosophically gifted. Obviously my study is in opposition with a traditional line of interpretation which holds that Plato evinces small concern for the ordinary individual, the "common man" of today. According to this interpretation Plato's chief interest, shown especially in the Republic, is with the philosophically endowed, whose knowledge penetrates to and embraces the realm of forms; this is a world which must remain for the common man an unfathomable mystery in its totality. Although he is unable to grasp the knowledge of the forms necessary for genuine morality, the ordinary individual may, if he is fortunate enough to live in a polis ruled by philosophers, gain a sort of secondary or "demotic" morality. Through the me chanical development of the right kind of habits, through faithful obedience to the decrees of the rulers and the laws of the polis, the many who are incapable of comprehending the true bases of morality will attain a second best, unreflective morality accompanied by happi ness.
Author: Robert William Hall Publisher: Springer ISBN: 9401193754 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
In this study of Plato's theory of the individual, I propose to show that Plato is deeply concerned with the achievement by each person of the moral excellence appropriate to man. Plato exhibits profound interest in the moral well being of each individual, not merely those who are philosophically gifted. Obviously my study is in opposition with a traditional line of interpretation which holds that Plato evinces small concern for the ordinary individual, the "common man" of today. According to this interpretation Plato's chief interest, shown especially in the Republic, is with the philosophically endowed, whose knowledge penetrates to and embraces the realm of forms; this is a world which must remain for the common man an unfathomable mystery in its totality. Although he is unable to grasp the knowledge of the forms necessary for genuine morality, the ordinary individual may, if he is fortunate enough to live in a polis ruled by philosophers, gain a sort of secondary or "demotic" morality. Through the me chanical development of the right kind of habits, through faithful obedience to the decrees of the rulers and the laws of the polis, the many who are incapable of comprehending the true bases of morality will attain a second best, unreflective morality accompanied by happi ness.
Author: Mary M. McCabe Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691219443 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 354
Book Description
Contradicting the long-held belief that Aristotle was the first to discuss individuation systematically, Mary Margaret McCabe argues that Plato was concerned with what makes something a something and that he solved the problem in a radically different way than did Aristotle. McCabe explores the centrality of individuation to Plato's thinking, from the Parmenides to the Politicus, illuminating Plato's later metaphysics in an exciting new way. Tradition associates Plato with the contrast between the particulars of the sensible world and transcendent forms, and supposes that therein lies the center of Plato's metaphysical universe. McCabe rebuts this view, arguing that Plato's thinking about individuals--which informs all his thought--comes to focus on the tension between "generous" or complex individuals and "austere" or simple individuals. In dialogues such as the Theaetetus and the Timaeus Plato repeatedly poses the question of individuation but cannot provide an answer. Later, in the Sophist, the Philebus, and the Politicus, Plato devises what McCabe calls the "mesh of identity," an account of how individuals may be identified relative to each other. The mesh of identity, however, fails to explain satisfactorily how individuals are unified or made coherent. McCabe asserts that individuation may be absolute--and she questions philosophy's longtime reliance on Aristotle's solution.
Author: Plato Publisher: The Floating Press ISBN: 1775413667 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 720
Book Description
The Republic is Plato's most famous work and one of the seminal texts of Western philosophy and politics. The characters in this Socratic dialogue - including Socrates himself - discuss whether the just or unjust man is happier. They are the philosopher-kings of imagined cities and they also discuss the nature of philosophy and the soul among other things.
Author: Sara Brill Publisher: Indiana University Press ISBN: 0253008913 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 273
Book Description
“A book that is an ambitious, well-researched and provocative scholarly reflection on soul in the Platonic corpus.” —Polis By focusing on the immortal character of the soul in key Platonic dialogues, Sara Brill shows how Plato thought of the soul as remarkably flexible, complex, and indicative of the inner workings of political life and institutions. As she explores the character of the soul, Brill reveals the corrective function that law and myth serve. If the soul is limitless, she claims, then the city must serve a regulatory or prosthetic function and prop up good political institutions against the threat of the soul’s excess. Brill’s sensitivity to dramatic elements and discursive strategies in Plato’s dialogues illuminates the intimate connection between city and soul. “Sara Brill takes on at least two significant issues in Platonic scholarship: the nature of the soul, and especially the language of immortality in its description, and the relationship between politics and psychology. She treats each one of these topics in a fresh and nuanced way. Her writing is beautiful and fluid.” —Marina McCoy, Boston College
Author: John RAWLS Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674042603 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 624
Book Description
Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.
Author: Marek Piechowiak Publisher: Philosophy and Cultural Studies Revisited / Historisch-genetische Studien zur Philosophie und Kulturgeschichte ISBN: 9783631659700 Category : Dignity Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
In this first comprehensive study of Plato's conception of justice, apprehension of human dignity plays a crucial role for understanding an individual in relation to law and state. Plato's philosophy turns out to provide foundations for modern-day human rights protection rather than for totalitarian approaches.
Author: Daniel Russell Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand ISBN: 0199282846 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 283
Book Description
Daniel Russell examines Plato's subtle and insightful analysis of pleasure and explores its intimate connections with his discussions of value and human psychology. Russell offers a fresh perspective on how good things bear on happiness in Plato's ethics, and shows that, for Plato, pleasure cannot determine happiness because pleasure lacks a direction of its own. Plato presents wisdom as a skill of living that determines happiness by directing one's life as a whole, bringing aboutgoodness in all areas of one's life, as a skill brings about order in its materials. The 'materials' of the skill of living are, in the first instance, not things like money or health, but one's attitudes, emotions, and desires where things like money and health are concerned. Plato recognizes thatthese 'materials' of the psyche are inchoate, ethically speaking, and in need of direction from wisdom. Among them is pleasure, which Plato treats not as a sensation but as an attitude with which one ascribes value to its object. However, Plato also views pleasure, once shaped and directed by wisdom, as a crucial part of a virtuous character as a whole. Consequently, Plato rejects all forms of hedonism, which allows happiness to be determined by a part of the psyche that does not direct one'slife but is among the materials to be directed. At the same time, Plato is also able to hold both that virtue is sufficient for happiness, and that pleasure is necessary for happiness, not as an addition to one's virtue, but as a constituent of one's whole virtuous character itself. Plato thereforeoffers an illuminating role for pleasure in ethics and psychology, one to which we may be unaccustomed: pleasure emerges not as a sensation or even a mode of activity, but as an attitude - one of the ways in which we construe our world - and as such, a central part of every character.
Author: David Rankin Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1136235957 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 162
Book Description
This book explores the life-history of the individual within the context of Plato’s social thought. The author examines Plato’s treatment of the principal crises in an individual life - birth, educational selection, sex, the individual’s contract with society, old age, death, and life after death – and provides an unprecedented analysis of Plato’s theory of genetics as it appears in the Timaeus. Comparisons are made with contemporary developments in anthropology, sociology, and comparative myth but without losing sight of the fact that Plato, whilst having much to say to the modern world, was not a modern.
Author: Mark Blitz Publisher: JHU Press ISBN: 0801899184 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 338
Book Description
This comprehensive, yet compact, introduction examines Plato's understanding of law, justice, virtue, and the connection between politics and philosophy. Focusing on three of Plato's dialogues—The Laws, The Republic, and The Statesman—Mark Blitz lays out the philosopher's principal interests in government and the strength and limit of the law, the connection between law and piety, the importance of founding, and the status and limits of political knowledge. He examines all of Plato's discussions of politics and virtues, comments on specific dialogues, and discusses the philosopher's explorations of beauty, pleasure, good, and the relations between politics and reason. Throughout, Blitz reinforces Plato's emphasis on clear and rigorous reasoning in ethics and political life and explains in straightforward language the valuable lessons one can draw from examining Plato's writings. The only introduction to Plato that both gathers his separate discussions of politically relevant topics and pays close attention to the context and structure of his dialogues, this volume directly contrasts the modern view of politics with that of the ancient master. It is an excellent companion to Plato's Dialogues.
Author: A. G. Long Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199695350 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 193
Book Description
A. G. Long presents a new account of the importance of conversation in Plato's philosophy. He provides close studies of eight dialogues, including some of Plato's most famous works, and traces the emergence of internal dialogue or self-questioning as an alternative to the Socratic conversation from which Plato starts.
Author: Robert William Hall
Author: Robert William Hall
Author: Mary M. McCabe
Author: Plato
Author: Sara Brill
Author: John RAWLS
Author: Marek Piechowiak
Author: Daniel Russell
Author: David Rankin
Author: Mark Blitz
Author: A. G. Long