From Plato to the present day, political theorists have used models of idealistic societies to think about politics. How can these idealistic models inform our thinking about political life in our non-ideal world? Not, as many political theorists have hoped, by providing normative guidance -- by showing us how things should be or where we should go. Even still, we can use these models to interpret the concepts we depend on to explain and evaluate political behavior and institutions, thereby sharpening (...) our explanations of how things work and our estimations of how to make things better. Seeing idealistic models in this light reveals a promising route to a form of political inquiry that integrates our explanatory aims and our normative aspirations. -/- (Updated: October 2024. The book is in production for publication by Oxford University Press, to appear in the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics series. I have uploaded the table of contents, chapter 1, and the bibliography.). (shrink)

This paper uses a problematic passage at Phaedo 69a–c as a case study to explore the advantages we can gain by reading Plato in his cultural context. Socrates argues that the common conception of courage is strange: people fear death, but endure it because they are afraid of greater evils. They are thus brave through fear. He proposes that we should not exchange greater pleasures, pains, and fears for lesser, like coins, but that there is the only correct coin, for (...) which we must exchange all these things: wisdom (phronēsis). Commentators have been puzzled by the precise nature of the exchange envisaged here, sometimes labelling the coinage metaphor as inept, sometimes describing this stretch of argument as “religious” and thus not to be taken seriously. The body of the paper looks at (1) the connection between money and somatic materialism, (2) the incommensurability in Plato of financial and ethical orders, (3) financial metaphors outside Plato that connect coinage with ethics, (4) intrinsic and use values in ancient coinage, and (5) Athenian laws on coinage, weights, and measures that reflect anxiety about debased coins in the fifth and early fourth centuries. It sees the Phaedo passage as the product of a sociopolitical climate which facilitated the consideration of coinage as an embodiment of a value system and which connected counterfeit or debased currency with debased ethical types. Athenians in the early fourth century were much concerned with issues of commensurability between different currencies and with problems of debasement and counterfeiting; understanding this makes Socrates’ use of coinage metaphors less puzzling. Both the metaphor of coinage and the other metaphors in this passage of the Phaedo (painting and initiation) engage with ideas of purity, genuineness, and deception. Taken as a group, these metaphors cover a large area of contemporary popular culture and are used to illustrate a disjunction between popular and philosophical ways of looking at value. (shrink)

In dialogues ranging from the Symposium to the Timaeus, Plato appears to propose that the philosopher’s grasp of the forms may confer immortality upon him. Whatever can Plato mean in making such a claim? What does he take immortality to consist in, such that it could constitute a reward for philosophical enlightenment? And how is this proposal compatible with Plato’s insistence throughout his corpus that all soul, not just philosophical soul, is immortal? In this chapter, I pursue these questions by (...) applying the distinction between general and earned immortality to the Phaedo and the Symposium. I argue that, while Plato attributes general immortality to all soul in the Phaedo, in the Affinity Argument, he proposes that the philosopher’s soul can achieve earned immortality through contemplating forms. It is this form of immortality that Plato claims is unavailable to humankind in the flux passage of the Symposium. At the same time, in the ascent passage, he holds out the possibility – albeit with significant reservations – that the philosopher’s soul may transcend its humanity and achieve earned immortality through its communion with the form. (shrink)

Nossa seleção de verbetes parte do interesse de cada pesquisador e os dispomos de maneira histórico-cronológica e, ao mesmo tempo, temática. O verbete de Melissa Lane, “Filosofia Política Antiga” vai da abrangência da política entre os gregos até a república e o império, às portas da cristianização. A “Filosofia Política Medieval”, de John Kilcullen e Jonathan Robinson, é o tópico que mais demanda espaço na nossa seleção em virtude das disputas intrínsecas ao período, da recepção de Aristóteles pelo medievo e (...) da tensão entre poder Papal e Civil. No verbete “Liberalismo”, de Gerald Gaus, Shane Courtland e David Schmidtz, vemos as fontes fundantes da Filosofia Política da modernidade. As ideias de liberdade negativa e positiva se coadunam com a Ética Liberal e sua influência sobre a abrangência do valor fundamental da liberdade individual diante das políticas públicas. O texto de Ian Carter, “Liberdade Positiva e Liberdade Negativa”, expõe o paradoxo da liberdade em suas concepções valorativas e neutra, muito úteis para compreender os problemas políticos que enfrentamos hoje. Por fim, Bas Van Der Vossen no texto “Libertarianismo” trata das noções tensas entre Estado e indivíduos. A concepção de “liberdade de si”, genuinamente negativa, ganha destaque justificatório. Jackie Scully, no verbete Bioética Feminista, exemplifica o valor da influência dessas correntes no âmago de todos os contemporâneos. Sua escrita homenageia postumamente Anne Donchin com um apanhado histórico da luta de inserção de políticas feministas na pesquisa acadêmica global. No verbete “Democracia”, os professores brasileiros Gustavo Dalaqua e Alberto Ribeiro Barros acrescentaram tópicos importantes ao tema geral, respectivamente: “Construtivismo Representativo vs. Representação Descritiva” e “Democracia Contestatória de Philip Pettit”. O texto de Thomas Christiano perpassa os principais argumentos de justificação política contra e a favor da democracia ocidental, com foco central nas concepções de liberdade e igualdade. Os verbetes dispostos nessa seleção de textos são tendenciosos na medida que expressam o interesse genuíno de cada pesquisador com os assuntos relevantes em suas pesquisas. Em virtude disso, a escolha “adota um lado” em detrimento de outros – mais especificamente: de outro que poderia ser mais “progressista”. Por si só, o livro já nasce reclamando um segundo volume, que será providenciado. Colocamos de lado qualquer exigência de “imparcialidade”, algo que não existe na Filosofia, muito menos na Filosofia Política. Sobressai, nesse aspecto, o caráter reflexivo que o assunto exige e a importância do assunto, sem o qual não teríamos a modernas concepções de representatividade, as teorias da justiça ou mesmo as ciências sociais. Um outro volume, portanto, se faz imperativo, por conta da abrangência da própria SEP e do respeito a seu projeto inicial, genuinamente um plano plural. (shrink)

An overview of the ancient philosophers and their philosophical system (divided into the fields of logic, physics, and ethics) comprising the living, organic, enduring, and evolving body of interrelated ideas identifiable as the Stoic perspective.

RESUMEN El siguiente artículo tiene como objetivo destacar el carácter polifónico del pensamiento platónico y poner en cuestión el sentido de la autoría de Platón. Suponer, a partir de obstinados prejuicios modernos, que Platón, tal como cualquier escritor moderno, habría expuesto su propia doctrina, es ignorar la importancia de la forma dramática de su pensamiento. El testimonio de la variedad de interlocutores y de puntos de vista que se suceden en los diferentes diálogos, nos invita a prestar atención a la (...) compleja trama del pensamiento platónico, cuya variedad de funciones corresponde a los límites y al alcance del discurso de quienes en un determinado momento y situación cooperan en el diálogo. ABSTRACT The following paper aims to highlight the polyphonic character of Platonic thought and to question the meaning of Plato's authorship. To assume, from obstinate modern prejudices, that Plato, like any modern writer, would have exposed his own doctrine, is to ignore the importance of the dramatic form of his thought. The testimony of the variety of interlocutors and points of view that take place in the different dialogues, invites us to pay attention to the complex plot of Platonic thought, whose variety of functions corresponds to the limits and scope of the discourse of those who, in a given moment and situation, cooperate in the dialogue. (shrink)

In this paper, I clarify and defend a provocative hypothesis offered by Bernard Williams, namely, that modern people are much more likely to speak in terms of master-concepts like “good” or “right,” and correspondingly less likely to think and speak in the pluralistic terms favored by certain Ancient societies. By conducting a close reading of the Platonic dialogues Charmides and Laches, I show that the figure of Socrates plays a key historical role in this conceptual shift. Once we understand that (...) our narrow, reductionist focus on “thin” ethical concepts is a contingent historical development, we are, I claim, in a much better position to evaluate it. (shrink)

There has been a long tradition of interpreting Plato as a rational egoist. Over the past few decades, however, some scholars have challenged this reading. While Rational Egoism appeals to many ordinary folk, in sophisticated philosophical circles it has fallen out of favor as a general and complete account of the nature of reasons for action. I argue that while the theory of practical rationality that is often equated with rational egoism—a view that I call ‘Simple-Minded Rational Egoism'—is neither plausible (...) nor endorsed by Plato in his Republic, there is a more complex version of Rational Egoism to which Plato is indeed committed. Moreover, such a conception of practical rationality is not vulnerable to the standard set of objections that contemporary philosophers have made against Rational Egoism. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximize well-being, a deontologist to the fact that, in doing (...) so the agent will be acting in accordance with a moral rule such as “Do unto others as you would be done by” and a virtue ethicist to the fact that helping the person would be charitable or benevolent. (shrink)

The digression of Plato’s Theaetetus (172c2–177c2) is as celebrated as it is controversial. A particularly knotty question has been what status we should ascribe to the ideal of philosophy it presents, an ideal centered on the conception that true virtue consists in assimilating oneself as much as possible to god. For the ideal may seem difficult to reconcile with a Socratic conception of philosophy, and several scholars have accordingly suggested that it should be read as ironic and directed only at (...) the dramatic character Theodorus. When interpreted with due attention to its dramatic context, however, the digression reveals that the ideal of godlikeness, while being directed at Theodorus, is essentially Socratic. The function of the passage is to introduce a contemplative aspect of the life of philosophy into the dialogue that contrasts radically with the political-practical orientation characteristic of Protagoras, an aspect Socrates is able to isolate as such precisely because he is conversing with the mathematician Theodorus. (shrink)

In defending the view that justice is the advantage of the stronger, Thrasymachus puzzlingly claims that rulers never err and that any practitioner of a skill or expertise (τέχνη) is infallible. In what follows, Socrates offers a number of arguments directed against Thrasymachus’ views concerning the nature of skill, ruling, and justice. Commentators typically take a dim view of both Thrasymachus’ claims about skill (which are dismissed as an ungrounded and purely ad hoc response to Socrates’ initial criticisms) and Socrates’ (...) latter arguments (which are deemed extremely weak). In this paper, I clarify Thrasymachus’ views (and those of several other ancients) concerning qua locutions and the nature of skill and ability and I reconstruct Socrates’ arguments against Thrasymachus’ views concerning skill and justice. I argue that Thrasymachus’ views are not ungrounded or ad hoc and that Socrates’ arguments are rather different (and significantly stronger) than often supposed. (shrink)

A basic challenge to naturalistic moral realism is that, even if moral properties existed, there would be no way to naturalistically represent or track them. Here, the basic structure for a tracking account of moral epistemology is given in empirically respectable terms, based on a eudaimonist conception of morality. The goal is to show how this form of moral realism can be seen as consistent with the details of evolutionary biology as well as being amenable to the most current understanding (...) of representationalist or correspondence theories of truth. (shrink)

Plato’s tripartite soul plays a central role in his account of justice in the Republic. It thus comes as a surprise to find him apparently abandoning this model at the end of the work, when he suggests that the soul, as immortal, must be simple. I propose a way of reconciling these claims, appealing to neglected features of the city-soul analogy and the argument for the soul’s division. The original true soul, I argue, is partitioned, but in a finer manner (...) than how we encounter it in our everyday lives. (shrink)

This dissertation identifies and explains four major contributions of the Laws and related late dialogues to Plato's moral and political philosophy. -/- Chapter 1: I argue that Plato thinks the purpose of laws and other social institutions is the happiness of the city. A happy city is one in which the city's parts, i.e. the citizens, are unified under the rule of intelligence. Unlike the citizens of the Republic, the citizens of the Laws can all share the same true judgments (...) of value, and this unanimity explains the city's unity. Plato thinks that aiming at the city's happiness is justified, moreover, because a unified city contributes to the universe's order. -/- Chapter 2: In the Laws, Plato holds that the sick, poor, ugly, weak, but virtuous are happy, and that health, wealth, beauty, and strength benefit the virtuous but harm the vicious. Only in the Laws does Plato commit himself to all these claims simultaneously, and I explain how the moral psychology of the Laws permits Plato to maintain them coherently. -/- Chapter 3: I argue that, in the Laws, becoming virtuous is the same as becoming like God. Becoming like God does not require escape from the world of change as it does in the Theaetetus, however. Rather, becoming like God requires bringing "measure" or appropriate order to the world of change, especially to those entities over which we have the most control—our own souls. In the Laws, citizens achieve this order as they learn to be just and to understand the nature of reality. -/- Chapter 4: Unlike the Republic and Statesman, the Laws holds that obedience of the citizens to their laws should be effected, if possible, with rational persuasion. I argue that Plato wishes such persuasion to educate the citizens of the reasons for the laws. Understanding the laws' justification is the principal way in which citizens acquire the good judgment necessary for virtue. The city becomes more happy as the citizens progress in virtue, so rational persuasion is a necessary means to the lawgiver's overall aim. (shrink)

In recent decades "virtue ethics" has become an accepted theoretical structure for thinking about normative ethical principles. However, few contemporary virtue ethicists endorse the commitments of the first virtue theorists---the ancient Greeks, who developed their virtue theories within a commitment to eudaimonism. Why? I believe the objections of modern theorists boil down to concerns that eudaimonist theories cannot properly account for two prominent moral requirements on our treatment of others. ;First, we think that the interests and welfare of at least (...) some others ought to give us non-instrumental reason for acting---that is, reason independent of consideration of our own welfare. Second, we think others are entitled to what we might call respect, just in virtue of their being persons. Eudaimonist accounts either cannot account for these intuitions at all, or they give the wrong sort of account. ;My dissertation assesses the resources of eudaimonism to meet these lines of criticism. Chapter 2, 3, and 4 survey the views of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, to discover insights that are important for a successful response. In Chapters 5 and 6, I offer my own account, based on what I call empathic identification. This is the habit or disposition of seeing things, in effect, through the eyes of others. Empathic identification is a process through which the interpersonal transmission of reasons for actions between persons becomes possible. I argue first that our interest in our own eudaimonia justifies us in identifying empathically with others as a general habit or disposition. Second, I argue that empathic identification explains our intuitions about the respect others are due. So empathic identification generates the right sort of explanation of our intuitions about the constraints others and their interests impose upon us after all, and renders eudaimonist virtue ethics a viable form of ethical theory. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on the problem of accounting for apparent inconsistencies between Plato’s early and middle works. Developmentalism seeks to account for these variances by differentiating a Socratic philosophy in the early dialogues from a Platonic philosophy in the middle. In opposition to this position, I propose an alternative explanation: differences between these two groups are due to Plato’s depiction and use of middle period epistemology. I argue that, in the early dialogues, Plato depicts Socrates’ use of the (...) “summoners” described in Book 7 of the Republic, and that Plato uses Socrates’ failed attempts to summon interlocutors for the purpose of summoning readers. In conclusion, I suggest that the hypothesis that Plato uses summoners provides a framework for addressing the wider problem of inconsistencies within the Platonic corpus. (shrink)

A variety of theories of management and organizational studies have failed to consider the human being in his or her integrity and, thus, fall short of being humanistic. This article seeks to contribute to the recovery of a more complete view of the human being in management, learning from classical humanism developed throughout Western Civilization, from the Greek and Roman Philosophers and the Judeo-Christian legacy to the Renaissance. More specifically, it discusses several relevant aspects of this Classical humanism, which can (...) aid in re-thinking management. These include a realistic epistemology and metaphysics, and the human being as a whole. Classical humanism also entails the consideration of the human action as a unity with both internal and external dimensions, ethics understood as a guide for good life, society viewed as a community of people, and being open to beauty and transcendence. (shrink)

Josh Wilburn examines the relationship between Plato's views on psychology and his political philosophy. Focusing on his reflections on the spirited part of the tripartite soul, or thumos, and spirited motivation, he explores the social and political challenges that occupy Plato throughout his works.

This article focuses on the Platonic version of the doctrine of oikeiosis set forth by Piso in Cicero’s De finibus, Book V. The article aims to show that: 1) Cicero’s account, while clearly having Stoic features, is also consistent with the eudaemonistic character of Socrates’ and Plato’s ethics; 2) the replacement of oikeiosis with “assimilation to god”, attested in a passage of the Anonymous Commentary on Plato’s Theaetetus, derives from the intent to remove Epicurean egoistic connotations from Plato’s ethics; according (...) to the Anonymous, the Stoic oikeiosis alone would not suffice to attain this purpose. (shrink)

Resumen: Mientras que en Banquete Platón presenta a Éros como un daímon metaxý, i.e. como una divinidad intermedia e intermediaria entre dioses y hombres, en Fedro lo caracteriza, en cambio, como un theós -un dios. Procuraremos mostrar aquí que esto no implica, sin embargo, un cambio doctrinal substancial sino que se trata de dos aproximaciones distintas pero complementarias respecto a la verdadera naturaleza de Éros. Según el Fedro, si bien éros puede permanecer en una expresión puramente física, sin desarrollar su (...) aspecto divino, es posible también que, debido al intenso deseo sexual por el bello muchachito, el amante recuerde la Forma de la belleza y crezcan en él las alas del Éros divino. Pero únicamente los dioses nunca pierden las alas de sus almas y están regularmente en pleno contacto con las Formas. Las almas humanas deben adquirirlas, y aun así, con riesgo a perderlas, quedando entonces en un lugar “intermedio” -metaxý- como el Éros de Banquete.: Although in the Symposium Plato describes Erôs as a daimôn-metaxy, i.e. as an intermediate and intermediary divinity between gods and men, in the Phaedrus it is said that Erôs is a theos -a god. I will try to show that these different descriptions do not imply a substantial change of mind but work as two complementary views about the true nature of Erôs. According to the Phaedrus, although erôs can remain just at a physical level and not develop its divine power, it is also possible that, thanks to the same intense, sexual desire for the beautiful boy, the lover recollects the Form of beauty and so grows divine Erôs`s wings. However, only the gods never lose their wings and so are in regular, full contact with the Forms. The human souls need to acquire the wings and even so take the risk of losing them; they are then in an intermediate state -metaxy- like Erôs in the Symposium. (shrink)

Following Lawrence Kohlberg it has been commonplace to regard Plato's moral theory as ‘intellectualist’, where Plato supposedly believes that becoming virtuous requires nothing other than ‘philosophical knowledge or intuition of the ideal form of the good’. This is a radical misunderstanding of Plato's educational programme, however. While Plato claims that knowledge is extremely important in the initial stages of the moral development of young adults, he also claims that knowledge must be followed by a rigorous process of imitation and habituation. (...) Like Aristotle, Plato believes that it is not possible to become virtuous if one does not practice the virtues under the guidance of virtuous role models. This paper seeks to illuminate this little recognised aspect of Plato's educational programme. When properly understood, Plato's theory offers educators important insights into how best to encourage the moral development of young adults. (shrink)

How secure is the now standard Anglophone division of the Platonic dialogues into ‘early’, ‘middle’, and ‘late’? The present article proposes that such a division of the dialogues should be abandoned : its main foundations are too weak to support it. The turning-point in the Platonic corpus is not the introduction of ‘separated’ Forms (usually taken, after Aristotle, as the mark of a ‘middle’, or ‘mature’, dialogue), but rather the shift from one type of moral psychology, or theory of action, (...) to another ; that is, from an ‘intellectualist’ to a ‘rationalist-irrationalist’ psychology, as argued for in Republic IV. This way of dividing the dialogues – so the article claims – has greater explanatory power than its rival. If it still gives us a distinction between ‘Socratic’ dialogues and others, (a) this distinction cuts across the standard (Anglophone) early/middle division, and (b) it will no longer be describable in terms of ‘deve­lopment’, if ‘development’ implies philosophical progress. (shrink)

Thomas Taylor’s interpretation of Plato’s works in 1804 was condemned as guilty by association immediately after its publication. Taylor’s 1804 and 1809 reviewer thus made a hasty generalisation in which the qualities of Neoplatonism, assumed to be negative, were transferred to Taylor’s own interpretation, which made use of Neoplatonist thinkers. For this reason, Taylor has typically been marginalised as an interpreter of Plato. This article does not deny the association between Taylor and Neoplatonism. Instead, it examines the historical and historiographical (...) reasons for the reviewer’s assumption that Neoplatonic readings of Plato are erroneous by definition. In particular, it argues that the reviewer relied on, and tacitly accepted, ethical and theological premises going back to the historiography of philosophy developed by Jacob Brucker in his Historia critica philosophiae . These premises were an integral part of Brucker’s Lutheran religiosity and thus theologically and ethically biased. If these premises are identified, articulated and discussed critically—which they have not been so far in connection with Taylor’s reception—it becomes less obvious that the reviewer was justified in his assumption that the Neoplatonic reading was erroneous by definition. This, in turn, leaves Taylor’s Plato interpretation in a more respectable position. (shrink)

In Laws 5, the Athenian argues in favour of virtuous over vicious lives on the basis that the former are preferable to the latter when we consider the pleasures and pains in each. This essay offers an interpretation of the argument which does not attribute to the Athenian an exclusively hedonist axiology. It argues for a new reading of the division of ‘types of life’ at 733c-d and suggests that the Athenian relies on the conclusion established earlier in the Laws (...) that we humans take pleasure in harmony and order. Virtuous lives exhibit just such harmony and order and are therefore always more pleasant than and preferable to vicious lives. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 60, Issue 1, pp 3 - 39 This paper pursues a new approach to the problem of the relation between Alētheia and Doxa. It investigates as interrelated matters Parmenides’ impetus for developing and including Doxa, his conception of the mortal epistemic agent in relation both to Doxa’s investigations and to those in Alētheia, and the relation between mortal and divine in his poem. Parmenides, it is argued, maintained that Doxastic cognition is an ineluctable and even appropriate aspect (...) of mortal life. The mortal agent, however, is nonetheless capable of sustaining the cognition of Alētheia by momentarily coming to think with—or as—his divine soul. (shrink)

The challenge from the sophists with whom Plato is confronted is: Who can prove that the just man without power is happy whereas the unjust man with power is not? This challenge concerns the basic issue of politics: the relationship between justice and happiness. Will the unjust man gain the exceptional happiness of the strong by abusing his power and by injustice? The gist of Plato’s reply is to speak not of justice but of intrinsic justice, i.e., the strength of (...) virtue which, in his account, is the fundamental good of man. Nevertheless, many contend that intrinsic justice is actually injustice, for the division of power in the state is undemocratic while in the soul, the suppression of desire by the reason. Plato’s advocacy of hierarchical, elite political system has enraged democrats, while his idea of philosopher king has enraged the aristocrats as well. So, who will appreciate Plato’s effort? (shrink)