ABSTRACT The phenomenological vision, particularly, Husserl’s idea of critique as an infinite vocational theoria and Patočka’s as an enduring programme, view Platonic logic and Socratic act as the paradigms for a normative justification of the idea of universal science and philosophy. In light of that, the Thrasymachus-Socrates debate is interpreted as a case to testify the critical power of philosophy successfully exercised over sophistic tyrannical non-philosophy. This paper criticizes the phenomenological idealization of the Socratic victory as an ethico-teleologically anticipated success (...) of philosophy and rewrites the defeat of Thrasymachus as a political failure in warring with philosophy during which Thrasymachus questions the legitimacy of the act of philosophizing to decide its legitimacy and thereby exposes the politics played out in that act. (shrink)

The present research contributes to the elucidation of an important aspect of Husserl’s interpretation of the history of philosophy, that is, his reading of the beginning of Western thought. In par...

The aim of this paper is understand Husserl’s “Platonism” through an understanding of how the method of eidetic variation and a phenomenological conception of essences reformulates by means of a conceptual and historical translation Plato’s doctrine of essences. In arguing that a theory of essences and method for the discovery of essences proves indispensable to a proper conception of phenomenology, Husserl positions himself as a philosophical “friend of essences” without thereby adopting a Platonic conception of essences. In addition to a (...) reconstruction of Husserl’s image of Plato and the historical tradition, this paper examines the pivotal role played by “variation” and “manifold” in Husserl’s distinctive understanding of essences. (shrink)