This paper concerns the role of examples (paradeigmata) as propaedeutic to philosophical inquiry, in light of the methodological digression of Plato’s Statesman. Consistent with scholarship on Aristotle’s view of example, scholars of Plato’s work have privileged the logic of example over their rhetorical appeal to the soul of the learner. Following a small but significant trend in recent rhetorical scholarship that emphasizes the affective nature of examples, this essay assesses the psychagogic potential of paradeigmata, following the discussion of example in (...) Plato’s Statesman. I argue that, by creating an expectation for finding similarities, the use of examples in philosophical pedagogy cultivates in the soul of the learner a desire to discern the intelligible principles the ground experiential knowledge. Thus, examples not only serve as practice at the dialectician’s method of abstraction, but also cultivate a dialectical ethos, characterized by the desire to know the logoi of all things. (shrink)

The paper explores Plato’s Statesman in the perspective of its philosophical unity and autonomy. The relevance of this approach arises from the problem posed by the traditional readings of the Statesman – the developmental and unitarian. Both methods interpret the Statesman in the context of Plato’s major political dialogues of, the Republic and the Laws, thus preventing the exposing of the internal theoretical coherence of the dialogue. Hence this paper focuses on the analysis of the main political themes of the (...) dialogue – conflict, statesmanship, and political knowledge – and their relations to each other. By discussing the emergence of the political and its importance for conceptualizing political practice, as well as by indicating the structural elements of statesmanship, the author of the paper argues that the Statesman contains a coherent and internally completed political theory. (shrink)

The strange and challenging stretch of dialectic with which Plato’s Sophist begins and ends has confused and frustrated readers for generations, and despite receiving a fair amount of attention, there is no consensus regarding even basic issues concerning this method. Here I offer a new account of bifurcatory division as neither joke nor naïve method, but instead a valuable, propaedeutic method that Plato offers to us readers as a means of embarking upon the kind of mental gymnastics that will stretch (...) us properly in preparation for further, more challenging dialectical work. Considering several interpretive issues, I argue that bifurcatory division is a process of collective inquiry into the common through which an account, both definitional and taxonomical, is discovered. Depending on the level of understanding exhibited by the inquirers, this account may or may not allow for noetic understanding of the object in the deepest sense. (shrink)

Després del centre de El polític, dedicat a la justa mesura, el diàleg imposa el «retorn al polític» i ja no se separarà més d’aquesta comesa. Es procedirà, en primer lloc a depurar les arts concausants; després se separaran les diferents menes de servidors de la ciutat, per tal d’arribar a veure que els rivals del polític conformen un conjunt de difícil separació. Caldrà, abans de prosseguir amb la divisió, atendre als tipus de règim polític per veure quin paper hi (...) juga el saber polític. El resultat d’aquest primer moment del retorn al polític pren la figura de la descoberta dels fonaments de la ciutat. (shrink)

If Z hu Xi had been a western philosopher, we would say he synthesized the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus: that he took from Plato the theory of forms, from Aristotle the connection between form and empirical investigation, and from Plotinus self-differentiating holism. But because a synthesis abstracts from the incompatible elements of its members, it involves rejection as well as inclusion. Thus, Z hu Xi does not accept the dualism by which Plato opposed to the rational forms an (...) irrational material principle, and does not share Aristotle’s irreducible dualism between form and prime matter, or his teleology. Neither does he share Plotinus’ indifference to the empirical world. Understanding how these similarities and differences play out against one another will help us discover what is at stake in their various commitments. (shrink)

Llegados al final del periplo para definir al rey y al político, el Forastero y el joven Sócrates se encuentran en un callejón sin salida; no han podido determinar el perfil de cada uno de ellos. La narración del mito será la enmienda del método utilizado hasta ahora, i.e. la diéresis o división, que los ha llevado a una situación aporética. El Forastero muestra que se han cometido dos errores a lo largo del recorrido: el primero ha sido confundir lo (...) humano con lo divino; el segundo, de más envergadura, no establecer claramente la manera cómo el rey y el político podían ser el gobernante de la ciudad entera. Éste es uno de los pasajes más relevantes del Político de Platón, pues en él se realiza una reflexión sobre la naturaleza del error cometido. (shrink)