The New Age philosopher, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), was the most prolific and arguably the most influential philosopher of his era. He assembled a substantial library, of approximately 9,000 items, which has been preserved intact since his death. Most of Rudolf Steiner’s books are in German, his native language however there are books in other languages, including English, French, Italian, Swedish, Sanskrit and Latin. There are more books in English than in any other foreign language. Steiner esteemed English as “a universal (...) world language”. The present paper identifies 327 books in English in Rudolf Steiner’s personal library. Fifty percent of the English-language books identified are on Theosophy (n=164). Rudolf Steiner was the General Secretary of the German branch of the Theosophy Society from 1902, and he hived off his own Anthroposophy Society in 1912. The present study reveals that Steiner maintained his interest in Theosophy throughout his life as he stayed up to date with the proliferating portfolio of Theosophy publications. The publication dates of Steiner’s Theosophy collection range from 1877 to 1923. The leading exponents of Theosophy in his day are well represented in Steiner’s collection, including Annie Besant (n=61), Charles Leadbeater (n=13), William Westcott (n=13) and Helena Blavatsky (n=10). Of the other 50% of the Anglo-books identified, 20% are in the category of Religion (n=67), 10% are Social Science (n=33), 6% are Philosophy (n=21), 4% are Science (n=13), and 3% each are Anthroposophy (n=11), History (n=9) and Arts (n=9). The publication dates of Steiner’s Anglo-books span the period 1659 to 1925. This demonstrates that Steiner was acquiring Anglo-books right to the end of his life. The Steiner library throws light on the development of the thoughts of this remarkable individual and the present paper reveals Steiner’s engagement throughout his life with the world of Anglo-publishing and thought. (shrink)

Old scholarly myths die hard. It was K. F. Hermann, the discoverer of the ‘Socratic period’ in Plato's development, who first proposed that Book 1 of the Republic must originally have been an earlier, independent dialogue on justice, parallel to the Laches on courage, the Euthyphro on piety, and the Charmides on temperance. Hermann also introduced the separatist enterprise of analysing the rest of the Republic into three or four distinct compositional stages. Analytical proposals of this sort were then formulated (...) by a number of other scholars, including Krohn, Usener, and Rohde. The notion of an earlier, partial publication seemed to be supported by two bits of external evidence: a statement in Aulus Gellius that ‘about two books’ of Plato's Republic were the first to appear; and a number of striking parallels on the community of women between Republic 5 and Aristophanes' Ekklesiazousai, produced c. 392 B.C. (shrink)

In this paper, I ponder the question of whether Socrates follows a method of investigation — the method of hypothesis — which he advocates in Plato's Phaedo. The evidence in the dialogue suggests that he does not follow the method, which raises additional questions: If he fails to do so, why does he articulate the method? Does his statement of method affect his actions or is it mainly forgotten? Although Socrates is a fictional character, his actions in the Phaedo suggests (...) questions about the function of espoused methods in actual situations. (shrink)

Plato's Symposium consists of six speeches on Eros with the addition of Alcibiades' praise of Socrates. Of these speeches Socrates' speech is philosophically most important. It is true that the speech is given as a report of Diotima's view on Eros, but ‘she is a double of the Platonic Socrates’, and we take her view as the theory of Socrates in this dialogue.