Plato's Dialogues One by One interprets and contextualizes each of Plato's dialogues. Victorino Tejera analyzes and explains the content and intellectual quality of the dialogues, highlighting their dramatic aliveness and historico-political allusiveness. He treats each dialogue according to its own integrity, not imposing any system outside of their individual composition, and with an even-handedness that does not place too much emphasis on any aspect or neglect any included concept. With this approach, Tejera seeks to free Plato from the constraints constructed (...) by Academia and to treat him as the open-minded intellectual son of Socrates, releasing the free-flying swan that in the myth became the home of the soul of the master. (shrink)

Plato's dialogue the Timaeus-Critias presents two connected accounts, that of the story of Atlantis and its defeat by ancient Athens and that of the creation of the cosmos by a divine craftsman. This book offers a unified reading of the dialogue. It tackles a wide range of interpretative and philosophical issues. Topics discussed include the function of the famous Atlantis story, the notion of cosmology as 'myth' and as 'likely', and the role of God in Platonic cosmology. Other areas commented (...) upon are Plato's concepts of 'necessity' and 'teleology', the nature of the 'receptacle', the relationship between the soul and the body, the use of perception in cosmology, and the work's peculiar monologue form. The unifying theme is teleology: Plato's attempt to show the cosmos to be organised for the good. A central lesson which emerges is that the Timaeus is closer to Aristotle's physics than previously thought. (shrink)

Contents: Introduction: on the Intellectual History of Democratic Athens. A Modern Defense of Xenophon's Oligarchic Socrates. The Prelude to the Timaeus and the Atlantis Story. On the Ambivalence and Ideology of the Aristotelian Politics. In Search of the Unplatonized, Prescholastic Aristotle. Philosophic Historiography and the Reception-History of Plato and Aristotle. References and Bibliography.

Tejera examines how Platonism--a philosophy imported from outside Plato's dialogues--changed our understanding of the dialogues.

Excerpt from Die Naturliche Ordnung der Platonischen Schriften In der Anordnung der Schriften durchaus nicht gewurdigt. Hochstens hat man bei der Aufsten eines Principe die Manier, ob sokratisch oder dialektisch oder eigentlich plato nisch, in Bezug auf den phi1030phischen Inhalt, nicht aber. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving (...) the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Kennedy shows that Plato gave his dialogues a similar musical structure, dividing each dialogue into twelve parts and inserting symbols at each twelfth to mark a musical note. These passages are either harmonious or dissonant and traverse the ups and downs of a known musical scale. Many of Plato's early followers insisted that Plato used symbols to conceal his own views within the dialogues, but modern scholars have denied this. Kennedy, an expert in Pythagorean mathematics and music theory, is able (...) to show that Plato's dialogues contain a system of symbols that are undetectable by those without knowledge of obsolete Greek mathematics. The book begins with a concise and accessible introduction to Plato's symbolic schemes and the role of allegory in ancient times. The author then annotates the musical symbols in two of Plato's most popular dialogues, the Symposium and Euthyphro, and shows that Plato used the musical scale as an outline for structuring his narratives. (shrink)

Excerpt from Histoire du d104e de Platon Il faut en effet attribuer une grande importance, dans la diffu sion des oeuvres platoniciennes, aux copies privées; les livres ainsi reproduits étaient extrèmement nombreux dans l'antiquité 1 on connaît l'anecdote suivant laquelle Démosthène transcrivit plusieurs fois de sa propre main l'histoire de Thucydide. A vrai dire, la plupart de ceux qui copient eux - mèmes leurs livres sont de petites gens, qui n'ont pas d'esclave ou dont l'esclave ne sait pas écrire. D'ordinaire, (...) l'auteur fait exécuter les copies chez lui, sous sa direction; il dicte lui-mème ou bien donne un modèle à multiplier 2; puis il revoit et corrige un exemplaire type, ou quelquefois plusieurs. L'esclave képhisophod sert ainsi de secrétaire à Euripide, et Chares au péripatéticien Lycon 3. Ces exemplaires sont offerts par l'auteur a ses amis. Ou bien il leur permet d'exécuter ou de faire exécuter des oopies de son propre manuscrit 4, et ces copies elles - mèmes peuvent ètre reproduites plus tard, si les amis de l'auteur tiennent à sa réputation. Peu à peu, le nombre des lecteurs s'il le désire, continue a ètre son-propre libraire-éditeur il lui suffit d'avoir à sa disposition un certain nombre d'esclaves lettrés. C'est pour quoi Antigone envoie a Zénon une équipe de Oopistes 5. Et Pla ton aussi, qui avait d'abord simplement communiqué ses oeuvres à quelques amis, en leur laissant le soin de les faire connaître, dut par la suite, surtout quand il fut rentré et installé à Athènes, et quand il voulut répandre des idées qu'il estimait utiles et indispensables, se préoccuper de la diffusion de ses écrits, et organiser chez lui une véritable entreprise de publication en masse et d'édition. Peut - ètre, d'ailleurs, eut - il bien vite un auxi liaire pour surveiller ses copistes, leur distribuer la tâche et corriger les exemplaires 5. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)