This interpretive introduction provides unique insight into Plato's Republic. Stressing Plato's desire to stimulate philosophical thinking in his readers, Julia Annas here demonstrates the coherence of his main moral argument on the nature of justice, and expounds related concepts of education, human motivation, knowledge and understanding. In a clear systematic fashion, this book shows that modern moral philosophy still has much to learn from Plato's attempt to move the focus from questions of what acts the just person ought to perform (...) to the more profound questions of what sort of person the just person ought to be. (shrink)

In the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle imposes some requirements on the formulation of scientific propositions: their terms must be able to perform the role of subject as well as of predicate; their terms should be universal; every demonstration must involve “primary” subjects denoted by terms that “cannot be said of another underlying subject”. Several interpreters, inspired by theses from the Categories, believed that this third requirement refers to names and descriptions of particular substances as basic subjects of predicative statements, since they (...) cannot perform the logical role of predicate. However, such reading puts the third requirement in conflict with the other two. I shall argue that this interpretation is wrong and that the third requirement does not assign to singular terms the function of basic subjects of scientific discourse, but rather acknowledges that substantial predicates have a certain prerogative to occur in denoting phrases. Consequently, Aristotle’s three demands turn out to be compatible with one another. (shrink)

This distinction has sometimes been read as purely epistemic, resting not on things, but on our knowledge of them: there is one world, not two, though it may be apprehended in two ways. But this view is patently at odds with the text. Knowledge and opinion are δυνάμεις, "faculties," to be distinguished and defined by their objects, no less than by the state of mind they produce, and Plato clearly states that the fallibility and unclearness of opinion is rooted in (...) the relative unreality of opinables. (shrink)

I am pleased to have been able to vindicate Plato from the oft-rehearsed charge of not having distinguished relations from qualities. Not only does Phaedo 102B7-C4 show quite clearly that he did make the proper distinction, but the theory of relations he adumbrated there is logically sound and ontologically viable. Furthermore, it is refreshing to think of relations not as Forms or universals, but as chains of ontologically tied universals.Naturally, now that we have a clear understanding of Plato's Phaedo theory (...) of relations and relational facts there is plenty of work to do. We must examine the other dialogues for alterations or even preservation of that theory. Moreover, there are those arguments of Aristotle that purport to reduce Plato's Theory of Forms to absurdity on account of relations. But of this I shall say more at some other time. (shrink)

The author attempts here to sketch the beginnings of an adequate interpretation of Plato's treatment of the tall and the equal in the "Phaedo". The paper consists of seven sections (roman numerals). In I-II, he (a) argues that any attempt to solve the puzzle stated at "Phaedo" 102 bc within the parameters there set down would "eo ipso" be an attempted theory of relational statements; (b) formulates that puzzle; and (c) shows that Frege solved it by denying its presuppositions. In (...) IV the author proposes an interpretation of Plato's solution: that the "than y" in "x is taller than y" modifies the "is." In V-VI he shows how this theory fits in with and sheds light on other aspects of the theory of forms: the connection to Non-Contradiction, The doctrines of degrees of reality and of immanent characters. Finally in VII he shows that the puzzle of relational statements as formulated in the "Phaedo" need not extend to "equal." the paper also includes (iii) a discussion of H-N Castañeda's interpretation of Plato's theory. (shrink)