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  1. Plato's Phaedrus and the Problem of Unity.Daniel Werner - 2007 - Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 32:91-137.
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  2. The Self-Seeing Soul in the Alcibiades I.Daniel Werner - 2013 - Ancient Philosophy 33 (2):307-331.
    The Alcibiades I concludes with an arresting image of an eye that sees itself by looking into another eye. Using the dialogue as a whole, I offer a detailed interpretation of this image and I discuss its implications for the question of self-knowledge. The Alcibiades I reveals both what self-knowledge is (knowledge of soul in its particularity and its universality) and how we are to seek it (by way of philosophical dialogue). This makes the pursuit of self-knowledge an inescapably social (...)
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  3. Rhetoric and Philosophy in Plato's Phaedrus.Daniel Werner - 2010 - Greece and Rome 57 (1):21-46.
    One of Plato’s aims in the Phaedrus seems to be to outline an ‘ideal’ form of rhetoric. But it is unclear exactly what the ‘true’ rhetorician really looks like, and what exactly his methods are. More broadly, just how does Plato see the relation between rhetoric and philosophy? I argue, in light of Plato’s epistemology, that the “true craft (techne) of rhetoric” which he describes in the Phaedrus is a regulative, but also an unattainable ideal. Consequently, the mythical palinode in (...)
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  4. Suicide in the Phaedo.Daniel Werner - 2018 - Rhizomata 6 (2):157-188.
    In the Phaedo the character Socrates argues that suicide is morally wrong. This is in fact one of only two places in the entire Platonic corpus where suicide is discussed. It is a brief passage, and a notoriously perplexing one. In this article, I distinguish between two arguments that Socrates gives in support of his claim. I argue that one of them is not to be taken literally, while the other represents the deeper reason for the prohibition of suicide. I (...)
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  5. Love and Death.Daniel Werner - 2015 - In Michael Cholbi (ed.), Immortality and the Philosophy of Death. New York: Rowman & Littlefield International. pp. 135-156.
    It is commonly thought that there is a connection between love and death. But what can be said philosophically about the nature of that connection (if indeed it exists)? Plato's Symposium suggests at least three possible ways in which love and death might be connected: first, that love entails (or ought to entail) a willingness to die for one’s beloved; second, that love is a desire for (or perhaps itself is) a kind of death; and third, that love is linked (...)
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  6. The End of Plato’s Phaedo and the End(s) of Philosophy.Daniel Werner - 2020 - Apeiron 54 (1):29-57.
    The ending of the Phaedo is one of the most powerful and memorable moments in the entire Platonic corpus. It is not simply the end of a single dialogue, but a depiction of the end of the life of the man (Socrates) who is a looming presence in nearly everything that Plato wrote. In this article I offer an in-depth analysis of the final scene of the Phaedo. I argue that Plato very carefully constructs the scene for the sake of (...)
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  7. Myth and the Structure of Plato’s Euthyphro.Daniel Werner - 2012 - International Philosophical Quarterly 52 (1):41-62.
    Moving beyond the piecemeal approach to the Euthyphro that has dominated much of the previous secondary literature, I aim in this article to understand the dialogue as an integrated whole. I argue that the question of myth underlies the philosophical and dialogical progression of the Euthyphro. It is an adherence to traditional myth that motivates each of Euthyphro’s definitions and that also accounts for their failure. The dialogue thus presents a broad criticism of traditional myth. But, as Socrates’s references to (...)
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  8. Plato on Madness and Philosophy.Daniel Werner - 2011 - Ancient Philosophy 31 (1):47-71.
    In the Phaedrus Socrates says that “the greatest goods” come from madness, and even seems to suggest that philosophy itself is a form of madness. But just how strongly should we understand these claims? I argue that Plato is not claiming that the philosopher is literally mad, in the sense of lacking rational self-control or being possessed by a god. Instead, Plato is appropriating the concept of “madness” and redefining it to refer to a unique state of philosophical cognition.
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