Plato was the first philosopher who gave an account for the highly controversial claim that both genders are principally equal in respect to their talents and abilities. Consequently, one may advocate the thesis that in Plato’s view, the gender differences are rather the outcomes of social, cultural and political influences, than of natural factors. The aim of this paper is to elucidate the meaning and validity of Plato’s arguments for the gender equality in the Republic, which will (...) be supplemented with some important remarks on this same subject-matter from the Laws, in order to find out what social and political implications they have. In doing this, I will argue against some interpretations of prominent Plato scholars who criticize or reject his account of the social role that women should have in Plato’s ideal city. Additionally, I will discuss the claim, advocated by George Vlastos, that Plato is a feminist in a modern sense of the term. (shrink)

In this paper I examine some of the positive epistemic and moral dimensions of anger in Plato’s dialogues. My aim is to show that while Plato is clearly aware that retaliatory anger has negative effects on people’s behavior, the strategy we find in his dialogues is not to eliminate anger altogether; instead, Plato aims to transform or rechannel destructive retaliatory anger into a different, more productive, reformative anger. I argue that this new form of anger plays a (...) crucial positive role in our intellectual and moral development. In relation to our intellectual development, anger is often part of people’s reactions to the Socratic interrogations and it often helps or hinders attempts to acknowledge one’s ignorance and become motivated to learn. For anger to play a positive role in the context of philosophical conversations, Plato suggests its transformation from being an outward-looking and reactive emotion oriented towards retaliation (refutation), into a mostly inward-looking emotion aimed at ones’ own moral and intellectual reform or self-betterment. In relation to our moral progress, anger is strategically linked both to the control of our appetites and to the virtue of courage, so anger is crucial to the psychology of the good citizen. Concretely, anger is needed both for the development of the right opposition to injustice and greed, and for the formation of an adequate sensitivity to justice. (shrink)

At the heart of Plato’s theory of erōs is the ‘ascent’ of love for an individual body, through several stages, to love of Beauty itself (Symposium 210a-212b). I argue that our understanding of the psychology of this transformation would benefit especially from bringing in Plato’s views on pain from the Republic. For erōs is presented in the Symposium as including sexual desire (207b) as well as love of wisdom (210d), but the Republic takes the former to be a (...) painful desire, whereas the latter is apparently treated as painless. The ‘ascent’ of love, then, seems to involve the transformation of a painful desire into a painless one. I conclude that this transformation is best understood as a rechanneling of desire within the tripartite soul. (shrink)

Plato argues that four political arts—politics, kingship, slaveholding, and household-management—are the same. His argument, which prompted Aristotle’s reply in Politics I, has been universally panned. The problem is that the argument clearly identifies household-management with slaveholding, and household-management with politics, but does not fully identify kingship with any of the others. I consider and reject three ways of saving the argument, and argue for a fourth. On my view, Plato assumes that politics is identical with kingship, just as (...) he does elsewhere, but he begs no questions because the point of his argument is to identify the public arts of politics and kingship with the private arts of household-management and slaveholding. He does this successfully by answering three reasons why one might distinguish the private from the public arts. His argument leaves room for Aristotle to propose other reasons. One of them—involving differences among men and women and slaves—is unfortunate, but another is more promising. The Aristotelian can assume that political expertise is a matter of know-how gathered by experience of the particular actions which differ in the public and private arts. But Plato might well be right to reject this, and to insist that the essential difference between the expert and non-expert—the dividing line between good and bad rule—is not in experience but in their grasp of their goals. (shrink)

Abu Nasr Muhammad Alfarabi, the medieval Muslim philosopher and the founder of Islamic Neoplatonism, is best known for his political treatise, Mabadi ara ahl al-madina al- fadhila (Principles of the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City), in which he proposes a theory of utopian virtuous city. Prominent scholars argue for the Platonic nature of Alfarabi’s political philosophy and relate the political treatise to Plato’s Republic. One of the most striking similarities between Alfarabi’s Mabadi ara ahl al-madina al- (...) fadhila and Plato’s Republic is that in both works the theory of virtuous city is accompanied by a theory of soul. It is true that Alfarabi’s theory of soul differ considerably from that of Plato’s Republic. However, we propose that notwithstanding the differences, the two theories of soul do play an identically important role in the respective theory of virtuous city. The present article explores the relationship between the soul and the city in Plato’s Republic and Alfarabi’s Mabadi ara ahl al-madina al- fadhila, and intends to show that in both works the coexistence of the theory of soul and the city is neither coincidental nor a casual concurrence of two themes. Rather, the concept of soul serves as a foundation on which Plato and Alfarabi erect their respective theory of perfect association. Thus, Alfarabi’s treatise resembles Plato’s Republic not only in the coexistence of the theory of soul and the city, but also in the important role of the concept of soul in the theory of virtuous city. (shrink)

In the Republic, Phaedrus, and Timaeus, Socrates holds that the psyche is complex, or has three distinct and semi-autonomous sources of motivation, which he calls the reasoning, spirited, and appetitive parts. While the rational part determines what is best overall and motivates us to pursue it, the spirited and appetitive parts incline us toward different objectives, such as victory, honor, and esteem, or the satisfaction of our desires for food, drink, and sex. While it is obvious that Socrates primarily characterizes (...) and distinguishes the parts in terms of what each desires and pursues, what is less often brought to the fore is that he also characterizes and distinguishes the parts in terms of how they think. More specifically, he claims that the rational part forms its beliefs on the basis of rational calculation, while the spirited and appetitive parts form their beliefs on the basis of how things appear, without scrutinizing those appearances. Socrates’ dual characterization of the parts of the soul raises a question: why does he characterize each part as having the particular desires and cognitive abilities that he does? In general, how do facts about what a part desires relate to facts about how it thinks? In this paper, I suggest an answer to this question, one that I hope sheds light on the nature of the parts of the soul and so on Plato’s theory of tripartition more generally. I conclude by showing that Socrates’ theory bears a notable resemblance to contemporary dual process theories of judgment, according to which we have two distinct processes for forming judgments, one which is broadly akin to reflection and another to intuition. (shrink)

Plato's educational model (paidèia) differentiates the level of education according to the students' skills. Thus, a basic education includes, in addition to gymnastics and fighting (the exercise of the body), music (the exercise of the spirit), without being imposed by force because a free man must be free in the conquest of knowledge. If the student has skills, he is educated in mathematics to become a strategist, and in astronomy to raise the soul. From these, the best are selected (...) to become good leaders, studying philosophy and dialectics. Women will have the same rights and duties as men. According to Socratic principles, in order to do justice, one must know what is good, and this is best known to the philosopher. Plato detailed this concept, highlighting the distinction between the philosopher (who seeks the principles of truth without claiming to possess it) and the sophist (who lets himself be guided by opinion as the only valid parameter of knowledge). Plato considers philosophers to be ideal leaders for two main reasons: because they know what is right, and because they do not want to lead. -/- DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.17459.71200. (shrink)

A course on the afterlife of Plato’s Symposium can accomplish two worthwhile objectives. It can afford students an opportunity to study a philosophical and literary masterpiece, and it can introduce them to some of the main currents in modern European culture. One recent iteration of such a course addressed six questions: (1) Why might Plato have chosen to write a dialogue about a ‘drinking party’? (2) Why did Plato present multiple speeches on the nature of Eros? (3) (...) Why have some philosophers found fault with Socrates’ view of Eros? (4) How was this view embraced by the Neoplatonic thinkers Proclus and Plotinus? (5) How did Ficino’s de Amore bring the notion of a ‘Platonic Love’ to a series of European poets and artists? and (6) How did the view of love put forward in the Symposium inspire English poets from Ben Johnson and Sir Philip Sidney to Keats and Shelley? -/- . (shrink)

When people now talk about a relationship as being “Platonic”, they mean that the relationship is a non-sexual friendship. But what did Plato himself say about different kinds of relationship, and how did his name come to be associated with non-sexual relationships? While Plato’s Symposium has been the center of attention for his views on love, I argue that the Phaedrus and Laws VIII provide a much clearer account of Plato’s views. In these dialogues, Plato distinguishes (...) between two kinds of love and three kinds of lover. The two kinds of love are fundamentally oriented towards different objects: one kind of love is focused on the body of the beloved and seeks to extract as much bodily pleasure from them as possible, whereas the other kind of love is focused on the soul and seeks to benefit the beloved by improving their character. There is a lover for each kind of love, and a third kind of lover who is torn between these two opposing objects of love. Notably, in the kind of love directed towards the soul, the lovers will not engage in sexual activity. I argue that this is because Plato thinks that the natural function of sex is the procreation of good children and that engaging in such an intensely pleasurable activity risks making the lovers intemperate and lacking in self-control. Thus Plato thinks that the best kind of relationship is one of love (and not just friendship) but is nonetheless non-sexual. (shrink)

One of the questions regarding the Parmenides is whether Plato was committed to any of the arguments developed in the second part of the dialogue. This paper argues for considering at least one of the arguments from the second part of the Parmenides, namely the argument of the generation of numbers, as being platonically genuine. I argue that the argument at 142b-144b, which discusses the generation of numbers, is not deployed for the sake of dialectical argumentation alone, but it (...) rather demonstrates key platonic features, such as the use of the greatest kinds and the generation principle. The connection between the argument for the generation of numbers and Plato’s philosophy of mathematics is strengthened by the exploration of a possible reference in Aristotle’s Metaphysics A6. Taken as a genuine platonic theory, the argument could have significant impact on how we understand Plato’s philosophy of mathematics in particular, and the ontology of the late dialogues in general – that numbers can be reduced to more basic entities, i.e the greatest kinds, in a way similar to the role the greatest kinds are assigned in the Sophist. (shrink)

In the Republic Plato contrasts dialectic with mathematics on the grounds that the former but not the latter gives justifications of some kind for its hypotheses, pursuing this process until it reaches ‘an unhypothetical principle’. But which principles are unhypothetical, and why, is rather dark. One reason for this is the scarcity of forms of that precious word, ‘unhypothetical’ (aνυπoθετος), used only twice by Plato (Rep. 510 b 7, 511 b 6) and just once by Aristotle (Metaph. 1005B14). (...) But that very scarcity also suggests the intriguing possibility that Aristotle has Plato’s text in mind when he uses the word, so we might expect to understand Plato better by grasping how Aristotle took him. That is a notoriously defeasible assumption since plenty of modern accounts of Plato want to save him from Aristotle’s numerous critiques, and hence imply that the master of them that know frequently missed the point when it came to his own master. But surely we can be more confident that Aristotle will give us access to Plato when it appears not merely that he is dealing with the same topic, but using the same rare vocabulary to boot. Hence the understandable temptation to turn to Metaphysics Γ for help in identifying Platonic unhypothetical principles. I shall argue that Aristotle is indeed thinking of Plato’s text when he uses the word for ‘unhypothetical’, and further that what is explicitly an unhypothetical principle for Aristotle might well have been one for Plato too. But later I shall claim that their joint use of a much more common word in the same philosophical context is either coincidence or misunderstanding on Aristotle’s part, for he must mean something different by it from what Plato means. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Plato on Knowledge as a Power1Nicholas D. SmithAt 471C4 in Plato’s Republic, the argument takes a sudden turn when Glaucon becomes impatient with all of the specific prescriptions Socrates has been making, and asks to return to the issue Socrates had earlier set aside—whether or not the city he was describing could ever be brought into being. In response to Glaucon’s impatient question, Socrates articulates his “third (...) wave of paradox” (472ag–7), namely, that the ills of the cities will never be ended until either philosophers become rulers or rulers become philosophers (473c11–d6). Glaucon immediately responds that such a view is likely to be greeted with violence and scorn (473e6–474a4), and so Socrates must hasten to explain his odd claim. His explanation, it turns out, is that true philosophers have an enormous cognitive advantage over non-philosophers—philosophers have and use knowledge (ἐπιστήμη), whereas non-philosophers have and use only opinion (δόξα).2 This distinction, between επιστήμη and δόξα, turns out: to be a distinction between two different cognitive powers (δυνάμεις—477d7–e3). And different powers, Plato clearly tells us, apply to or take as their objects (Plato says they are “ἐπί”) different things (477dl).In this paper, I shall argue that the relationship between the cognitive powers and their various objects has been fundamentally misunderstood, which has led scholars into one or more misinterpretations of important and explicit features of the text. At the heart of these misunderstandings, I claim, is [End Page 145] their shared misconception of the relation between the cognitive power and its objects as interpretable in terms of the relationship between a cognitive stale and what the content of that state is of or about.3 One consequence of the view for which I shall argue is that what has come to be known as the “two-worlds theory”4 of Plato’s epistemology is seriously mistaken, but no less mistaken than the alternatives given by its recent critics. Another consequence that I shall draw from my argument is that Plato should be understood neither as a kind of foundationalist with regard to knowledge and warrant, as some have supposed him to be,5 nor as a coherentist, as others have supposed,6 but, rather, as a kind of causal reliabilist. [End Page 146]1. KNOWLEDGE AS A POWERScholarly interpretations of Plato’s epistemology have routinely sought to understand the relationships between each cognitive power of Republic Book V and the objects of the ἐφ’ ᾦ (“what it is related to”) condition by which it is differentiated from other δυνάμεις as Plato’s way of telling us what each sort of cognition is of or aboul. 7 So, for example, we find Gail Fine using the expressions “belief [δόξα] is set over [Fine’s translation of Plato’s ἐπί] …” and “knowledge is set over …” interchangeably with “belief is of …” or “belief is about…” and “knowledge is of …” or “knowledge is about …”8 Against the “two-worlds theory,” Fine argues that, for Plato, there can be knowledge of sensibles and beliefs about Forms. Accordingly, since she assimilates the power-ἐπί-object set of relations to the cognilion-of/about-object relation, she concludes—in order to account for knowledge of sensibles and beliefs about Forms—that the objects of knowledge and opinion must be propositions. Plato’s claims that knowledge is ἐπί what is, whereas opinion is ἐπί what is and is not, Fine understands as, “One can only know true propositions; one can believe both true and false propositions.”9 We shall see later that this “veridical” understanding of what Plato means to identify as “what is,” and “what is and is not” fails to account for important and explicit elements of Plato’s exposition of the epistemological and metaphysical distinctions he is making. For now, it is enough to note that Fine understands the ἐφ’ᾦ) relation in terms of our cognition-of/about-object relation. One finds the same assimilation made by those who advance existential readings of Plato’s “is” and “is not,”10 as [End Page 147] well as those who have urged that we adopt predicative readings of “is” and “is not.”11But I think there are very serious problems with this assimilation. Plato is very... (shrink)

A new reading of Plato's account of conventionalism about names in the Cratylus. It argues that Hermogenes' position, according to which a name is whatever anybody 'sets down' as one, does not have the counterintuitive consequences usually claimed. At the same time, Plato's treatment of conventionalism needs to be related to his treatment of formally similar positions in ethics and politics. Plato is committed to standards of objective natural correctness in all such areas, despite the problematic consequences (...) which, as he himself shows, arise in the case of language. (shrink)

Plato’s most infamous discussions of poetry in the Republic, in which he both develops original distinctions in narratology and advocates some form of censorship, raises numerous philosophical and philological questions. Foremost among them, perhaps, is the puzzle of why he returns to poetry in Book X after having dealt with it thoroughly in Books II–III, particularly because his accounts of the “mimetic” aspect of poetry are, on their face, quite different. How are we to understand this double treatment? Here (...) I will focus on a single aspect of this question, the compatibility of the notion of μίμησις and its cognates in the two books. As Nickolas Pappas has said, “Whether Books 3 and 10 offer compatible accounts of mimêsis, and how one might make them compatible, remains the most controversial question about Plato’s aesthetics”.2 I will show that there is a single notion of μίμησις operative throughout, namely that of representation by resemblance. I will take an unusual tack. I will not begin with the most problematic part of Book III for this interpretation about poetic, linguistic μίμησις, but with the later sections on musical μίμησις. Once we have an account of this, I claim, it is easier to see how narrative μίμησις is also a kind of representation by resemblance. (shrink)

The main idea of this allegory is the difference between people who simply experience their sensory experiences, and call that knowledge, and those who understand real knowledge by seeing the truth. The allegory actually digs into some deep philosophy, which is not surprising since it comes from Plato. Its main idea is the discussion of how humans perceive reality and if human existence has a higher truth. It explores the theme of belief versus knowledge. The Perception Plato theorizes (...) that the group of people tied up in the cave would assume that the shadows they see on the wall are reality. Plato's theory further states that the echoing sounds the prisoners hear are perceived as reality. This false reality is all that the people in the cave know. They have no true knowledge of the real world. However, they fully believe that what they see on the cave wall is reality, and even try to name the shadows they see passing by. Plato's cave allegory further proposes that one of the prisoners escapes or gains freedom from the cave. The freed prisoner moves toward the fire, which temporarily blinds him. As he gains his eyesight and moves into the real world, he gains a greater sense of reality. (shrink)

Plato argues in Republic IX that people are often mistaken about their own pleasures and pains. One of the mistakes he focuses on isjudging that an experience of ours is pleasant when, in fact, it is not. The view that such a mistake is possible is an unpopular one, andscholars have generally been dismissive of Plato’s position. Thus Urmson argues not only that this position is deeply flawed, but alsothat it results from a confusion on Plato’s part. (...) In this paper, I show that Urmson’s criticism is misguided. I then defend Plato against theidea that it is impossible for someone to make the mistake in question. In doing so, I bring out details in Plato’s text and show that his account of the phenomenology involved in making this mistake is far more sophisticated than has so far been recognized. (shrink)

An important argument in favour of recognising the cultural relativism and against universality of dignity and human rights, is the claim that the concept of dignity is a genuinely modern one. An analysis of a passage from the Demiurge’s speech in Timaeus reveals that Plato devoted time to reflecting on the question of what determines the qualitative difference between certain beings (gods and human being) and the world of things, and what forms the basis for the special treatment of (...) these beings – issues that using the language of today can be described reasonably as dignity. The attributes of this form of dignity seem to overlap with the nature of dignity as we know it today. Moreover, Plato proposes a response both to the question of what dignity is like, as well as the question of what dignity is. It is existential perfection, rooted in a perfect manner of existence, based on a specific internal unity of being. Dignity is therefore primordial in regard to particular features and independent of their acquisition or loss. Plato’s approach allows him to postulate that people be treated as ends in themselves; an approach therefore that prohibits the treatment of people as objects. Both the state and law are ultimately subordinated to the good of the individual, rather than the individual to the good of the state. -/- Istotny argument na rzecz relatywizmu kulturowego i przeciwko powszechności godności i wynikających z niej praw człowieka, oparty jest na poglądzie, że godność uznana została dopiero w czasach nowożytnych. Analiza fragmentu mowy Demiurga z Platońskiego dialogu Timajos ujawnia, że Platon rozwinął refleksję nad czymś, co stanowi o jakościowej różnicy między pewnymi istotami (bogami i ludźmi) a światem rzeczy, i co jest podstawą szczególnego traktowania tych istot, a co językiem współczesnym zasadnie można określić jako godność. Zbieżna jest charakterystyka tej godności z charakterystyką przyjmowaną współcześnie. Co więcej, Platon daje propozycję odpowiedzi nie tylko na pytanie, jaka jest godność, ale także na pytanie, czym jest godność. Jest ona doskonałością egzystencjalną, ugruntowanym w szczególnie doskonałym sposobie istnienia, opartym na szczególnej wewnętrznej jedności bytu. Jako doskonałość istnienia ogarnia ona cały byt, wszystkie jego cechy; jest nieoddzielalna od bytu (jest przyrodzona i niezbywalna). Jako pierwotna wobec partykularnych cech, jest niezależna od ich nabywania lub utraty. Platońskie ujęcie pozwala w oparciu o ujęcie godności formułować postulaty zbieżne z formułowanymi dziś dyrektywami nakazującymi traktować osoby jako cele same w sobie i zakazującymi traktowania osób w sposób czysto instrumentalny, przedmiotowy. Okazuje się, że – zdaniem Platona – jednostki nie wolno traktować czysto instrumentalnie dla dobra państwa; zarówno państwo, jak i prawo są podporządkowane dobru jednostki. (shrink)

There are two dominant approaches towards understanding medieval Muslim philosophy: Greek ancestry approach and religiopolitical context approach. In the Greek ancestry approach, medieval Muslim philosophy is interpreted in terms of its relation to classical Greek philosophy, particularly to the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. The religiopolitical context approach, however, views a thorough understanding of the religious and political situation of that time as the key to the proper understanding of medieval Muslim philosophy. Notwithstanding the immense significance of the two (...) approaches for understanding medieval Muslim philosophy, the question on the reason behind medieval Muslim philosophers’ preference for Plato’s Republic over Aristotle’s Politics in political philosophy is not accurately answered. This preference is usually attributed either to the availability or unavailability of the text or to the suitability or unsuitability of the text for Islamic theological views. However, this article shows that neither the availability or unavailability of text nor its suitability or unsuitability for Islamic religious and theological views can appropriately explain medieval Muslim philosophers’ preference for Plato’s Republic over Aristotle’s Politics in their political thought. This article proposes that the key to understand this preference lies in understanding the transmission of Greek philosophy to medieval Muslim philosophers. Contribution: This study highlights the significance of the thorough understanding of the transmission of Greek philosophy to medieval Muslim world as one of the important approaches towards proper understanding of medieval Muslim philosophy, particularly medieval Muslim political philosophy. (shrink)

Plato's dialogues use several terms for the concept of well-being, which concept plays a central ethical role as the ultimate goal for action and a central political role as the proper aim for states. But the dialogues also reveal sharp debate about what human well-being is. I argue that they endorse a Socratic conception of well-being as virtuous activity, by considering and rejecting several alternatives, including an ordinary conception that lists a variety of goods, a Protagorean conception that identifies (...) one's well-being with what appears one to be one's well-being, and hedonistic conceptions. (shrink)

Corrective intervention in Plato's metaphysics replacing the standard view of Plato as a metaphysical dualist with a novel and revolutionary paradigm of unitary pluralism in a single reality built on ontological diversity.

This new, inexpensive translation of Plato's Apology of Socrates is an alternative to the 19th-century Jowett translation that students find online when they're trying to save money on books. Using the 1995 Oxford Classical Text and the commentaries of John Burnet and James Helm, I aimed to produce a 21st-century English translation that is both true to Plato's Greek and understandable to college students in introductory philosophy, political theory, and humanities courses. The book also includes a new translation (...) of the death scene from Plato's Phaedo, a short introduction, a dozen explanatory notes, advice on how to cite Plato in papers, and suggestions for further reading. Search for "Plato Armstrong" in Apple Books (epub ISBN 9781957448022) and Amazon (paperback ISBN 9781957448008, Kindle ISBN 9781957448015). (shrink)

The Parmenides is arguably the pivotal text for understanding the Platonic corpus as a whole. I offer a critical analysis that takes as its key the closely constructed dramatic context and mimetic irony of the dialogue. Read with these in view, the contradictory characterizations of the "one" in the hypotheses dissolve and reform as stages in a systematic response to the objections that Parmenides earlier posed to the young Socrates' notions of forms and participation, potentially liberating Socrates from his dependence (...) on sensible simile and yielding a distinctively conceptual articulation of the difference and relation of forms and their sensible participants. The dialogue as a whole thereby functions as the means for the "conversion" of the soul to eidetic being for which Plato has the elder Socrates call in Republic VII. (shrink)

The conceptualisation of numbers is culturally bound. This may seem like a counterintuitive claim, but one illustration thereof is the limitations of the resemblance of the ancient Greek concept of number to that in modern mathematics.

Many traditional martial artists assert that MMA is not a martial art, denying that the ‘martial skill’ of MMA constitutes a ‘martial art’, and citing the sportive and entertainment aspects of MMA competitions as antithetical to the spirit of martial arts, lacking the integrity, discipline, and tradition found in martial arts. Today, these criticisms are even more relevant in light of the fact that the typical MMA fighter no longer practices a single discipline but is versed in a variety of (...) techniques and utilizes a variety of strength and conditioning modalities. In addition, with the development of social media and mainstream media’s acceptance of MMA as a legitimate sport, MMA is now more than ever about entertainment. We argue that MMA is a martial art, but it is not always practiced as one. By drawing upon Socrates’ distinction in Plato’s Gorgias between ‘knacks’ and ‘crafts’, we clarify the difference between ‘martial skills’ and ‘martial arts’. Using this distinction, we examine whether the sportive and entertainment aspects of MMA are, in fact, antithetical to the spirit of martial arts. We argue that the latter is, but the former is not. (shrink)

This paper shows how the universals of category theory in mathematics provide a model (in the Platonic Heaven of mathematics) for the self-predicative strand of Plato's Theory of Forms as well as for the idea of a "concrete universal" in Hegel and similar ideas of paradigmatic exemplars in ordinary thought. The paper also shows how the always-self-predicative universals of category theory provide the "opposite bookend" to the never-self-predicative universals of iterative set theory and thus that the paradoxes arose from (...) having one theory (e.g., Frege's Paradise) where universals could be either self-predicative or non-self-predicative (instead of being always one or always the other). (shrink)

This article examines Aristotle’s theory of ‘factional conflict’ (stasis) in Book 5 of the Politics and claims that it is mainly directed against the a-historical account of constitutional change Plato develops in the Republic. Aristotle’s investigation of the causes of stasis is oriented towards the normative political goal of stabilizing political orders and preventing their ‘change’ (metabolê) into different ones. This article argues that the constitution Aristotle calls ‘polity’ (politeia) constitutes his solution to the challenge of stabilizing democracies and (...) oligarchies. The paper also aims at elucidating Aristotle’s conception of an empirical political science, his political realism, and the method he applies in conjunction with it in the ‘empirical’ Books of the Politics (Book 4 through 6). (shrink)

This commentary records, through notes taken by Hermias, Syrianus' seminar on Plato's Phaedrus, one of the world's most influential celebrations of erotic beauty and love. It is the only Neoplatonic commentary on Plato's Phaedrus to have survived in its entirety. Further interest comes from the recorded interventions by Syrianus' pupils - including those by Proclus, his eventual successor as head of the Athenian school, who went on to teach Hermias' father, Ammonius. The second of two volumes of Hermias' (...) commentary, the chapters translated here begin with a discussion of how the discarnate soul is visualised as a winged chariot team whose charioteer may gain some glimpse of beauty itself, which can explain subsequent erotic longing. This volume provides a translation is accompanied by explanatory notes, an introduction detailing the significance and context of the treatise and a scholarly apparatus including multiple indexes, glossaries and a bibliography. (shrink)

Commentators have often been puzzled by the structure of the Symposium; in particular, it is unclear what the relationship is between Socrates’ speech and that of the other symposiasts. This chapter seeks to make a contribution to that debate by highlighting parallels between the first four speeches of the Symposium and the goals of the early education in the Republic. In both dialogues, I contend, we see Plato concerned with educating people through (a) activating and cultivating spirited motivations, (b) (...) becoming lawful and taking virtue as a goal, (c) harmonizing the opposing forces in their soul, and (d) minimizing the appetites and making them orderly. While these are familiar points from the moral education of the Republic, I argue that they also map onto the first four speeches of the Symposium respectively. Because in the Republic this moral education is necessary to make progress on the epistemic ascent, we can speculate that there is a similar point to be made in the Symposium – without first training our character adequately, we will not be able to climb the ladder of love. While the positive effects of Eros described in the early speeches of the Symposium are only imitations of the ideal education regime of Kallipolis, they nevertheless improve one’s character in such a way that better prepares the soul for philosophy. Finally, I argue that the importance of this moral education is dramatized at the end of the Symposium through Agathon’s amicable refutation by Socrates on the one hand, and the drunken entrance of Alcibiades on the other. Agathon shows potential for philosophy whereas Alcibiades is the exemplar of what happens when somebody comes to philosophy without a harmonized soul. (shrink)

Plato drew on the philosophical work of some of his predecessors, especially Socrates, but also Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Pythagoras, to develop his own philosophy, which explores most important fields, including metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and politics. With his professor Socrates and his student Aristotle, he laid the foundations of Western philosophical thought. Plato is considered one of the most important and influential philosophers in human history, being one of the founders of Western religion and spirituality. The philosophy he developed, (...) known as Platonism, is based on the theory of Forms known by pure reason as a solution to the problem of universals. Plato's philosophy is in line with the pre-Socratics, sophists and artistic traditions that underlie Greek education, in a new framework, defined by dialectics and the theory of Ideas. For Plato, knowledge is an activity of the soul, affected by sensible objects, and by internal processes. In The Republic of Plato, the highest form is considered to be the Form of Good, the source of all other Forms that could be known by reason. The central theme of the book is justice, argued with the help of several Platonic theories, including the allegorical myth of the cave, the doctrine of ideas, dialectics, the theory of the soul, and the design of an ideal city. His dialectic is a type of knowledge, with an ontological and metaphysical role, which is reached by confronting several positions to overcome opinion (doxa), a shift from the world of appearances (or "sensible") to intellectual knowledge (or " intelligible ”) to the first principles. Plato's educational model (paidèia) differentiates the level of education according to the students' skills. According to Socratic principles, in order to do justice, one must know what is good, and this is best known to the philosopher. Plato detailed this concept, highlighting the distinction between the philosopher (who seeks the principles of truth without claiming to possess it) and the sophist (who lets himself be guided by opinion as the only valid parameter of knowledge). -/- CONTENTS -/- Plato - Biography - Travels - Socrates - Academy - Plato's work - - Classifications of works - - - Chronological - - - Tetralogy - - - Trilogies - - - Lexical grouping Plato's philosophy - Soul - The function of the myth - Ideas - Theory of Forms - Ontology - Epistemology - Ethics - Politics - The philosophical state - Art - Unwritten doctrines: One and the Dyad The Republic - Characters - Summary - Topics - - Justice and righteousness (Book I) - - The Ideal State (Books II-III) - - The city-soul analogy. Harmony of the parties (Books IV-V) - - Form Theory (Metaphor of the Line and the Myth of the Cave, Books VI-VII) - - Family and State (Books VIII-IX) - - Myth of Er (Book X) Dialectics Education Philosopher-king Bibliography -/- DOI 10.13140/RG.2.2.29990.19520 . (shrink)

Hannah Arendt's rich and varied political thought is more influential today than ever before, due in part to the collapse of communism and the need for ideas that move beyond the old ideologies of the Cold War. As Dana Villa shows, however, Arendt's thought is often poorly understood, both because of its complexity and because her fame has made it easy for critics to write about what she is reputed to have said rather than what she actually wrote. Villa sets (...) out to change that here, explaining clearly, carefully, and forcefully Arendt's major contributions to our understanding of politics, modernity, and the nature of political evil in our century.Villa begins by focusing on some of the most controversial aspects of Arendt's political thought. He shows that Arendt's famous idea of the banality of evil--inspired by the trial of Adolf Eichmann--does not, as some have maintained, lessen the guilt of war criminals by suggesting that they are mere cogs in a bureaucratic machine. He examines what she meant when she wrote that terror was the essence of totalitarianism, explaining that she believed Nazi and Soviet terror served above all to reinforce the totalitarian idea that humans are expendable units, subordinate to the all-determining laws of Nature or History. Villa clarifies the personal and philosophical relationship between Arendt and Heidegger, showing how her work drew on his thought while providing a firm repudiation of Heidegger's political idiocy under the Nazis. Less controversially, but as importantly, Villa also engages with Arendt's ideas about the relationship between political thought and political action. He explores her views about the roles of theatricality, philosophical reflection, and public-spiritedness in political life. And he explores what relationship, if any, Arendt saw between totalitarianism and the "great tradition" of Western political thought. Throughout, Villa shows how Arendt's ideas illuminate contemporary debates about the nature of modernity and democracy and how they deepen our understanding of philosophers ranging from Socrates and Plato to Habermas and Leo Strauss.Direct, lucid, and powerfully argued, this is a much-needed analysis of the central ideas of one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century. (shrink)

This essay will explore some of al-Farabi’s paradoxical remarks on the nature and status of the democratic city (al-madinah al-jama'iyyah). In describing this type of non-virtuous city, Farabi departs significantly from Plato, according the democratic city a superior standing and casting it in a more positive light. Even though at one point Farabi follows Plato in considering the timocratic city to be the best of the imperfect cities, at another point he implies that the democratic city occupies this (...) position. Since Farabi’s discussion of imperfect cities is derived from Plato’s Republic and follows it in many important respects, I will argue that his departure from Plato in this context is significant and points to some revealing differences between the two philosophers. In order to demonstrate this, I will first set up a comparison between Plato’s conception of the democratic city and Farabi’s. Then I will propose three explanations for the greater appreciation that Farabi seems to have for democracy, as well as for the apparent contradiction in Farabi’s verdict concerning the second best city. (shrink)

Already in ancient philosophy, there was a transition from the implicit and hidden action of the Logical ( lógos) in nature ( phýsis) to the scientific and explicit expression of the logical structures of thought, action, the world and language. Heraclitus' heno-logic with Logos as hidden implicit principle of homologization of opposites ( tà enantía) in nature differs from Parmenides' paraconsistent logic developed in a hypothetical hemidyalectics given in the formula ''All is One'' ( hén pánta eînai). Plato's concept (...) of dia-logic (dialektikè téchne ) with a new concept of Logos as the one genus of beings ( hén tí génon toôn ontoôn) in which the word not-Being (negation) got its place enabled production of dyadic logical structure by the granulation of genera into opposite species and sub-species that it contains. Aristotle's concept of triadic-logic as syl-logistics ( syllogismós) and demonstrative science (epistéme apodeiktikê ) give a new approach by new granulation of the concept of Logos into triadic logical structure: (1) the structure of being (substratum-attributes relation), (2) the structure of thought (substance-second substances relation), and (3) the structure of propositions (subject-predicate relation). Plato's dialectic and Aristotle's syllogistic both deconstructed the implicit ontological unity of the world (pan, kosmos, sphairos ) given through the concept of Logos in Pre-Socratic philosophy in order to make that unity in explicit form given by the logical and semantical structures of the propositions about the world, about the thought and about the language. The hidden implicit of the nature, which had to be known intuitively, was transformed into unhidden explicit inferential logical structures given in the semantics and pragmatics of scientific demonstration. (shrink)

I address here the question what sense to make of the idea that there can be thought prior to language. I begin by juxtaposing two familiar and influential philosophical views, one associated with the work of Paul Grice, the other associated with the work of Donald Davidson. Grice and Davidson share a broad, rationalist perspective on language and thought, but they endorse conflicting theses on the relation between them. Whereas, for Grice, thought of an especially complex sort is a precondition (...) of linguistic meaning, for Davidson, there can be no genuine thought without language. I argue that both views present us with unpalatable alternatives concerning our understanding of the natural origins of objective thought and meaningful language. Drawing on what I take to be key insights from Grice and Davidson, I then lay out some broad desiderata for an intermediate position. I finally turn to a certain form of nonlinguistic communication of the sort of which both prelinguistic children and languageless animals are capable, viz., expressive communication. I propose that a proper appreciation of the character and function of expressive communication can help us trace the outlines of the desired intermediate position. (shrink)

Socrates' attitude towards falsehood is quite puzzling in the Republic. Although Socrates is clearly committed to truth, at several points he discusses the benefits of falsehood. This occurs most notably in Book 3 with the "noble lie" (414d-415c) and most disturbingly in Book 5 with the "rigged sexual lottery" (459d-460c). This raises the question: What kinds of falsehoods does Socrates think are beneficial, and what kinds of falsehoods does he think are harmful? And more broadly: What can this tell us (...) about the relationship between ethics and epistemology? The key to answering these questions lies in an obscure and paradoxical passage in Book II; at 382a-d Socrates distinguishes between "true falsehoods" and "impure lies." True falsehoods are always bad, but impure lies are sometimes beneficial. Despite Socrates' insistence that he is not saying anything deep, his distinction is far from straightforward. Nevertheless, in order to determine why some falsehoods are beneficial and why some are always harmful, we must understand what exactly true falsehoods are and how they differ from impure lies. In this paper, I argue that true falsehoods are a restricted class of false beliefs about ethics; they are false beliefs about how one should live and what one should pursue. I refer to these beliefs as "normative commitments." False normative commitments are always pernicious because they create and sustain psychological disharmony. Unlike true falsehoods, impure lies can be about anything. Nevertheless, they are only beneficial when they help produce and sustain true normative commitments. I argue that the upshot of this is that practical concerns have a kind of primacy over theoretical concerns. (shrink)

This work contends that the metaphysical understanding of the human person, simply as a rational and free being is incomprehensive, and for a comprehensive understanding of the human person, there is a need to understand the human person as a conscious being in action and in relationship within and without itself due to the shared consciousness of 「仁。」To guide this philosophical investigation, the writer posits the research question: How can the philosophy of Karol Wojtyła on the human person help to (...) deepen the understanding of the Confucian philosophy of person as 「仁者」? Thus, in this research the writer has three main tasks. The first task is to substantially investigate and expound the philosophical anthropology of Karol Wojtyła. The second task is to investigate and expose the Confucian concept of 「仁。」The third task is to discourse the human person by the means of a re-interpretation of the concept of 「仁者」as the Wojtyłian concept of “Person-revealed-in-Action.” So, the entire Part One of this work, is aimed at achieving the first task, and the entire Part Two, is aimed at achieving the second and the third tasks of the investigation. The Philosophical anthropology of Karol Wojtyła, is substantially influenced by the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, and the Philosophy of Max Scheler. Hence, the writer creates the background for the exposition of Karol Wojtyła’s philosophical anthropology by presenting a discourse on Thomas Aquinas and Max Scheler. And to understand the concept of persona in Thomas Aquinas there is a need to discuss the philosophical anthropology of Socrates-Plato, Aristotle and Boethius. On the other hand, to understand the phenomenology of Max Scheler, which Karol Wojtyła employed in his analysis of human experience and action, the writer briefly exposes the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl the founder of phenomenological movement and the phenomenology of Heidegger the student of Husserl and the contemporary of Max Scheler. Hence, the writer considers an exposition of the concept of 「仁，」from the perspective of textual analysis of the meaning of 仁 as it is found in three classical text: 《 論語》, 《中庸 》and《孟子》. These three Confucian classics all consider 「仁」as not just an important concept in Confucianism, but as the concept that defines the human person, as the quiddity of the human person. The writer therefore, synthesizes Wojtyła’s concept of “person-revealed-in-action”, and the Confucian concept of 「仁者，」to affirm a philosophy of person that is indeed wholistic and comprehensive. This philosophy of person, the writer gives the name: “Jenism.” “Jenism” then, is the concept of the human person (人) understood from a synthesis of the Wojtyłian concept of human action and the Confucian understanding of 「仁。」This understanding of the human person, does not only explain the metaphysical quiddity of the human person, but also explains the specific difference of the human life. The writer, therefore, is persuaded to think that a philosophy of person has been developed that is capable of responding to the philosophical anthropological problematics of our contemporary times. Especially, with problematics that are related to Ethics, Bioethics, Human Dignity and Artificial Intelligence. (shrink)

Plato’s account of pleasure in Republic IX has been treated as an ill-conceived and deeply flawed account that Plato thankfully retracted and replaced in the Philebus. I am convinced, however, that this received view of the Republic’s account is false. In this paper, I will not concern myself with whether, or in what way, Plato’s account of pleasure in the Republic falls short of what we find in the Philebus, but will rather focus on the merits of (...) the former. My concern will be further narrowed down to the first half of the third proof: the proof involves two criteria for the evaluation of pleasures, the criteria of purity and of truth, both of which yield the result that the philosopher’s pleasures are the most pleasant (because it turns out that only those pleasures are pure and only they are true). I will be addressing the criterion of purity, which is based on a psychological/phenomenological account of pleasure and pain. This account has been harshly criticized as full of ambiguity and confusion, as I explain in detail below. I believe, however, that these criticisms result from misunderstanding, and failing to appreciate the complexity of, Plato’s account. In this paper, I will offer an interpretation of Plato’s psychological account of pleasure and pain in Republic IX, showing that this account is, contrary to its detractors, both interesting and persuasive on many points. (shrink)

In Republic 8–9, Socrates describes four main kinds of vicious people, all of whose souls are “ruled” by an element other than reason, and in some of whom reason is said to be “enslaved.” What role does reason play in such souls? In this paper, I argue, based on Republic 8–9 and related passages, and in contrast to some common alternative views, that for Plato the “enslavement” of reason consists in this: instead of determining for itself what is good, (...) reason is forced to desire and pursue as good a goal determined by the soul’s ruler. (shrink)

Note: "Next to Godliness" (Apeiron) is an expanded version of this paper. -/- According to Plato's successors, assimilation to god (homoiosis theoi) was the end (telos) of the Platonic system. There is ample evidence to support this claim in dialogues ranging from the Symposium through the Timaeus. However, the Philebus poses a puzzle for this conception of the Platonic telos. On the one hand, Plato states that the gods are beings beyond pleasure while, on the other hand, he (...) argues that the best human life necessarily involves pleasure. In this paper, I argue that the solution to this puzzle lies in the fact that the processes by which we assimilate to god, learning and becoming virtuous, are restitutive and hence pleasant. Thus, the reason why the best human life necessarily involves pleasure is that we can never become fully divine and perfect, but must constantly strive to become like the divine, through pleasureful restitutive processes. In this paper, I also provide a close examination and taxonomy of the different models that Plato presents throughout his corpus of assimilation to god. (shrink)

Under semantic monism I understand the thesis “The Good is said in one way” and under semantic pluralism the antithesis “The Good is said in many ways”. Plato’s Socrates seems to defend a “semantic monism”. As only one sun exists, so the “Good” has for Socrates and Plato only one reference. Nevertheless, Socrates defends in the Philebus a semantic pluralism, more exactly trialism, of “beauty, symmetry and truth” . Therefore, metaphorically speaking, there seem to exist not only one (...) sun, but three suns. If the platonic Socrates defends a semantic monism on the one hand and pluralism on the other, how can we unite his pluralism with his monism? My thesis is that the three references are “qualities” of the one single reference, or again, speaking metaphorically, “side suns” of the single sun. In the following, I propose first an exegesis of Plato’s last written word on the Good in Phil. 65 A 1-5 by dividing it into five sentences. Second, I ask a philosophical question on this monism and the corresponding hierarchy of values. (shrink)

This paper is in part an introduction to Plato's late political philosophy. In the central sections, I look at Plato's Laws and Statesman and ask the question of how law can produce authentic virtue. If law is merely coercive or habituating, but virtue requires rational understanding, there will be a gap between what law can do and what it is supposed to do. I examine the solution to this difficulty proposed in the Laws, the persuasive preludes attached to (...) the laws, and suggest that they produce an inferior, passive mode of rational order that falls short of full virtue. (shrink)

This is a defence of the authenticity of Plato’s Epistula vii against the recent onslaught by Frede and Burnyeat (2015). It focusses on what Ep. vii has to say about writing and the embedded philosophical Digression and evaluates this in the context of other mainly late dialogues. In the Cratylus, Socrates ends with resignation regarding the potential of language study as a source of truth. This is also the case in Ep. vii, where the four means of knowledge (names, (...) definitions, images (diagrams) and knowledge/insight/true opinion) do not offer the essence of reality due to the weakness of language, in this case owing to a diagram with contrary properties. Consequently, name and definition are impermanent and conventional. Contra Burnyeat, definition is not impossible but useful in the acquisition of knowledge. Only after dialectical examination comes a flash of insight into reality. So, reality (truth) must, as in the Cratylus, be studied directly. Significantly for Plato (as opposed to Socrates), the epistemology is illustrated by a mathematical case. Hence it is relevant to look at mathematical procedure in middle and late dialogues. Moreover, the possible role of division is considered. Finally, the critique of writing justified by the Digression is placed in the context of the general aversion to the written word. The epistemology of the Digression is shown to be a fair and competent synopsis of the later Plato’s epistemology. Hence, there seems to be no reason thus far to doubt that Ep. vii is a genuine work of Plato. (shrink)

In Republic V Socrates offer three successive waves of paradox, the first being that amongst the rulers men and women will be assigned to fulfill the same social functions and the second being that amongst the rulers the traditional private family will be abolished. In her article “Philosopher Queens and Private Wives: Plato on Women and the Family” (Philosophy and Public Affairs (1977)) Susan Moller Okin argued that Plato’s argument is that the second wave of paradox implies the (...) first. In this note I rebut Okin’s arguments and show, in part based on evidence adduced by Okin herself, that for Plato it is the first wave of paradox that implies the second. (shrink)

Plato is among the most influential philosophers in the course of history, and the range of his ideas about different issues makes other scholars impressed. Considering his various views on varied subjects, one can argue that many ideas of the thinkers originated from Plato’s ideas in the contemporary world. Plato, in different positions, discussed women and their equality with men, especially in Republic Book V. The study of the ideas makes one suppose that the book explores the (...) roots of feminist theory. In Book V, Plato deals with the equality of women and men related to learning different issues and positions. Besides, he has discussed the children-sharing system resulting in the elimination of the private family system. Plato’s opinions are highly disputed; on the one hand, his ideas are considered feminist, and on the other hand, however, they are seen with no relation to feminist philosophy. The present paper aims to judge opinions related to women in the Republic Book V. -/- . (shrink)

Plato seems to countenance both positive and negative Forms, that is to say, both good and bad ones. He may not say so outright, but he invokes both and rejects neither. The apparent finality of this impression creates a lack of direct interest in the subject: Plato scholars do not give negative Forms much thought except as the prospect relates to something else they happen to be doing. Yet when they do give the matter any thought, typically for (...) the sake of a prior concern, they try either to support the textual evidence or to contradict it, indicating that the evidence does not stand on its own. The purpose of this paper is to determine why they tend to affirm or deny the obvious, how they try to confirm or dispute it, and what this says about Plato’s position. The strategic vehicle is a comparative case study. The confirmation comes from Debra Nails (2013), who needs to embrace negative Forms to demonstrate that the unhypothetical first principle of the all is not identical to the Form of the good, something she cannot do unless Plato recognizes negative Forms. The contradiction comes from Holger Thesleff (2013), who needs to reject negative (Ideal) Forms because the defining feature of his (Ideal) Forms is the possession of positive intrinsic value, which cannot be predicated of anything negative. Despite defending opposite views, or perhaps because of this, they jointly make up for any lack of interest in the scholarly community. I appreciate both yet side with Thesleff. (shrink)

Plato is known to have given only one public lecture, called "On the Good." We have one highly reliable quotation from Plato himself, stating his doctrine that "the Good is one." The lecture was a set of ideas that existed as an historical event but is now lost--and it dealt with ideas of supreme importance, in brief form, by the greatest of philosophers. Any reading of the lecture is speculative. My approach is philosophical rather than historiographic. The liminal (...) existence of the lecture is taken as an exemplar of the retrieval of what is lost in historical time. Through the lecture-event I examine several major schools of Platonic interpretation--the esotercists of the 1950's, and after, and Hans-Georg Gadamer and the "aporetic" reading--and reject most of it. My method is to establish in tandem an explanation of the lecture doctrine, especially by a reading of issue of normative ethics in the Philebus, and an account of how we are to understand Plato's way of teaching. Plato affirms the existence of the Good itself and was concerned with explaining its relation to persons as moral agents, which includes teaching, amidst the determinants of moral life and in transmission across time. The tension between universal good and plural goods suggests a fruitful relationship between normative ethics and historical theory. I apply this especially to the viability of intellectual history, to material culture studies, and to our understanding of the way in which history "lives." For this I suggest "a moral turn" in historiography in support of cultural theory. (shrink)

Two Socratic dialogues often considered “comic”—Ion and Hippias Major—have also been contested as to their Platonic authenticity. Plato’s dialogues; while certainly engaging, can also seem grim in their philosophical intensity: At least one author has contended that the dialogue more firmly established as genuinely by Plato, Symposium; has some comic elements: This article goes a step further in suggesting that this dialogue does not merely have comic elements but is in fact a comedy. It draws on several texts (...) in the literature on Greek comedy over the past century and suggests that; although the dialogue sets itself serious philosophical challenges, its structure; style; and method are deeply steeped in comedic modes from around Plato’s day. This is not to presume whether Plato was deliberately writing a comedy. In general, writers are often strongly influenced by literary fashions of the day, so it would not be far stretching the matter to understand the work as comedic. Thereby, the article offers, via textual analysis, an argument for how the dialogue is a comedy along withcounter-arguments against such a notion. In the end, indeed, acknowledging it is a comedy promises to open up new angles on interpreting that dialogue. (shrink)

This essay argues that Plato in the Republic needs an account of why and how the three distinct parts of the soul are parts of one soul, and it draws on the Phaedrus and Gorgias to develop an account of compositional unity that fits what is said in the Republic.

I argue that, according to Plato, the body is the sole cause of psychic disorders. This view is expressed at Timaeus 86b in an ambiguous sentence that has been widely misunderstood by translators and commentators. The goal of this article is to offer a new understanding of Plato’s text and view. In the first section, I argue that although the body is the result of the gods’ best efforts, their sub-optimal materials meant that the soul is constantly vulnerable (...) to the body’s influences. In the second section, I argue that every psychic disorder is a disruption of the motions of the inner psychic circles by the body; moreover, I defend my translation of 86b. In the final section, I argue that the goal of education is to restore the circles to their original orbits, and I disarm a possible objection that bad education is also a cause of psychic disorder. (shrink)

Plato’s Laws include what H.L.A. Hart called the ‘classical thesis’ about the nature and role of law: the law exists to see that one leads a morally good life. This paper develops Hart’s brief remarks by providing a panorama of the classical thesis in Laws. This is done by considering two themes: (1) the extent to which Laws is paternalistic, and (2) the extent to which Laws is naturalistic. These themes are significant for a number of reasons, including because (...) they show how Laws might be viewed as a sophisticated forerunner of natural law theory. The upshot is that Plato's metaphysical commitments about legal ontology allow him to base the truth of legal propositions on the way they relate to the truth of corresponding moral propositions. (shrink)