Table Of Content

Also available from Bloomsbury Health and Hedonism in Plato and Epicurus, by Kelly Arenson Plato and Plotinus on Mysticism, Epistemology, and Ethics, by David J. Yount Rewriting Contemporary Political Philosophy with Plato and Aristotle, by Paul Schollmeier THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF PLATO 2nd edition Gerald A. Press and Mateo Duque CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS List of contributors xi AcknowLedgements xix List of diALogue AbbreviAtions xx How to use tHis book xxiii Introduction 1 1 PLATO’S LIFE, HISTORICAL, LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHIC CONTEXT 9 Plato’s life 9 Aristophanes and intellectuals 12 Comedy 14 Education 16 Eleatics 18 Isocrates and logography 20 Orality and literacy 23 Poetry (epic and lyric) 25 Pre-socratic philosophers 27 Pythagoreans 31 Rhetoric and speechmaking 34 Socrates (historical) 36 Socratics (other than Plato) 39 The Sophists 42 Xenophon 45 vi CONTENTS 2 THE DIALOGUES 49 The Platonic corpus and manuscript tradition 49 Alcibiades 1 51 The Apology of Socrates 53 Charmides 56 Clitophon 59 Cratylus 61 Crito 63 Dubia and Spuria (Alcibiades 2, Hipparchus, Minos, Rival Lovers, Axiochus, Definitions, On Justice, On Virtue, Demodocus, Eryxias, Sisyphus) 66 Epinomis 70 Euthydemus 73 Euthyphro 76 Gorgias 78 Hippias Major 81 Hippias Minor 83 Ion 85 Laches 87 Laws 89 Letters 91 Lysis 93 Menexenus 96 Meno 98 Parmenides 101 Phaedo 103 Phaedrus 106 Philebus 109 Politicus (Statesman) 111 Protagoras 114 Republic 116 Sophist 122 Symposium 125 Theaetetus 127 Theages 130 Timaeus and Critias 132 3 IMPORTANT FEATURES OF THE DIALOGUES 135 Anonymity 135 Characters 137 Comedy 140 CONTENTS vii Drama 143 History 145 Emotions (pathē, pathēmata) 147 Humour 148 Irony 151 Language 153 Literary composition 155 Musical structure 157 Myth (muthos) 160 Pedagogical structure 162 Pedimental structure 165 Play (paidia) 167 Proleptic composition 169 Reading order 171 Socrates (the character) 173 Tragedy 175 4 CONCEPTS, THEMES AND TOPICS TREATED IN THE DIALOGUES 179 Account (see Logos) 179 Aesthetics 179 Akrasia (incontinence, weakness of will) 181 Animals 184 Antilogy and eristic 186 Aporia 189 Appearance and reality 191 Argument (see Logos) 194 Art (technē) 194 Beauty (kalon) 196 Being and becoming (on, onta; gignesthai) 199 Cause (aitia) 201 Cave, the allegory of the 204 Character 206 City (polis) 208 Convention (see Law) 210 Cosmos (kosmos) 210 Cross-examination (see Elenchus) 212 Daimōn 212 Death 216 Definition (see Logos) 218 viii CONTENTS Desire (appetite, epithumia) 218 Dialectic (dialektikē) 221 The divided line 224 Education 226 Elenchus (cross-examination, refutation) 228 Epistemology (knowledge) 230 Eristic (see Antilogy and Eristics) 233 Erōs (see Love) 233 Eschatology 233 Ethics 235 Eudaimonia (see Happiness) 238 Excellence (virtue, aretē ) 238 Forms (eidos, idea) 240 Friendship (philia) 243 Gender 245 Goodness (the good, Agathon) 248 Happiness (eudaimonia) 251 Hermeneutics 253 Idea (see forms) 256 Image (eikōn) 256 Imitation (see Mimēsis) 258 Incontinence (see Akrasia) 258 Inspiration 258 Intellectualism 261 Justice (dikaion, dikaiosunē) 263 Knowledge (see Epistemology) 266 Language 266 Law, convention (nomos) 269 Logic 271 Logos (account, argument, definition) 274 Love (erōs) 276 Madness and possession 279 Mathematics (mathēmatikē) 281 Medicine (iatrikē) 284 Metaphysics (see Ontology) 287 Metatheatre 287 Method 289 Mimēsis (imitation) 292 Music 294 CONTENTS ix Mysteries 297 Myth (muthos) 300 Nature (phusis) 302 Nomos (see Law) 304 Non-propositional knowledge 304 The one (to hen) 306 Ontology (metaphysics) 308 Orphism 311 Paiderastia (pederasty) 313 Participation 315 Perception and sensation (aisthēsis, aisthanomai) 319 Philosophy and the philosopher 321 Phusis (see Nature) 324 Piety (eusebeia, hosios) 324 Pleasure (hēdonē) 326 Poetry (poiēsis) 329 Politics and the (figure of the) Politicus 331 Reality (see Appearance and reality) 334 Reason 334 Recollection (anamnēsis) 337 Refutation (see Elenchus) 340 Rhetoric (rhetorikē) 340 Self-knowledge 342 Sensation (see Perception and sensation) 344 The Sophists 344 Soul (psychē) 347 The sun simile 350 Theology 352 Time 353 Virtue (see Excellence) 355 Vision 355 Weakness of will (see Akrasia) 358 Women 358 Writing 361 5 LATER RECEPTION, INTERPRETATION AND INFLUENCE OF PLATO AND THE DIALOGUES 365 Section A: Plato in the Ancient World 365 Ancient hermeneutics 365 Aristotle 368 x CONTENTS Academy of Athens, ancient history of 371 Jewish Platonism (ancient) 374 Neoplatonism and its diaspora 377 Section B: Plato in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 380 Medieval Islamic Platonism 380 Medieval Jewish Platonism 383 Medieval Christian Platonism 386 Renaissance Platonism 388 The Cambridge Platonists 391 Section C: Plato in Modern and Contemporary Philosophy 393 Early modern philosophy from Descartes to Berkeley 393 Nineteenth-century German idealism 395 Nineteenth-century Plato scholarship 398 Developmentalism 400 Compositional chronology 402 Analytic approaches to Plato 406 Vlastosian approaches 409 Continental approaches 412 Straussian readings of Plato 414 Plato’s unwritten doctrines 416 Esotericism 418 The Tübingen approach 420 Anti-Platonism, from ancient to modern 422 references 427 Index 510 CONTRIBUTORS CONTRIBUTORS CONTRIBUTORS William H.F. Altman Jeremy R. Bell Independent Scholar Senior Lecturer of Philosophy Calais, VT Emory University USA Atlanta, GA USA Hayden W. Ausland Professor of Classics Rick Benitez University of Montana Associate Professor of Philosophy Missoula, MT The University of Sydney USA Australia Dirk Baltzly Hugh H. Benson Professor of Philosophy Emeritus Professor of Philosophy University of Tasmania University of Oklahoma Australia Norman, OK USA Frederick Beiser Professor of Philosophy Robbert M. van den Berg Syracuse University University Lecturer in Ancient Syracuse, NY Philosophy USA Leiden University The Netherlands Elizabeth S. Belfiore Professor of Classics Emerita Alberto Bernabé University of Minnesota, Twin Professor Emeritus of Classics Cities Complutense University of Minneapolis, MN Madrid USA Spain