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Challenges the idea that Plato is a secular thinker, exploring the interaction of philosophy and Greek religion in the dialogues.
Shows how Plato's distinction between the traditional and cosmic gods sheds new light on his relation to Greek religion.
This book sheds new light on Plato's cosmology in relation to Greek religion by examining the contested distinction between the traditional and cosmic gods. A close reading of the later dialogues shows that the two families of gods are routinely deployed to organise and structure Plato's accounts of the origins of the universe and of humanity and its social institutions, and to illuminate the moral and political ideals of philosophical utopias. Vilius Bartninkas argues that the presence of the two kinds of gods creates a dynamic, yet productive, tension in Plato's thinking which is unmistakable and which is not resolved until the works of his students. Thus the book closes by exploring how the cosmological and religious ideas of Plato's later dialogues resurfaced in the Early Academy and how the debates initiated there ultimately led to the collapse of this theological distinction.
Scholarship on the Platonic cosmologies generally focuses on what philosophical doctrines we can extract from the accounts of the gods and the cosmos featured in the late dialogues, especially the Timaeus. Such work aims to unearth what Plato really thought about the gods and their identity and what his perspective was on the origins of the natural world. In contrast, this dissertation investigates Platonic cosmology as a flexible rhetorical form that he used for various purposes in different contexts. Without denying the philosophical core and significance of the cosmologies, we can account for significant differences between them by examining how they speak to their target audiences’ particular perspectives and needs. I devote my analysis to two dialogues in particular: the Timaeus and the Laws. These two dialogues, especially the Timaeus, are the ones scholars tend to single out as the best representations of Plato’s natural philosophy and theology. The scholarly consensus seems to be that these are the dialogues one should focus on in order to understand what Plato really thought about the gods and the cosmos. Furthermore, their cosmologies are most often interpreted as self-standing and it is generally more difficult to see what particular role they play within their unique dramatic context. Focusing on the Timaeus and the Laws is necessary for showing how cosmology plays a distinctive persuasive role even in dialogues where that is not made explicit or especially clear. The first chapter focuses solely on the Timaeus, especially the opening exchange that precedes Timaeus’ cosmology. The opening exchange between Socrates, Timaeus and Critias raises a set of specific problems that Timaeus’ cosmology later addresses. Timaeus presents a mythic cosmology in part because myth is a powerful protreptic resource that can orient non-philosophers toward a more philosophical viewpoint. In this case, Critias is a quasi-philosopher who stands to benefit from such a reorientation. Unlike his companions, Critias is more interested in politics—especially Athenian politics—than philosophy. Furthermore, Critias’ framing of his story about Athens’ victory over Atlantis reveals him as rather naïve. Critias is under the spell of his childhood myths, which portray Athens as a god-beloved, extraordinary polis. One of the aims of Timaeus’ cosmology is to deliver the philosophical challenge Critias’ perspective calls for. Timaeus’ unconventional deities, as well as his views on human nature and our place in the cosmos, are especially well suited to turn someone like Critias toward philosophy. The second chapter discusses the gods of Timaeus’ cosmology and compares Timaeus’ theology with the Athenian Visitor’s in the Laws, especially book X. It starts with an examination and comparison of how Timaeus and the Athenian position themselves vis-à- vis traditional religion. The different levels of deference to tradition that they show are explained by reference to their differing rhetorical and political agendas. Timaeus suggests that the traditional gods are less important and more difficult to understand than those deities his account focuses on, such as the Demiurge, to prompt Critias and others like him to see the traditional gods so important to them in a new light. The Athenian, by contrast, is more protective of the traditional pantheon and casts himself as a defender of established religious and cultural forms, even though his theology in book X focuses on vaguely identified celestial movers. His aim is not to challenge but to preserve piety in the ideal city he is designing. A detailed examination of Timaeus’ novel deities—the Demiurge, the cosmos, and their subordinates—follows. The way Timaeus’ theology casts the Demiurge and his creations as benefitting all humans alike while also remaining for the most part uninvolved and distant from human affairs stands in contrast with Critias’ focus on Athena and her special bond with Athens. The Athenian’s conception of the gods’ relation to humans is notably different: though, unlike Timaeus, he does not describe the gods carefully designing our souls and bodies, he is more invested than Timaeus is in the notion that the gods pay attention to human affairs and punish wrongdoers. This is because he is presenting a theology to support civic religion and he recognizes that fear of the gods’ wrath plays a major role in maintaining obedience to the laws. The third chapter addresses the different perspectives on the polis and human society that Timaeus and the Athenian represent in their cosmologies and what that can tell us about the relationship between philosophy, cosmology and politics. On the one hand, Timaeus encourages us to think of our ultimate end as being completely independent of our political and social identity and affiliations; the conception of human happiness he advances within his cosmology is surprisingly apolitical. On the other hand, the Athenian endorses a view of human happiness and fulfillment in which the polis plays an indispensable role. It is fitting, therefore, that while the city is mostly absent from Timaeus’ cosmology, the Athenian’s invests justice in the polis with cosmic significance. Whereas Timaeus’ avoidance of the political is part of his strategy to turn people like Critias toward a less parochial, more cosmopolitan perspective, the Athenian’s attention to the city’s significance for both the individual and the cosmos is in keeping with his use of cosmology as a supplement to civic religion. The ways the Timaeus and the Laws use cosmology complement one another: though they present philosophy and its relation to our happiness and ultimate end in a different light, taken together they illuminate philosophy’s indispensability for proper political engagement and its longing to reshape the political realm.
The first edition of the Cambridge Companion to Plato (1992), edited by Richard Kraut, shaped scholarly research and guided new students for thirty years. This new edition introduces students to fresh approaches to Platonic dialogues while advancing the next generation of research. Of its seventeen chapters, nine are entirely new, written by a new generation of scholars. Six others have been thoroughly revised and updated by their original authors. The volume covers the full range of Plato's interests, including ethics, political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, religion, mathematics, and psychology. Plato's dialogues are approached as unified works and considered within their intellectual context, and the revised introduction suggests a way of reading the dialogues that attends to the differences between them while also tracing their interrelations. The result is a rich and wide-ranging volume which will be valuable for all students and scholars of Plato.
"Plato's Statesman reconsiders many questions familiar to readers of the Republic: questions in political theory - such as the qualifications for the leadership of a state and the best from of constitution (politeia) - as well as questions of philosophical methodology and epistemology. Instead of the theory of Forms that is the centrepiece of the epistemology of the Republic, the emphasis here is on the dialectical practice of collection and division (diairesis), in whose service the interlocutors also deploy the ancillary methods of myth and of models (paradeigmata). Plato here introduces the doctrine of due measure (to metrion) and a conception of statecraft (politikē) as an architectonic expertise that governs subordinate disciplines such as rhetoric and the military - doctrines later developed by Aristotle. Readers will find a sustained defence of the importance of expertise (technē or epistēmē) in the conduct of affairs of state, a robust (although not unqualified) defence of the rule of law, and an unsparing but nuanced critique of democratic government. The chapters in this volume provide a comprehensive and detailed philosophical engagement with the entirety of Plato's wide-ranging dialogue, with successive chapters devoted to the sections of the dialogue as it unfolds, and an introduction that places the dialogue in the context of Plato's philosophy as a whole. While not a commentary in the traditional sense, the volume engages with Plato's Statesman in its entirety" -- Publisher's description.
Frisbee Sheffield argues that the Symposium has been unduly marginalized by philosophers. Although the topic - eros - and the setting at a symposium have seemed anomalous, she demonstrates that both are intimately related to Plato's preoccupation with the nature of the good life, with virtue, and how it is acquired and transmitted. For Plato, analysing our desires is a way of reflecting on the kind of people we will turn out to be and on our chances of leading a worthwhile and happy life. In its focus on the question why he considered desires to be amenable to this type of reflection, this book explores Plato's ethics of desire.
Provides a comprehensive account of the socio-political role Aristotle attributes to traditional religion, despite rejecting its content.
Many critics bemoan the lack of civic engagement in America. Tocqueville's ''nation of joiners'' seems to have become a nation of alienated individuals, disinclined to fulfill the obligations of citizenship or the responsibilities of self-government. In response, the critics urge community involvement and renewed education in the civic virtues. But what kind of civic engagement do we want, and what sort of citizenship should we encourage? In Socratic Citizenship, Dana Villa takes issue with those who would reduce citizenship to community involvement or to political participation for its own sake. He argues that we need to place more value on a form of conscientious, moderately alienated citizenship invented by Socrates, one that is critical in orientation and dissident in practice. Taking Plato's Apology of Socrates as his starting point, Villa argues that Socrates was the first to show, in his words and deeds, how moral and intellectual integrity can go hand in hand, and how they can constitute importantly civic--and not just philosophical or moral--virtues. More specifically, Socrates urged that good citizens should value this sort of integrity more highly than such apparent virtues as patriotism, political participation, piety, and unwavering obedience to the law. Yet Socrates' radical redefinition of citizenship has had relatively little influence on Western political thought. Villa considers how the Socratic idea of the thinking citizen is treated by five of the most influential political thinkers of the past two centuries--John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber, Hannah Arendt, and Leo Strauss. In doing so, he not only deepens our understanding of these thinkers' work and of modern ideas of citizenship, he also shows how the fragile Socratic idea of citizenship has been lost through a persistent devaluation of independent thought and action in public life. Engaging current debates among political and social theorists, this insightful book shows how we must reconceive the idea of good citizenship if we are to begin to address the shaky fundamentals of civic culture in America today.