Plotinus the Master and the Apotheosis of Imperial Platonism

Plotinus the Master and the Apotheosis of Imperial Platonism
Author: William H. F. Altman
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 473
Release: 2024-01-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1666944408

With both the Roman Empire and contemporary scholarship as backdrop, this book contrasts the Imperial Platonism of Plotinus with Plato's own by distinguishing one as a master enlightening disciples, and the other as an Athenian teacher who taught students to discover the truth for themselves in the Academy.

Plato and Demosthenes

Plato and Demosthenes
Author: William H. F. Altman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2022-10-25
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1666920061

Universally regarded as Plato’s student in antiquity, it is the eloquent and patriotic orator Demosthenes—not the pro-Macedonian Aristotle who tutored Alexander the Great—who returned to the dangerous Cave of political life, and thus makes it possible to recover the Old Academy. In Plato and Demosthenes: Recovering the Old Academy, William H. F. Altman explores how Demosthenes—along with Phocion, Lycurgus, and Hyperides—add external and historical evidence for the hypothesis that Plato’s brilliant and challenging dialogues constituted the Academy’s original curriculum. Altman rejects the facile view that the eloquent Plato, a master speech-writer as well as the proponent of the transcendent and post-eudaemonist Idea of the Good, was rhetoric’s enemy. He shows how Demosthenes acquired the discipline necessary to become a great orator, first by shouting at the sea and then by summoning the Athenians to self-sacrifice in defense of their waning freedom. Demosthenes thus proved Socrates’ criticism of democracy and the democratic man wrong, just as Plato the Teacher had intended that his best students would, and as he continues to challenge us to do today.

The Relay Race of Virtue

The Relay Race of Virtue
Author: William H. F. Altman
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 487
Release: 2022-11-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1438490933

The ancient view that Plato and Xenophon were rivals at least had the merit of allowing them to respond to each other; in modern times, the view that Plato wrote first eliminates the possibility of an exchange between the only two Socratics whose writings are preserved intact. Challenging the chronological assumptions on which Plato's across-the-board priority currently rests, the purpose of The Relay Race of Virtue is to show that Plato and Xenophon were responding to each other and that we can gain a greater appreciation for both by recognizing the back-and-forth nature of their friendly dialogue. Instead of regarding Xenophon as Plato's inept copyist, William H. F. Altman presents him as first blazing the trail for his fellow Socratic and then learning from Plato in return. By emphasizing "Plato's Debts to Xenophon," Altman is charitable to both, justifying Socrates' belief (Memorabilia 1.2.8) "that those of his companions who adopted his principles of conduct would throughout life be good friends to him and to each other."

The Self-predication Assumption in Plato

The Self-predication Assumption in Plato
Author: David Apolloni
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780739144848

This book defends the view that a mysterious plural phrase at Phaedo 74 shows that the Self-Predication Assumptionthe idea that each Form is supposed to have the very characteristic it is supposed to instantiateis both plausible and leads to no infinite regress of Forms. It is an essential read for scholars, specialists and students with an interes

The Revival of Platonism in Cicero's Late Philosophy

The Revival of Platonism in Cicero's Late Philosophy
Author: William H. F. Altman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9781498527118

This book argues that Cicero deserves to be spoken of with more respect and to be studied with greater care. Using Plato's influence on Cicero's life and writings as a clue, Altman reveals the ineffable combination of qualities that enabled Cicero not only to revive Platonism, but also to rival Plato himself.

Cicero on Politics and the Limits of Reason

Cicero on Politics and the Limits of Reason
Author: Jed W. Atkins
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2013-10-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1107513235

A prolific philosopher who also held Rome's highest political office, Cicero was uniquely qualified to write on political philosophy. In this book Professor Atkins provides a fresh interpretation of Cicero's central political dialogues - the Republic and Laws. Devoting careful attention to form as well as philosophy, Atkins argues that these dialogues together probe the limits of reason in political affairs and explore the resources available to the statesman given these limitations. He shows how Cicero appropriated and transformed Plato's thought to forge original and important works of political philosophy. The book demonstrates that Cicero's Republic and Laws are critical for understanding the history of the concepts of rights, the mixed constitution and natural law. It concludes by comparing Cicero's thought to the modern conservative tradition and argues that Cicero provides a perspective on utopia frequently absent from current philosophical treatments.

Likeness and Likelihood in the Presocratics and Plato

Likeness and Likelihood in the Presocratics and Plato
Author: Jenny Bryan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2012
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521762944

Studies the philosophical development of the meaning of the Greek word eoikos, which can be used to describe similarity, plausibility or even suitability. It focuses on Xenophanes, Parmenides and Plato's Timaeus and shows how such a study serves to enhance our understanding of their epistemology and methodology.

The Question of Eclecticism

The Question of Eclecticism
Author: J. M. Dillon
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2023-04-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0520317610

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988.

A Person as a Lifetime

A Person as a Lifetime
Author: Stephanie M. Semler
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 170
Release: 2016-03-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0739198467

Is it possible to derive a viable definition of persons from Aristotle’s work? In A Person as a Lifetime: An Aristotelian Account of Persons, Stephanie M. Semler argues that we can. She finds the component parts of this definition in his writing on ethics and metaphysics, and the structure of this working definition is that of an entire lifetime. If J.O. Urmson is right that “[t]o call somebody a eudaimon is to judge his life as a whole,” then a Greek, and by extension an Aristotelian account of personhood would be a description of an entire human life. Likewise, the evaluation of that life would have to be done at its termination. The concept of persons is at least as much a moral one as it is a metaphysical one. For this reason, Semler contends that an important insight about persons is to be found in Aristotle’s ethical works. The significance of judging one to be a eudaimon is in understanding that the life is complete—that is, it has a beginning, middle, and an end, with the same person at the helm for the duration. If we know what Aristotle’s requirements are for a human lifetime is to have all of these features, it follows that we can derive an Aristotelian concept of persons from it. We find the benefit of such an investigation when the difficulties with issues surrounding personal identity seem to indicate that either personal identity must inhere in the physical body of a person, or that, on pain of a view that resembles dualism, it simply doesn’t exist. A Person as a Lifetime will be of particular interest to students and scholars of philosophy, history, classics, and psychology, and to anyone with an interest in Aristotle.

From Plato to Platonism

From Plato to Platonism
Author: Lloyd P. Gerson
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2013-11-27
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0801469171

Was Plato a Platonist? While ancient disciples of Plato would have answered this question in the affirmative, modern scholars have generally denied that Plato’s own philosophy was in substantial agreement with that of the Platonists of succeeding centuries. In From Plato to Platonism, Lloyd P. Gerson argues that the ancients were correct in their assessment. He arrives at this conclusion in an especially ingenious manner, challenging fundamental assumptions about how Plato’s teachings have come to be understood. Through deft readings of the philosophical principles found in Plato's dialogues and in the Platonic tradition beginning with Aristotle, he shows that Platonism, broadly conceived, is the polar opposite of naturalism and that the history of philosophy from Plato until the seventeenth century was the history of various efforts to find the most consistent and complete version of "anti-naturalism."Gerson contends that the philosophical position of Plato—Plato’s own Platonism, so to speak—was produced out of a matrix he calls "Ur-Platonism." According to Gerson, Ur-Platonism is the conjunction of five "antis" that in total arrive at anti-naturalism: anti-nominalism, anti-mechanism, anti-materialism, anti-relativism, and anti-skepticism. Plato’s Platonism is an attempt to construct the most consistent and defensible positive system uniting the five "antis." It is also the system that all later Platonists throughout Antiquity attributed to Plato when countering attacks from critics including Peripatetics, Stoics, and Sceptics. In conclusion, Gerson shows that Late Antique philosophers such as Proclus were right in regarding Plotinus as "the great exegete of the Platonic revelation."