The Handbook of Platonism

The Handbook of Platonism
Author: Alcinous
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 280
Release: 1993
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN:

The Handbook of Platonism, or Didaskalikos, attributed to Alcinous (long identified with the Middle Platonist Albinus, but on inadequate grounds), is a central text of later Platonism. In Byzantine times, in the Italian Renaissance, and even up to 1800, it was regarded as an ideal introduction to Plato's thought. In fact it is far from being this, but it is an excellent source for our understanding of Platonism in the second century AD. Neglected after a more accurate view of Plato's thought established itself in the nineteenth century, the Handbook is only now coming to be properly appreciated for what it is. It presents a survey of Platonist doctrine, divided into the topics of Logic, Physics, and Ethics, and pervaded with Aristotelian and Stoic doctrines, all of which are claimed for Plato. John Dillon presents an English translation of this work, accompanied by an introduction and a philosophical commentary in which he disentangles the various strands of influence, elucidates the complex scholastic tradition that lies behind, and thus reveals the sources and subsequent influence of the ideas expounded.

The Oxford Handbook of Plato

The Oxford Handbook of Plato
Author: Gail Fine
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
Total Pages: 793
Release: 2019
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190639733

Plato is the best known, and continues to be the most widely studied, of all the ancient Greek philosophers. The updated and original essays in the second edition of the Oxford Handbook of Plato provide in-depth discussions of a variety of topics and dialogues, all serving several functions at once: they survey the current academic landscape; express and develop the authors' own views; and situate those views within a range of alternatives. The result is a useful state-of-the-art reference to the man many consider the most important philosophical thinker in history. This second edition of the Oxford Handbook of Plato differs in two main ways from the first edition. First, six leading scholars of ancient philosophy have contributed entirely new chapters: Hugh Benson on the Apology, Crito, and Euthyphro; James Warren on the Protagoras and Gorgias; Lindsay Judson on the Meno; Luca Castagnoli on the Phaedo; Susan Sauvé Meyer on the Laws; and David Sedley on Plato's theology. This new edition therefore covers both dialogues and topics in more depth than the first edition did. Secondly, most of the original chapters have been revised and updated, some in small, others in large, ways.

Alcinous: The Handbook of Platonism

Alcinous: The Handbook of Platonism
Author: Alcinous
Publisher: Clarendon Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 1993-10-28
Genre:
ISBN: 0191591130

John Dillon presents an English translation of Alcinous' Handbook of Platonism, accompanied by an introduction and a philosophical commentary which reveal the intellectual background to the ideas in the work. The Handbook purports to be an introduction to the doctrines of Plato, but in fact gives us an excellent survey of Platonist thought in the second century AD. - ;Clarendon Later Ancient Philosophers This series, which is modelled on the familiar Clarendon Aristotle and Clarendon Plato Series, is designed to encourage philosophers and students of philosophy to explore the fertile terrain of later ancient philosophy. The texts range in date from the first century BC to the fifth century AD, and they cover all the parts and all the schools of philosophy. Each volume contains a substantial introduction, an English translation, and a critical commentary on the philosophical claims and arguments of the text. The accurate and faithful translations are highly readable and accompanied by notes on textual problems that affect the philosophical interpretation. No knowledge of Greek or Latin is assumed. The Handbook of Platonism, or Didaskalikos, attributed to Alcinous (long identified with the Middle Platonist Albinus, but on inadequate grounds), is a central text of later Platonism. In Byzantine times, in the Italian Renaissance, and even up to 1800, it was regarded as an ideal introduction to Plato's thought. In fact it is far from being this, but it is an excellent source for our understanding of Platonism in the second century AD. Neglected after a more accurate view of Plato's thought established itself in the nineteenth century, the Handbook is only now coming to be properly appreciated for what it is. It presents a survey of Platonist doctrine, divided into the topics of Logic, Physics, and Ethics, and pervaded with Aristotelian and Stoic doctrines, all of which are claimed for Plato. John Dillon presents an English translation of this work, accompanied by an introduction and a philosophical commentary in which he disentangles the various strands of influence on the text, elucidates the complex scholastic tradition that lies behind it, and thus reveals the sources and subsequent influence of the ideas expounded. -

The Cambridge Companion to Plato

The Cambridge Companion to Plato
Author: Richard Kraut
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 580
Release: 1992-10-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780521436106

Fourteen new essays discuss Plato's views about knowledge, reality, mathematics, politics, ethics, love, poetry, and religion in a convenient, accessible guide that analyzes the intellectual and social background of his thought as well.

Platonic Ethics, Old and New

Platonic Ethics, Old and New
Author: Julia Annas
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 218
Release: 1999
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780801485176

Julia Annas here offers a fundamental reexamination of Plato's ethical thought by investigating the Middle Platonist perspective, which emerged at the end of Plato's own school, the Academy. She highlights the differences between ancient and modern assumptions about Plato's ethics--and stresses the need to be more critical about our own. One of these modern assumptions is the notion that the dialogues record the development of Plato's thought. Annas shows how the Middle Platonists, by contrast, viewed the dialogues as multiple presentations of a single Platonic ethical philosophy, differing in form and purpose but ultimately coherent. They also read Plato's ethics as consistently defending the view that virtue is sufficient for happiness, and see it as converging in its main points with the ethics of the Stoics. Annas goes on to explore the Platonic idea that humankind's final end is "becoming like God"--an idea that is well known among the ancients but virtually ignored in modern interpretations. She also maintains that modern interpretations, beginning in the nineteenth century, have placed undue emphasis on the Republic, and have treated it too much as a political work, whereas the ancients rightly saw it as a continuation of Plato's ethical writings.

Plato's Dialogues

Plato's Dialogues
Author: Carol Dunn
Publisher: SteinerBooks
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2012-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0983198497

8 lectures, Basel and Dornach, December 22, 1918 - January 1, 1919 (CW 187) "This is the goal toward which mankind strives through the new wisdom, in the new spirit: To find in the spirit itself the power to overcome egotism and the falseness of life, to overcome self-seeking through love, the sham of life through truth, illness through health-giving thoughts that put us into immediate accord with the harmonies of the universe, because they flow from the harmonies of the harmonies of the universe" (Rudolf Steiner). Steiner examines the inner history of Christianity, explaining its relationship to ancient Judaism, Hellenism, Romanism, Gnosticism, and Egypto-Chaldean initiation. He describes the hidden spiritual battle raging today and the need for a renewal of the mysteries in a modern form. Today's road to Christ must involve a new, formative thinking whose Christian character is shown in the advent of selflessness, health, and a sense for truth. George O'Neil describes the nature of these lectures in his foreword: "As always, Rudolf Steiner spoke freely without using notes. Most of his audience had studied--or were at least familiar with--his written works and the published lecture cycles on the Gospels and related themes. A similar background will be needed for reading How Can Mankind Find the Christ Again? Such a background will prepare the reader for challenges and vistas not encountered elsewhere. Steiner's message of the new Christ Light midst the shadow existence of our age speaks to the modern soul in search of a cognitive reach" How Can Mankind Find the Christ Again? is a translation of Wie kan die Menschheit den Christus wiederfinden? Das dreifache Schattendasein unserer Zeit und das neue Christus-Licht (GA 187).

The Roots of Platonism

The Roots of Platonism
Author: John Dillon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 121
Release: 2019-01-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1108665780

How does a school of thought, in the area of philosophy, or indeed of religion, from roots that may be initially open-ended and largely informal, come to take on the features that later mark it out as distinctive, and even exclusive? That is the theme which is explored in this book in respect of the philosophical movement known as Platonism, stemming as it does from the essentially open-ended and informal atmosphere of Plato's Academy. John Dillon focuses on a number of key issues, such as monism versus dualism, the metaphysical underpinnings of ethical theory, the theory of Forms, and the reaction to the Sceptical 'deviation' represented by the so-called 'New Academy'. The book is written in the lively and accessible style of the lecture series in Beijing from which it originates.

The Oxford Handbook of Plato

The Oxford Handbook of Plato
Author: Gail Fine
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 617
Release: 2008-08-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199910448

Plato is the best known, and continues to be the most widely studied, of all the ancient Greek philosophers. The twenty-one commissioned articles in The Oxford Handbook of Plato provide in-depth and up-to-date discussions of a variety of topics and dialogues. The result is a useful state-of-the-art reference to the man many consider the most important philosophical thinker in history. Each article is an original contribution from a leading scholar, and they all serve several functions at once: they survey the lay of the land; express and develop the authors' own views; and situate those views within a range of alternatives. This Handbook contains chapters on metaphysics, epistemology, love, language, ethics, politics, art and education. Individual chapters are devoted to each of the following dialogues: the Republic, Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, Timaeus, and Philebus. There are also chapters on Plato and the dialogue form; on Plato in his time and place; on the history of the Platonic corpus; on Aristotle's criticism of Plato, and on Plato and Platonism.

The History of Religious Imagination in Christian Platonism

The History of Religious Imagination in Christian Platonism
Author: Christian Hengstermann
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2021-03-25
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1350172987

This collection provides the first in-depth introduction to the theory of the religious imagination put forward by renowned philosopher Douglas Hedley, from his earliest essays to his principal writings. Featuring Hedley's inaugural lecture delivered at Cambridge University in 2018, the book sheds light on his robust concept of religious imagination as the chief power of the soul's knowledge of the Divine and reveals its importance in contemporary metaphysics, ethics and politics. Chapters trace the development of the religious imagination in Christian Platonism from Late Antiquity to British Romanticism, drawing on Origen, Henry More and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, before providing a survey of alternative contemporary versions of the concept as outlined by Karl Rahner, René Girard and William P. Alston, as well as within Indian philosophy. By bringing Christian Platonist thought into dialogue with contemporary philosophy and theology, the volume systematically reveals the relevance of Hedley's work to current debates in religious epistemology and metaphysics. It offers a comprehensive appraisal of the historical contribution of imagination to religious understanding and, as such, will be of great interest to philosophers, theologians and historians alike.