Tag: Piety

Topics

Major Works

  • Apology

    - Recommended translation: Plato. "Apology." In Four Texts on Socrates, translated by Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West, 1–33. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984; revised edition, 1998.
    Excerpt from Plato’s Apology: “How you, men of Athens, have been affected by my accusers, I do not know; but I, for my part, almost forgot my own identity, so persuasively did they talk; and yet there is hardly a word of truth in what they have… More

  • Parmenides

    - Recommended translations:
    • Plato's Parmenides, trans. Samuel Scolnicov (Berkeley, 2003).
    • Plato's Parmenides,  trans. Albert Keith Whitaker (Focus, 1996).
    • "Parmenides," trans. M. L. Gill and Paul Ryan in Plato: Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper (Hackett, 1997).
    Excerpt: Cephalus When we came from our home at Clazomenae to Athens, we met Adeimantus and Glaucon in the market-place. Adeimantus took me by the hand and said, “Welcome, Cephalus, if there is anything we can do for you here, let us know.” “Why,”… More

Other Works

  • Euthyphro

    - Recommended translation: "Euthyphro" in Four Texts on Socrates,  trans. Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West (Cornell University Press: 1984, rev. 1998).  
    About the dialogue: Euthyphro (ca. 399 BCE) is a Socratic dialogue by Plato, set in the weeks leading up to Socrates’ trial and death. While awaiting a preliminary hearing near the king archon’s court, Socrates meets Euthryphro, and the two men… More

  • Theages

    - Recommended translations:
    • "Theages," trans. T. Pangle in The Roots of Political Philosophy, ed. Thomas L. Pangle (Cornell, 1987).
    • "Theages," trans. N. Smith in Plato: Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper (Hackett, 1997).
    Excerpt: Demodocus Socrates, I was wanting to have some private talk with you, if you had time to spare; even if there is some demand, which is not particularly important, on your time, do spare some, nevertheless, for me. Socrates Why, in any case I happen… More

Commentary

  • Plato and Parmenides

    - Cornford, Francis MacDonald, Plato and Parmenides: Parmenides' Way of Truth and Plato's Parmenides, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1939; repr. Routledge, 2010.
    Excerpt: Parmenides was likely written within the last two decades preceding Plato’s death in 347 BCE. Despite two millennia of documented commentary, scholars struggle to make sense of it. Almost every major discussion of the Parmenides in this… More

  • On Plato’s Apology of Socrates and Crito by Leo Strauss

    - Strauss, Leo. “On Plato's Apology of Socrates and Crito.” In Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, 68–97. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.
    From the publisher: “One of the outstanding thinkers of our time offers in this book his final words to posterity. Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy was well underway at the time of Leo Strauss’s death in 1973. Having chosen the title for the… More

  • Plato’s Parmenides: The Conversion of the Soul

    - Miller, Mitchell H., Plato's Parmenides: The Conversation of the Soul, University Park, PA: Princeton University Press, 1986.
    Excerpt: Plato’s stage-setting in the Parmenides is remarkably intricate and detailed. This is especially so in the opening pages, in which Plato provides a series of intermediary personae to introduce the conversation proper between Socrates, Zeno,… More

  • On the Theages

    - Pangle, Thomas L., "On the Theages," The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, ed. Thomas L. Pangle, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987, 147-74.
    Excerpt: As the subtitle suggests and as is confirmed by even a cursory reading, the theme of the Theages is wisdom. This dialogue thus stands with the four other dialogues that treat thematically the cardinal virtues (Republic, Charmides, Laches,… More

  • Plato’s Parmenides

    - Meinwald, Constance C., Plato's Parmenides, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
    Excerpt: Plato’s Parmenides today finds itself in a strange position: it is clearly an important work, but its import remains remarkably unclear. The difficulty of analyzing this text is due, in part, to its complicated structure. Within three frames… More

  • Euthyphro

    - Cropsey, Joseph, "Euthyphro," Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995.  
    Excerpt: There are at least three principles on which the Dialogues of Plato, or some of them, can be arranged to form a general schema. The first to be employed was the ancient grouping of the dialogues in the famous tetralogies according to their perceived… More

  • Apology of Socrates

    - Cropsey, Joseph, "Apology of Socrates," Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
    Excerpt: There are at least three principles on which the Dialogues of Plato, or some of them, can be arranged to form a general schema. The first to be employed was the ancient grouping of the dialogues in the famous tetralogies according to their perceived… More

  • Plato’s Parmenides

    - Scolnicov, Samuel, Plato's Parmenides, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003.
    Excerpt: Of all Plato’s dialogues, the Parmenides is notoriously the most difficult to interpret. Scholars of all periods have disagreed about its aims and subject matter. The interpretations have ranged from reading the dialogue as an introduction to the… More

  • Plato’s Parmenides: Parmenides’ Critique of Scrates and Plato’s Critique of Parmenides

    - Zuckert, Catherine H., "Plato's Parmenides: Parmenides' Critique of Scrates and Plato's Critique of Parmenides," Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 147-79.
    Excerpt: The conversation depicted in the Parmenides between the elderly Eleatic and Socrates is usually thought to have occurred in 450. The Parmenides thus gives Plato’s readers their first view of the young Socrates, when he was eighteen or… More

  • The Trial and Death of Socrates

    - Zuckert, Catherine H., "The Trial and Death of Socrates," Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
    Excerpt: Alfred North Whitehead’s quip that all subsequent philosophy is merely a footnote to Plato has often been repeated, but those who repeat it do not seem to have thought much about the difference between the source and the scholarship on it.… More

  • The Ironic Defense of Socrates: Plato’s Apology

    - Leibowitz, David M., The Ironic Defense of Socrates: Plato's Apology, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
    Excerpt: Thirty-five Platonic dialogues have come down to us as genuine. Socrates is present in at least thirty-three and the chief speaker in at least twenty-seven. Yet he is mentioned in a title only this once. Plato’s Socrates first comes to sigh,… More

  • Plato’s Parmenides: A Sketch

    - Benardete, Seth, "Plato's Parmenides: A Sketch," The Archaeology of the Soul: Platonic Readings in Ancient Poetry and Philosophy, ed. Ronna Burger and Michael Davis, St. Augustine Press, 2012.

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