Tag: Religion

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

  • Phaedo

    - Recommended translations: Phaedo, trans. G. M. A. Grube (Hackett: 1977) Phaedo, trans. E. Brann (Focus, 1998)
    Excerpt: Echecrates Were you with Socrates yourself, Phaedo, on the day when he drank the poison in prison, or did you hear about it from someone else? Phaedo I was there myself, Echecrates. Echecrates Then what did he say before his death? and how did he… 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

  • Alcibiades II

    - Recommended translations:
    • "Alcibiades II," trans. C. Lord in The Roots of Political Philosophy, ed. Thomas L. Pangle (Cornell, 1987).
    • "Alcibiades II," trans. A. Kenny in Plato: Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper (Hackett, 1997).
    • Socrates and Alcibiades: Four Texts, ed. David Johnson (Focus, 2003).
    Excerpt: Socrates Alcibiades, are you on your way to offer a prayer to the god? Alcibiades I am, certainly, Socrates. Socrates You seem, let me say, to have a gloomy look, and to keep your eyes on the ground, as though you were pondering something. Alcibiades… 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

  • Farabi’s Plato

    - Strauss, Leo, "Farabi's Plato," Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume, American Academy for Jewish Research, 1945.  Reprinted, revised and abbreviated, in Persecution and the Art of Writing.
    Excerpt: Farabi followed Plato not merely as regards the manner in which he presented the philosophic teaching in his most important books.  He held the view that Plato’s philosophy was the true philosophy.  To reconcile his Platonism with his… More

  • How Farabi Read Plato’s Laws

    - Strauss, Leo, "How Farabi Read Plato's Laws," Mélanges Louis Massignon, Institut Francais de Damas, 1957, Vol. 3.  Reprinted in What Is Political Philosophy?
    Excerpt: At first it seems as if Farabi meant to say that all insights which he ascribed to Plato were peculiar to Plato. What he actually says however is that Plato did not find the science which he desired among the sciences and arts which are known to the… More

  • The Political Psychology of Religion in Plato’s Laws

    - Pangle, Thomas L., "The Political Psychology of Religion in Plato’s Laws," The American Political Science Review 70, no. 4 (December 1976), 1059-77.
    Excerpt: Why is it important that we turn our serious attention to Plato’s Laws? How will the study of this antique work help us to come to grips with the dilemma of modern democracy? We find ourselves citizens of rich and powerful regimes which… More

  • The Final Proof of the Immortality of the Soul in Plato’s Phaedo

    - Frede, Dorothea, "The Final Proof of the Immortality of the Soul in Plato's Phaedo 102a – 107a," Phronesis, Vol. 23, No. 1 (1978), pp. 27-41.
    Excerpt: Among the arguments presented by Socrates as proofs for the everlastingness of the human soul the last one has greatly puzzled philosophers because it seems that, in opposition to the earlier arguments, Plato considered this last argument conclusive.

  • Plato and Nietzsche on Death

    - Davis, Michael, "Plato and Nietzsche on Death: An Introduction to Plato's Phaedo," Ancient Philosophy, Vol. 1 (1980), 69-80.
    Excerpt: The title of this paper is something of a lie. It is a noble lie, but it is a lie. Plato and Nietzsche will not be equally treated here. Still, the title reflects one of the crucial problems of contemporary philosophy, and of contemporary life. For… More

  • Socrates’ Pre-Socratism: Some Remarks on the Structure of Plato’s Phaedo

    - Davis, Michael, "Socrates' Pre-Socratism: Some Remarks on the Structure of Plato's Phaedo," Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 33, No. 3 (March 1980).
    Excerpt: To Speak of Socrates’ pre-Socraticism is puzzling. It suggests that there was a time at which Socrates was not Socrates. That is not entirely misleading. There was something special about Socrates, special enough so that Nietzsche, for one,… More

  • The Phaedo: A Platonic Labyrinth

    - Burger, Ronna, The Phaedo: A Platonic Labyrinth, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.

  • Science, Faith, and Politics

    - Weinberger, Jerry, "Preface," Science, Faith, and Politics: Francis Bacon and the Utopian Roots of the Modern Age: A Commentary on Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985.

  • 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

  • The Life of Philosophy and the Immortality of the Soul

    - Bolotin, David, "The Life of Philosophy and the Immortality of the Soul: An Introduction to Plato's Phaedo," Ancient Philosophy, Vol. 7 (1987), 39-56.
    Excerpt: It is widely acknowledged that Plato’s dialogues are artistic wholes, in which the ‘content’, or the speeches of the various characters, is inseparable from the ‘form’, or the dramatic context within which these speeches… 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

  • The Cambridge Companion to Plato

    - The Cambridge Companion to Plato, ed. Richard Kraut, Cambridge University Press, 1992.
    From the publisher: Plato stands as the fount of our philosophical tradition, being the first Western thinker to produce a body of writing that touches upon a wide range of topics still discussed by philosophers today. In a sense he invented philosophy as a… More

  • Socratic Rationalism and Political Philosophy: An Interpretation of Plato’s Phaedo

    - Stern, Paul, Socratic Rationalism and Political Philosophy: An Interpretation of Plato's Phaedo, New York: State University of New York Press, 1993.
    Excerpt: I undertake this study of the Phaedo in order to understand the rationalism of Plato’s Socrates. It is a striking feature of the contemporary intellectual situation that a study such as this can be of more than simply historical interest. But… 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

  • The Death of Socrates and the Life of Philosophy

    - Ahrensdorf, Peter J., The Death of Socrates and the Life of Philosophy, New York: State University of New York, 1995.
    Excerpt: While all of Plato’s dialogues celebrate the philosophic life as a whole and the life of Socrates in particular, none does so more dramatically or more movingly than the Phaedo. There we see the philosopher face death with a nobility which all… More

  • Phaedo

    - Cropsey, Joseph, "Phaedo," Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
    Excerpt: Phaedo, so important by reason of its substance and occasion, receives its name from a historical figure about whom little can now be said to be known. Litle enough was remembered of him in later antiquity when Diogenes Laertius wrote his paragraph… 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

  • On Plato’s Phaedo

    - Benardete, Seth, "On Plato's Phaedo," The Argument of the Action: Essays on Greek Poetry and Philosophy, eds. Ronna Burger and Michael Davis, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
    Excerpt: I wish to discuss four things in Plato’s Phaedo. First, the intention of the dialogue as a whole; second, the plan or structure of the Phaedo, third, some arguments of the Phaedo, and fourth, the reason for the structure of the dialogue.

  • 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

  • Introduction to the Phaedo

    - Brann, Eva, "Introduction to the Phaedo" and "Socrates' Legacy: Plato's Phaedo," The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates' Conversations and Plato's Writings, Philadelphia: Paul Dry, 2004.
    Excerpt: In the first book of his Inquiries, Herodotus tells the story of Solon and Croesus. The Athenian wise man gives the Lydian tyrant a piece of advice. “Look to the end,” he says, if you want to know whether a human life has really been… More

  • Plato: Political Philosophy

    - Malcolm Schofield, Plato: Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2006.
    From the publisher: Plato is the best known and most widely studied of all the ancient Greek philosophers. Malcolm Schofield, a leading scholar of ancient philosophy, offers a lucid and accessible guide to Plato’s political thought, enormously… 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

  • Divine Law and Political Philosophy in Plato’s Laws

    - Lutz, Mark J., Divine Law and Political Philosophy in Plato’s Laws, DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2012.
    About the Book: All over the world secular rationalist governments and judicial authorities have been challenged by increasingly forceful claims made on behalf of divine law. For those who believe that reason—not faith—should be the basis of politics and… 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.

Multimedia

  • Allan Bloom on Plato’s Apology of Socrates

    - Audio recording of Allan Bloom teaching a seminar on Plato's Apology. 9 minutes 49 seconds.

  • David Roochnik: Introduction to Greek Philosophy

    - Roochnik, David, "Introduction to Greek Philosophy," Audio lectures, The Great Courses, 24 lectures.
    Course description: The first philosophers in Western history—the ancient Greeks—asked the most fundamental questions about human beings and their relationship to the world. More than 2,500 years later, the issues they pondered continue to challenge,… More