Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Plato: Plato (c. 428/427 – 348 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens where Aristotle studied. Major works are The Republic, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Symposium, Meno, Gorgias, Protagoras, Theaetetus, Parmenides, Timaeus. See also Ancient philosophy, Aristotle._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Political Philosophy on Plato - Dictionary of Arguments
Gaus I 309 Plato/Political philosophy/Keyt/Miller: after 2,400 years there is still no settled interpretive strategy for reading Plato. Since he writes dialogues rather than treatises, the extent to which his characters speak for their author is bound to remain problematic. The major divide is between interpreters who respect Platonic anonymity and those who do not (see D.L. III.50-1). A. Plato as anonymous author: [These interpreters of Plato] are impressed by the literary 'distancing' that Plato creates between himself and his readers. (The ideas attributed to Protagoras in the Theaetetus, for example, are thrice removed from Plato: they are expressed by Socrates, whose speeches are read in turn by Euclides, the narrator of the dialogue.) Characterology: Interpreters who take such distancing seriously might be called characterologists' since they hold that the characters in the dialogues are literary characters who speak for themselves, not for Plato. Characterologists take the dialogues to be 'sceptical', or aporetic, rather than 'dogmatic', or doctrinal, and emphasize their dramatic and literary elements. Leo Strauss: Thus, Leo Strauss, a particularly fervent characterologist, claims that the dialogues must be read as dramas: 'We cannot,' he says, 'ascribe to Plato any utterance of any of his characters without having taken great precautions' (1964(1): 59) (...) . B. Platonic persons as speaking for themselves: The opposing group of interpreters suppose that in each dialogue Plato has an identifiable spokesman: Socrates in the Gorgias and the Republic, the Eleatic Stranger in the Statesman, and the Athenian Stranger in the Laws (D.L. III.52). Such interpreters fall into three camps (1) Unitarians suppose that Plato's spokesmen present a consistent doctrine in all four dialogues. (2) Developmentalists believe that the doctrine expressed by Plato's spokesmen evolves from one dialogue to the next. They believe, of course, that the order of composition of our four dialogues can be established, the order usually favoured being, from earliest to latest, Gorgias, Republic, Statesman, Laws. (3) Particularists interpret each dialogue on its own. Though they allow that there may be thematic links among the four dialogues, Gaus I 310 they do not worry overly much about the relation of one dialogue in the group to the others. Griswold (1988)(2) and Smith (1998(3): vol. I) are two useful collections of essays on interpretive strategies, and Tarrant (2000)(4) is a major new work on Platonic interpretation. Dialogues: Nomoi: in the Laws the Athenian Stranger enumerates seven claims to rule - the claim of the wellborn to rule the base-born, the strong to rule the weak, and so forth - and concludes that the greatest claim of all is that of the wise to rule the ignorant (Laws III.690a-d). This conclusion is the animating idea of the four political dialogues. Gorgias: in the Gorgias Socrates maintains that true statesmanship (politiké) differs from public speaking (rhetoriké) in being an art (techné) rather than an empirical knack (empeiria) - where an art, unlike an empirical knack, has a rational principle (logos) and can give the cause (aitia) of each thing (Gorg. 465a). He argues that none of the men reputed to be great Athenian statesmen practised true statesmanship (Gorg. 503b-c, 517a), and claims to be himself the only true statesman in Athens (Gorg. 521d6-9). Republic: in the Republic the role of reason and knowledge in politics is neatly encapsulated in the simile of the ship of state: just as a steersman must pay attention to sky, stars and wind if he is to be really qualified to rule a ship, so a statesman must have knowledge of the realm of Forms, a realm of incorporeal paradigms that exist beyond space and time, if he is to be really qualified to rule a polis (Rep. VI.488a7-489a6). Politikos: in the Statesman the Eleatic Stranger asserts that the only correct constitution is the one in which the rulers possess true statesmanship, all other constitutions being better or worse imitations of this one (Plt. 293c-294a, 296e4-297a5); and in the Laws the Athenian Stranger affirms the same principle (IX.875c3-d5). (The relations among these dialogues are discussed by Owen, 1953(5); Klosko, 1986(6); Laks, 1990(7); Gill, 1995(8); Kahn, 1995(9); and Kahn, 1996(10).) >Justice/Plato. Gaus I 311 Republic:/today’s discussion: the Republic is the most controversial work in Greek philosophy. There is no settled interpretation of the dialogue as a whole, of any of its parts, or even of its characters. Of the current controversies surrounding its political ideas the most notable concern its communism, its view of women, its hostility toward Athenian democracy, and its utopianism. >Plato. Aristotle/VsPlato: Plato's rejection of private, or separate, families and of private property (at least for the rulers and warriors of his ideal polis) is usually examined through the lens of Aristotle's critique of Platonic communism in Politics II.1-5. >Aristotle. Literature: T. H. Irwin (1991)(11) and Robert Mayhew (1997)(12) reach opposite conclusions about the cogency of Aristotle's critique. Feminism: Whether Plato was a feminist and whether he masculinized women are hotly debated issues, especially among feminist philosophers. Tuana (1994)(13) is a collection of diverse essays on this topic. (New books on the Republic appear regularly. Among the most notable are Cross and Woozley, 1964(14); Annas, 1981(15); White, 1979(16); and Reeve, 1988(17). Three recent collections of essays are particularly helpful: Fine, 1999(18): vol. Il; Kraut, 1997b(19); and Höffe, 1997(20).) Statesman/Politikos: (After long neglect the Statesman has recently come into the spotlight. Lane, 1998(21), is a study of its political philosophy; and Rowe, 1995(22), is an extensive collection of papers on all aspects of the dialogue.) 1. Strauss, Leo (1964) The City and Man. Chicago: Rand McNally. 2. Griswold, Charles L. (1988) Platonic Writings/Platonic Readings. New York: Routledge. 3. Smith, Nicholas D., ed. (1998) Plato: Critical Assessments. Vol. l, General Issues of Interpetation. London: Routledge. 4. Tarrant, Harold (2000) Plato 's First Interpreters. London: Duckworth. 5. Owen, G. E. L. (1953) 'The place of the Timaeus in Plato's dialogues'. Classical Quarterly, 3: 79-95. 6. Klosko, George (1986) The Development of Plato 's Political Theory. New York: Methuen. 7. Laks, André (1990) 'Legislation and demiurgy: on the relationship between Plato's Republic and Laws'. Classical Antiquity, 9: 209-29. 8. Gill, Christopher (1995) 'Rethinking constitutionalism in Statesman 291—303'. In C. J. Rowe, ed., Reading the Statesman: Proceedings of the 111 Symposium Platonicum. Sankt Augustin: Academia. 9. Kahn, Charles H. (1995) 'The place of the Statesman in Plato's later work'. In C. J. Rowe, ed., Reading the Statesman: Proceedings of the 111 Symposium Platonicum. Sankt Augustin: Academia. 10. Kahn, Charles H. (1996) Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 11. Irwin, T. H. (1991) 'Aristotle's defense of private property'. In David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, eds, A Companion to Aristotle Politics. Oxford: Blackwell. 12. Mayhew, Robert (1997) Aristotle's Criticism of Plato's Republic. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. 14. Cross, R. C. and A. D. Wooziey (1964) Plato's Republic: A Philosophical Commentary. New York: St Martin's. 15. Annas, Julia (1981) An Intmduction to Plato's Republic. Oxford: Clarendon. 16. White, Nicholas P. (1979) A Companion to Plato's Republic. Indianapolis: Hackett. 17. Reeve, C. D. C. (1988) Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato 's Republic. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 18. Fine, Gail (1999) Plato 2: Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 19. Kraut, Richard, ed. (1997b) Plato's Republic: Critical Essays. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. 20. Höffe, Otfried, ed. (1997) Platon Politeia. Berlin: Akademie. 21. Lane, M. S. (1998) Method and Politics in Plato's Statesman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 22. Rowe, C. J. (1995) Reading the Statesman: Proceedings of the 111 Symposium Platonicum. Sankt Augustin: Academia. Keyt, David and Miller, Fred D. jr. 2004. „Ancient Greek Political Thought“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications_____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Political Philosophy Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
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