The Center for Hellenic Studies

Plato
Curated Books

Plato’s Severed Lovers: Alkibiades and Sokrates

The Symposium’s tale of Alkibiades and Sokrates and its historical implications—of war and philosophy, of a shattered imperial democracy and a god-like leader driven out for supposed impiety and assassinated in exile, as well as a trial and execution of a philosopher for impiety and dissent—is dramatic in its own right. But its large and continuing public significance is only understandable in the context of some unexpected debates about Plato …… Read more

Curated Articles

Foreword to Mothers in Mourning, by Nicole Loraux. Trans. Corinne Pache. Cornell University Press, 1998.

[In this online version, the original page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{ix|x}” indicates where p. ix of the printed version ends and p. x begins.] In the poetics of classical Athenian tragedy, it is conventional for a woman to react to the death of a loved one by singing a song of lamentation. The representations of these mythical laments as performed… Read more

Curated Books

Der Begriff τέχνη bei Plato

Edited with a Foreword by Marco Romani Mistretta. Inaugural Dissertation for Doctorate submitted to the faculty of philosophy at Christian-Albrechts University, Kiel. Referent: Professor Werner Jaeger. Defended August 6, 1920; approved for printing December 2, 1922. Published here under a Creative Commons License 3.0. Read more

News, Publications

A New Look at Plato by Professor David Schur

In his new book, Plato’s Wandering Path: Literary Form and the Republic, Professor David Schur of Brooklyn College delivers insights 15 years in the making. Focusing on The Republic, Schur argues that the philosopher’s digressive style takes the reader on a deliberate “journey of perpetual approach” toward the sublime. In Plato’s literary structure Schur finds a perfect artistic expression of his rigorous thought. Professor Schur kindly answered a few of our questions:… Read more

Hellenic Studies Series

Plato’s Four Muses: The Phaedrus and the Poetics of Philosophy

Plato’s Four Muses reconstructs Plato’s authorial self-portrait through a fresh reading of the Phaedrus, with an Introduction and Conclusion that contextualize the construction more broadly. The Phaedrus, it is argued, is Plato’s most self-referential dialogue, and Plato’s reference to four Muses in Phaedrus 259c–d is read as a hint at the “ingredients” of philosophical discourse, which turns out to be a form of provocatively old-fashioned mousikê. Andrea Capra maintains that Socrates’s conversion to “demotic”—as opposed to metaphorical—music… Read more

Hellenic Studies Series

Plato’s Wayward Path: Literary Form and the Republic

Since Friedrich Schleiermacher’s work in the 1800s, scholars interested in the literary dimension of Plato’s writings have sought to reconcile the dialogue form with the expository imperative of philosophical argument. It is now common for mainstream classicists and philosophers to attribute vital importance to literary form in Plato, which they often explain in terms of rhetorical devices serving didactic goals. This study brings the disciplines of literary and classical studies… Read more

Hellenic Studies Series

Plato’s Counterfeit Sophists

This book explores the place of the sophists within the Greek wisdom tradition, and argues against their almost universal exclusion from serious intellectual traditions. By studying the sophists against the backdrop of the archaic Greek institutions of wisdom, it is possible to detect considerable intellectual overlap between them and their predecessors. This book explores the continuity of this tradition, suggesting that the sophists’ intellectual balkanization in modern scholarship, particularly their… Read more

Hellenic Studies Series

Plato’s Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception

In his Symposium, Plato crafted a set of speeches in praise of love that has influenced writers and artists from antiquity to the present. Early Christian writers read the dialogue’s “ascent passage” as a vision of the soul’s journey to heaven. Ficino’s commentary on the Symposium inspired poets and artists throughout Renaissance Europe and introduced “a Platonic love” into common speech. Themes or images from the dialogue have appeared in paintings or… Read more

Hellenic Studies Series

Plato’s Rhapsody and Homer’s Music: The Poetics of the Panathenaic Festival in Classical Athens

The festival of the Panathenaia, held in Athens every summer to celebrate the birthday of the city’s goddess, Athena, was the setting for performances of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey by professional reciters or “rhapsodes.” The works of Plato are our main surviving source of information about these performances. Through his references, a crucial phase in the history of the Homeric tradition can be reconstructed. Through Plato’s eyes, the “staging” of Homer in classical… Read more