The Bloomsbury Handbook of Plato

Description

This essential reference text on the life, thought and writings of Plato uses over 160 short, accessible articles to cover a complete range of topics for both the first-time student and seasoned scholar of Plato and ancient philosophy. It is organized into five parts illuminating Plato's life, the whole of the Dialogues attributed to him, the Dialogues' literary features, the concepts and themes explored within them and Plato's reception via his influence on subsequent philosophers and the various interpretations of his work. This fully updated 2nd edition includes 19 newly commissioned entries on topics ranging across comedy, tragedy, Xenophon, metatheatre, gender, musical theory, animals, Orphism, political theory, religion, time, Hellenistic philosophy and post-Platonic ancient commentaries. It also features revisions to the majority of articles from the 1st edition, including 8 which have been completely re-written, and 12 which have had the references substantially revised. Reflecting the growing diversity of Plato scholarship across the world, this edition includes contributions from a wide range of scholars who enrich the field and provide students and scholars with a vital resource for study and reference. Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Contributors Acknowledgements ABBREVIATIONS How to use this book References Introduction Chapter 1: Plato’s life, historical, literary and philosophic context Plato’s life Aristophanes and intellectuals Comedy Education Eleatics Isocrates and logography Orality and literacy Poetry (epic and lyric) Pre-Socratic philosophers Pythagoreans Rhetoric and speechmaking Socrates (historical) Socratics (other than Plato) The Sophists Xenophon Chapter 2: The dialogues The Platonic corpus and manuscript tradition Alcibiades 1 The Apology of Socrates Charmides Clitophon Cratylus Crito Dubia and Spuria (Alcibiades 2, Hipparchus, Minos, Rival Lovers, Axiochus, Definitions, On Justice, On Virtue, Demodocus, Eryxias, Sisyphus) EPINOMIS Euthydemus Euthyphro Gorgias Hippias Major Hippias Minor Ion Laches Laws Letters Lysis Menexenus Meno Parmenides Phaedo Phaedrus Philebus Politicus (Statesman) Protagoras Republic Sophist Symposium Theaetetus Theages Timaeus and Critias Chapter 3: Important features of the dialogues Anonymity Characters Comedy Drama History Emotions (pathē, pathēmata) Humour Irony Language Literary composition musical structure Myth (muthos) Pedagogical structure Pedimental structure Play (paidia) Proleptic composition Reading order Socrates (the character) Tragedy Chapter 4: Concepts, themes and topics treated in the dialogues Account (see Logos) Aesthetics Akrasia (incontinence, weakness of will) Animals Antilogy and eristic Aporia Appearance and reality Argument (see Logos) Art (TECHNē) Beauty (Kalon) Being and becoming (on, onta; gignesthai) Cause (Aitia) Cave, the allegory of the Character City (polis) Convention (see Law) Cosmos (kosmos) Cross-examination (see Elenchus) DAIMŌN Death Definition (see Logos) Desire (appetite, epithumia) Dialectic (dialektikē) The divided line Education Elenchus (cross-examination, refutation) Epistemology (knowledge) Eristic (see Antilogy and Eristics) Erōs (see Love) Eschatology Ethics Eudaimonia (see Happiness) Excellence (Virtue, Aretē) Forms (eidos, idea) Friendship (philia) Gender Goodness (the good, Agathon) Happiness (eudaimonia) Hermeneutics Idea (see Forms) Image (eikōn) Imitation (see Mimēsis) Incontinence (see Akrasia) Inspiration Intellectualism Justice (dikaion, dikaiosunē) Knowledge (see Epistemology) Language Law, convention (nomos) Logic Logos (account, argument, definition) Love (erōs) Madness and possession Mathematics (mathēmatikē) Medicine (iatrikē) Metaphysics (see Ontology) Metatheatre Method Mimēsis (IMITATION) Music Mysteries Myth (muthos) Nature (phusis) Nomos (see Law) Non-propositional knowledge The one (to hen) Ontology (metaphysics) Orphism Paiderastia (pederasty) Participation Perception and sensation (aisthēsis, aisthanomai) Philosophy and the philosopher Phusis (see Nature) Piety (eusebeia, hosios) Pleasure (hēdonē) Poetry (poiēsis) Politics and the (figure of the) politicus Reality (see Appearance and reality) Reason Recollection (anamnēsis) Refutation (see Elenchus) Rhetoric (rhetorikē) Self-knowledge Sensation (see Perception and sensation) The sophists Soul (psychē) The sun simile Theology Time Virtue (see Excellence) Vision Weakness of will (see Akrasia) Women Writing Chapter 5: Later reception, interpretation and influence of Plato and the dialogues Section A: Plato in the Ancient World Ancient hermeneutics Aristotle Academy of Athens, ancient history of Jewish Platonism (ancient) Neoplatonism and its diaspora Section B: Plato in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Medieval Islamic Platonism Medieval Jewish Platonism Medieval Christian Platonism Renaissance Platonism The Cambridge Platonists Section C: Plato in Modern and Contemporary Philosophy Early modern philosophy from Descartes to Berkeley Nineteenth-century German idealism Nineteenth-century Plato scholarship Developmentalism Compositional chronology Analytic approaches to Plato Vlastosian approaches Continental approaches Straussian readings of Plato Plato’s unwritten doctrines Esotericism The Tübingen approach Anti-Platonism, from ancient to modern References INDEX