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Author: Carl Avren Levenson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 202
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Book Description
In the dialogues of Plato, we find many references to the Corybantic rites. These were rites of initiation performed in honor of the goddess Rhea. However, as Carl Levenson argues in Socrates Among the Corybantes, Plato's dialogue entitled the Euthydemus contains more than a mere reference to the rites. Within the context of the Socratic dialogue itself, an actual performance of the rite (although veiled and distorted) takes place. If Levenson is correct in his thesis about the Euthydemus, then this dialogue is a valuable source for the history of religions since Corybantic rites were meant to be secret. Moreover, as these rites are Dionysiac, Plato is giving us a glimpse of the reality of Dionysiac ecstasy. Such an analysis is far from the usual reading of Euthydemus, which has been interpreted by academics solely as a satire on philosophical debate and has subsequently been consigned to a marginal place in Plato's canon. But here Plato is rejecting his abstract theories on form in favor of intimacy with the world -- of matter rather than of form. Levenson states that complete immersion in the material substrate of the world is what Plato discovered was at the heart of Dionysiac ecstasy -- an ecstasy which, as Plato said, could purify the soul of its ancient guilt.
Author: Carl Avren Levenson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 202
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Book Description
In the dialogues of Plato, we find many references to the Corybantic rites. These were rites of initiation performed in honor of the goddess Rhea. However, as Carl Levenson argues in Socrates Among the Corybantes, Plato's dialogue entitled the Euthydemus contains more than a mere reference to the rites. Within the context of the Socratic dialogue itself, an actual performance of the rite (although veiled and distorted) takes place. If Levenson is correct in his thesis about the Euthydemus, then this dialogue is a valuable source for the history of religions since Corybantic rites were meant to be secret. Moreover, as these rites are Dionysiac, Plato is giving us a glimpse of the reality of Dionysiac ecstasy. Such an analysis is far from the usual reading of Euthydemus, which has been interpreted by academics solely as a satire on philosophical debate and has subsequently been consigned to a marginal place in Plato's canon. But here Plato is rejecting his abstract theories on form in favor of intimacy with the world -- of matter rather than of form. Levenson states that complete immersion in the material substrate of the world is what Plato discovered was at the heart of Dionysiac ecstasy -- an ecstasy which, as Plato said, could purify the soul of its ancient guilt.
Author: Carl A Levenson
Publisher: Spring Publications
ISBN: 9780882149608
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 176
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Book Description
In Plato's dialogues, we find many references to Corybantic rites-rites of initiation performed in honor of the goddess Rhea. But in the dialogue titled Euthydemus, there is more than a mere reference to the rites to be found. Within the context of Socratic dialectic, the ancient rites of the Corybantes are acted out-although veiled and distorted. This is what Carl Levenson argues in his book. Since the Corybantic rites are of the Dionysian/Eleusinian type, Plato gives us a glimpse of the reality of Dionysian ecstasy. This interesting knowledge of these rites has usually been lost in the academic assertion that the Euthydemus is just a satire on philosophic arguing, and hence it has been consigned to a marginal place in Plato's canon. But here Plato is rejecting his abstract theories in favor of intimacy with the reality of the world, of matter and being rather than form. Levenson states that complete immersion in the material substrate of the world is what Plato discovers at the heart of Dionysian ecstasy, and the aim of ecstasy. Plato says it is to purify the soul of ancient guilt. With a new Afterword by the author.
Author: Owen Francis Grazebrook
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy, Ancient
Languages : en
Pages : 194
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Book Description
Author: Gwenda-lin Grewal
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019266624X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 298
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Book Description
Thinking of Death places Plato's Euthydemus among the dialogues that surround the trial and death of Socrates. A premonition of philosophy's fate arrives in the form of Socrates' encounter with the two-headed sophist pair, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, who appear as if they are the ghost of the Socrates of Aristophanes' Thinkery. The pair vacillate between choral ode and rhapsody, as Plato vacillates between referring to them in the dual and plural number in Greek. Gwenda-lin Grewal's close reading explores how the structure of the dialogue and the pair's back-and-forth arguments bear a striking resemblance to thinking itself: in its immersive remove from reality, thinking simulates death even as it cannot conceive of its possibility. Euthydemus and Dionysodorus take this to an extreme, and so emerge as the philosophical dream and sophistic nightmare of being disembodied from substance. The Euthydemus is haunted by philosophy's tenuous relationship to political life. This is played out in the narration through Crito's implied criticism of Socrates-the phantom image of the Athenian laws-and in the drama itself, which appears to take place in Hades. Thinking of death thus brings with it a lurid parody of the death of thinking: the farce of perfect philosophy that bears the gravity of the city's sophistry. Grewal also provides a new translation of the Euthydemus that pays careful attention to grammatical ambiguities, nuances, and wit in ways that substantially expand the reader's access to the dialogue's mysteries.
Author: John Gilbert Cooper
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy, Ancient
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
Author: Rebecca Lemoine
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190936983
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
Months before the 2016 United States presidential election, universities across the country began reporting the appearance of white nationalist flyers featuring slogans like "Let's Become Great Again" and "Protect Your Heritage" against the backdrop of white marble statues depicting figures such as Apollo and Hercules. Groups like Identity Evropa (which sponsored the flyers) oppose cultural diversity and quote classical thinkers such as Plato in support of their anti-immigration views. The traditional scholarly narrative of cultural diversity in classical Greek political thought often reinforces the perception of ancient thinkers as xenophobic, and this is particularly the case with interpretations of Plato. While scholars who study Plato reject the wholesale0dismissal of his work, the vast majority tend to admit that his portrayal of foreigners is unsettling. From student protests over the teaching of canonical texts such as Plato's Republic to the use of images of classical Greek statues in white supremacist propaganda, the world of the ancient Greeks is deeply implicated in a heated contemporary debate about identity and diversity. 0In Plato's Caves, Rebecca LeMoine defends the bold thesis that Plato was a friend of cultural diversity, contrary to many contemporary perceptions. LeMoine shows that, across Plato's dialogues, foreigners play a role similar to that of Socrates: liberating citizens from intellectual bondage. Through close readings of four Platonic dialogues-Republic, Menexenus, Laws, and Phaedrus-LeMoine recovers Plato's unique insight into the promise, and risk, of cross-cultural engagement. Like the Socratic "gadfly" who stings the "horse" of Athens into wakefulness, foreigners can provoke citizens to self-reflection by exposing contradictions and confronting them with alternative ways of life.
Author: Nicholas D. Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195350928
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
This volume brings together mostly previously unpublished studies by prominent historians, classicists, and philosophers on the roles and effects of religion in Socratic philosophy and on the trial of Socrates. Among the contributors are Thomas C. Brickhouse, Asli Gocer, Richard Kraut, Mark L. McPherran, Robert C. T. Parker, C. D. C. Reeve, Nicholas D. Smith, Gregory Vlastos, Stephen A. White, and Paul B. Woodruff.
Author: Xenophon
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141915447
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
After the execution of Socrates in 399 BC, a number of his followers wrote dialogues featuring him as the protagonist and, in so doing, transformed the great philosopher into a legendary figure. Xenophon's portrait is the only one other than Plato's to survive, and while it offers a very personal interpretation of Socratic thought, it also reveals much about the man and his philosophical views. In 'Socrates' Defence' Xenophon defends his mentor against charges of arrogance made at his trial, while the 'Memoirs of Socrates' also starts with an impassioned plea for the rehabilitation of a wronged reputation. Along with 'The Estate-Manager', a practical economic treatise, and 'The Dinner-Party', a sparkling exploration of love, Xenophon's dialogues offer fascinating insights into the Socratic world and into the intellectual atmosphere and daily life of ancient Greece.
Author: Georgia Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110365871
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 213
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Book Description
This book provides an interpretation of Plato’s Euthydemus as a unified piece of literature, taking into account both its dramatic and its philosophical aspects. It aims to do justice to a major Platonic work which has so far received comparatively little treatment. Except for the sections of the dialogue in which Socrates presents an argument on the pursuit of eudaimonia, the Euthydemus seems to have been largely ignored. The reason for this is that much of the work’s philosophical import lies hidden underneath a veil of riotous comedy. This book shows how a reading of the dialogue as a whole, rather than a limited focus on the Socratic scenes, sheds light on the work’s central philosophical questions. It argues the Euthydemus points not only to the differences between Socrates and the sophists, but also to actual and alleged similarities between them. The framing scenes comment precisely on this aspect of the internal dialogue, with Crito still lumping together philosophy and eristic shortly before his discussion with Socrates comes to an end. Hence the question that permeates the Euthydemus is raised afresh at the end of the dialogue: what is properly to be termed philosophy?
Author: William H. F. Altman
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498574629
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 661
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Book Description
At the crisis of his Republic, Plato asks us to imagine what could possibly motivate a philosopher to return to the Cave voluntarily for the benefit of others and at the expense of her own personal happiness. This book shows how Plato has prepared us, his students, to recognize that the sun-like Idea of the Good is an infinitely greater object of serious philosophical concern than what is merely good for me, and thus why neither Plato nor his Socrates are eudaemonists, as Aristotle unquestionably was. With the transcendent Idea of Beauty having been made manifest through Socrates and Diotima, the dialogues between Symposium and Republic—Lysis, Euthydemus, Laches, Charmides, Gorgias, Theages, Meno, and Cleitophon— prepare the reader to make the final leap into Platonism, a soul-stirring idealism that presupposes the student’s inborn awareness that there is nothing just, noble, or beautiful about maximizing one’s own good. While perfectly capable of making the majority of his readers believe that he endorses the harmless claim that it is advantageous to be just and thus that we will always fare well by doing well, Plato trains his best students to recognize the deliberate fallacies and shortcuts that underwrite these claims, and thus to look beyond their own happiness by the time they reach the Allegory of the Cave, the culmination of a carefully prepared Ascent to the Good.
