The Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues

The Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues PDF Author: Ruby Blondell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139433660
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
This book attempts to bridge the gulf that still exists between 'literary' and 'philosophical' interpreters of Plato by looking at his use of characterization. Characterization is intrinsic to dramatic form and a concern with human character in an ethical sense pervades the dialogues on the discursive level. Form and content are further reciprocally related through Plato's discursive preoccupation with literary characterization. Two opening chapters examine the methodological issues involved in reading Plato 'as drama' and a set of questions surrounding Greek 'character' words (especially ethos), including ancient Greek views about the influence of dramatic character on an audience. The figure of Sokrates qua Platonic 'hero' also receives preliminary discussion. The remaining chapters offer close readings of select dialogues, chosen to show the wide range of ways in which Plato uses his characters, with special emphasis on the kaleidoscopic figure of Sokrates and on Plato's own relationship to his 'dramatic' hero.

The Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues

The Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues PDF Author: Ruby Blondell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139433660
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 466

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book attempts to bridge the gulf that still exists between 'literary' and 'philosophical' interpreters of Plato by looking at his use of characterization. Characterization is intrinsic to dramatic form and a concern with human character in an ethical sense pervades the dialogues on the discursive level. Form and content are further reciprocally related through Plato's discursive preoccupation with literary characterization. Two opening chapters examine the methodological issues involved in reading Plato 'as drama' and a set of questions surrounding Greek 'character' words (especially ethos), including ancient Greek views about the influence of dramatic character on an audience. The figure of Sokrates qua Platonic 'hero' also receives preliminary discussion. The remaining chapters offer close readings of select dialogues, chosen to show the wide range of ways in which Plato uses his characters, with special emphasis on the kaleidoscopic figure of Sokrates and on Plato's own relationship to his 'dramatic' hero.

The Gatekeeper: Narrative Voice in Plato's Dialogues

The Gatekeeper: Narrative Voice in Plato's Dialogues PDF Author: Margalit Finkelberg
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004390022
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
In The Gatekeeper: Narrative Voice in Plato’s Dialogues Margalit Finkelberg offers the first narratological analysis of all of Plato’s transmitted dialogues. The book explores the dialogues as works of literary fiction, giving special emphasis to such topics as narrative levels, focalization, narrative frame, and metalepsis. The main conclusion of the book is that in Plato the plurality of the speakers’ opinions is not accompanied by a plurality of points of view. Only one perspective is available, that of the narrator. Contrary to the widespread view, Plato’s dialogues cannot be considered multivocal, or “dialogic” in Bakhtin’s sense. By skillful use of narrative voice, Plato unobtrusively regulates the readers’ reception and response. The narrator is the dialogue’s gatekeeper, a filter whose main function is to control how the dialogue is received by the reader by sustaining a certain perspective of it.

Early Socratic Dialogues

Early Socratic Dialogues PDF Author: Emlyn-Jones Chris
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141914076
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 757

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Book Description
Rich in drama and humour, they include the controversial Ion, a debate on poetic inspiration; Laches, in which Socrates seeks to define bravery; and Euthydemus, which considers the relationship between philosophy and politics. Together, these dialogues provide a definitive portrait of the real Socrates and raise issues still keenly debated by philosophers, forming an incisive overview of Plato's philosophy.

The Chronology of Plato's Dialogues

The Chronology of Plato's Dialogues PDF Author: Leonard Brandwood
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521390001
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Dr Brandwood's book analyses Plato's diction and prose style in the dialogues.

Plato's Dialectic at Play

Plato's Dialectic at Play PDF Author: Kevin Corrigan
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271046266
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
The Symposium is one of Plato’s most accessible dialogues, an engrossing historical document as well as an entertaining literary masterpiece. By uncovering the structural design of the dialogue, Plato’s Dialectic at Play aims at revealing a Plato for whom the dialogical form was not merely ornamentation or philosophical methodology but the essence of philosophical exploration. His dialectic is not only argument; it is also play. Careful analysis of each layer of the text leads cumulatively to a picture of the dialogue’s underlying structure, related to both argument and myth, and shows that a dynamic link exists between Diotima’s higher mysteries and the organization of the dialogue as a whole. On this basis the authors argue that the Symposium, with its positive theory of art contained in the ascent to the Beautiful, may be viewed as a companion piece to the Republic, with its negative critique of the role of art in the context of the Good. Following Nietzsche’s suggestion and applying criteria developed by Mikhail Bakhtin, they further argue for seeing the Symposium as the first novel. The book concludes with a comprehensive reevaluation of the significance of the Symposium and its place in Plato’s thought generally, touching on major issues in Platonic scholarship: the nature of art, the body-soul connection, the problem of identity, the relationship between mythos and logos, Platonic love, and the question of authorial writing and the vanishing signature of the absent Plato himself.

The Republic

The Republic PDF Author: By Plato
Publisher: BookRix
ISBN: 3736801467
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
The Republic is a Socratic dialogue, written by Plato around 380 BCE, concerning the definition of justice, the order and character of the just city-state and the just man. The dramatic date of the dialogue has been much debated and though it must take place some time during the Peloponnesian War, "there would be jarring anachronisms if any of the candidate specific dates between 432 and 404 were assigned". It is Plato's best-known work and has proven to be one of the most intellectually and historically influential works of philosophy and political theory. In it, Socrates along with various Athenians and foreigners discuss the meaning of justice and examine whether or not the just man is happier than the unjust man by considering a series of different cities coming into existence "in speech", culminating in a city (Kallipolis) ruled by philosopher-kings; and by examining the nature of existing regimes. The participants also discuss the theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, and the roles of the philosopher and of poetry in society.

The Drama of Ideas

The Drama of Ideas PDF Author: Martin Puchner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199742243
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
Most philosophy has rejected the theater, denouncing it as a place of illusion or moral decay; the theater in turn has rejected philosophy, insisting that drama deals in actions, not ideas. Challenging both views, The Drama of Ideas shows that theater and philosophy have been crucially intertwined from the start. Plato is the presiding genius of this alternative history. The Drama of Ideas presents Plato not only as a theorist of drama, but also as a dramatist himself, one who developed a dialogue-based dramaturgy that differs markedly from the standard, Aristotelian view of theater. Puchner discovers scores of dramatic adaptations of Platonic dialogues, the most immediate proof of Plato's hitherto unrecognized influence on theater history. Drawing on these adaptations, Puchner shows that Plato was central to modern drama as well, with figures such as Wilde, Shaw, Pirandello, Brecht, and Stoppard using Plato to create a new drama of ideas. Puchner then considers complementary developments in philosophy, offering a theatrical history of philosophy that includes Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Burke, Sartre, Camus, and Deleuze. These philosophers proceed with constant reference to theater, using theatrical terms, concepts, and even dramatic techniques in their writings. The Drama of Ideas mobilizes this double history of philosophical theater and theatrical philosophy to subject current habits of thought to critical scrutiny. In dialogue with contemporary thinkers such as Martha Nussbaum, Iris Murdoch, and Alain Badiou, Puchner formulates the contours of a "dramatic Platonism." This new Platonism does not seek to return to an idealist theory of forms, but it does point beyond the reigning philosophies of the body, of materialism and of cultural relativism.

Philosophy in Dialogue

Philosophy in Dialogue PDF Author: Gary Alan Scott
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810123568
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Traditional Plato scholarship, in the English-speaking world, has assumed that Platonic dialogues are merely collections of arguments. Inevitably, the question arises: If Plato wanted to present collections of arguments, why did he write dialogues instead of treatises? Concerned about this question, some scholars have been experimenting with other, more contextualized ways of reading the dialogues. This anthology is among the first to present these new approaches as pursued by a variety of scholars. As such, it offers new perspectives on Plato as well as a suggestive view of Plato scholarship as something of a laboratory for historians of philosophy generally. The essays gathered here each examine vital aspects of Plato’s many methods, considering his dialogues in relation to Thucydides and Homer, narrative strategies and medical practice, images and metaphors. They offer surprising new research into such much-studied works as The Republic as well as revealing views of lesser-known dialogues like the Cratylus and Philebus. With reference to thinkers such as Heidegger, Gadamer, and Sartre, the authors place the Platonic dialogues in an illuminating historical context. Together, their essays should reinvigorate the scholarly examination of the way Plato’s dialogues “work”—and should prompt a reconsideration of how the form of Plato’s philosophical writing bears on the Platonic conception of philosophy.

Framing the Dialogues: How to Read Openings and Closures in Plato

Framing the Dialogues: How to Read Openings and Closures in Plato PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004443991
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Framing the Dialogues: How to Read Openings and Closures in Plato focuses on the intricate and multifarious ways in which Plato frames his dialogues, with a view to exploring the complex association between framework and philosophical content.

Philosophy and Religion in Plato's Dialogues

Philosophy and Religion in Plato's Dialogues PDF Author: Andrea Nightingale
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108837301
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
Challenges the idea that Plato is a secular thinker, exploring the interaction of philosophy and Greek religion in the dialogues.