Online research in philosophy

At the beginning of his Metaphysics, Aristotle attributed several strange-sounding theses to Plato. Generations of Plato scholars have assumed that these could not be found in the dialogues. In heated arguments, they have debated the significance of these claims, some arguing that they constituted an 'unwritten teaching' and others maintaining that Aristotle was mistaken in attributing them to Plato. In his previous book-length study on Plato's late ontology, Kenneth Sayre demonstrated that, despite differences in terminology, these claims correspond to themes developed by Plato in the Parmenides and the Philebus. In this study, he shows how this correspondence can be extended to key, but previously obscure, passages in the Statesman. He also examines the interpretative consequences for other sections of that dialogue, particularly those concerned with the practice of dialectical inquiry.

The earliest philosopher whose work has survived extensively, Plato remains the starting-point in the study of logic, metaphysics, and moral and political philosophy. R.M. Hare provides a concise, well-connected introduction to Plato's dialogues, focusing on the central problems which led Plato to become a philosopher. He describes these problems and Plato's solutions with great clarity, and sets them in the context of Plato's life and times, and his place in the history of philosophy.

As such, this book is both a critique and a tribute to Rosenzweig and Levinas. The book contains an exhaustive bibliography of the comparative studies.

In this very original study, the author investigates how Plato "invented" the discipline of philosophy. In order to define and legitimize philosophy, Dr. Nightingale maintains, Plato had to match it against genres of discourse that had authority and currency in democratic Athens. By incorporating traditional genres of poetry and rhetoric into his dialogues, Plato marks the boundaries of philosophy as a discursive and as a social practice.

The Grammar of Criminal Law is a 3-volume work that addresses the field of international and comparative criminal law, with its primary focus on the issues of international concern, ranging from genocide, to domestic efforts to combat terrorism, to torture, and to other international crimes. The first volume is devoted to foundational issues. The Grammar of Criminal Law is unique in its systematic emphasis on the relationship between language and legal theory; there is no comparable comparative study of legal language. Written in the spirit of Fletcher's classic Rethinking Criminal Law, this work is essential reading in the field of international and comparative law.

A new reading of Plato's account of conventionalism about names in the Cratylus. It argues that Hermogenes' position, according to which a name is whatever anybody 'sets down' as one, does not have the counterintuitive consequences usually claimed. At the same time, Plato's treatment of conventionalism needs to be related to his treatment of formally similar positions in ethics and politics. Plato is committed to standards of objective natural correctness in all such areas, despite the problematic consequences which, as he himself shows, arise in the case of language.

A new reading of Plato's account of conventionalism about names in the Cratylus. It argues that Hermogenes' position, according to which a name is whatever anybody 'sets down' as one, does not have the counterintuitive consequences usually claimed. At the same time, Plato's treatment of conventionalism needs to be related to his treatment of formally similar positions in ethics and politics. Plato is committed to standards of objective natural correctness in all such areas, despite the problematic consequences which, as he himself shows, arise in the case of language.