This book is a study of post World War II feminist theory from the viewpoint of intellectual history. The key theme is that the social construction of gender has its origins in the feminist theorists of this period. This paradigm is a key foundational element to both second and third wave feminist thought. It will focus on the five key scholars of the period: Komarovsky, de Beauvoir, Mead, Klein and Herschberger. This has been a somewhat overlooked period in the development (...) of feminist theory and philosophy and Tarrant makes a compelling case for it (the fifties) being the turning point in the study of gender. (shrink)
In the first half of the first century BC the Academy of Athens broke up in disarray. From the wreckage of the semi-sceptical school there arose the new dogmatic philosophy of Antiochus, synthesised from Stoicism and Platonism, and the hardline Pyrrhonist scepticism of Aenesidemus. With his extensive knowledge of the ways in which Plato was read and invoked as an authority in late antiquity Dr Tarrant builds a most impressive reconstruction of Philo of Larissa's brand of Platonism and of (...) its arrival in Middle Platonism, particularly that of Plutarch, long after the Academy's institutional demise. Particularly valuable is his exploitation for this purpose of a text barely discussed since its publication 80 years ago - a commentary on Plato's Theaetetus whose unidentified author Dr Tarrant has cogently argued to be a follower of Philo, perhaps Eudorus of Alexandra. Among many other achievements, Dr Tarrant throws much light on the relation of Aenesideman scepticism to the Academy. (shrink)
Harold Tarrant here explores ancient attempts to interpret Plato's writings, by philosophers who spoke a Greek close to Plato's own, and provides a fresh, ...
This paper examines the late Neoplatonic evidence for the text at the crucial point of the Alcibiades I, 133c, finding that Olympiodorus' important evidence is not in the lexis, which strangely has nothing to say. Perhaps it was dangerous in Christian Alexandria to record one's views here too precisely. Rather, they are found primarily in the prologue and secondarily in the relevant theoria. Olympiodorus believes that he is quoting from the work or paraphrasing closely, but offers nothing that (...) can be paralleled in either the manuscripts or the Eusebian (or Stobaean) versions. Since both the manuscript text and the Eusebian text fail to satisfy, the evidence deserves consideration. Even if he were not in possession of a text that was wholly correct, Olympiodorus does at least offer an overall interpretation of the passage which neatly unites the daemonic and erotic aspects of Socrates' activities, and offers a real reason for Alcibiades to return Socrates' love. He is encouraged to reflect upon the nature of the divine being (not just a daemo but a theos in this work) controlling Socrates, so that he may behold the likeness of his own, woefully obscured, inner self, and so acquire the self-knowledge necessary for true political success.The anonymous Prolegomena (unsurprisingly) are compatible with Olympiodorus, while Proclus' prologue again largely agrees with Olympiodorus' interpretation. For Proclus, Alcibiades must become an observer of Socrates knowledge and indeed of Socrates' whole life. 'For to desire to know the reason for Socrates' actions is to become the lover of the knowledge which is pre-established within him.' So the path towards a total understanding of his own inner intellective self lies via the contemplation of that being that is rooted within Socrates.I also examine earlier Platonist evidence for the text and find little that is not in harmony with late Neoplatonism. (shrink)
Proclus' Commentary on Plato's dialogue Timaeus is arguably the most important commentary on a text of Plato, offering unparalleled insights into eight centuries of Platonic interpretation. This edition offers the first new English translation of the work for nearly two centuries, building on significant recent advances in scholarship on Neoplatonic commentators. It provides an invaluable record of early interpretations of Plato's dialogue, while also presenting Proclus' own views on the meaning and significance of Platonic philosophy. The present volume, the first (...) in the edition, deals with what may be seen as the prefatory material of the Timaeus. In it Socrates gives a summary of the political arrangements favoured in the Republic, and Critias tells the story of how news of the defeat of Atlantis by ancient Athens had been brought back to Greece from Egypt by the poet and politician Solon. (shrink)
: This paper questions whether the relationship between Socrates and his young followers could ever have been treated by Plato in the same fashion as it is treated in the Platonic Theages, where the terminology of synousia is repeatedly applied to it. It argues that in minimizing the part played by knowledge, and in maximizing the role of the divine and of erōs, the work creates a 'Socrates' who conforms to the educational ideology of the Academy of Polemo in the (...) period 314-270 B.C. I indicate how this may assist our understanding of Arcesilaus' Socraticism, and suggest ways in which the work may have found its present place in the corpus. (shrink)
In the light of Glucker's claim to have found in "De Divinatione" 1.115 a separate, unnamed Pythagorean-Platonic influence on Cicero, I examine the passage again with special reference to early Platonic interpretation. I find that the "Meno's" influence is wider than had been suspected, suggesting (i) the correspondence between the two types of 'natural' divination, dreams and ecstatic prophecy, and (ii) the kinship of souls. Posidonius' influence on the underlying interpretation of Platonic psychology is to be detected, insofar as he (...) would have read "Meno" 81d as a statement about all souls (together) having all available knowledge. However, Cratippus, Cicero's other main source, can be held to have directly borrowed from "Meno" 81d2-3 for his crowning argument ("De Div." 1.71), and it is likely that other material that uses 81d would also stem from Cratippus. A little is known elsewhere of early interpretation of the "Meno." Comparison with other early 'Platonist' material suggests strongly that we must look to Antiochus' school for this view that dreams regularly contain substantial truth explicable in terms of the nature of soul. This would lead once again to Cratippus, and nothing prevents our detecting his hand behind 1.115. Indeed 1.70, which Glucker uses to argue that Cratippus' dream-divining soul would literally have to leave the body, only makes good sense when understood metaphorically. (shrink)
The concept of tacit knowledge has come a long way from its origins in Michael Polanyi's work and its championing by Hayek and other Austrian economists. It is now widely, even routinely, cited not only in Austrian economics, but also in institutional economics work, industrial economics and economic geography. Further, rather than being viewed as a hypothesis requiring conceptual clarification and empirical testing, the concept of tacit knowledge is almost invariably treated as established, even incontrovertible, virtually as a fact. Conceptual (...) disputes over tacit knowledge have instead focused on the boundaries between codifiable and tacit knowledge. Here we draw upon a critique of tacit knowledge and tacit rule following from the social philosophy literature that has not been considered in the economics literature hitherto. In brief, this critique argues that the concept of tacit knowledge is merely a term given to a phenomenon the observer does not understand; as such, it has no explanatory content. Through a philosophical examination of rule following, this critique further argues that the concept of agents tacitly following rules is highly problematic, not to say implausible. (shrink)
Our knowledge of the Academy between the death of Plato and the first century BC is not extensive, though covered both by Philodemus' Academica, a history of the School on damaged papyrus, and by brief biographies in the fourth book of Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Philosophers. These biographies cover the main school leaders down to the time of Clitomachus (d. 110/09 BC). It would be usual to see the Academy as having built on Plato's work and maintained his traditions (...) for about eighty years after the death of Plato in 347 BC, where upon Arcesilaus drew on the precedent of Socratic ignorance to move in a new, more sceptical direction. (shrink)
Various ancient sources refer to the Platonic work that we know as Republic in the plural. Aristotle seems to have made it possible to refer to politeiai as ‘constitutions’, actual or written, and therefore some of our texts are best explained as references to Plato’s two written constitutions, Republic and Laws. One neglected reference that may perhaps be explained in this way occurs in the anonymous Antiatticista. A large number of references from the Alexandrian school of Platonism in late antiquity (...) cannot be explained in that way, and should be understood with reference to the prevalent interpretation of the Republic, which gives equal weight to the internal (psychic) and external (civic) constitutions. The trickiest question is what it means in the titles of three commentaries dating from the early imperial era. (shrink)
