This book is a quest for the real Plato, forever hiding behind the veil of drama. The quest, as the subtitle indicates, is Cartesian in that it looks for Plato independently of the prevailing paradigms on where we are supposed to find him. The result of the quest is a complete pedagogical platform on Plato. This does not mean that the book leaves nothing out, covering all the dialogues and all the themes, but that it provides the full intellectual apparatus (...) for doing just that. It consists of two parts. The first is a general orientation in three chapters, one each pertaining to the life, thought, and works of Plato. The second is a dialogic companion covering the four dialogues built around the last days of Socrates, with a separate chapter devoted to each: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. (shrink)

In the final book of Plato’s Republic, Socrates bans the poets from his ideal city. According to Socrates, the poets bring about corruption and decadence: instead of pursuing and producing the truth, poets reproduce falsehoods – “images” as opposed to “the originals.” Only the philosophers, Socrates says, oversee the truth. However, Arthur Schopenhauer, the self-proclaimed inheritor of Platonic philosophy, seems to flip this idea on its head. Poets do manufacture images, but these images, Schopenhauer claims, are knowledge par excellence. In (...) this paper, I explore Schopenhauer’s contribution to the “ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry” and argue that, for him, poetry is not only a truth-tracking endeavor, but is invaluable to the practice of philosophy itself. I, then, turn to Schopenhauer’s “son,” “pupil,” and “born psychologist,” Friedrich Nietzsche, to examine the relationship between poetry and health. I conclude by suggesting some implications that Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theory might have for contemporary philosophers. (shrink)

El artículo ofrece una interpretación de la controversial y aparentemente inaceptable caracterización de la poesía desarrollada por Platón en la República. Los objetivos principales de la discusión son: aclarar las motivaciones de dicha caracterización, desentrañar los múltiples y discontinuos argumentos que la componen, y evaluar críticamente sus aciertos y sus límites. Se concluye que no todas las posturas que adopta Platón frente a la poesía son insostenibles, y que cuando sí lo son las razones para ello resultan particularmente esclarecedoras. The (...) article offers an interpretation of the controversial and apparently unacceptable characterization of poetry developed in Plato's Republic. The main objectives of the discussion are: to clarify the motivations for such characterization, to disentangle the various and discontinuous arguments that compose it, and to critically evaluate its limitations and the extent of its defensibility. It is concluded that not all the positions adopted by Plato with respect to poetry are unsustainable, and that when they are, this is due to reasons which result particularly revealing. (shrink)

Las numerosas acusaciones formuladas por Platón contra la poesía aparecen a lo largo de toda su obra, referidas tanto al contenido como a la forma, y se basan en diversos supuestos éticos, políticos y metafísicos. Sin embargo, tales ataques no son lanzados con-tra la poesía como tal, sino contra la poesía tradicional y su importante presencia en el ámbito educativo griego. Frente a la tradición poética y frente a las distintas corrientes intelectuales que se disputan el espacio educativo de su (...) tiempo, Platón elabora una nueva poesía sometida a la filosofía, que no solo resulta agradable sino también útil. (shrink)