Plato's Sophist provides a careful translation of the Sophist, one of Plato's most complex and difficult dialogues, and includes materials designed to facilitate its usefulness as a text in college courses. The translation employs a minimum of interpretative paraphrasing while being presented in clear, readable English. Special attention has been given to consistency in translating key Greek terms. The book presents a special list of these terms and discusses them in the endnotes. The result is a translation that enables the (...) reader who lacks a knowledge of Greek to get much closer than usual to the original text. Cobb's introduction contains a detailed summary of the entire dialogue, clarifying the main themes and the general structure. He offers a fresh interpretation of the dialogue that shows how each theme contributes to the exploration of the nature of, and the relation between, philosophy and sophistry. The introduction is particularly useful to first readers of the Sophist. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that the arguments tendered by Sokrates in the Protagoras involve serious logical fallacies. My contention is that this view is mistaken, and I shall argue that Sokrates makes no significant logical errors in this dialogue. I shall begin with a few general assertions about the dialogue as a dramatic whole, since I believe that a grasp of the general theme and character of the dialogue is essential for understanding the argumentation.

This is an analysis of the argument of the "euthyphro" that takes the dialogue form seriously. i contend that plato does "not" present socrates as defending a view incompatible with his claim in the "protagoras" that the religious ("pious") and the just are the same. the suggestion that the religious is only part of the just must be attributed to "euthyphro". i also argue that socrates does not reject the definition of the religious as what the gods love.

There are two basic ways in which the phenomenon of learning is explicated in the Platonic dialogues: First, by means of an analogy with vision, and second, by arguing that the acquisition of knowledge is really anamnesis. The analogy with vision is the more common of the two and occurs throughout the dialogues. The passage in the Republic comparing the sun and the good is the best known instance of this approach to the clarification of learning. The basic point of (...) this explication is that the mind, like the eye, in order to discover truth must be turned in the right direction and be trained to apprehend and distinguish the characters of the objects it beholds. In this context, the acquisition of knowledge is clearly a discovery of that which was not previously known, just as the man who escapes from the cave sees what he had not previously seen, and at the end of the ascent of the heavenly ladder one “begins to see” what he has not seen before. (shrink)

The Symposium and the Phaedrus are combined here because of their shared theme: a reflection on the nature of erotic love, the love that begins with sexual desire but can transcend that origin and reach even the heights of religious ecstasy. This reflection is carried out explicitly in the speeches and conversations in the dialogues, and implicitly in the dramatic depiction of actions and characters. Thus, the two dialogues deal with a theme of enduring interest and are interesting for both (...) their literary and their philosophical character. In addition to the introduction, the book contains substantial commentaries and thorough endnotes. Key Greek terms are discussed for readers who are unfamiliar with the language. A special feature is a discussion on the importance of the dramatic and literary aspects of the dialogues for interpreting their philosophical content. The introductions deal with the nature of the dialogues themselves as philosophical texts and with Plato’s philosophical assumptions and key concepts, as well as with the necessary background of Athenian society. The endnotes clarify any ambiguities and obscurities in the original text, identifying all references to people, places, gods, et cetera. The commentaries are designed to open up the dialogues for the reader, showing the issues that have been debated by commentators and considering some of the responses to them. They are designed to stimulate further reflection. (shrink)

In this overview of ancient Greek thought Saxonhouse argues that Aristotle invents political science by recognizing the necessity and virtue of diversity in the polis. His predecessors are driven by their fear of diversity to demand an extreme unity that is ultimately destructive of life because it denies or seeks to eliminate the multiplicity that characterizes the world we encounter through our senses, which is the world where the polis must exist. She examines this fear of diversity from its roots (...) in the philosophy of the pre-Socratics, through its examination in the works of the playwrights and in Plato's dialogues, up to its overcoming in Aristotle's Politics. (shrink)

This book is a thorough study of an issue that is particularly associated with the work of William P. Alston and Alvin Plantinga, namely, the claim that belief in the existence of God is in important ways on a par with belief in the existence of ordinary parts of the world, such as trees and other people. The inference is that since the latter is recognized as epistemologically acceptable, that is, "rational," so should the former be. McLeod develops his own (...) version of this view after giving a careful, sympathetic, and detailed analysis and critique of the work of Alston and Plantinga, in addition to others. The thoroughness and clarity of this critique is striking and will be very helpful to those interested in the development of the discussion of this issue. The analysis of Alston has been particularly enriched by McLeod's being able to take advantage of Alston's own responses to it. McLeod considers the issue of the epistemological nature of perceptual beliefs of the ordinary sort as well as the peculiar problems of theistic beliefs. Hence, the book contains a substantial analysis of the nature of the justification of perceptual beliefs. He also deals with the problem of broadly religious versus specifically Christian beliefs. The latter, he argues, clearly include background beliefs that cannot be justified in a way that is independent of Christian practice. That is, in order to confirm Christian beliefs one must appeal to other Christian beliefs. This circularity must be faced, he asserts, but does not undermine the possibility of a parity with certain types of nontheistic beliefs that are similarly circular. (shrink)

Stern uses a very thorough analysis of Plato's Phaedo as a means of attacking the traditional understanding of the Platonic-Socratic view of both the method and the results of philosophy that is found in the middle dialogues. Stern means by "political philosophy" the study of human affairs in general, and he sees Socrates' study of human affairs as described in the Phaedo as involving a type of rationalism that does not rest on a dogmatic assertion about the existence of a (...) transcendent realm of Ideas supplying a clear and unambiguous explanation of things. On the contrary, Socratic rationalism is grounded in an awareness of the limits of human understanding and consists in the critical examination of human discourse as our means of discovering what can be known about the world we live in and the irreducible heterogeneity and irreconcilable conflicts that characterize it. Neither the soul nor the Ideas can be understood apart from their involvement in this world, and both are connected with logos and with heterogeneity in a critical way. (shrink)