Blindness and Reorientation

Problems in Plato's Republic
Erscheinungsjahr 2012
ISBN: 978-0-19-993443-0
Verlag: OUP US

Buch, Englisch, 230 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 559 g

Are the just happier than the unjust? In Plato' s Republic, Thrasymachus argues that they aren't, that justice is simply the advantage of the stronger. Though Socrates apparently refutes him, Plato's brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, take up his argument anew, challenging Socrates to show them that justice really does better further happiness than injustice.

The nature of this renewed challenge and the reason for it are hotly debated problems. Equally problematic is the question of whether Socrates succeeds in meeting the challenge in the crucial case of the philosopher-kings, whom he claims are happiest of all. Central to his attempt is a complex tripartite psychology and the yet more complex the metaphysics and epistemology of transcendent Platonic forms. But just how these are to be understood or how knowledge of such forms could help the
philosopher-kings with the practical business of governing a city also remain deeply problematic issues.

Beginning with a discussion of Socrates in the Apology, and his portrait by Alcibiades in the Symposium, and proceeding to topics more directly within the Republic itself, Blindness and Reorientation develops not just powerful new solutions to these problems, but a new understanding of Plato's conception of philosophy, its relationship to craft-knowledge, and the roles of dialectic and experience within it. Written in a clear and vivid style, C. D. C. Reeve's new book will be accessible to any
committed reader of Plato.

Zielgruppe

Plato scholars of all levels. Professors and students of Greek Philosophy, Ancient Ethics and Politics, and of Ethics generally. General readers of Plato.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Reeve, C. D. C.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Ethik, Moralphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Geschichte der klassischen Antike

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Chapter 1: Human Wisdom
Chapter 2: Alcibiades and the Socratic Craft of Love
Chapter 3: Cephalus, Odysseus, and the Importance of Experience
Chapter 4: Glaucon's Thrasymachean Challenge
Chapter 5: Souls, Soul-Parts, and Persons
Chapter 6: Beauty and Goodness, Politics and Genitals
Chapter 7: Education and the Acquisition of Knowledge
Chapter 8: Craft, Dialectic, and the Form of the Good
Chapter 9: The Happiness of the Philosopher-Kings

Über Autor(innen)

C. D. C. Reeve is Delta Kappa Epsilon Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He works primarily on Plato and Aristotle, but is interested in philosophy generally and has published on film and on the philosophy of sex and love.