Plato and Platonism : Plato's conception of appearance and reality in ontology, epistemology, and ethics, and its modern echoes

Bibliographic Information

Plato and Platonism : Plato's conception of appearance and reality in ontology, epistemology, and ethics, and its modern echoes

Julius Moravcsik

(Issues in ancient philosophy, 1)

Blackwell Publishers, 1992

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Note

Bibliography: p. [329]-337

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This book offers a rich and highly original treatment of Plato's views in the areas of epistemology, ontology, and ethics. Moravcsik rightly encourages us to be open to the idea that the study of Plato is valuable not only for historical reasons, but also based on what it can offer to us in our continuing reflections on pivotal topics such as the nature of human flourishing. Moravcsik's book is essential reading not only for those working in Greek philosophy, but also for anyone who is interested in exploring key approaches to enduring philosophical and human concerns. - Susan B. Levin, Smith College. "Plato and Platonism" reviews the nature and limits of Platonic interpretation. The book begins with a discussion of Plato's conception of what a genuine rational discipline (a 'techne') should be. The author shows how the recollection theory of understanding, the Forms as ultimate explanatory factors, and Plato's ethics of the right human ideal, all grow out of conditions that are essential to the genuine 'technai'. Moravcsik goes on to demonstrate how questions about the explanatory power of the Theory of Forms, mainly emerging not from naturalistic or empiricist qualms but from deep reflections on Eleatic doctrines, led to elaboration and modifications in Plato's ontology. The author reveals that the clearest echoes of the basic Platonic explanatory pattern linking elements of reality may be seen in some of the work on the foundations of mathematics and the related concern with the Eleatic challenge, rather than the 'realism' of general analytic philosophy. The author also shows how different Plato's basic ethical questions are from those preoccupying modern philosophy, and what Platonistic ethics might look like today. Students, academics and researchers will find that Moravcsik's careful and rigorous analysis offers an understanding of what Platonism in our times would have been like. The book leads us to an appreciation of genuine Platonism, rarely discussed today.

Table of Contents

Preface.Introduction.Part I: How does Reality Account for Appearances? Plato's Notions of the Fundamental, the Good and the Intelligible:1. Insight and Activity.2. The Forms: Plato's Discovery.3. What We Are and What We Should Be.Part II: The Many-Splendored Nature of the Forms, and the Ontology of Order:4. The Parmenides: Forms and Participation Reconsidered.5. The Eleatic-proof theory of Forms of the Sophist.6. The Ontology of Order Reconsidered: The Divisions and the Philebus.Part III: Platonism, Ancient and Modern:7. Platonism in the Philosophy of Mathematics and General Ontology. 8. Platonistic Ethics: Effecting Reorientation and Sustaining Ideals.Bibliography.Index.

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Details

  • NCID
    BA18907693
  • ISBN
    • 1557862028
  • LCCN
    92007543
  • Country Code
    us
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    Cambridge, Mass. ; Oxford
  • Pages/Volumes
    x, 342 p.
  • Size
    24 cm
  • Classification
  • Subject Headings
  • Parent Bibliography ID
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