Symposia : Plato, the erotic, and moral value / Louis A. Ruprecht, Jr.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ruprecht, Louis A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Plato.

Love--History.

Love.

History.

Ethics, Ancient.

Physical Description:

xix, 183 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [1999]

Summary:

Socrates was wise, because he knew that he did not know anything; this has long been the prevailing wisdom of the Socratic-Platonic tradition. In Plato's so-called "Middle Period" -- spanning dialogues such as Phaedo, Symposium, Republic, and Phaedrus -- Socrates consistently claims to have knowledge in one area: the erotic. This book argues that the underlining of erotic matters -- in what it refers to as Plato's "Erotic Period" -- marks the most significant and dramatic moment in Plato's career. Plato's attention to the erotic in this period calls for a fundamental reassessment of many of the most important Platonic ideas: his complicated quarrel with poetry, his dubious doctrine of forms, his alleged hostility to the body and embodiment. In the Erotic Period, Plato's views are much richer, and infinitely more complex, than the many caricatures of his thought allow.

Contents:

Introduction: On Beginning Cautiously or, What Do We Mean by Ethics? 1

Chapter 1 Symposium, the First: Plato or, Cosmology, Ethics, and the Poets 21

Chapter 2 Symposium, the Second: the Erotic or, Love in the Middle 39

Chapter 3 Symposium, the Third: Moral Value or, Counting, Being, and True Love 71

Conclusion: On Ending Graciously or, The Greek Legacy Today 105

Appendix On Language and Literacy 127.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 173-176) and index.

ISBN:

0791442632

0791442640

OCLC:

40298256