Plato's erotic thought : the tree of the unknown / Alfred Geier.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Geier, Alfred, 1930-

Series:

Rochester studies in philosophy ; 3.

Rochester studies in philosophy ; 3

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Plato.

Love.

Plato. Symposium.

Plato. Lysis.

Plato. Phaedrus.

Physical Description:

237 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Rochester, NY : University of Rochester Press, 2002.

Summary:

An attempt, by a close reading of three Platonic dialogues, the Symposium, Lysis, and the Phaedrus, to discover the true nature of the object of Eros and especially to understand the mystery of its birth.

This work is an attempt to understand the nature of the object of Eros in Plato's writings. In the first chapter certain considerations based on a passage in Plato's Symposium lead to a discovery and characterization of the nature of that object and several of its features. Then it is realized that he chief problem or mystery about the nature of the object of Eros is how it arises. The book then explores the Lysis and the Phaedrus, which both address how the object arises, in two different ways, the Socratic and the Platonic.

Contents:

1 The Nature of Love ([characters not reproducible]) 3

2 The Symposium: The "Failure" of Love 19

3 The Birth of the Beloved, One Way: Plato's Lysis 67

4 The Birth of the Beloved, Another Way: Plato's Phaedrus 143

5 Tree-Leaves 217.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [233]-237).

ISBN:

1580460682

OCLC:

49225823