The philosopher in Plato's Statesman. Together with Dialectical education and unwritten teachings in Plato's Statesman / Mitchell Miller.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Miller, Mitchell H.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Plato. Statesman.

Plato.

Physical Description:

xxxiii, 186 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Edition:

Paperback edition.

Place of Publication:

Las Vegas : Parmenides Pub., 2004.

Contents:

The Philosopher in Plato's Statesman

Introduction: Problems of Interpretation xxiii

1 Difficulties in the "standard view" xxiv

2 An alternative heuristic thesis for interpretation xxvi

a The essence of the dialogue xxvi

b Formal treatise versus genuine dialogue xxxii

3 The program for interpretation xxxiii

I The Dramatic Context 1

1 Dramatic situation: the trial of Socrates 1

2 Dramatis personae: antipathy, eagerness, silence 3

a Theodorus: geometry and philosophy 3

b Young Socrates: the "test" to discover kinship 5

c The elder Socrates: silence and unheardness 8

3 The stranger from Elea 10

a Judge and mediator 11

b Alienation and mediation, some clues 12

(i) The mean 12

(ii) The Homeric allusions: homecoming and disguise 12

(iii) The stranger's Parmenidean heritage: education and irony 13

4 The agreement to begin 14

II The Initial Diairesis (258b-267c) 16

1 Formal structure of the method; the apparent accord (258b-261e) 16

2 Young Socrates' error; the value of bifurcatory diairesis (261e-264b) 19

a The refutation: halving and forms (261e-263b) 19

Note: panhellenist partisanship 22

b The correction; the status of diairesis (263c-264b) 24

3 The closing bifurcations; jokes and problems (264b-267c) 28

III The Digressions on Substance and Method (267c-287b) 34

A The first digression: the myth of the divine shepherd (267c-277a) 35

1 The stranger's objection (267c-268d) 34

2 The manifold function of the myth (268d-274e) 36

a The logos of cosmic history 37

b The critique of traditions 40

(1) Traditional images 40

(i) The Homeric "shepherd of the people" and the Hesiodic "age of Cronus" 40

(ii) Tyranny, democracy, and sophistic humanism 43

(iii) Re-emergence of the "shepherd" 45

(2) The stranger's critique 48

(i) The initial "remembrance": the ancient despot 48

(ii) "Forgetfulness": homo mensura and the new despotism 49

(iii) Philosophical recollection: deus mensura and the art of statesmanship 51

3 The revisions of the initial definition (274e-277a); Young Socrates and the Academy 53

B The second digression: paradigm and the mean (277a-287b) 55

1 The paradigm of paradigm (277a-279a) 57

2 The paradigm of the weaver (279a-283a) 60

3 The stranger's preventative doctrine of essential measure (283b-287b) 64

a The diairetic revelation of essential measure (283b-285c) 65

b The purposes of the dialogue; its value as a paradigm for Young Socrates (285c-286b) 69

c The application of essential measure (286b-287b) 71

IV The Final Diairesis (287b-311c) 73

a The change in the form of diairesis (287b ff.) 74

(i) The "difficulty" and the new form 75

(ii) The self-overcoming of bifurcation 79

(iii) The stranger's-and Plato's-reticence 81

b The first phase: the indirectly responsible arts, makers of instruments (287b-289c) 82

c The second phase, part one: the directly responsible arts, subaltern servants (289c-290e) 84

d The digression: philosophy and ordinary opinion; statesmanship and actual political order (291a-303d) 86

(1) The sole true criterion: the statesman's episteme (291a-293e) 87

(2) The ways of mediation (293e-301a) 91

(i) Statesmanship and the law: the "best" way and the "ridiculousness" of the doctrine of the many (293e-297c) 92

(ii) The "imitative" polities: the "second best" way and the relative justification of the doctrine of the many (297c-301a) 95

(3) The return to the diaireses of polity: knowledge of ignorance and the political means (301a-303d) 101

e Resumption of the diairesis (second phase, part two): the true aides (303d-305e) 103

f The third phase: the statesman as weaver; the virtues and the mean (305e-311c) 106

(i) The application of the paradigm 106

(ii) The statesman's and the stranger's realizations of the mean 108

Epilogue: The Statesman Itself as a Mean 114

Dialectical Education and Unwritten Teachings in Plato's Statesman 141

I An orienting interpretive thesis: the Statesman as a microcosmic exhibition of the long-term process of philosophical education 142

II Five "unwritten teachings" 143

III Related passages in the Parmenides and the Philebus 144

A The account of participation in the Parmenides, hypothesis III 144

B The "gift from the gods," Philebus 16c-18d 145

C Peras and apeiron in Philebus 23c-27c 145

D Implications of the Philebus passages for the account of participation in the Parmenides 147

(i) Forms of parts and the mathematical sense of peras 147

(ii) The Great and the Small and the apeiron 147

E The five "unwritten teachings" in the Parmenides and the Philebus 147

(i) The Great and the Small as a case of the broader apeiron 148

(ii) The five "unwritten teachings" in interplay 148

IV The exhibition of the "unwritten teachings" in the diairesis of the fifteen kinds of art in the Statesman 150

A The One and its instantiation in the "single form": "care" 150

B The apeiron and its instantiation in the continuum traced by the series of fifteen kinds 150

(i) The list as a series 151

(ii) The opposites and mid-point 151

(iii) The continuum of proportions of material and spiritual 151

C The normative status of the ratios on the continuum-the city with the fifteen kinds of art as sacred 152

V Implications 153

Supplementary Diagrams 155

Appendix Structural Outline of the Statesman 179.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [165]-178) and indexes.

Contains:

Miller, Mitchell H. Dialectical education and unwritten teachings in Plato's Statesman.

ISBN:

1930972164

9781930972162

OCLC:

57499077

Online:

Publisher description