Topography and deep structure in Plato : the construction of place in the Dialogues / Clinton DeBevoise Corcoran.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Corcoran, Clinton DeBevoise, author.

Series:

SUNY series in ancient Greek philosophy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Plato. Dialogues.

Plato.

Dialogues (Plato).

Place (Philosophy).

Physical Description:

xi, 289 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2016]

Summary:

A literary and historical analysis of the structure and meaning of recurrent symbols, images, and actions employed in Plato's dialogues. In this book, Clinton DeBevoise Corcoran examines the use of place in Plato's dialogues. Corcoran argues that spatial representations, such as walls, caves, and roads, as well as the creation of eternal patterns and chaotic images in the particular spaces, times, characterizations, and actions of the dialogues, provide clues to Plato's philosophic project. Throughout the dialogues, the Good serves as an overarching ordering principle for the construction of place and the proper limit of spaces, whether they be here in the world, deep in the underworld, or in the nonspatial ideal realm of the Forms. The Good, since it escapes the limits of space and time, equips Plato with a powerful mythopoetic tool to create settings, frames, and arguments that superimpose different dimensions of reality, allowing worlds to overlap that would otherwise be incommensurable. The Good also serves as a powerful ethical tool for evaluating the order of different spaces. Corcoran explores how Plato uses wrestling and war as metaphors for the mixing of the nonspatial, eternal forms in the world and history, and how he uses spatial images throughout the dialogues to critique Athens's tragic overreach in the Peloponnesian War. Far from merely an incidental backdrop in the dialogues, place etches the tragic intersection of the mortal and the immortal, good and evil, and Athens's past, present, and future. Clinton DeBevoise Corcoran is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at High Point University.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Descent into the Maelstrom 23

The Republic, the Oracle of Trophonius, and the Peloponnesian War 23

The Long Walls 26

The Cave 28

The Opening of the Republic and the Oracle of Trophonius 33

The Oracle of Trophonius 36

Socrates as a Leader of Souls 42

The Myth of Er 45

Chapter 2 The Menexenus, Socrates, and the Battle of Arginusae 51

Dead Souls 51

The History of Athens 56

The Battle 57

The Trial 60

The Anachronism 60

The City of the Dead 65

Chapter 3 The Symbolism in the City Plan of Plato's Atlantis 71

The Present Past and Past Present 71

Intentional Incompleteness? 73

The Circuit Walls of Atlantis 78

Oreichalkos and Platonic Metallurgy 83

Geomancy 89

Chapter 4 The Slow Boat from Delos, or Socrates's Ship Comes In? 93

Which Ship Is That? 93

The Woman in White 95

Reenactment: Saving Athens Again 103

Socrates and Divination 104

Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On 107

The Delia 111

Chapter 5 Wrestling and the Fair Fight in Plato 119

Plato's View of Wrestling 119

Wrestling for Phaedrus 123

Lysis: Wrestling as an Enactment of Philosophic Dialogue 133

The Republic: Thrasymacbus as Pankratist 135

Wrestling, Dialectic, and Authenticity 137

Theomachia: Calliope versus Aphrodite in Plato's Philehus 139

War and Remembrance 145

War, Conflict, and the Good 147

Chapter 6 The Good as Architectonic 151

Alcibiades's Eccentric Orbit of the Good 151

The Allegory of the Cave and the Myth of the True Earth 157

The Good as Architectonic 164

Interdimensionality 167.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Other Format:

Online version: Corcoran, Clinton DeBevoise, author. Topography and deep structure in Plato

ISBN:

9781438462691

1438462697

OCLC:

947816383