Plato S Euthyphro Clitophon

A Greek language reader with extensive commentary in English; it is an ideal introduction to Plato and Greek prose. The Greek is clear and easy to follow but not overly simple, with word-by-word, line-by-line commentary including grammar help and explanation.

The Clitophon, a dialogue generally ascribed to Plato, is significant for focusing on Socrates' role as an exhorter of other people to engage in philosophy. It was almost certainly intended to bear closely on Plato's Republic and is a fascinating specimen of the philosophical protreptic, an important genre very fashionable at the time. This 1999 volume is a critical edition of this dialogue, in which Professor Slings provides a text based on an examination of all relevant manuscripts and accompanies it with a translation. His extensive introduction studies philosophical exhortation in the classical era, and tries to account for Plato's dialogues in general as a special type of exhortation. The Clitophon is seen as a defence of the Platonic dialogue. The commentary elucidates the Greek and discusses many passages where the meaning is not entirely clear.

It had been thought that theCleitophon was a spurious dialogue. Its brevity and the fact that Socrates does not respond to accusations from Cleitophon suggested to scholars that it was only a fragment. However, in the last fifteen years, the complete and authentic dialogue was rediscovered. Upon its discovery, scholars have almost universally agreed that the Cleitophon is the introduction to Plato'sRepublic. In Plato's Cleitophon: On Socrates and the Modern Mind editor, translator, and author, Mark Kremer, has mined some of the best scholarship on the relationship of Plato's Cleitophon and its relationship to modern thought. It is the contention of the editor that the Cleitophon, is an ancient example of the psychic, social, cultural, and moral strain that is put upon the citizens of a republic when their society begins to erode on all fronts. This work has the potential to afford readers an ancient perspective on ourselves by showing us how we appear in Plato's mind. It should be read by anyone who has ever read Plato'sRepublic; as well as anyone who is concerned about the social, psychic, cultural, and moral effects of postmodernity and globalization.

The end of Plato's 'Clitophon' can be seen to raise something like the following challenge: How is one to acquire (learn) the knowledge Socrates has so persuasively shown to be essential to virtue and apparently absent from us all. 'Clitophon's Challenge' explores Plato's response to this challenge from the 'Apology', 'Laches', 'Euthyphro', and 'Protagoras' to the 'Meno', 'Phaedo', and 'Republic'.

In Euthyphro, Socrates is on his way to the court where he must defend himself against serious charges brought by religious and political authorities. On the way, he meets Euthyphro, an expert on religious matters, who has come to prosecute his own father. Socrates questions Euthyphro’s claim that religion serves as the basis for ethics. Plato lived in Athens, Greece. He wrote approximately two-dozen dialogues that explore core topics that are essential to all human beings. Although the historical Socrates was a strong influence on Plato, the character by that name that appears in many of his dialogues is a product of Plato’s fertile imagination. All of Plato’s dialogues are written in a poetic form that his student Aristotle called "Socratic dialogue." In the twentieth century, the British philosopher and logician Alfred North Whitehead characterized the entire European philosophical tradition as "a series of footnotes to Plato." Philosophy for Plato was not a set of doctrines but a goal — not the possession of wisdom but the love of wisdom. Agora Publications offers these performances based on the assumption that Plato wrote these works to be performed by actors in order to stimulate additional dialogue among those who listen to them.

Euthyphro; Apology of Socrates; Crito

Hugh H. Benson explores Plato's answer to Clitophon's challenge, the question of how one can acquire the knowledge Socrates argues is essential to human flourishing-knowledge we all seem to lack. Plato suggests two methods by which this knowledge may be gained: the first is learning from those who already have the knowledge one seeks, and the second is discovering the knowledge one seeks on one's own. The book begins with a brief look at some of the Socratic dialogues where Plato appears to recommend the former approach while simultaneously indicating various difficulties in pursuing it. The remainder of the book focuses on Plato's recommendation in some of his most important and central dialogues-the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic-for carrying out the second approach: de novo inquiry. The book turns first to the famous paradox concerning the possibility of such an inquiry and explores Plato's apparent solution. Having defended the possibility of de novo inquiry as a response to Clitophon's challenge, Plato explains the method or procedure by which such inquiry is to be carried out. The book defends the controversial thesis that the method of hypothesis, as described and practiced in the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic, is, when practiced correctly, Plato's recommended method of acquiring on one's own the essential knowledge we lack. The method of hypothesis when practiced correctly is, then, Platonic dialectic, and this is Plato's response to Clitophon's challenge. "This is a new book on a critically important topic, methodology, as it is explored in three of the most important works by one of the most important philosophers in the very long history of philosophy, written by a scholar of international stature who is working from many years of experience and currently at the top of his game. It promises to be one of the most important books ever written on this subject."-Nicholas Smith, James F. Miller Professor of Humanities, Lewis and Clark College "The thesis is bold and the results are important for our understanding of some of the most studied and controversial dialogues by and philosophical theses in Plato. In my view, Hugh Benson's examination of the method of hypothesis in the Meno and the Phaedo is a tour de force of subtle and careful scholarship: I think that this part of the book will be adopted as the standard interpretation of this basic notion in Plato. An excellent and important book."-Charles Brittain, Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy and Humane Letters, Cornell University