Plato S Individuals

Contradicting the long-held belief that Aristotle was the first to discuss individuation systematically, Mary Margaret McCabe argues that Plato was concerned with what makes something a something and that he solved the problem in a radically different way than did Aristotle. McCabe explores the centrality of individuation to Plato's thinking, from the Parmenides to the Politicus, illuminating Plato's later metaphysics in an exciting new way. Tradition associates Plato with the contrast between the particulars of the sensible world and transcendent forms, and supposes that therein lies the center of Plato's metaphysical universe. McCabe rebuts this view, arguing that Plato's thinking about individuals--which informs all his thought--comes to focus on the tension between "generous" or complex individuals and "austere" or simple individuals. In dialogues such as the Theaetetus and the Timaeus Plato repeatedly poses the question of individuation but cannot provide an answer. Later, in the Sophist, the Philebus, and the Politicus, Plato devises what McCabe calls the "mesh of identity," an account of how individuals may be identified relative to each other. The mesh of identity, however, fails to explain satisfactorily how individuals are unified or made coherent. McCabe asserts that individuation may be absolute--and she questions philosophy's longtime reliance on Aristotle's solution.

The People of Plato is the first study since 1823 devoted exclusively to the identification of, and relationships among, the individuals represented in the complete Platonic corpus. It provides details of their lives, and it enables one to consider the persons of Plato's works, and those of other Socratics, within a nexus of important political, social, and familial relationships. Debra Nails makes a broad spectrum of scholarship accessible to the non-specialist. She distinguishes what can be stated confidently from what remains controversial and--with full references to ancient and contemporary sources--advances our knowledge of the men and women of the Socratic milieu. Bringing the results of modern epigraphical and papyrological research to bear on long-standing questions, The People of Plato is a fascinating resource and valuable research tool for the field of ancient Greek philosophy and for literary, political, and historical studies more generally. In discrete sections, Nails discusses systems of Athenian affiliation, significant historical episodes that link lives and careers of the late fifth century, and their implications for the dramatic dates of the dialogues. The volume includes a rich array of maps, stemmata, and diagrams, plus a glossary, chronology, plan of the agora in 399 B.C.E., bibliography, and indices.

In this study of Plato's theory of the individual, I propose to show that Plato is deeply concerned with the achievement by each person of the moral excellence appropriate to man. Plato exhibits profound interest in the moral well being of each individual, not merely those who are philosophically gifted. Obviously my study is in opposition with a traditional line of interpretation which holds that Plato evinces small concern for the ordinary individual, the "common man" of today. According to this interpretation Plato's chief interest, shown especially in the Republic, is with the philosophically endowed, whose knowledge penetrates to and embraces the realm of forms; this is a world which must remain for the common man an unfathomable mystery in its totality. Although he is unable to grasp the knowledge of the forms necessary for genuine morality, the ordinary individual may, if he is fortunate enough to live in a polis ruled by philosophers, gain a sort of secondary or "demotic" morality. Through the me chanical development of the right kind of habits, through faithful obedience to the decrees of the rulers and the laws of the polis, the many who are incapable of comprehending the true bases of morality will attain a second best, unreflective morality accompanied by happi ness.

Knowing Persons is an original study of Plato's account of personhood. For Plato, embodied persons are images of a disembodied ideal. The ideal person is a knower. Hence, the lives of embodied persons need to be understood according to Plato's metaphysics of imagery. For Gerson, Plato's account of embodied personhood is not accurately conflated with Cartesian dualism. Plato's dualism is more appropriately seen in the contrast between the ideal disembodied person and the embodied one than in the contrast between mind or soul and body.

This book explores the life-history of the individual within the context of Plato’s social thought. The author examines Plato’s treatment of the principal crises in an individual life - birth, educational selection, sex, the individual’s contract with society, old age, death, and life after death – and provides an unprecedented analysis of Plato’s theory of genetics as it appears in the Timaeus. Comparisons are made with contemporary developments in anthropology, sociology, and comparative myth but without losing sight of the fact that Plato, whilst having much to say to the modern world, was not a modern.

The Republic is Plato's most famous work and one of the seminal texts of Western philosophy and politics. The characters in this Socratic dialogue - including Socrates himself - discuss whether the just or unjust man is happier. They are the philosopher-kings of imagined cities and they also discuss the nature of philosophy and the soul among other things.

Studies Plato's Republic and other dialogues.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.