Plato

The Mythic Project of Plato's Republic

The Mythic Project of Plato's Republic

January 1, 2002

The three major myths of the Republic share a parallel plot structure and a common concern regarding the effects of the city’s educational curriculum on the nature of its citizens. As such, the ‘mythic project’ sustained across the myths coincides with the central political-philosophical project of Plato’s foremost work of political philosophy. I argue that this common inquiry on the effects of education provides a particularly compelling framework for understanding the Myth of Er, which has often struck readers as an inscrutable, if not disappointing, conclusion to the Republic. Furthermore, the mutual entwinement of the Republic’s mythic and philosophical projects cannot be read, as is often said of Plato’s myths, as merely two articulations in different modes, of the same philosophical principles. Rather, the myths of the Republic demonstrate how myth can create spaces for taking certain concepts for granted in ways that are critical to Plato’s conception of what it means to be a philosopher.

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Why did Socrates conduct his dialogues before an audience? On the role of the crowd in Plato's Gorgias

Why did Socrates conduct his dialogues before an audience? On the role of the crowd in Plato's Gorgias

January 1, 1999

The 'Socratic method,' or elenchus, is conventionally understood to be a one-on-one interaction between Socrates and an individual interlocutor. Why, then, does Socrates conduct so many of his dialogues in public places, where they are prone to being witnessed or even interrupted? This essay brings attention to the unappreciated role of crowds in Socrates’ investigations. Through a close reading of the Gorgias, a dialogue in search of the true political oratory, I argue that Socrates deliberately involves his audience in his discussions with individuals, thereby rejecting the elenchus for a reinvented form of philosophical oratory better suited to address both the individual interlocutor as well as the group of which he is part. The Socratic project, so understood, is no longer the practice of philosophy removed from politics, but an ambitious philosophical oratory aimed at interacting more publically with the Athenian demos.  See also Tae-Yeoun Keum, 'Why did Socrates conduct his dialogues before an audience?' forthcoming in History of Political Thought.

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The Inheritance of Loss and the Platonic Father: Patriarchy in the Republic, Symposium and Euthyphro

The Inheritance of Loss and the Platonic Father: Patriarchy in the Republic, Symposium and Euthyphro

January 1, 1998

Plato's conflicted thoughts on inter-generational relations are packed into the potent metaphor of the father figure in the Republic, Timaeus, Euthyphro and Symposium.  Common to these stories is Plato's appreciation for the immense power of fathers to instill respect for traditional values in the subsequent generation, and the simultaneous observation that such values are accepted automatically during a period in which the soul is most impressionable, with no demand made for the reasons they are important.  Values acquired in such a way are lost just as easily, and in fact come to pave the way for the corruption of the individual soul.  

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