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Platonic Thought of the Week: 24 Plato, Republic VIII, 564c-e
“Well,” said I, “to see what we want to see with greater precision, let us proceed in the following way.” “In what way?” “Let us use the argument to divide the democratically governed city into three, which is how matters actually stand. One part is presumably this...
The Philosopher as Tourist: an Identifiable Tradition? by John M. Dillon
[A PDF version of this paper is available for download here] The Philosopher as Tourist: an Identifiable Tradition? John Dillon, Trinity College Dublin I The philosopher Philo of Alexandria, in the course of his Life of Abraham (§65), finds occasion, in connection...
Platonic Thought of the Week: 23 Plato, Republic VII, 534b-d
“Well,” said he, “insofar as I am able to follow, I agree with you about the others.” “And do you describe someone who acquires an account of the being of each thing as dialectical? And would you not say that someone who cannot do so, insofar as he is unable to give...
Platonic Thought of the Week: 22
“And,” said I, “will we not say, Adeimantus, that the same applies to souls? Those with the best natural endowments will become especially bad on encountering bad instruction. Or do you think that enormous injustices and unadulterated baseness originate in an ordinary...
Platonic Thought of the Week: 21
“What do we need to discuss after this?” he said. “The next issue in due sequence,” I replied. “What else? Since philosophers can apprehend that which is always the same as it is, while those who cannot do so are not philosophers but wander instead amid multiplicity...
Platonic Thought of the Week: 20
So, if we are going to save our initial argument whereby our guardians, set apart from all the other artificers, should be artificers of the freedom of the city, in the strictest sense, and engage in no other pursuit that does not lead in this direction, then it is...