Zone1 Plato

[Skull]

Thomas Taylor, the English Platonist translated much of Plato. Here is his Introduction to the philosophy of Plato:

http://www.prometheustrust.co.uk/Thomas_Taylors_intro_to_Plato.pdf

 

[luiza]

A three paragraph key points summary would be useful . Most posters here would be hospitalised if they tried to read the full introduction .
He was one reason why I changed my first degree , a joint Philosophy /Psychology BA, to a just the latter discipline after the first year .
Good decision then, though I am not as sure in hindsight .

 

[Skull]

From Plato's letter VII:

"The laws too, [of Athens] written and unwritten, were being altered for the worse, and the evil was growing with startling rapidity. The result was that, though at first I had been full of a strong impulse towards political life, as I looked at the course of affairs and saw them being swept in all directions by contending currents, my head finally began to swim; and, though I did not stop looking to see if there was any likelihood of improvement in these symptoms and in the general course of public life, I postponed action till a suitable opportunity should arise.
Finally, it became clear to me, with regard to all existing communities, that they were one and all misgoverned. For their laws have got into a state that is almost incurable, except by some extraordinary reform with good luck to support it. And I was forced to say, when praising true philosophy that it is by this that men are enabled to see what justice in public and private life really is. Therefore, I said, there will be no cessation of evils for the sons of men, till either those who are pursuing a right and true philosophy receive sovereign power in the States, or those in power in the States by some dispensation of providence become true philosophers.

With these thoughts in my mind I came to Italy and Sicily on my first visit. My first impressions on arrival were those of strong disapproval — disapproval of the kind of life which was there called the life of happiness, stuffed full as it was with the banquets of the Italian Greeks and Syracusans, who ate to repletion twice every day, and were never without a partner for the night; and disapproval of the habits which this manner of life produces. For with these habits formed early in life, no man under heaven could possibly attain to wisdom — human nature is not capable of such an extraordinary combination. Temperance also is out of the question for such a man; and the same applies to virtue generally. No city could remain in a state of tranquillity under any laws whatsoever, when men think it right to squander all their property in extravagant spending, and consider it a duty to be idle in everything else except eating and drinking and the laborious prosecution of debauchery. It follows necessarily that the constitutions of such cities must be constantly changing, tyrannies, oligarchies and democracies succeeding one another, while those who hold the power cannot so much as endure the name of any form of government which maintains justice and equality of rights."

 

[Skull]

Some avenging fiend has fallen upon mankind, inspiring them with lawlessness, godlessness and acts of recklessness issuing from ignorance, the seed from which all evils for all mankind take root and grow and will in future bear the bitterest harvest for those who brought them into being.

Plato in his letter VII

 

[Libby von H]

Thomas Taylor, the English Platonist translated much of Plato. Here is his Introduction to the philosophy of Plato:

http://www.prometheustrust.co.uk/Thomas_Taylors_intro_to_Plato.pdf

Readers, I am a great lover of Plato....just got done reading Republic maybe a week ago.Got Pieper's book on the Phaedrus ready to go
I concur with no reservation with what Peter Kreeft says

Three Cheers for Plato
The Platonic tradition in Western philosophy is not just one of many equally central traditions. It is so much THE central one that the very existence and survival of Western civilization depends on it. It is like the Confucian tradition in Chinese culture, or the monotheistic tradition in religion, or the human rights tradition in politics.
Three Boos for abandoning Plato
consequences of the modern abandoning of Platonism, beginning with William of Ockham’s Nominalism, as the source of nearly all modern philosophical errors, and its results in the Empiricism of Locke and Hume, the so-called Copernican Revolution in philosophy in Kant, the so-called “analytic philosophy,” which still dominates English and American philosophy departments.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Readers, I am a great lover of Plato....just got done reading Republic maybe a week ago.Got Pieper's book on the Phaedrus ready to go
I concur with no reservation with what Peter Kreeft says

Three Cheers for Plato
The Platonic tradition in Western philosophy is not just one of many equally central traditions. It is so much THE central one that the very existence and survival of Western civilization depends on it. It is like the Confucian tradition in Chinese culture, or the monotheistic tradition in religion, or the human rights tradition in politics.
Three Boos for abandoning Plato
consequences of the modern abandoning of Platonism, beginning with William of Ockham’s Nominalism, as the source of nearly all modern philosophical errors, and its results in the Empiricism of Locke and Hume, the so-called Copernican Revolution in philosophy in Kant, the so-called “analytic philosophy,” which still dominates English and American philosophy departments.

Sorry, not a fan of Plato’s Republic, which described a sort of fascist totalitarian system run by supposed “Guardians” and “philosophers” who themselves live apart as a kind of elite collectivist band. Too reminiscent of Spartan dominance over their helot serfs for my taste. Give me the best of free and semi-democratic Athenian culture instead, with down to earth Aristotelian logic & scientific enquiry and Socratic questioning & skepticism anytime.

P.S. I don’t know enough about Thomas Taylor, but I certainly share in his general admiration for Hellenistic culture. I just don’t especially like Plato’s particular idealistic metaphysics or “conservative” political theorizing. Plato’s preservation (more or less accurately) of the “Socratic Dialogues” of his teacher, however, were certainly of immense value to history.

Libby von H , just curious here: Are you perhaps Catholic or religious? I’ve noticed that an attraction to “Platonism” and his idealist philosophy often appeals to more or less religious thinkers in our era.