10 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
Greek-American philosopher at Princeton who wrote Nietzsche: Life as Literature — arguing that Nietzsche's philosophy is best understood as the project of creating oneself as a literary character — and whose work on Plato, aesthetics, and the beauty of friendship has made him one of the most elegant philosophical writers in the analytic tradition.
American philosopher at Notre Dame who specializes in Plato and ancient philosophy — and whose work on Socratic ethics and the Platonic dialogues is referenced in Jonathan Bi's philosophical discussions.
The mysterious priestess of Mantinea whom Socrates credits with teaching him about eros in Plato's Symposium — whether historical or fictional — whose account of love's ascent from beautiful bodies to the Form of Beauty Itself is the most important Platonic text on eros.
Plato's dialogue in which Socrates observes and comments on the sophists Euthydemus and Dionysodorus as they display their eristic art — demonstrating how sophistical argument can prove anything, refute anything, and disorient its hearers — as a contrast to genuine philosophical inquiry.
British-American philosopher at Berkeley and Cambridge who is a leading interpreter of Plato's Republic — and whose City and Soul in Plato's Republic is a major contribution to Platonic scholarship — making him directly relevant to Jonathan Bi's Plato discussions.
Plato's dialogue narrating Socrates's final hours in prison — the conversation about the immortality of the soul on the day of his execution — presenting four arguments for the soul's immortality (cyclical argument, recollection, affinity, final cause) and ending with Socrates calmly drinking the hemlock.
Plato's dialogue set by a river outside Athens — featuring Socrates's three speeches on love (the last, the palinode, recanting the first's dismissal of eros) — and the discussion of rhetoric (only philosophy-based rhetoric is genuine rhetoric), the myth of the charioteer, and the critique of writing.
American philosopher who specializes in Plato and ancient philosophy — particularly Plato's ethics and psychology — and whose work on the relationship between character and virtue in Plato has contributed to the virtue ethics revival.
Plato's masterwork — a dialogue in which Socrates and interlocutors investigate the nature of justice, concluding that justice in the city (philosopher-kings ruling warriors and producers) mirrors justice in the soul (reason ruling spirit and appetite) — while developing the theory of Forms, the allegory of the Cave, and the ideal city.
Plato's dialogue on the nature of love — in which Socrates, Aristophanes, Alcibiades, and others give competing speeches on Eros at a drinking party — culminating in Socrates's account of Diotima's teaching on love as ascent from particular beauty to the Form of Beauty itself.