Toward a New Interpretation of Plato - Softcover

Reale, Giovanni

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9780813208541: Toward a New Interpretation of Plato

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813208548 ISBN 13: 9780813208541

Publisher: Catholic Univ of Amer Pr, 1997

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Book by Reale, Giovanni

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From the Publisher:

Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the paradigm that has been widely accepted for interpreting Plato has held that the dialogues are fully understandable on their own terms and that the entirety of Plato's doctrine can be found in his writings. This method of interpretation, which Giovanni Reale calls the "traditional paradigm," upheld the textual integrity and autonomy of the dialogues. For Reale, who notes that Plato put his greatest seriousness and commitment into oral teaching, this "traditional paradigm" no longer provides satisfactory explanations of the dialogues. He urges that it be replaced with a new interpretive paradigm, one that was first articulated by scholars at the Tbingen School of Platonic Studies. This new paradigm holds that Plato's written dialogues are not self-sufficient but need to be read together with their author's Unwritten Doctrines, which were handed down in the oral tradition and attested to by Plato's disciples. According to this paradigm, we risk greatly misunderstanding Plato unless we employ both the direct tradition of his writings and the indirect tradition of the Unwritten Doctrines to interpret his work. In the book, Reale sets out the history of Plato studies. He shows not only the way this new interpretation breaks with recent orthodoxy but also how it connects with the earliest understandings of Platonic metaphysics. Drawing on the frequently neglected or misunderstood reports about what Plato divulged to his immediate pupils, he illuminates many otherwise obscure passages of the dialogues; in turn, he uses hints found throughout the dialogues to make sense of testimonies that have often seemed to be unreliable. What emerges from the harmonization of Plato's written thought with his oral teachings is a Theory of Principles. In just seven years the book has gone through ten editions in Italy. It is the fruit of an ongoing research project, with centers in both Germany and Italy, that seeks to establish a philologically accurate and philosophically satisfying account of Plato. Though aimed at scholars and graduate students in philosophy, Toward a New Interpretation of Plato will be a reference book for anyone interested in the new direction in Plato studies.

On the Italian edition: "This work . . . rereads the writings of Plato in the light and perspective of the paradigm of the Tbingen School, but it does so on the basis of very precise principles of contemporary epistemology which render the undertaking soundly and convincingly scientific and highly, even fascinatingly readable, resolving with apparent ease and clarity . . . so much that was enigmatic in Plato."--Gregorianum

Giovanni Reale is director of the Center for Research in Metaphysics and professor of the history of ancient philosophy at the Universit Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. He is the author of several studies on Plato and on Aristotle, translations of Plato's dialogues into Italian, and the five-volume A History of Ancient Philosophy.

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Italian

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