Plato: Republic, Apology, and Crito: General Plato

"Ancient Philosophy" spans over a thousand years and brings to life the great minds of the past, from Thales, Pythagoras, and Parmenides, to Socrates, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Augustine. The book's great virtue is that it is written by one of the world's leading authorities on the subject. Instead of an uncritical, straightforward recitation of known facts--Plato and his cave of shadows, Aristotle's ethics, Augustine's City of God--we see the major philosophers through the eyes of a man who has spent a lifetime contemplating their work. Thus we do not simply get an overview of Aristotle, for example, but a penetrating and insightful critique of his thought. Kenny offers an illuminating account of the various schools of thought, from the Pre-Socratics to the Epicureans. He examines the development of logic and reason, ancient ideas about physics ("how things happen"), metaphysics and ethics, and the earliest thinking about the soul and god.

In this classic book, the late R. C. Sproul expertly surveys history’s most influential streams of thought, proving that ideas are not just passing fads―they have consequences for generations to come. For material specifically on Plato, see Chapter 2, "Plato: Realist and Idealist."

In this study, Professor Leslie Lipson examines the growth and development of the concept of democracy as understood in the West from classical times to the present.

An overview and comparison of Epicurean, Stoic, Platonic, Aristotelian, and Christian worldviews.

A general history of philosophy, covering the period of time from early Greek philosophy to St. Augustine.

This timely book focuses on theory's relations to literary art. It argues that the institutionalization of literary theory, particularly in American universities, has led to an intellectual sterility in which the actual power and scope of literature are overlooked. The book demands to be read by all teachers of literature and theory, and by anyone concerned with the future of literary studies.

An analysis of Lucian, contrasting him with Plato, particularly with regard to their moral outlook.

Not only Book II but the whole of Utopia "is...the Republic recast in a new mold applicable to the demands of contemporary Christianity as these were understood by More and his circle of reforming friends" (3). In fact, the author argues, in Book I of Utopia, More, by criticizing some of Plato's doctrines, shows which parts of the Republic are unacceptable and thus offers "an explicit basis for understanding the superiority of the Utopia" to Plato's ideal state and to those elements of contemporary society which represent aspects of Plato's ideal state.

A summary and analysis of the story of Plato and the tyrant Dionysius I, examining their relationship as it played out in Syracuse.

An analysis of the thought of Plato and Heidegger, positing a deep relationship between the two's philosophy.

This book helps understand Plato’s writings by describing the circumstances in which they were produced. The author begins with an account of Plato’s life and development and a brief analysis of some of the more difficult points arising from the criticism of Plato’s writings. The remainder of the work considers the total setting – political, literary and philosophical – in which Plato’s writings were produced. There are extensive appendices on the Platonic Epistles, Aristotle and the Theory of Ideas, and on the post-Aristotelian tradition. The result is both a lucid account of Plato himself and a comprehensive view of culture in fifth century Greece.

What is love? Why do we idealize those whom we love? How do we choose whom to love? Are some kinds of love better than others? Each age returns to these questions with renewed perplexity. Gerasimos Santas examinees the two greatest theoretical architectures of love, side by side. It provides a thorough critical description and comparison of these theories, allowing a sophisticated dialogue to emerge between the two thinkers. In the first half of the book Professor Santas reconstructs and explains Plato's theories of eros and philia: erotic love, familial love and friendship. He attempt to show that Plato's was a unified theory in which erotic love has a special connecion with creativity and beauty. He then discusses Freud's notion of love as distinct from, though based on, his general theory of sexuality. He discusses in detail Freud's explanations, before and after narcissism, of idealization and choice of beloved. Freud too, it emerges, had a unified theory of love: all love has its origins in the libidinal instincts of infancy and childhood. The book concludes by showing that, despite Freud's claim that his theory of love is 'Platonic', the two theories are instructively different.

The writer's object in the following pages has deliberately been not so much to supply information as to provoke the desire for it. If any of his readers should be led by anything he has said to seek further knowledge of Plato and his influence on thought and literature, in the works mentioned in the appended Bibliography or in other places, the end will have been attained.

This book is the first extended attempt to explain Plato's ethics of natural law, to place it accurately in the history of moral theory, and to defend it against the objections that it is totalitarian. Wild provides a clarification of Plato's ethical doctrine and a defense of that doctrine based not only of his analysis of the dialogues but on the belief that Plato must acknowledged as the founder of the Western tradition of the philosophy of natural law. The book begins with a presentation of the major objections raised against Plato by modern authors, Toynbee, Karl Popper and others, who have condemned the so called totalitarianism of Plato's thought. Wild answers these objections point by point and with a wealth of evidence taken from Plato's own arguments. He then presents a historical study of the ethics of natural law, defining the theory and showing through an examination of relevant dialogues that Plato held such a theory. The work concludes with a systematic study of his realistic ethics and its bearing on contemporary problems.

A clear and engaging introduction to ancient Greek philosophy, telling the story of the first philosophers in the West, from Thales to Aristotle.

A comparison of classical and modern approaches to political theory, linking the great thinkers of the past with the systems of thought in place today.

This book examines the contributions of major Western political thinkers from ancient Greece to the present. See chapter 2 for material specifically on Plato.

The purpose of this text is to present the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle as whole perspectives of life and the world by utilizing the actual writings of the two men.