Not available to order
Publication date:
16 February 2012Length of book:
512 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9780739171394
In this unique and important book, William Altman shines a light on the pedagogical technique of the playful Plato, especially his ability to create living discourses that directly address the student. Reviving an ancient concern with reconstructing the order in which Plato intended his dialogues to be taught as opposed to determining the order in which he wrote them, Altman breaks with traditional methods by reading Plato’s dialogues as a multiplex but coherent curriculum in which the Allegory of the Cave occupies the central place. His reading of Plato's Republic challenges the true philosopher to choose the life of justice exemplified by Socrates and Cicero by going back down into the Cave of political life for the sake of the greater Good.
“We have here the seemingly impossible: a reading of the Republic that is highly original, because not easily classifiable under any of the interpretative approaches current today, while also representing a return to classic two-world Platonism. This old/new Plato will doubtless provoke needed reexamination and debate among all readers of this inexhaustible dialogue.”