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The Platonizing Sethian Background of Plotinus’s Mysticism By Zeke Mazur 2020. xviii, 337 pp. 129.00 EUR. Hardcover/E-Book. ISBN: 978-90-04-44167-5 [hardcover]/978-90-04-44171-2 [e-book]. In The Platonizing Sethian Background of Plotinus’s Mysticism, Zeke Mazur offers a radical reconceptualization of Plotinus with reference to Gnostic thought and praxis. A crucial element in the thought of the third-century CE philosopher Plotinus—his conception of mystical union with the One—cannot be understood solely within the conventional history of philosophy, or as the product of a unique, sui generis psychological propensity. This monograph demonstrates that Plotinus tacitly patterned his mystical ascent to the One on a type of visionary ascent ritual that is first attested in Gnostic sources. These sources include the Platonizing Sethian tractates Zostrianos (NHC VIII,1) and Allogenes (NHC XI,3) of which we have Coptic translations from Nag Hammadi and whose Greek Vorlagen were known to have been read in Plotinus’s school.

The Concept of Motion in Ancient Greek Thought: Foundations in Logic, Method, and Mathematics By Barbara Sattler 2020. 438 pp. 90.00 GBP. Hardcover/E-Book. ISBN: 9781108477901 [hardcover]. This book examines the birth of the scientific understanding of motion. It investigates which logical tools and methodological principles had to be in place to give a consistent account of motion, and which mathematical notions were introduced to gain control over conceptual problems of motion. It shows how the idea of motion raised two fundamental problems in the 5th and 4th century BCE: bringing together being and non-being, and bringing together time and space. The first problem leads to the exclusion of motion from the realm of rational investigation in Parmenides, the second to Zeno's paradoxes of motion. Methodological and logical developments reacting to these puzzles are shown to be present implicitly in the atomists, and explicitly in Plato who also employs mathematical structures [...]

Studia Phaenomenologica, Volume 20/ 2020: Phenomenology and the History of Platonism Edited by Daniele de Santis, Claudio Majolino 2020. 402 pp. 18.00 EUR (Ebook). ISBN: 978-606-697-121-8 (Ebook). Table of Contents: Daniele de Santis, Claudio Majolino: Phaenomenologia sub specie Platonis. Editors’ Introduction Adolf Reinach: La philosophie de Platon (traduction et introduction par Aurélien Djian) Abstract: In these 1910 summer semester lessons, Adolf Reinach, using the concept of arché as a guiding thread, sketches out a history of Platonic philosophy, tracing it back to the Presocratics. More precisely, as a philosophical attempt to offer such an history, Reinach intends to flesh out what he thinks is the main contribution of Plato to philosophy, and which, at the same time, turns out to be the germ of his own philosophy, namely: to consider ideal objects as the arché of philosophy; to use the phenomenological method; and, last but not least, to devote his research to the study of the things themselves, rather than [...]

The International Plato Society's journal, Plato Journal, has released its 20th volume for 2020, available now at impactum-journals.uc.pt/platojournal. Articles: pp. 7–20: "Dialéctica y refutación en el Sofista de Platón" (Pilar Spangenberg) pp. 21–37: "The Golden Age and the Reversal of the Myth of Good Government in Plato’s Statesman. A Lesson on the Use of Models" (Fulvia de Luise) pp. 39–53: "Habladurías sobre tiranos felices. Platón y Jenofonte a propósito de filosofía, tiranía y buen gobierno" (Claudia Marsico) pp. 55–66: "Elenchtike techne, erotike techne: in margine al Carmide platonico" (Francesca Pentassuglio) pp. 67–80: "La crítica de Platón a los matemáticos que toman las hipótesis por principios (República VI-VII)" (Graciela Marcos Pinotti) pp. 81–95: "Socrate o dello specchio. Strategie di scrittura nell’Apologia e nell’Alcibiade" (Lidia Palumbo) pp. 97–110: "Il proemio alle leggi (in Platone, Leggi V 726-734)" (Livio Rossetti) pp. 111–125: "Regular el mundo de la fiesta: un proyecto normativo en Leyes" (Alberto [...]

Articulations of Nature and Politics in Plato and Hegel By Vicky Roupa 2020. 190 pp. 79.99 GBP (Hardbound), 63.99 GBP (Ebook). ISBN: 978-3-030-52126-4 (Hardbound), 978-3-030-52127-1 (Ebook). Description: This book examines nature as a foundational concept for political and constitutional theory, drawing on readings from Plato and Hegel to counter the view that optimal political arrangements are determined by nature. Focussing on the dialectical implications of the word ‘nature’, i.e. how it encompasses a range of meanings stretching up to the opposites of sensuousness and ideality, the book explores the various junctures at which nature and politics interlock in the philosophies of Plato and Hegel. Appearance and essence, inner life and public realm, the psychical and the political are all shown to be parts of a conflictual structure that requires both infinite proximity and irreducible distance. The book offers innovative interpretations of a number of key texts by Plato and Hegel [...]

Conceptions of Publicness in Plato's Philosophy Ἐκφάνσεις τῆς δημοσιότητας στὴν φιλοσοφία τοῦ Πλάτωνα By Maria Sozopoulou 2020. 288 pp. 14.84 Euro. ISBN: 978-960-02-3640-8. Long description [English]: Download PDF Description [Greek]: Ὁ ὅρος «δημοσιότητα» μπορεῖ νὰ μὴν ἀπαντᾶ στὴν ἀρχαία ἑλληνικὴ γραμματεία (ἐντοπίζονται μόνο ὁμόρριζες καὶ συνώνυμες μὲ αὐτὸν λέξεις), ὅμως τὸ περιεχόμενό του ἔχει ἑλληνικὴ προέλευση. Σύμφωνα μὲ τὸν J. Habermas δύναται νὰ γίνει λόγος γιὰ ἕνα ἑλληνικὸ μοντέλο δημοσιότητας, τὸ ὁποῖο συναρτᾶται μὲ τὸν δημόσιο βίο τῶν ἀρχαίων Ἑλλήνων στὸν χῶρο τῆς ἀγορᾶς. Στὴν παρούσα ἐργασία γίνεται ἐξέταση τῶν ἐκφάνσεων τῆς δημοσιότητας στὴν φιλοσοφία τοῦ Πλάτωνα, μὲ στόχο νὰ ἀποδειχθεῖ ἂν τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς δημοσιότητας εἶναι ἔκδηλο τόσο στὴν πολιτικὴ φιλοσοφία ὅσο καὶ τὴν ὀντολογία καὶ τὴν γνωσιοθεωρία. Στὸ πρῶτο μέρος, τὸ ἐνδιαφέρον ἐπικεντρώνεται στὴν πολιτικὴ φιλοσοφία, ὅπου ἐξετάζεται ἡ θεωρία τοῦ Πλάτωνα γιὰ τὸ πολίτευμα, τὸν δημόσιο ἄνδρα καὶ τὴν δημόσια σφαίρα. Τὸ δεύτερο μέρος ἀφορᾶ τὴν πλατωνικὴ [...]

Plato’s Conception of Justice and the Question of Human Dignity By Marek Piechowiak 2019. 296 pp. 57.10 Euro/72.75 USD. Hardcover/E-Book/PDF. ISBN: 978-3-631-65970-0 [hardcover]. (Philosophy and Cultural Studies Revisited / Historisch-genetische Studien zur Philosophie und Kulturgeschichte) This book is the first comprehensive study of Plato’s conception of justice. The universality of human rights and the universality of human dignity, which is recognised as their source, are among the crucial philosophical problems in modern-day legal orders and in contemporary culture in general. If dignity is genuinely universal, then human beings also possessed it in ancient times. Plato not only perceived human dignity, but a recognition of dignity is also visible in his conception of justice, which forms the core of his philosophy. Plato’s «Republic» is consistently interpreted here as a treatise on justice, relating to an individual and not to the state. The famous myth of the cave is a story about [...]