By John Dillon

The Heirs of Plato is the 1st publication solely dedicated to an in-depth learn of some of the instructions in philosophy taken through Plato's fans within the first seventy years or so following his dying in 347 BC--the interval generally called 'The previous Academy'. Speusippus, Xenocrates, and Polemon, the 3 successive heads of the Academy during this interval, although for my part dedicated to the reminiscence of Plato, have been self sustaining philosophers of their personal correct, and felt unfastened to strengthen his historical past in person instructions. Dillon's transparent and obtainable booklet fills an important hole in our realizing of Plato's instant philosophical impact, and should be of serious worth to students and historians of historic philosophy.

Show description

Read or Download The Heirs of Plato: A Study of the Old Academy (347-274 BC) PDF

Similar philosophy books

Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Plato and the Trial of Socrates

This guidebook introduces and examines Plato's 3 dialogues that care for the dying of Socrates: Euthphryo, Apology and Crito. those dialogues are extensively considered as the nearest exposition of Socrates' ideas.

Part of the Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks sequence.

Jean-François Lyotard (Routledge Critical Thinkers)

Jean-François Lyotard is without doubt one of the such a lot celebrated proponents of what has develop into often called the 'postmodern'. greater than virtually the other modern theorist, he has explored the relatives among wisdom, paintings, politics and heritage, in ways in which supply radical new probabilities for puzzling over glossy tradition.

Paul Celan and Martin Heidegger: An Unresolved Conversation, 1951-1970

This paintings explores the stricken dating and unfinished highbrow discussion among Paul Celan, appeared by way of many because the most crucial ecu poet after 1945, and Martin Heidegger, maybe the main influential determine in twentieth-century philosophy. It facilities at the power ambivalence Celan, a Holocaust survivor, felt towards a philosopher who revered him and from time to time promoted his poetry.

Three Critics of the Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder (2nd Edition)

Isaiah Berlin used to be deeply well known in the course of his lifestyles, yet his complete contribution was once might be underestimated due to his choice for the lengthy essay shape. The efforts of Henry Hardy to edit Berlin's paintings and reintroduce it to a extensive, keen readership have long gone some distance to therapy this. Now, Princeton is happy to come to print, less than one disguise, Berlin's essays on those celebrated and appealing highbrow pics: Vico, Hamann, and Herder.

Extra resources for The Heirs of Plato: A Study of the Old Academy (347-274 BC)

Example text

We find then a treatise On the Soul, a basic philosophical topic on which we also find treatises by Xenocrates (in two books), and Aristotle (in three), as well as single books by Theophrastus and Heraclides of Pontus. This no doubt developed Speusippus’ distinctive definition of the soul, which will be discussed further presently. A treatise To 15 Aspects of this dispute may be preserved, along with ironic comment, in Plato’s dialogue Philebus. I confess to presuming this in my discussion below of Speusippus’ doctrine on pleasure.

37 A ‘Form-Number’ is to be distinguished from a mathematical number in that, in Aristotelian terms, it is ‘non-addible’ (asymble¯ tos)—for the good reason that it is what it is to be the number in question, three, say, or four. There is such a thing as threeness, or fourness, and the threeness of three cannot be added to the fourness of four. Aristotle, however, has no patience with this notion. 38 Aristotle is actually criticizing this process in this passage, but from what he says we may, I think, deduce what the process was.

This he delivers in Met. = 1028b21–4, and again at various points in Books 0 and 1. We need to look closely at these passages,27 since they provide good illustrations, I think, of Aristotle’s strategies in criticizing those he did not approve of, while also, if used judiciously, affording adequate clues as to Speusippus’ true position. I should state at the outset that I believe that Speusippus does have a coherent metaphysical theory, and that it can be derived primarily from the valuable passage preserved by Iamblichus in De communi mathematica scientia, ch.

Download PDF sample

Rated 4.90 of 5 – based on 21 votes