Lifelong Studies in Love With Plato

Cover
Contents
How Plato writes
	1. Some examples
	2. The reasons for this approach
	3. The problem of writing
	4. The writing as “game”
	5. The Seventh Letter
	6. Conclusion
The Platonic Philosophy as Dialectic
	1. How Plato comes to the doctrine of the Ideas and Principles in the Phaedo
	2. Parmenides
	3. One important consequence
	4. Ontological justification
	5. Conclusion
Plato: The knowledge of the unstable reality
	A. First premise. The reasons for the crisis of truth
	B. Second premise. The multifocal approach to knowledge
	1. The sense perception
	2. The central role of the soul
	3. The necessity and insufficiency of the various ways of knowledge
	4. Doxa
	5. To know a complex reality
	6. The basis of knowledge
Are there any “youthful” and/or socratic dialogues? Some reflections on the Apology of Socrates
	1. The order of the dialogues
	2. The “youthful” dialogues
	3. The Apology
		The charge
		The gods
		Socrates’ defence
		Post-eventum prophecies
		Platonic elements
		The contrast between different ways of life
	4. Conclusion
The Phaedrus Polyphonic Structure
	1. A paradoxical situation
	2. Introductory elements for reading the dialogue
	3. The structure of the dialogue
	4. The dominant motif: the technique of oral and written communication and the responsibility of the teacher
	5. The central theme of the dialogue: the true between philosophy and mania
	6. The most important theme: the soul and the relationship between man and God
	7. Conclusion
The Statesman explains adequately the role of laws in Plato
	1. Some preliminary remarks
	2. The politeia in the Republic
	3. The help of the Laws
	4. The Statesman
	5. Law and Politician
	6. Pessimism of the intelligence, optimism of the will
A Hermeneutic Paradigm for the History of Ancient Philosophy: the Multifocal Approach
	1. A peculiar situation
	2. A different choice and its implications
	3. The emergence of the multifocal approach
		The sophists’ contribution
		The Platonic experience
		Aristotelian developments
	4. The contemporary value of this view of ancient philosophy
Historiographical Reading and Theoretical Reworking. An Underestimated Distinction
	1. Premise
	2. The underlying problem
	3. Two different hermeneutics
		The theoretician’s problem
		The problem of historian and theoretician
		Some differences between the two hermeneutics
		First conclusion
	4. The problem of method
		The impossibility of a pure reduplication of thought
		The alleged univocity of the text
		An excessive disapproval
		The inability of fixing the method
		A clarification on the actual situation
	5. The possible objectivity
		The issue of the reader
		The issue of the author
		A short excursus on Plato
		The necessary rigorousness on the topic of presuppositions
	6. A hypothesis on method
		The whole and the part
		Context and literature
		Ancient Philosophy
	7. Conclusions
Bibliography
Index of ancient names
Index of modern authors
Index of the passages cited in extended form