Volume 46, Number 8 · May 6, 1999
Plato's Grand Design
By Jasper Griffin
The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault
by Alexander Nehamas
University of California Press, 283 pp., $29.95
Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form
by Charles H. Kahn
Cambridge University Press, 431 pp., $24.95 (paper)
'Saint Socrates, pray for us'; so wrote Erasmus at the end of his Religious Symposium, comparing the pagan philosopher to Saint Paul. The comparison can be extended in curious ways. Both Plato and Paul had a Master, condemned to death by law, but posthumously triumphant; each was the highly literate disciple of a Master who left not a word on paper; each was the system-building successor who turned the Master's utterances into a stately structure of thought, soon hardening into dogma. In each case, finally, posterity has scratched its head as it tried to separate the contribution of the disciple from that of the Founder himself.
Review, 5220 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |