New biography of Plato

B

BidenPresident

Verified User
There hasn’t been a stand-alone biography of Plato in English in nearly 200 years. The sources for his life are untrustworthy and fiendishly difficult to interpret.

Our main interest in Plato’s adult life lies in his establishment of what Waterfield calls ‘the ancient world’s most successful institute of higher education and research’. Students at Plato’s Academy studied everything from politics and logic to physics and optics and were encouraged to disagree with each other.

https://literaryreview.co.uk/was-he-apollos-son
 
All the Western heros must be cut off at the knees.....UTOPIA demands.....she is a cruel Bitch.
 
BidenPresident said:
There hasn’t been a stand-alone biography of Plato in English in nearly 200 years. The sources for his life are untrustworthy and fiendishly difficult to interpret.

Our main interest in Plato’s adult life lies in his establishment of what Waterfield calls ‘the ancient world’s most successful institute of higher education and research’. Students at Plato’s Academy studied everything from politics and logic to physics and optics and were encouraged to disagree with each other.

https://literaryreview.co.uk/was-he-apollos-son
Click to expand...

Encouraged to disagree with each other. How novel.
 
BidenPresident said:
There hasn’t been a stand-alone biography of Plato in English in nearly 200 years. The sources for his life are untrustworthy and fiendishly difficult to interpret.

Our main interest in Plato’s adult life lies in his establishment of what Waterfield calls ‘the ancient world’s most successful institute of higher education and research’. Students at Plato’s Academy studied everything from politics and logic to physics and optics and were encouraged to disagree with each other.

https://literaryreview.co.uk/was-he-apollos-son
Click to expand...

An interesting revelation and insightful to the barbarity of the ancient world. From your link:

"The enslavement allegedly occurred while Plato was travelling home from Sicily in 384 BC. A number of ancient biographers claim that the philosopher boarded a ship with a Spartan who enslaved him on the orders of the tyrant of Syracuse, but Plato’s new biographer, Robin Waterfield, suggests it’s more likely that he was on board a merchant ship which caught the eye of pirates. The seas were full of marauders in this period and it is entirely possible that Plato sailed into treacherous waters. His luck changed after he was spotted in the market by an admirer who agreed to pay a ransom to secure his release."
 
The foremost philosopher of the atheists, Frederich Nietzsche, wrote that Plato's concepts of eternal spirit, ideal forms, ultimate truth, and his abstraction of The Good were foolish and misguided. Nietzsche complained that Christianity was just Platonism for the masses.
 
They encouraged actual discussion of controversial topics, something that has become taboo in western society.
 
I don't know much about Plato, I have to admit.

He's the guy who invented the Platonic relationship, right?
 
BidenPresident said:
The most controversial ideas are the ones that most require discussion.
Click to expand...

I think the real reason it’s considered route to discuss controversial issues is because most modern people do not know why they believe something and are embarrassed to try and defend an opinion based on nothing but a feeling.
 
Jarod said:
I think the real reason it’s considered route to discuss controversial issues is because most modern people do not know why they believe something and are embarrassed to try and defend an opinion based on nothing but a feeling.
Click to expand...

Right. Plato wanted to know why we believe what we believe. The reasons.
 
We really do not even know what the first fictional piece of literature was.

That has been argued for centuries.

I think it dates well before King Arthur though, and there are some that still believe there is a chance that King Arthur existed.

There are just some things we may never know.

I believe that every 5,000 years, some worldly natural disaster happens that wipes out an intelligent human civilization on Earth, and it has to start all over again. And who knows how many times that has happened- or what kind of disaster it was? Quite possible a strange comet in a weird orbit of the Galaxy or something.

I just use the Pyramids, around the world, as an example of my belief in that.
 
Last edited:
Geeko Sportivo said:
We really do not even know what the first fictional piece of literature was.

That has been argued for centuries.

I think it dates well before King Arthur though, and there are some that still believe there is a chance that King Arthur existed.

There are just some things we may never know.
Click to expand...

Homer and Sophocles are ancient pieces of literature well documented.
 
Geeko Sportivo said:
We really do not even know what the first fictional piece of literature was.

That has been argued for centuries.

I think it dates well before King Arthur though, and there are some that still believe there is a chance that King Arthur existed.

There are just some things we may never know.

I believe that every 5,000 years, some worldly natural disaster happens that wipes out an intelligent human civilization on Earth, and it has to start all over again. And who knows how many times that has happened- or what kind of disaster it was? Quite possible a strange comet in a weird orbit of the Galaxy or something.

I just use the Pyramids, around the world, as an example of my belief in that.
Click to expand...

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest literature (technically, it's epic poetry like Homer) I know of, it purportedly dates back to the second millennium BCE, although the cuneiform tablet we have of it is younger than that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top