Nickolas Pappas - Böcker

Menexenus is one of the least studied among Plato's works, mostly because of the puzzling nature of the text, which has led many scholars either to reject the dialogue as spurious or to consider it as a mocking parody of Athenian funeral rhetoric. In this book, Pappas and Zelcer provide a persuasive alternative reading of the text, one that contributes in many ways to our understanding of Plato, and specifically to our understanding of his political thought.The book is organized into two parts. In the first part the authors offer a synopsis of the dialogue, address the setting and its background in terms of the Athenian funeral speech, and discuss the alternative readings of the dialogue, showing their weaknesses and strengths. In the second part, the authors offer their positive interpretation of the dialogue, taking particular care to explain and ground their interpretive criteria and method, which considers Plato's text not simply as a de-contextualized collection of philosophical arguments but offers a theoretically reading of the text that situates it firmly within its historical context.The book will become a reference point in the debate about the Menexenus and Plato's political philosophy more generally and marks an important contribution to our understanding of ancient thought and classical Athenian society.

This book reconnoiters the appearances of the exceptional in Plato: as erotic desire (in the Symposium and Phaedrus), as the good city (Republic), and as the philosopher (Ion, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman). It offers fresh and sometimes radical interpretations of these dialogues.Those exceptional elements of experience – love, city, philosopher – do not escape embodiment but rather occupy the same world that contains lamentable versions of each. Thus Pappas is depicting the philosophical ambition to intensify the concepts and experiences one normally thinks with. His investigations point beyond the fates of these particular exceptions to broader conclusions about Plato’s world.Plato’s Exceptional City, Love, and Philosopher will be of interest to any readers of Plato, and of ancient philosophy more broadly.

This book reconnoiters the appearances of the exceptional in Plato: as erotic desire (in the Symposium and Phaedrus), as the good city (Republic), and as the philosopher (Ion, Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman). It offers fresh and sometimes radical interpretations of these dialogues.Those exceptional elements of experience – love, city, philosopher – do not escape embodiment but rather occupy the same world that contains lamentable versions of each. Thus Pappas is depicting the philosophical ambition to intensify the concepts and experiences one normally thinks with. His investigations point beyond the fates of these particular exceptions to broader conclusions about Plato’s world.Plato’s Exceptional City, Love, and Philosopher will be of interest to any readers of Plato, and of ancient philosophy more broadly.

Plato, often cited as a founding father of Western philosophy, set out ideas in the Republic regarding the nature of justice, order, and the character of the just individual, that endure into the modern day. The Routledge Guidebook to Plato’s Republic introduces the major themes in Plato’s great book and acts as a companion for reading the work, examining: The context of Plato’s work and the background to his writing Each separate part of the text in relation to its goals, meanings and impact The reception the book received when first seen by the world The relevance of Plato’s work to modern philosophy, its legacy and influence.With further reading included throughout, this text follows Plato’s original work closely, making it essential reading for all students of philosophy, and all those wishing to get to grips with this classic work.

Plato, often cited as a founding father of Western philosophy, set out ideas in the Republic regarding the nature of justice, order, and the character of the just individual, that endure into the modern day. The Routledge Guidebook to Plato’s Republic introduces the major themes in Plato’s great book and acts as a companion for reading the work, examining: The context of Plato’s work and the background to his writing Each separate part of the text in relation to its goals, meanings and impact The reception the book received when first seen by the world The relevance of Plato’s work to modern philosophy, its legacy and influence.With further reading included throughout, this text follows Plato’s original work closely, making it essential reading for all students of philosophy, and all those wishing to get to grips with this classic work.

The Nietzsche Disappointment examines the workings of time in Nietzsche’s philosophy. It asks how he explains the great changes that (according to him) turned the past into the present — catastrophic transformations of morality, language, human nature — or that may yet make a desirable future out of this sorry present age.The question is essential. Nietzsche attacks morality by appeal to the past and future. Where philosophy had fancied itself eternal, imagining all times to be more or less like the present, Nietzsche sets the subject in motion with his attention to abrupt, utterly consequential events. Everything eternal becomes temporal.But after whetting his readers’ appetites for past and future cataclysms, Nietzsche makes them seem impossible. Birth of Tragedy raises the question of where Socrates could have come from — and then can’t answer. In Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche pins his hopes on the birth of future philosophers, even as he shows how many obstacles prevent their being born. On the Genealogy of Morals posits occurrences, like the triumph of slave morality, that violate Nietzsche’s own claims about what can happen.What stops Nietzsche from telling the very stories that he wanted philosophy to attend to? Perhaps that question can’t be answered without considering how Nietzsche understands his own place in the flow of time — considering, for instance, his wish to be an original philosopher.The Nietzsche Disappointment is both critical and sympathetic. It interrogates Nietzsche in terms that he should understand; it closes by asking whether there is some way of being critical that is also self-critical. For then a good reading may free the reader from Nietzsche’s person while continuing to confront the challenge he bequeathed to philosophy.

This book takes a new approach to the question, "Is the philosopher to be seen as universal human being or as eccentric?". Through a reading of the Theaetetus, Pappas first considers how we identify philosophers – how do they appear, in particular how do they dress? The book moves to modern philosophical treatments of fashion, and of "anti-fashion". He argues that aspects of the fashion/anti-fashion debate apply to antiquity, indeed that nudity at the gymnasia was an anti-fashion. Thus anti-fashion provides a way of viewing ancient philosophy’s orientation toward a social world in which, for all its true existence elsewhere, philosophy also has to live.

This book takes a new approach to the question, "Is the philosopher to be seen as universal human being or as eccentric?". Through a reading of the Theaetetus, Pappas first considers how we identify philosophers – how do they appear, in particular how do they dress? The book moves to modern philosophical treatments of fashion, and of "anti-fashion". He argues that aspects of the fashion/anti-fashion debate apply to antiquity, indeed that nudity at the gymnasia was an anti-fashion. Thus anti-fashion provides a way of viewing ancient philosophy’s orientation toward a social world in which, for all its true existence elsewhere, philosophy also has to live.