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I analyse the dramatic setting of the Gorgias by contrasting it with that of the Protagoras. The two dialogues are closely related. In the Gorgias Socrates states that the rhetorician and the sophist are basically indistinguishable in everyday life. In both the Protagoras and the Gorgias, his confrontation with his interlocutors is metaphorically related to a descent to Hades. However, while the events in the Protagoras are narrated by Socrates himself, the Gorgias has readers face the unfolding events without mediation. The temporal and spatial framing of the Gorgias is indeterminate, while both aspects are described in detail in the Protagoras. I maintain that the magical passage from an indeterminate "outside" to an indeterminate "inside" in the Gorgias is significantly related to the characters' attitude towards the boundaries of each other's souls, which are constantly ignored or attacked. As a matter of fact, the dialogue presents a very impressive amount of anger and exchange of abuse, which never ceases until the end. I suggest that the temporal framing demonstrates that the beginning and the end of the dialogue are closely connected. Socrates unexpectedly arrives and refutes Gorgias by asking him unexpected questions. The last myth of judgment indicates that Gorgias' attitude is comparable to that of the mortals who lived during Kronos' age, while Socrates brings about a liberation from appearance which is analogous to the innovations brought about by Zeus.

The paper critically discusses the thesis, originally put forth by Taylor, that there is a form of envy whose target is the good possessed by someone else. Section 2 analyzes the distinction between object-envy and state-envy, discusses the connection between object-envy and benign envy, and develops the ethical consequences that follow from the thesis that envy is never benign. Section 3 presents a thought experiment with five variations developed from the basic elements of object-envy: an agent, a good the agent desires but lacks, and a person who possesses the good. The variations generate emotions like longing, sadness, happiness for, admiration, covetousness, self-disappointment, but they do not generate envy. Section 4 concentrates on envious self-reproach and shows that its nature and genesis are different from the self-disappointment one may experience in other forms of self-assessment. Section 5 argues that the so-called sour-grape syndrome serves different goals when it is connected to a good one lacks and when it is connected to envious comparisons. Section 6 maintains that what looks like benign envy can be better understood as emulous admiration. In conclusion, the paper argues that object-envy is not a useful concept. The desired goods are not valued in themselves when a person feels envy. Rather, they are taken to signal the superior recognition enjoyed by someone else within the reference group that is currently deemed important by the agent.

This paper identifies major inconsistencies in the threefold argument that Glaucon presents in defence of Thrasymachus in the second book of Plato’s Republic. Specifically, the paper argues for three claims. Firstly, it argues that in his account of the origin of justice Glaucon treats the consequences of justice as necessary, while in the test case he merely emphasizes incidental consequences. Secondly, the paper argues that in setting up the test case of the perfectly unjust man and the perfectly just man Glaucon—despite claiming to be restating Thrasymachus’ claims, and also to be presenting the ordinary view of justice — uses some Socratic assumptions about the nature of justice. That is, although Gyges’ example follows directly from the first part of the argument and, in particular, from the claim that justice is grounded in convention, the unshakably just man of the test example is supposed to be motivated by justice itself. Finally, it is argued that the test case and Gyges' example are at variance with respect to public recognition: in the test case Glaucon suggests that most people would respect and admire a man who seemed to be perfectly just, while in his discussion of Gyges he intimates that tyrannical power strengthens itself not by the false appearance of perfect justice, but by appealing to a secret and yet widespread admiration for unpunished injustice.

The Gorgias has been delivered to us in medieval manuscripts with the subtitle ἢ περὶ ‘ρητορικῆσ. As a matter of fact, the starting point of the dialogue is the question concerning the nature of rhetoric. In the course of the dialogue, however, this question gives rise to a more fundamental inquiry: how should one live? By the time Callicles starts his long speech the theme of εὐδαιμονία has already been introduced by Polus. Callicles takes a radical stand by reducing εὐδαιμονία to a choice between what is good and noble by nature and what is posited as good and noble by convention. The opposition between nature and convention, in turn, gives rise to the comparison between two forms of life: philosophy and politics.

The paper argues that thumos, which is never explicitly mentioned as a part of the soul in the Symposium, plays a major role in the dialogue. In light of the Republic’s characterization of thumos as the source of emotions such as of love of honor, love of victory, admiration for courage, shame, anger, and the propensity to become indignant at real or imaginary wrongs, the paper argues that both Phaedrus’ speech and the speech of Alcibiades are shaped by thumoeidetic motivations. While Phaedrus’ stress on shame, honor, glory and courage aims at proving that Eros inspires virtue, the speech of Alcibiades shows that thumoeidetic motivations are not sufficient to shape a noble character. The dependence on recognition, the ambiguous role played by shame, and the tension between what is admirable and what just happens to be admired are implicit shortcomings in Phaedrus’ speech. When the same themes come back in Alcibiades’ speech they work as negative counterpoints to Phaedrus’ main arguments. Alcibiades’ obsession with power and victory dominates his ambivalent encomium of Socrates. The speech does not reveal who Socrates really is. Rather, it shows how the philosophical life can be misunderstood when reason’s best ally takes over in the souls of men.

The Phaedrus’s Palinode ascribes to the wing the double function of lifting the soul towards truth while itself being nourished by truth. The paper concentrates on the role Socrates ascribes to the wing in the structure and ‘physiology’ of the soul—mortal and divine—as well as on the role it plays in Socrates’ subsequent phenomenological description of falling in love. The experience of love described in Socrates’ first speech—an experience dominated by envy—is examined in light of Socrates’ Palinode, by reference to Socrates’ account of the different ways souls can relate to truth before incarnation.

Diotima criticizes, but does not refute, Aristophanes’ thesis that love is desire for completeness. Her argument incorporates that thesis within a more complextheory: eros is desire for the permanent possession of the good, and hence also desire for immortality. Aristophanes cannot account for the aspirations entailed in the desire for fame or in the desire for knowledge. Such aspirations can be understood only with reference to the good. However, the paper shows how time plays a fundamental role in the original pursuit of wholeness at the center of Aristophanes’ myth of the two halves. Diotima appropriates his thesis when she describes the urge to leave behind something similar to what one has been. The desire for immortality is nothing but a desire for completeness pursued by mortal nature against the never-ending destruction of time.

On Tyranny, by Leo Strauss and Alexander Kojève, is now available in Italian. The article examines the debate between the two philosophers, focussing primarily on their respective views of political philosophy and the opposition between ancients and moderns concerning such issues as the role of luck, the gap between theory and practice, and whether or not history is meaningful, teleologically oriented, able to prove political theory or, on the contrary, itself subject to theoretical judgment. The author explains how the debate centres around two fundamentally different views of the relationship between philosophy and love of recognition. While for Kojève subjective certainty becomes knowledge only when widely recognized , Strauss, whose starting points are Xenophon’s and Plato’s views on the relationship between love of honour and philosophy, maintains that recognition is no guarantee of truth, and philosophy, in its most authentic form, is sceptical or zetetic

AT THE END OF A VERY LONG DISCUSSION with interlocutors who grow angrier and angrier with him, Socrates tells a story about the judgment of souls in the afterlife. He addresses the myth to Callicles, his final interlocutor, in the explicitly stated belief that the young man will not take it any more seriously than he would take a bunch of old wives tales. Socrates prophecy about Callicles response is likely to be correct. What is surprising, however, is that it also turns out to describe well the reaction of many readers of the dialogue. Plato scholars pay no attention whatsoever to the myth, at most devoting a few pages to Platos sources. Does he rely on Orphic sources, or is he closer to the Pythagoreans? Once such problems are addressed, the myth is summarily dismissed.

Strauss’s invitation to understand Greek authors as they understood themselves was attacked by influential scholars as anti-historical. In the first part of the paper, I argue that the charge is due to a misunderstanding of Strauss’s position on the respective role of interpretation and criticism in historicism. In the second part, I highlight Strauss’s view of the tension between scientific history as the manifestation of a certain age, and scientific history as the culmination of historical progress. In the third part, I discuss Strauss’s thesis that the belief in progress prevented Collingwood from taking past thinkers seriously. Collingwood claimed that the Greeks failed to appreciate that age-long traditions shaped their thought. Strauss held the opposite: the beginning of Greek philosophy coincides with questioning the identity between the ancestral and the good, and philosophy in Plato’s Republic is shown to be a form of critical reflection on the reasons why certain traditions and myths can exercise political, religious, and psychological power.

This paper identifies major inconsistencies in the threefold argument that Glaucon presents in defence of Thrasymachus in the second book of Plato's Republic. Specifically, the paper argues for three claims. Firstly, it argues that in his account of the origin of justice Glaucon treats the consequences of justice as necessary, while in the test case he merely emphasizes incidental consequences. Secondly, the paper argues that in setting up the test case of the perfectly unjust man and the perfectly just man Glaucon -- despite claiming to be restating Thrasymachus' claims, and also to be presenting the ordinary view of justice -- uses some Socratic assumptions about the nature of justice. That is, although Gyges' example follows directly from the first part of the argument and, in particular, from the claim that justice is grounded in convention, the unshakably just man of the test example is supposed to be motivated by justice itself. Finally, it is argued that the test case and Gyges' example are at variance with respect to public recognition: in the test case Glaucon suggests that most people would respect and admire a man who seemed to be perfectly just, while in his discussion of Gyges he intimates that tyrannical power strengthens itself not by the false appearance of perfect justice, but by appealing to a secret and yet widespread admiration for unpunished injustice

The Gorgias has been delivered to us in medieval manuscripts with the subtitle ἢ περὶ ‘ρητορικῆσ. As a matter of fact, the starting point of the dialogue is the question concerning the nature of rhetoric. In the course of the dialogue, however, this question gives rise to a more fundamental inquiry: how should one live? By the time Callicles starts his long speech the theme of εὐδαιμονία has already been introduced by Polus. Callicles takes a radical stand by reducing εὐδαιμονία to a choice between what is good and noble by nature and what is posited as good and noble by convention. The opposition between nature and convention, in turn, gives rise to the comparison between two forms of life: philosophy and politics.

This dissertation is a study of the images of the soul in the Gorgias. I analyze the relationship between power and omnipotence in the conceptions of the soul defended and/or exemplified by the characters of the dialogue. ;In chapter 1 I focus on the dramatic setting of the Gorgias, which lacks clear temporal and spatial indications. I show that the three conversations are dramatically linked to the last myth of judgment. My hypothesis is that Gorgias and his followers are seen by Socrates as the representatives of the age of Kronos. As opposed to the age of Zeus, which allows for correct judgment of the soul, the age of Kronos is characterized by deception and manipulation. ;Chapter 2 analyzes in detail the myth of last judgment, which presents the problem of correct and incorrect knowledge of the soul. I focus on the relationship between surface and depth involved in judging the soul of another. I show that the passage from the age of Kronos to the age of Zeus represents the passage from a primitive condition of the soul to a condition which allows for thinking and power. The concept of separation is central in my analysis. ;While Chapter 3 shows how Gorgias' claim for rhetoric's omnipotence is first brought to light and then refuted by Socrates, Chapter 4 examines Gorgias' legacy in Callicles' theory of the law of nature. The interplay between Callicles' theory and the examples used to support it brings me to consider the master/slave relationship involved in Callicles' theory and his ambiguous stance towards omnipotence and rhetoric. ;The Appendix is mainly devoted to an analysis of Socrates' Palinode in the Phaedrus. I maintain that the Palinode reveals what is implicit in Socrates' and Callicles' discussion of pleasure in the Gorgias, namely that thinking is possible only when transcendence is acknowledged. ;I conclude that the Gorgias gives us not only a topology of the human soul, but also a rich and deep understanding of the genealogy of thinking

Diotima criticizes, but does not refute, Aristophanes’ thesis that love is desire for completeness. Her argument incorporates that thesis within a more complextheory: eros is desire for the permanent possession of the good, and hence also desire for immortality. Aristophanes cannot account for the aspirations entailed in the desire for fame or in the desire for knowledge. Such aspirations can be understood only with reference to the good. However, the paper shows how time plays a fundamental role in the original pursuit of wholeness at the center of Aristophanes’ myth of the two halves. Diotima appropriates his thesis when she describes the urge to leave behind something similar to what one has been. The desire for immortality is nothing but a desire for completeness pursued by mortal nature against the never-ending destruction of time