•  1680
    'Making New Gods? A Reflection on the Gift of the Symposium
    In Debra Nails, Harold Tarrant, Mika Kajava & Eero Salmenkivi (eds.), Second Sailing: Alternative Perspectives on Plato, Societas Scientiarum Fennica. pp. 285-306. 2015.
    A commentary on the Symposium as a challenge and a gift to Athens. I begin with a reflection on three dates: 416 bce, the date of Agathon’s victory party, c. 400, the approximate date of Apollodorus’ retelling of the party, and c. 375, the approximate date of the ‘publication’ of the dialogue, and I argue that Plato reminds his contemporary Athens both of its great poetic and legal and scientific traditions and of the historical fact that the way late fourth century Athens appropriated them in …Read more
  •  971
    Beginning the 'Longer Way'
    In G. R. F. Ferrari (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato's Republic, Cambridge University Press. pp. 310--344. 2007.
    At 435c-d and 504b ff., Socrates indicates that there is a "longer and fuller way" that one must take in order to get "the best possible view" of the soul and its virtues. But Plato does not have him take this "longer way." Instead Socrates restricts himself to an indirect indication of its goals by his images of sun, line, and cave and to a programmatic outline of its first phase, the five mathematical studies. Doesn't this pointed restraint function as a provocation, moving us to want to be…Read more
  •  709
    Essay Review of Eva Brann, The Music of the Republic (review)
    International Journal of the Classical Tradition 13 (4): 628-633. 2007.
    The essays in this collection, though ranging in their keys from the teacherly to the scholarly, are united by their search for the deepest questions Plato gives us. The title essay on the Republic is a paradigm case, exploring with a mix of speculative daring and Socratic pleasure in aporia the ring structure of the dialogue, the emergent perspective of a "knowing soul," dianoetic eikasia, and the implicit presence of the One and the Dyad in the metaphysical figures of the central books. See …Read more
  •  642
    The Reception of Hesiod by the Early Presocratics
    In Alexander Loney & Stephen Scully (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Hesiod, Oxford University Press. pp. 207-225. 2018.
    The early Presocratics’ major speculative and critical initiatives—in particular, Anaximander’s conceptions of the justice of the cosmos and of the apeiron as its archē and Xenophanes’s polemics against immorality and anthropomorphism in the depiction of the gods and against any claim to divine inspiration—appear to break with Hesiod’s form of thought. But the conceptual, critical, and ethical depth of Hesiod’s own rethinking of the lore that he inherits complicates this picture. Close examinati…Read more
  •  532
    A close reading of the five mathematical studies Socrates proposes for the philosopher-to-be in Republic VII, arguing that (1) each study proposes an object the thought of which turns the soul towards pure intelligibility and that (2) the sequence of studies involves both a departure from the sensible and a return to it in its intelligible structure.
  •  485
    Platonic Provocations: Reflections on the Soul and the Good in the Republic
    In Dominic J. O'Meara (ed.), Platonic Investigations, Catholic University of Amer Press. pp. 163-193. 1985.
    Reflections on the linkage between and the provocative force of problems in the analogy of city and soul, in the simile-bound characterization of the Good, and in the performative tension between what Plato has Socrates say about the philosopher's disinclination to descend into the city and what he has Socrates do in descending into the Piraeus to teach, with a closing recognition of the analogy between Socratic teaching and Platonic writing.
  •  468
    Platonic Mimesis
    In Thomas Falkner, Nancy Felson & David Konstan (eds.), Contextualizing Classics: Ideology, Performance, Dialogue, . pp. 253-266. 1999.
    A two-fold study, on the one hand of the thought-provoking mimesis by which Plato gives his hearer an occasion for self-knowledge and self-transcendence and of the typical sequential structure, an appropriation of the trajectory of the poem of Parmenides, by which Plato orders the drama of inquiry, and on the other hand a commentary on the Crito that aims to show concretely how these elements — mimesis and Parmenidean structure — work together to give the dialogues their exceptional elicitative…Read more
  •  427
    Plato's Parmenides: The Conversion of the Soul
    Pennsylvania State University Press. 1986.
    The Parmenides is arguably the pivotal text for understanding the Platonic corpus as a whole. I offer a critical analysis that takes as its key the closely constructed dramatic context and mimetic irony of the dialogue. Read with these in view, the contradictory characterizations of the "one" in the hypotheses dissolve and reform as stages in a systematic response to the objections that Parmenides earlier posed to the young Socrates' notions of forms and participation, potentially liberating So…Read more
  •  381
    A close reading of the final chapter of Hegel's Phenomenology, with special attention to phenomenological method, to the structure of overcomings and preservations that makes for the integrated totality of the ascent to the absolute, to the determinate negations that bind ch.s 6c on Objective Spirit and 7c on Revealed Religion to one another and to ch. 8 on Absolute Spirit, and to the relations of the absolute standpoint to time and to history.
  •  355
    What the Dialectician Discerns: a new reading of Sophist 253d-e
    Ancient Philosophy 36 (2): 321-352. 2016.
    At Sophist 253d-e the Eleatic Visitor offers a notoriously obscure description of the fields of one-and-many that the dialectician “adequately discerns.” Against the readings of Stenzel, Cornford, Sayre, and Gomez-Lobo, I propose an interpretation of that passage that takes into account the trilogy of Theaetetus-Sophist-Statesman as its context. The key steps are to respond to the irony of Socrates’ refutations at the end of the Theaetetus by reinterpreting the last two senses of logos as dire…Read more
  •  350
    The Pleasures of the Comic and of Socratic Inquiry
    Arethusa 41 (2): 263-289. 2008.
    At Apology 33c Socrates explains that "some people enjoy … my company" because "they … enjoy hearing those questioned who think they are wise but are not." At Philebus 48a-50b he makes central to his account of the pleasure of laughing at comedy the exposé of the self-ignorance of those who presume themselves wise. Does the latter passage explain the pleasure of watching Socrates at work? I explore this by tracing the admixture of pain, the causes, and the "natural harmony" that Socrates' gen…Read more
  •  341
    The Implicit Logic of Hesiod's Cosmogony
    Independent Journal of Philosophy 131-142. 1983.
    A close examination of the implicit logic that guides Hesiod's account of the genesis of the cosmos in the Theogony 116-133, with special attention to his choice of Chaos as the first born and to the logical relations between opposites and between whole and parts as these emerge within, as the structuring principles of, Hesiod's ordering of the births of cosmic elements.
  •  304
    A More 'Exact Grasp' of the Soul? Tripartition of the Soul in Republic IV and Dialectic in the Philebus
    In José Medina & David Wood (eds.), Truth, Blackwell. pp. 57-135. 2005-01-01.
    At Republic 435c-d and again at 504b-e, Plato has Socrates object to the city/soul analogy and declare that a “longer way” is necessary for gaining a more “exact grasp” of the soul. I argue that it is in the Philebus, in Socrates’ presentation of the “god-given” method of dialectic and in his distinctions of the kinds of pleasure and knowledge, that Plato offers the resources for reaching this alternative account. To show this, I explore (1) the limitations of the tripartition of the soul that…Read more
  •  301
    Review Essay: Miller On Sayre On Metaphysics And Method In Plato’s Statesman (review)
    Plato: The Internet Journal of the International Plato Society 7. 2007.
    Sayre finds deep connections between collection and division, the two kinds of measure distinguished in the Statesman, the conceptions of Limit and Unlimited in the Philebus, and the Dyad that Aristotle reports was a key principle in the "unwritten teachings." The Stranger's dialectical account of statesmanship practices due measure; by "cutting down the middle," the Stranger shows how Forms — understood as Limits as, in turn, "numbers in the sense of measures" — "mark off a middle ground betwee…Read more
  •  298
    At 287c of the Statesman the Eleatic Visitor — or, more deeply, Plato — faces a daunting task. Because statesmanship has been shown to collaborate with “countless” other arts that share with it the work of “caring” for the city, to understand statesmanship requires distinguishing these arts into an intelligible set of kinds and recognizing how these might go together. Accordingly, the Visitor abandons the mode of division he has practiced without exception up until this moment, bifurcation or …Read more
  •  298
    The Timaeus and the Longer Way
    In Gretchen J. Reydams-Schils (ed.), Plato's Timaeus as Cultural Icon, University of Notre Dame Press. pp. 17-59. 2003.
    A study of the significance of Plato's resumption of the simile of model and likeness in the Timaeus, with attention to the place of the Timaeus in the "longer way" that Plato has Socrates announce in the Republic. The reader embarked on the "longer way," I argue, will find in the accounts of the elements and of the kinds of animals unannounced but detailed exhibitions of the "god-given" method of dialectic that Plato has Socrates announce in the Philebus.
  •  295
    A close reading of the poem of Parmenides, with focal attention to the way the proem situates Parmenides' insight in relation to Hesiod and Anaximander and provides the context for the thought of "... is". I identify three pointed ambiguities, in the direction of the journey to the gates of the ways of Night and Day, in the way the gates swing open before the waiting traveler, and in the character of the "chasm" that their opening makes, and I suggest ways in which these ambiguities at once comp…Read more
  •  276
    Review essays-dialectic and dialogue-by Dmitri Nikulin
    Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 32 (1): 177. 2011.
    Dmitri Nikulin extends his earlier study of oral dialogue (On Dialogue [Lexington, 2006]) to an investigation of dialectic, moving from a narrative of its development in Plato and the history of philosophy (ch.s 1-3) through a renewed phenomenological account of oral dialogue (ch.s 4-5) to a critique, from the perspective of oral dialogue, of the limitations of written dialectic (ch. 6). I take up some of the provocations of his bold and open-ended argument. Does his own “writing against writi…Read more
  •  245
    In his “Noesis and Logos in the Eleatic Trilogy, with a Focus on the Visitor’s Jokes at Statesman 266a-d,” Mitchell Miller explores the interplay of intuition and discourse in the Statesman. He prepares by considering the orienting provocations provided by Socrates’ refutations of the proposed definition of knowledge — namely, “true judgment and a logos” — in the closing pages of the Theaetetus, by the Eleatic Visitor’s obscure schematization at Sophist 253d-e of the kinds of eidetic field disc…Read more
  •  241
    On Reading the Laws as a Whole: Horizon, Vision, and Structure
    In Eric Sanday & Gregory Recco (eds.), Plato's Laws: Force and Truth in Politics, Indiana University Press. pp. 11-30. 2013.
    A reflection intended to orient a reading of the Laws as a whole, with special attention to the range of philosophical issues included and excluded from the Athenian's reach, as this is indicated by the dramatic context, to the vision of the god as the measure of the laws that provides the centering goal of the Athenian's labors, and to the dialectical structure of the Athenian's address to the Magnesians.
  •  233
    Must the interpreter of the Platonic dialogues choose between the so-called "unwritten teachings" reported by Aristotle in Metaphysics A6 and the dialogues? I argue, on the contrary, that a reading of the dialogues that is sensitive to their pedagogical irony will find the "unwritten teachings" exhibited in them. I identify the key teachings in Metaphysics A6, show how the Parmenides and the Philebus point to them, and explicate a full exhibition of them in the Statesman.
  •  222
    Unity and Logos
    Ancient Philosophy 12 (1): 87-111. 1992.
    A close reading of Socrates’ arguments against the proposed definition of knowledge as true opinion together with a logos (“account”). I examine the orienting implications of his apparently destructive dilemma defeating the so-called dream theory and of his apparently decisive arguments rejecting the notions of “account” as verbalization, as working through the parts of the whole of the definiendum, and as identifying what differentiates the definiendum from all else. Whereas the dilemma impli…Read more
  •  192
    Commentary on Clay
    Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 3 (1): 158-164. 1987.
    Acknowledging with Professor Clay the important methodological principle that interpretation must begin within the dramatic horizon of each dialogue, I argue that there are analogies between discontinuities within single dialogues and discontinuities between certain dialogues. Recognizing this opens up the possibility of thinking of certain groups of dialogues as a series of fresh beginnings that lead the reader through different levels of understanding. I illustrate this idea by considering t…Read more
  •  136
    Colloquium 9
    Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 6 (1): 323-359. 1990.
    A close exegesis of the principles of the so-called "god-given method" of dialectic in the Philebus (16bff., 23cff.) and an account of the division of the fifteen kinds of art that "care" for the well-formed city in the Statesman (287bff., 303cff.). I show how this division conforms to and, so, illustrates the "god-given method."
  •  78
    A close reading of the Crito, with a focus on irony in Socrates' speech by the Laws and on the way this allows Socrates to chart a mean course between Crito's self-destructive resistance to the rule of Athenian law and Socrates' own philosophical reservations about its ethical limitations.
  •  69
    Ambiguity and transport: Reflections on the proem to parmenides'poem
    Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 30 1-47. 2006.
    A close reading of the poem of Parmenides, with focal attention to the way the proem situates Parmenides' insight in relation to Hesiod and Anaximander and provides the context for the thought of "... is". I identify three pointed ambiguities, in the direction of the journey to the gates of the ways of Night and Day, in the way the gates swing open before the waiting traveler, and in the character of the "chasm" that their opening makes, and I suggest ways in which these ambiguities at once com…Read more
  •  47
    One and Many in Aristotle's Metaphysics: The Central Books by Edward C. Halper (review)
    Classical World: A Quarterly Journal on Antiquity 88 55-55. 1994.
    A review of Edward Halper's brilliant exegesis of the middle books of Aristotle's Metaphysics, in which he shows that Aristotle keys his search for the hierarchy of senses of being to his quest for the hierarchical array of the senses of unity.
  •  37
    Unity and Logos
    Ancient Philosophy 12 (1): 87-111. 1992.
    A close reading of the dilemmatic argument and of the discussions of the three senses of logos by which Socrates appears to refute the proposal that knowledge is true judgment together with a logos. I argue that the determinateness of each of Socrates' arguments implies further lines of thought for the reader and that these lead to an understanding of the relations of intuition and discourse in inquiry and of the compossible simplicity and complexity of the object of knowledge. These lines of …Read more
  •  36
    "Unwritten Teachings" in the "Parmenides"
    Review of Metaphysics 48 (3). 1995.
    An examination on the one hand of Aristotle's report in Metaphysics A6 of Plato's teachings regarding the One, the dyad of the Great and the Small, and mathematical intermediates and on the other hand of key passages in Plato's Parmenides. I argue that we can find in those passages exhibitions of the teachings Aristotle reports and that these exhibitions help us to understand those teachings.
  •  35
    The God-Given Way
    In Daniel John and Shartin Cleary (ed.), Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 6, University Press of America. pp. 323-359. 1990.
    A close reading of the presentation of the method of dialectic at Philebus 16c-18d and, I argue, of its display in the account of the kinds of art necessary for a good city at Statesman 287c-290a and 303d-305e.