Peter Larsen

Plato is one of the most widely read and studied philosophers of all time. A pivotal figure in the history of philosophy, his work is foundational to the Western philosophical tradition. The Platonic Mind provides an extensive survey of his work, not only placing it in its historical context but also exploring its contemporary significance. Comprising over thirty specially commissioned chapters by an international team of contributors, the volume is divided into three clear parts: Reading Plato's Dialogues Themes from Plato Plato's Influences and Significance Within these sections key topics are addressed including: the nature of reality and the physical world; human cognition, including knowledge, sense perception, and affective states; society, politics, and law; his method of inquiry and literary style; his influence on subsequent thinkers and traditions; studies on a wide range of individual Platonic dialogues. Plato's work is central to the study of ancient philosophy, Greek philosophy, history of philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, political philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of science, ethics, philosophy of language, legal philosophy, and philosophy of religion. As such The Platonic Mind is essential reading for all students and researchers in philosophy. It will also be of interest to those studying Plato in related disciplines such as politics, law, ancient history, literature, and religious studies.

This chapter considers an element of Plato’s account of sense perception. In particular, it poses the question of how widely Plato construes the content of the perceptual capacity. It argues that, based on what Plato says in the Theaetetus and the Timaeus there is good reason to think that sense perception is limited to just those simple sense qualities that are made available to the soul by the individual sensory powers, i.e., colors by sight, sounds by hearing, etc. This, however, raises the question of how, according to Plato, the soul becomes aware of features that are often thought to be perceptible through more than one sensory power: features like shape, motion, rest, number, etc. The chapter addresses this issue by arguing that the awareness of these features requires the co-operation of sense perception with additional capacities of the soul, in particular the capacity for reflective thought; for recognizing these features requires the deployment of basic concepts like sameness and difference. An upshot of the position defended in this chapter is that, if correct, it indicates that, for Plato, rational capacities may be more widely distributed than is often thought.

Plato is one of the most widely read and studied philosophers of all time. A pivotal figure in the history of philosophy, his work is foundational to the Western philosophical tradition. The Platonic Mind provides a comprehensive survey of his work, not only placing it in its historical context but also exploring its contemporary significance. Comprising over thirty specially commissioned chapters by an international team of contributors, the volume is divided into three clear parts: Reading Plato's Dialogues Themes from Plato Plato's Influences and Significance Plato's work is central to the study of ancient philosophy, Greek philosophy, history of philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, political philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of science, ethics, philosophy of language, legal philosophy, and philosophy of religion. As such The Platonic Mind is essential reading for all students and researchers in philosophy. It will also be of interest to those studying Plato in related disciplines such as politics, law, ancient history, literature, and religious studies.

Plato often depicts Socrates inquiring together with an interlocutor into a thing/concept by trying to answer the “What is it?” question about that thing/concept. This typically involves Socrates requesting that his discussion partner answer the question, and usually ends in failure. There are, however, instances in which Socrates provides the sort of answer, in relation to a more familiar thing/concept, that he would like to receive in relation to a more obscure thing/concept, thus furnishing his interlocutor with an example of how he would like him to answer. This chapter considers this dialectical tool by focusing on three instances of its use (Meno 73e3–76e4; Laches 191e9–192b3; Theaetetus 146e7–147c6). It argues, first, that in these instances Socrates provides true and adequate definitions of the things/concepts in question. It further argues that dialectic, for Plato, is just as much about the essences everyday things/concepts as it is about the essences of more obscure things/concepts; and that it is just as much about the meanings of the words we use to designate things, as it is about the essences of those things.

This paper considers Berkeley’s use of Plato in Siris. Berkeley’s engagement with ancient thinkers in Siris has been a source of puzzlement for many readers. In this paper I focus on Siris § 266. In particular, I consider why Berkeley says of the Platonists that they “distinguished the primary qualities in bodies from the secondary” and why, given his own well-known misgivings about the distinction, he characterizes this as part of a “notion of the true system of the world.” I argue that in Siris Berkeley accepts a distinctive form of corpuscularianism, and that he thinks a distinction between primary and secondary qualities follows from this. I further argue that in § 266, and elsewhere in Siris, Berkeley engages in a careful reading of Plato’s Timaeus, which he uses to bolster his defense of the compatibility between corpuscularianism and his immaterialist idealism.

This paper addresses the question of whether, according to Plato, there are forms of sensible qualities; it is also addressed to the wider question of whether there are forms of physical and material things more generally. In particular, it considers the tension raised by the following theses: (1) a Platonic form is the essence of some thing; (2) for Plato, those essences that are forms are imperceptible and are knowable through reasoning alone; (3) knowing the essence of a particular color (e.g., red) requires presentation with the relevant sensible quality and hence requires sense perception; (4) if a sensible quality has an essence, then that essence is a form. The solution I defend to this puzzle basically consists of accepting (1) through theses (3) but denying thesis (4). Sensible qualities, according to Plato, do have essences, but specifying their essences does not require that one postulate a separate form.

This paper considers the place of the capacity for sense perception in Plato's tripartite soul. It argues, against a common recent interpretation, that despite being a capacity of the soul's appetitive part, sense perception is not independent of the soul's rational capacities. On the contrary, the soul's ability to recognize the content that it receives through sense perception depends upon the objects and the activity of its rational capacities. Defending a position of this sort requires one to suppose that despite its partition, the soul, for Plato, is, with respect to the activities of its various parts, substantially unitary. There are however passages in Plato that suggest that the capacities of the non-rational soul parts, in general, and sense perception, in particular, enjoy a certain degree of autonomy and independence from reason such that they, without the input of reason, can form beliefs about, and act on the basis of, their content. These passages have been read as belying this supposition. In this paper, however, I argue that these passages are perfectly consistent with the idea that the content of the non-rational capacities of the soul depends, for its intelligibility, on the soul's rational capacities.