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Plato Journal #19
Vol. 19 (2019)A new volume of PLATO has seen the light, after the generous dedication by the two Assistant Editors, prof. Renato Matoso and prof. Luca Pitteloud, as well the precious help received by the members of the Board. I would very much like to thank referees and revisers, as well as the International Plato Society, which holds the Journal as one of its most important windows to the world. PLATO 19 arrives in the very week of the most awaited Paris XII Symposium Platonicum on Plato’s Parmenides. The volume starts with Smith’s paper on the dialectical methods in Theaetetus, Sophist, and Philebus, arguing for a unity of these methods as relevant to Platonic education. Blyth’s paper is willing to draw attention to later academic interpretation of Plato’s depiction of Socrates as a sceptic. In the third and last paper of the volume, Swanson focuses in a fairly long and elaborated essay on the final scene of the Euthydemus, arguing that its curious speech is a reverse eikos argument, directed at the speechwriters own eikos argument for the preeminence of their art. As a way of enhancing the debate within our Society and beyond, this volume decided to offer four excellent Books Reviews of works related to Plato and platonic scholarship. Candiotto offers an insightful review of Brisson most recent book, Platon:L’écrivain qui inventa la philosophie. dedicated to the study of Plato’s life as an introduction to his very philosophy. Schultz’s reviews of Destrée & Edmond III edited book on Plato and the Power of Images highligths the volume to anyone interested in the tension within Plato’s dialogues between describing the power of images as something harmful and wretched and using the power of images in various occasion within philosophical discussions. Notomi offers us a small piece on on why japanese is still the main language of Japanese scholarship. I strongly believe these same observations are similarly valid for others regions and languages and I sincerely hope that these few lines can start a debate on this very important issue. On this note, Notomi’s piece is followed by an ensligh review of the very first monograph ever written in Japanese on Plato’s Laws: The Rule of Law and the Philosophy of Dialogue: A Study in Plato’s Dialogue Laws, by Maruhashi. And while we are all heading to Paris, let’s take the opportunity to once again express our deepest gratitude to the Coimbra University Press for the precious publishing management of our journal.
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Plato Journal #18
Vol. 18 (2018)The volume starts with C. Buckels arguing vigorously against the standard interpretation of Plato’s sensible particulars as images of Forms, proposing instead a different approach: Platonic particulars would not be Form images but aggregates of Form images. A. Lefka articulates her paper on the symbol of the ‘sacred tree’ in Plato’s Phaedrus (229 a 8-c 5), sharply contributing to shed some new light on the role that the planeai tree of Ilissos and the oak of Dodona could play in Plato’s reception of religious traditions within his philosophy. PLATO Journal 18 proudly hosts a Dossier on The Problem of the Intermediates, edited by S. Stone and N. Baima. All six articles were originally presented at a conference on the possibility of intermediates in Plato’s dialogues, hosted by the two editors at Florida Atlantic University Honors College, in March 2018. The reader would probably better check N. Baima’s Introduction to the Dossier at p. 41 for further details on the articulated scope of the dossier and of each one of the six papers. I will limit myself to enumerate the outstanding list of the six Authors here enrolled: L. Gerson, S. Stone, O. Renaut, E. Katz, N. D. Smith and A. German. Finally, this volume ends with two fairly incisive Reviews: the first by A. Preus on the recent translation and commentary of the first two books of Plato’s Laws by S. S. Meyer, a dialogue that generally got much less attention than most other works of Plato; in the second review, A. Lanoue goes through the monumental Il disordine ordinato, la filosofia dialettica di Platone, by M. Migliori, concluding that the book stands as one of the more important specialized works of this Century.
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Plato Journal #16
Vol. 16 (2016)We are glad to announce this special issue of the Plato Journal (6/2016) which consists of the proceeding papers of a workshop with the title ‘Ways of Interpreting Plato’ organized by Lloyd Gerson at the University of Toronto in March 11- 12, 2016. The volume opens with an introduction by Lloyd Gerson and includes five papers, along with the comments of the corresponding respondents. We would like to thank Lloyd Gerson and the contributors for choosing the Plato Journal as the venue for their work. The Plato Journal accepts submissions on Plato and the Platonic tradition and responses to Platonic scholarship, in the form of single papers, notes, or proceedings. All submissions are refereed (through a double-blind peer-review process) by expert readers, including a native or fluent speaker of the language of the article.
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Plato Journal #15
Vol. 15 (2015)The present volume contains six articles, two of which are dedicated to Plato’s Symposium and represent revised versions of papers presented at the X Symposium Platonicum in Pisa in July 2013. The volume also contains articles on Socrates in Plato’s dialogues, on the preface of the Crito, on the preface of the Timaeus, and on the Phaedrus, along with two reviews of recent publications. We start with an article by Thomas C. Brickhouse (Lynchburg College, Virginia) and Nicholas D. Smith (Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregorn) on ‘Socrates on the Emotions’. The article begins with the analysis of a passage in Plato’s Protagoras, which indicates, according some scholars, that Socrates believes that the only way to change how others feel about things is to engage them in rational discourse. Brickhouse and Smith show, on the contrary, that Socrates can consistently be a cognitivist about emotion, while also recognizing different etiologies of belief and appealing to non-rational strategies for dealing with emotions. In the article ‘Socrates, wake up! An analysis and exegesis of the “preface” in Plato’s Crito’ (43a1-b9) Yosef Z. Liebersohn (Bar-Ilan University, Israel) offers a close analysis of the first scene of Plato’s Crito. Liebersohn argues that the two apparently innocent questions Socrates asks at the beginning of the Crito are an essential part of the philosophical discussion, by showing that they anticipate Crito’s main problems in the dialogue. In the third article Nathalie Nercam (Independent Scholar, Île-de-France) deals with ‘L’introduction problématique du Timée (17a-27a)’. The aim of the article is to reconsider the prologue of the Timaeus in order to show that with this preface Plato invites the reader to demystify the discourses of the Greek political elite of the fifth century B.C. According to Nercam, the chôra of Critias’ story, compared with Republic, is in fact the phobic projection of the aristocracy’s desires. Christopher Moore (The Pennsylvania State University) is the author of the fourth article in the present volume: ‘Philosophy in Plato’s Phaedrus’. Moore identifies in the Phaedrus fourteen remarks about philosophy and argues, in opposition to other scholars, that none of them are parodies of Isocrates’ competing definition of philosophy. He then reassesses the Republic-inspired view that philosophy refers essentially to contemplation of the Forms, arguing that the term mainly refers to conversations that aim at mutual self-improvement.
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Plato Journal #14
Vol. 14 (2014)The current volume of the Plato Journal is published in the new format and in accordance with the guidelines that have been introduced in the previous volume. Like the preceding issue, the current issue of the Plato Journal is available both in electronic and printed versions. Furthermore a new online platform is available for the submission of papers. As a result of these changes and in continuity with its tradition the Plato Journal constitutes an attractive channel for the promotion and the dissemination of excellent work in the study of Plato and of the Platonic tradition. Volume 14/2014 contains six articles, three of which are on Plato’s Symposium and represent revised versions of papers presented at the X Symposium Platonicum in Pisa in July 2013. The volume also contains articles on the Theaetetus and the Sophist, the Republic and the Myth of Er, and on the Ion, along with two reviews on recent publications. As for the section on the Symposium, we start with an article by Menahmen Luz (University of Haifa) on ‘The Rejected Versions in Plato’s Symposium’. Luz focuses on Apollodorus’ prelude to the Symposium. He argues that the rejection of earlier accounts of Socrates’ participation in the Symposium can be subtextually regarded as a rejection of a previous literary version. The second article, by Anne Gabrièle Wersinger (Université de Reims/ CNRS Jean Pépin), addresses ‘Le sens de la « kuèsis » dans la perspective des mythes de la gestation (Banquet 201d-212b)’. According to Wersinger, Diotima applies the desire to become pregnant to both men and women in order to convey the idea that creation cannot be reduced to the begetting of novelty, but takes time, as does maternal gestation. The section on the Symposium ends with an article by Gabriele Cornelli (Universidade de Brasília) on ‘Socrate et Alcibiade’. According to Cornelli, in describing the relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades, Plato uses a clever dramatic construction in order to ‘rewrite’ this relationship and then deepen his ‘J’accuse’ against Alcibiades.
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Plato Journal #13
Vol. 13 (2013)The current volume of the Plato Journal constitutes an important turning point in the history of the journal and as such is characterized by both the old and the new. What is ‘old’ is that here, as in the last volume, we have a collection of very strong papers displaying a wide diversity of approaches and topics. The goal of the journal continues to be what it always has been: to disseminate important new research on Plato and the Platonic tradition, just as the goal of the International Plato Society is to promote and provide an international venue for such research. But the journal has now a new look and, far from being something purely cosmetic, this new look represents a major change in the journal’s profile and standing. For the first time the journal has a publisher and this not only improves the look of the journal, but also gives it the same standing as print journals in the field when it comes to citation, indexing and access. Furthermore, the journal will now be both an electronic and print journal in that the publisher will make printed copies available on demand. In short, the journal now and for the first time has the form that its content merits. This will make it more attractive and more useful both as a venue for publishing one’s own work and as a source for consulting current research in the field. For this we owe a debt of gratitude to the current president of the International Plato Society, Gabriele Cornelli, who from the very start of his mandate made it a priority to improve the standing and visibility of the journal and who found the right publisher for this end.
