In Plato's "Letters", Ariel Helfer provides to readers, for the
first time, a highly literal translation of the Letters, complete
with extensive notes on historical context and issues of manuscript
transmission. His analysis presents a necessary perspective for
readers who wish to study Plato's Letters as a work of Platonic
philosophy. Centuries of debate over the provenance and
significance of Plato's Letters have led to the common view that
the Letters is a motley collection of jewels and scraps from within
and without Plato's literary estate. In a series of original
essays, Helfer describes how the Letters was written as a single
work, composed with a unity of purpose and a coherent teaching,
marked throughout by Plato's artfulness and insight and intended to
occupy an important place in the Platonic corpus. Viewed in this
light, the Letters is like an unusual epistolary novel, a manner of
semifictional and semiautobiographical literary-philosophic
experiment, in which Plato sought to provide his most demanding
readers with guidance in thinking more deeply about the meaning of
his own career as a philosopher, writer, and political advisor.
Plato's "Letters" not only defends what Helfer calls the "literary
unity thesis" by reviewing the scholarly history pertaining to the
Platonic letters but also brings out the political philosophic
lessons revealed in the Letters. As a result, Plato's "Letters"
recovers and rehabilitates what has been until now a minority view
concerning the Letters, according to which this misunderstood
Platonic text will be of tremendous new importance for the study of
Platonic political philosophy.
General
Imprint: |
Cornell University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Agora Editions |
Release date: |
December 2023 |
Authors: |
Plato
|
Translators: |
Ariel Helfer
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152mm (L x W) |
Pages: |
294 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-5017-7289-4 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
1-5017-7289-9 |
Barcode: |
9781501772894 |
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!