The classical conception of reason (or logos) has been repeatedly attacked in the modern era. Its enemies range from Descartes, who complains that logos is not sufficiently useful or precise, to Derrida who hopes to liberate Western thought from its bondage to "logocentrism." At least since the time of Nietzsche, Plato has been damned as the chief architect of the classical conception of logos. He is accused of overvaluing reason and thereby devaluing the other, more human aspects of life. As it was originally formulated in Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, Plato has been taken to be the arch-enemy of tragedy, which for Nietzsche was the most life-affirming of all the art forms of Greek culture. Originally published in 1990, The Tragedy of Reason defends Plato against his accusers. Employing a mode of exposition which exhibits Plato’s position, Roochnik presents the Platonic conception of logos in confrontation with texts by Homer, Hesiod, Heraclitus, Aristotle, Descartes, Porty, and Derrida. In clear language, unencumbered by technical terminology, Roochnik shows that Platonic conception of logos is keenly aware of the strength of its opponents. The result is a presentation of Plato as a "tragic philosopher" whose conception of logos is characterized by an affirmation of its own limits as well as its goodness.

The classical conception of reason (or logos) has been repeatedly attacked in the modern era. Its enemies range from Descartes, who complains that logos is not sufficiently useful or precise, to Derrida who hopes to liberate Western thought from its bondage to "logocentrism." At least since the time of Nietzsche, Plato has been damned as the chief architect of the classical conception of logos. He is accused of overvaluing reason and thereby devaluing the other, more human aspects of life. As it was originally formulated in Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, Plato has been taken to be the arch-enemy of tragedy, which for Nietzsche was the most life-affirming of all the art forms of Greek culture. Originally published in 1990, The Tragedy of Reason defends Plato against his accusers. Employing a mode of exposition which exhibits Plato's position, Roochnik presents the Platonic conception of logos in confrontation with texts by Homer, Hesiod, Heraclitus, Aristotle, Descartes, Porty, and Derrida. In clear language, unencumbered by technical terminology, Roochnik shows that Platonic conception of logos is keenly aware of the strength of its opponents. The result is a presentation of Plato as a "tragic philosopher" whose conception of logos is characterized by an affirmation of its own limits as well as its goodness.

Readers of Plato have often neglected the Laws because of its length and density. In this set of interpretive essays, notable scholars of the Laws from the fields of classics, history, philosophy, and political science offer a collective close reading of the dialogue "book by book" and reflect on the work as a whole. In their introduction, editors Gregory Recco and Eric Sanday explore the connections among the essays and the dramatic and productive exchanges between the contributors. This volume fills a major gap in studies on Plato's dialogues by addressing the cultural and historical context of the Laws and highlighting their importance to contemporary scholarship. -- Indiana University Press

What role does food play in the shaping of humanity? Is sharing a good meal with friends and family an experience of life at its best, or is food merely a burdensome necessity? David Roochnik explores these questions by discussing classical works of Greek literature and philosophy in which food and drink play an important role. With thoughts on Homer's The Odyssey, Euripides' Bacchae, Plato's philosopher kings and Dionysian intoxication, Roochnik shows how foregrounding food in philosophy can open up new ways of understanding these thinkers and their approaches to the purpose and meaning of life. The book features philosophical explanation interspersed with reflections from the author on cooking, eating, drinking and sharing meals, making it important reading for students of philosophy, classical studies, and food studies.

To the vast literature on Plato's Republic comes a new interpretation. In Beautiful City, David Roochnik argues convincingly that Plato's masterpiece is misunderstood by modern readers. The work must, he explains, be read dialectically, its parts understood as forming a unified whole. Approached in this way, the text no longer appears to defend an authoritarian and monolithic political system, but rather supplies a qualified defense of democracy and the values of diversity.

Writing in clear and straightforward prose, Roochnik demonstrates how Plato's treatment of the city and the soul evolves throughout the dialogue and can be appreciated only by considering the Republic in its entirety. He shows that the views expressed in the early parts of the text do not represent Plato's final judgment on these subjects but are in fact dialectical "moments" intended to be both partial and provisional. Books 5-7 of the Republic are, he maintains, meant to revise and improve upon books 2-4. Similarly, he sees the usually neglected books 8-10 as advancing beyond the thoughts presented in the previous books. Paying particular attention to these later books, Roochnik details, for instance, how the stories of the "mistaken" regimes, which are often seen as unimportant, are actually crucial in Plato's account of the soul.

Beautiful City is certain to be controversial, as the author's insights and opinions will engage and challenge philosophers, classicists, and political theorists.

What role does food play in the shaping of humanity? Is sharing a good meal with friends and family an experience of life at its best, or is food merely a burdensome necessity? David Roochnik explores these questions by discussing classical works of Greek literature and philosophy in which food and drink play an important role. With thoughts on Homer's The Odyssey, Euripides' Bacchae, Plato's philosopher kings and Dionysian intoxication, Roochnik shows how foregrounding food in philosophy can open up new ways of understanding these thinkers and their approaches to the purpose and meaning of life. The book features philosophical explanation interspersed with reflections from the author on cooking, eating, drinking and sharing meals, making it important reading for students of philosophy, classical studies, and food studies.

To the vast literature on Plato's Republic comes a new interpretation. In Beautiful City, David Roochnik argues convincingly that Plato's masterpiece is misunderstood by modern readers. The work must, he explains, be read dialectically, its parts understood as forming a unified whole. Approached in this way, the text no longer appears to defend an authoritarian and monolithic political system, but rather supplies a qualified defense of democracy and the values of diversity.

Writing in clear and straightforward prose, Roochnik demonstrates how Plato's treatment of the city and the soul evolves throughout the dialogue and can be appreciated only by considering the Republic in its entirety. He shows that the views expressed in the early parts of the text do not represent Plato's final judgment on these subjects but are in fact dialectical "moments" intended to be both partial and provisional. Books 5-7 of the Republic are, he maintains, meant to revise and improve upon books 2-4. Similarly, he sees the usually neglected books 8-10 as advancing beyond the thoughts presented in the previous books. Paying particular attention to these later books, Roochnik details, for instance, how the stories of the "mistaken" regimes, which are often seen as unimportant, are actually crucial in Plato's account of the soul.

Beautiful City is certain to be controversial, as the author's insights and opinions will engage and challenge philosophers, classicists, and political theorists.

In this book philosophers, scholars of religion, and activists address the theme of responsibility. Barbara Darling-Smith brings together an enlightening collection of essays that analyze the ethics of responsibility, its relational nature, and its global struggle. With references to Homer's the Iliad and Buddhist teachings, these essays demonstrate that while selfhood is an illusion, there is still a conventional self that must be held responsible. This book finds the underlying distinctions between ultimate and conventional understandings of selfhood, which lead to variations on the role of responsibility in the community and government. With essays from CEOs to historical theologians, Responsibility offers a variety of perspectives that will captivate the interest of philosophers and scholars of ethnics and religion.

In this book philosophers, scholars of religion, and activists address the theme of responsibility. Barbara Darling-Smith brings together an enlightening collection of essays that analyze the ethics of responsibility, its relational nature, and its global struggle. With references to Homer's the Iliad and Buddhist teachings, these essays demonstrate that while selfhood is an illusion, there is still a conventional self that must be held responsible. This book finds the underlying distinctions between ultimate and conventional understandings of selfhood, which lead to variations on the role of responsibility in the community and government. With essays from CEOs to historical theologians, Responsibility offers a variety of perspectives that will captivate the interest of philosophers and scholars of ethnics and religion.

It had been thought that theCleitophon was a spurious dialogue. Its brevity and the fact that Socrates does not respond to accusations from Cleitophon suggested to scholars that it was only a fragment. However, in the last fifteen years, the complete and authentic dialogue was rediscovered. Upon its discovery, scholars have almost universally agreed that the Cleitophon is the introduction to Plato'sRepublic. In Plato's Cleitophon: On Socrates and the Modern Mind editor, translator, and author, Mark Kremer, has mined some of the best scholarship on the relationship of Plato's Cleitophon and its relationship to modern thought. It is the contention of the editor that the Cleitophon, is an ancient example of the psychic, social, cultural, and moral strain that is put upon the citizens of a republic when their society begins to erode on all fronts. This work has the potential to afford readers an ancient perspective on ourselves by showing us how we appear in Plato's mind. It should be read by anyone who has ever read Plato'sRepublic; as well as anyone who is concerned about the social, psychic, cultural, and moral effects of postmodernity and globalization.

The "theory of forms" usually attributed to Plato is one of the most famous of philosophical theories, yet it has engendered such controversy in the literature on Plato that scholars even debate whether or not such a theory exists in his texts. Plato's Forms: Varieties of Interpretation is an ambitious work that brings together, in a single volume, widely divergent approaches to the topic of the forms in Plato's dialogues. With contributions rooted in both Anglo-American and Continental philosophy, the book illustrates the contentious role the forms have played in Platonic scholarship and suggests new approaches to a central problem of Plato studies.

A comprehensive discussion of Plato's treatment of techne (technical knowledge), which shows that the final goal of Platonic philosophy is nontechnical wisdom. The Greek word "techne," typically translated as "art," but also as "craft," "skill," "expertise," "technical knowledge," and even "science," has been decisive in shaping our "technological" culture. Here David Roochnik comprehensively analyzes Plato's treatment of this crucial word. Roochnik maintains that Plato's understanding of both the goodness of techne, as well as its severe limitations and consequent need to be supplemented by "nontechnical" wisdom, can speak directly to our own concerns about the troubling impact technology has had on contemporary life.

For most commentators, techne functions as a positive, theoretical model through which Plato attempts to articulate the nature of moral knowledge. Scholars such as Terence Irwin and Martha Nussbaum argue that Plato's version of moral knowledge is structurally similar to techne. In arguing thus, they attribute to Plato what Nietzsche called "theoretical optimism," the view that technical knowledge can become an efficient panacea for the dilemmas and painful contingencies of human life. Conventional wisdom has it, in short, that for Plato technical, moral knowledge can solve life's problems.

By systematically analyzing Socrates' analogical arguments, Roochnik shows the weakness of the conventional view. The basic pattern of these arguments is this: if moral knowledge is analogous to techne, then insurmountable difficulties arise, and moral knowledge becomes impossible. Since moral knowledge is not impossible, it cannot be analogous to techne. In other words, the purpose of Socrates' analogical arguments is to reveal the limitations of techne as a model for the wisdom Socrates so ardently seeks. For all the reasons Plato is so careful to present in his dialogues, wisdom cannot be rendered technical; it cannot become techne. Thus, Roochnik concludes, Plato wrote dialogues instead of technical treatises, as they are the appropriate vehicle for his expression of nontechnical wisdom.

In 1935 Edmund Husserl delivered his now famous lecture Philosophy and the Crisis of European Humanity, in which he argued that the misguided rationalism of modern Western science, dominated by the model of mathematical physics, can tell us nothing about the meaning of our lives. Today Husserl s conviction that the West faces a crisis is no longer an abstraction. With the ever-present threat of nuclear explosion, the degradation of the oceans, and the possibility that climate change will wreak havoc on civilization itself, people from all walks of life are wondering what has gone so terribly wrong and what remedies might be available.
In "Retrieving Aristotle in an Age of Crisis," David Roochnik makes a lucid and powerful case that Aristotle offers a philosophical resource that even today can be of significant therapeutic value. Unlike the scientific revolutionaries of the seventeenth century, he insisted that both ordinary language and sense-perception play essential roles in the acquisition of knowledge. Centuries before Husserl, Aristotle was a phenomenologist who demanded that a successful theory remain faithful to human experience. His philosophy can thus provide precisely what modern European rationalism now so painfully lacks: an understanding and appreciation of the world in which human beings actually make their homes."