|
Showing 1 - 4 of
4 matches in All Departments
Perception and its puzzles have given rise to philosophical
reflection from antiquity to recent times: What do we perceive? How
do we talk about what we perceive? What is the nature of our
subjective experience? How can we talk about our subjective
experience? In this book a distinguished group of philosophers
addresses questions like these by drawing on historical and
contemporary sources, illuminating the intersections between
historical and contemporary philosophical discussion. They ask
about the way things look; about how we can perceive a particular
object (and no other); about self-perception; and about the nature
and explanation of our phenomenal experience, and our talk about
it. The book provides important new work in a central philosophical
area.
How does Plato view his philosophical antecedents? Plato and his
Predecessors considers how Plato represents his philosophical
predecessors in a late quartet of dialogues: the Theaetetus, the
Sophist, the Politicus and the Philebus. Why is it that the sophist
Protagoras, or the monist Parmenides, or the advocate of flux,
Heraclitus, are so important in these dialogues? And why are they
represented as such shadowy figures, barely present at their own
refutations? The explanation, the author argues, is a complex one
involving both the reflective relation between Plato's dramatic
technique and his philosophical purposes, and the very nature of
his late philosophical views. For in these encounters with his
predecessors we see Plato develop a new account of the principles
of reason, against those who would deny them, and forge a fresh
view of the best life - the life of the philosopher.
Why did Plato put his philosophical arguments into dialogues, rather than presenting them in a plain and readily understandable fashion? A group of distinguished scholars here offer answers to this question, by studying the relation between form and argument in his late dialogues. These penetrating studies show that the literary structure of the dialogues is of deep importance to the philosophical enterprise of interpreting Plato.
Plato and his Predecessors considers how Plato represents his philosophical predecessors in a late quartet of dialogues: the Theaetetus, the Sophist, the Politicus and the Philebus. These predecessors appear in imaginary conversations; and they are refuted when they fail to defend their philosophical positions in debate. Professor McCabe argues that Plato's reflections on these conversations allow him to develop a new account of the principles of reason, and forge a fresh view of the best life--the life of the philosopher.
|
|