Panta prattein. Socrate e il bene nella Repubblica

The article is the shortened written version of a speech that the author has had the honour to give, together with Enrico Berti, Aldo Brancacci and Bruno Centrone, on the occasion of the presentation of “Platone, La Repubblica, Traduzione e commento”, 7 voll. A cura di Mario Vegetti, Bibliopolis, Napoli 1998-2007, February 5, 2009, at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome. First (I), attention is drawn to the strangeness (“atopia”) which Plato’s “Republic” has had not only for Plato’s contemporaries, but also for us. This strangeness for us consists not only in the famous three “waves”, but also in the fact that Plato’s “Republic” does not allow for a plurality of philosophical opinions, but enforces one true philosophy (“philosophia alêthê”) or one conception of the Good to all citizens. The Platonic “Republic” describes not only a state, but also a kind of pre-Christian church. Second (II), attention is drawn to the fact that the Socratic principle that every soul does everything for the Good (“panta prattei”) can be translated in two ways: Every soul does everything for the sake of the Good or goes at all lengths for the sake of the Good. Depending on the different translations, we have a different picture of the Platonic Socrates in the "Republic", an intellectualistic one for whom irrational desires do not exist or a Socrates who also accepts irrational desires. Finally (III), I draw attention to the laughter after Socrates’ claim that the Good is even “beyond being”. Who is laughing about whom, Glaucon about Socrates, or Socrates about Glaucon, or perhaps Plato about himself

Ch'ŏrhakchŏk-kibon-kaenyŏm / Rap'ael P'erŭbŏ. Cho Kuk-hyŏn omgim Philosophische Grundbegriffe (in Korean language)

This is a translation into Korean language of the 6th revised edition of Philosophische Grundbegriffe: The book (1994, revised and enlarged 6th edition 1999) provides an introduction to six key concepts in philosophy – philosophy, language, knowledge, truth, being and good. At the same time, it aims to initiate its readers into the process of philosophical thinking. The book is addressed to students and laypeople, but also contains new ideas for specialists. It is written in a clear, accessible and engaging style, and its author ‘shares, and manages to convey, something of Plato's own commitment to philosophy’ (Phronesis)

Le Bien de Platon et le Problème de la transcendance du Principe: Encore une Fois L' EPEKEINA TÊS OUSIAS de Platon.

The article treats again the question of whether «the Idea of the Good is a Reality in the Universe, or beyond it. Is it immanent or transcendent ?» (Rufus Jones, 1863 1948). Plato scholars such as Matthias Baltes (1940 2003) and Luc Brisson have defended the thesis that Plato’s Idea of the Good is, on the one hand, beyond being (epekeina tês ousias) in dignity and power, but on the other, is nevertheless not transcendent over being. The article delivers first (I.) the most important arguments for the thesis of Baltes and Brisson. Then (II.), it gives two counterarguments against the thesis. Third (III.), it concludes with some general questions concerning the deflationist interpretation of Plato’s Republic 509b9 10 and defends again the transcendence of the Idea of the Good

Platon und Kant

The first part of the paper (p. 373-376) analyses the passage A314/B371 of Kant’s "Critique of Pure Reason" by subdividing it into three sentences. This analysis shows that Kant is not an “intentionalist” who tries to discover the intentio auctoris, that is, the meaning which Plato gives to his expression “idea”. He is, rather, a constructivist who constructs in his own mind the meaning of the expression “idea”. Hereby Kant tries to understand Plato better than Plato understood himself. The second part (p. 376-384) analyses Kant’s discussion of Schlosser’s translation with comments of Plato’s "Seventh Letter" and its philosophical digression (342a-344d). The third part (p. 384-387) asks a philosophical question concerning two methods in Plato, the method of the Socratic elenchos, or the method of the “second best voyage” (Phd.99c), and the method of intuition. The method of the “second best voyage” is also compared with the method of rowing. The method of intuition is compared with the method of the sailing boat. Finally, the question is asked: How do we get from the rowing boat into the sailing boat? Or: how do we get from the elenchos to the intuition of truth

Second Sailing towards Immortality and God: On Plato’s Phaedo, 99e4-100a3, with an Outlook on Descartes’ Meditations, AT VII, 67

This paper deals with the deuteros plous, literally ‘the second voyage’, proverbially ‘the next best way’, discussed in Plato’s Phaedo, the key passage being Phd. 99e4-100a3. I argue that (a) the ‘flight into the logoi’ can have two different interpretations, a standard one and a non-standard one. The issue is whether at 99e-100a Socrates means that both the student of erga and the student of logoi consider images (‘the standard interpretation’), or the student of logoi does not consider images, but that “consistency [of the logoi] should suffice for truth” (‘the non-standard interpretation’). (b) The non-standard one implies the problem of the hypothesis, a problem analogous to the problem of the elenchus. (c) There is a structural analogy between Descartes’ ontological argument for the existence of God in his 5th Meditation and the final or ontological proof for the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo

Notizen zu Platos Höhlengleichnis

The paper puts forward a new interpretation of the image of the Cave, that is the image on human paideia (education) and apaideusia (lack of education). The cause of the apaideusia (R.514a) is identified as a separation from the origin. (1) First, the relation between the Cave, the analogy of the Linie and the Sun is shown not to be a strict parallelism, but a resemblance, which implies sameness and difference between Sun, Line and Cave. (2) Second, the author argues that the idea of the Good is the necessary condition for the possibility of being, truth and thought. It is the highest principle and the ultimate foundation of Plato’s ethics. (3) Third, the author describes Plato’s paideia (education) as holistic, that is: it involves the spiritive and appetitive part of the soul

Der Grundgedanke des "Tractatus" als Metamorphose des obersten Grundsatzes der "Kritik der reinen Vernunft"

The paper puts forward that the basic principle of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (4.0312) transforms “the supreme principle of all synthetic judgments a priori” in Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” (A158/B197) from a level of reason to the level of language. Both philosophers, Kant and Wittgenstein, put forward a transcendental principle and both hold a formal identity true, Kant an identity between the form of experience and the form of the object of experience, Wittgenstein an identity between the form of a sentence and the form of a fact. Both transform the identity of thinking and being first formulated by Parmenides “... to gar auto noein estin te kai einai“ (D/K.B3

André Höhn: Beobachtungen zur Formung des Sokratesbildes im platonischen 'Symposion'

Talent Management is a relatively young field of study, and is particularly unexplored in non-profit organisations that have their main focus on knowledge. Moreover, recent findings within Talent Management show that the performance of organisations correspondsto a Pareto distribution, i.e. 80 percentof the organisational performance is produced by 20 percent of the people. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the distribution of academic outputs in terms of publications in two different universities, with one hypothesis that the outputs follow the Pareto Principle. Moreover, based on the results, suggestions on further work within Talent Management are given, taking on an inclusive approach to talent.The research includes two technical universities located in separate countries. Professors’ performance is considered as their number of publications, and data of professors’ performance was gathered from the database Scopus. The data gathering, together with a literature study on Talent Management, the Pareto Principle and University Rankings, created the basis for analysis. The results showed that a minority of professors stands for a majority of the performance. Hence, the implications for Talent Management are to focus resources on the underperforming professors to improve the academic outputs of the universities.Incomin