Plato as portraitist

Continental Philosophy Review -     

Plato on a Mistake about Pleasure

Plato argues in Republic IX that people are often mistaken about their own pleasures and pains. One of the mistakes he focuses on is judging that an experience of ours is pleasant when, in fact, it is not. The view that such a mistake is possible is an unpopular one, and scholars have generally been dismissive of Plato's position. Thus Urmson argues not only that this position is deeply flawed, but also that it results from a confusion on Plato's part. In this paper, I show that Urmson's criticism is misguided. I then defend Plato against the idea that it is impossible for someone to make the mistake in question. In doing so, I bring out details in Plato's text and show that his account of the phenomenology involved in making this mistake is far more sophisticated than has so far been recognized.     

Plato and the Love of Individuals

A perennial problem in the philosophy of love has centred around what it is to love persons qua persons. Plato has usually been interpreted as believing that when we love we are attaching ourselves to qualities that inhere in the objects of our love and that these qualities transcend the objects. Vlastos has argued, along with Nussbaum, Price and many others that such an account tells against a true love of persons as unique and irreplaceable individuals. I argue that Plato's account of love as presented in the Lysis and Symposium is not so easily rejected. My concern is both to show that Plato can meet the objections and that his theory can still offer helpful insights into the understanding of love in our own lives. In particular I will identify two manners of loving persons; one which is context and individual specific, and another which might be termed metaphysical, thereby preserving aspects of the Platonic ascent of love. I will further argue that the two aspects are often non–controversially linked, and that such linking helps explain something of the mysterious nature of love.     

科学的新上帝?——“新时代科学”的形而上学

现代科学的有关研究成果,似乎证实了宗教和神秘主义在很久以前所揭示和阐发的东西。但由于科学本质上只提供受造物的信息,故其本身并不创造一种世界观,也不可能成为一种新的宗教。     

柏拉图作为真诗人

柏拉图主要从两个方面批判通常所谓的诗和诗人:就主观方面而言,诗人缺乏对于真实存在的知识;因此,就客观方面而言,诗人的作品在伦常、政治、教育等领域带来了恶劣的影响.柏拉图希望表明,以智慧、真善美为目标的哲学才是诗的典范,才是真正意义上的诗.所以,哲学家和诗人这两个角色在柏拉图那里是一种完美的融合,而不是一种分裂.     

柏拉图:西方"女性主义"的先驱者

柏拉图是一位女性主义者吗?这个在西方哲学界争论不休的话题是围绕<理想国>的第5章展开的.     

Pleasure and Illusion in Plato

Plato links pleasure with illusion, and this link explains his rejection of the view that all desires are rational desires for the good. The Protagoras and Gorgias show connections between pleasure and illusion; the Republic develops these into a psychological theory. One part of the soul is not only prone to illusions, but also incapable of the kind of reasoning that can dispel them. Pleasure appears good; therefore this part of the soul (the appetitive part) desires pleasures qua good but ignores reasoning about what is really good. Hence the new moral psychology of the Republic , not all desires are rational, and thus virtue depends on bringing one's non-rational desires under the control of reason.