At the beginning of Book 9 of the Politeia (571cd), Platon suggests that all people bear in themselves unlawful desires like the desire to have sex with their own mother or with any other human, god, or beast, the desire to murder anyone, or the desire to eat anything. Modern scholars take it for granted that by the desire to eat anything, Platon means cannibalism. This view is based on the fact that Platon discusses unlawful desires in connection with the (...) tyrannical man and that the tyrant is, elsewhere in the Politeia, twice connected with anthropophagy (at 8.565d–566a and 10.619c). This paper challenges this communis opinio and argues that we have no reason to assume that at Politeia 9.571d Platon claims that every one of us has the hidden desire to consume human flesh. Also, the alleged cannibalism of the Platonic tyrant is questioned. A close reading of the passages 8.565d–566a and 10.619c reveals that in the depiction of the tyrant Platon makes use of mythological motifs and literary topoi but never literally claims that the tyrant has cannibalistic desires. (shrink)

Plato, Republic 606ab, which deals with the soul bipartition and the behaviour of the two soul components during a theatrical performance, has been the object of scholarly dispute concerning both its grammar and its meaning. This article proposes a new syntactical approach and argues that the passage does not have to be interpreted as contradicting the context.

The paper examines the four-step degeneration of the ideal state in Books 8 and 9 of Platon’s Politeia (timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, tyranny) and addresses the question of the number, choice, and succession of bad regimes. Against the common view which considers this part of the Politeia a confusing and structureless narrative, it is argued that the four steps of the devolution represent a systematic account based on the tripartition of the state and the soul.

The paper discusses the parallels between late Heidegger's view of the world as a fourfold unity of earth, heavens, the divine and the mortal (the Geviert), and a passage in Plato's Gorgias (507e–508a) where the world (kosmos) is conceived of in a similar way. It is argued, first, that the Gorgias passage is not an isolated remark but rather a point where a number of important Platonic insights come together, and second, that Heidegger was well acquainted with these insights and (...) pointed out their ontological significance on various occasions. (shrink)