At the end of Republic VI. Socrates compares the Good with the sun as a cause both of existence and intelligibility. Afterwards, when he continues and expands this comparison, the symbolism becomes so complex that the interpretation of almost every part of it is in dispute. We start with the contrast of light and darkness; to this is next added the contrast of image and original, and also of up and down along a vertical line; in the allegory of the (...) Cave these three sets of contrasted terms are worked in together so as to explain the effect on the soul of the intellectual education by which we are converted from what is dark and imitative and ascend finally to knowledge of the Good. (shrink)

Originally published in 1963, this classic book is a rethinking of the history of Western political philosophy. Charles N. R. McCoy contrasts classical-medieval principles against the "hypotheses" at the root of modern liberalism and modern conservativism. In Part I, "The Classical Christian Tradition from Plato to Aquinas," the author lays the foundation for a philosophical "structure" capable of producing "constitutional liberty." Part II, "The Modern Theory of Politics from Machiavelli to Marx," attempts to show, beginning with Machiavelli, the reversal and (...) destruction of the pre-modern "structure" postulated in Part I. McCoy stresses the great contributions of Aristotle to political thought found in his more familiar Ethics and Politics, but also includes key insights drawn from Metaphysics and Physics. These contributions are developed and perfected, McCoy argues, by Augustine and Aquinas. Two other important features include McCoy's epistemological insights into Plato's work that will be new to many readers and the author's juxtaposition of traditional natural law with "the modernized theory of natural law." The modern account of autonomous natural law, in McCoy's view, helps explain the totalitarian direction of key aspects of modern political thought. This classic volume on the origins of modern philosophical thought remains a standard in the field. (shrink)

The Republic represents the good life as some sort of harmony or composition between the different interests of which the threefold nature of the soul makes it capable. The rational factor, τ λολιστικν, not only chooses which impulses shall be satisfied and which rejected but is credited also with impulses of its own, such as the desire for knowledge, to the importance of which the Republic testifies by various strands of argument. But in Plato's attempt to prove the goodness of (...) this mixed life he may be thought to have relied too much on arguments about its pleasantness. If he had really meant from the first to prove against Thrasymachus that the just life is more prolific in pleasure1 than the unjust, he would have had to undertake the task of proving a necessary connection between just activities and pleasant states of feeling which could scarcely exist unless feelings were under the control of the will. If this had been his intention, the whole weight of the argument would rest on the two comparatively short passages in Book IX in which he makes first a dubious appeal to experience and then, by an equally dubious piece of metaphysics, attempts to reinforce his ethical conclusion by denying the reality of such pleasures as might tend to throw doubt on it. (shrink)

In this paper I am merely analysing the meaning of Phaedo 99–107 without discussing either its historical significance or its value as a contribution to the logic of science. The paper attempts in fact to be little more than a paraphrase of the Greek, which aims only at accuracy of statement, but I am adding in the third section a note on the relation of this passage to the discussion of method in Republic VI, mainly in order to minimize its (...) relevance. The first section of the paper deals with the linguistic analysis of the text, the second, very sketchily, with the general doctrine. (shrink)

The reply which Socrates makes to Zeno in the Parmenides and that which he makes to the φιλοθμονς in the Republic are perhaps connected chiefly by the fact that a false interpretation of either might prejudice the other, but it seems convenient to take them together for that reason even if they have not much actual connection in themselves. Both are controversial, and in the case of Socrates' reply to Zeno, no re-statement of it could be secure which did not (...) take account of Parmenides' reply to Socrates. For if Parmenides, as is maintained by some, is not attacking the doctrine of forms as such, but only Socratic theories of their relation with particulars, it would be natural to think that these theories about ‘participation’ had been the substance of Socrates' answer to Zeno. So it is impossible to avoid some discussion of the later passage, however cursory, as a preliminary. (shrink)

The present volume completes the cataloguing of manuscripts. This impressive undertaking will be concluded with one further volume, which will contain addenda and extensive indexes to all the volumes. `a remarkable achievement of scholarship...The descriptions of the manuscripts are full and at the same time admirably concise...Any user of the work, whether his interests are palaeographical, iconographical, or textual, will be deeply grateful for the wealth of information contained in this volume'. Review of English Studies`will be invaluable not only for (...) reference but for the comprehensive and immensely precise assurance that it will give to scholars in every field of medieval studies that nothing relevant to their purposes now lurks in unrecorded concealment'. English Historical Review. (shrink)