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This thesis examines the development of Plato's thought on the subject of the soul-body relation. I will not attempt to cover everything that Plato says about the soul - for example I will discuss 'proofs' of immorality only in so far as they have a bearing on the interpretation of soul and body. In this life at least human beings have both a soul and a body; as a result, the soul by necessity interacts with the body. This interaction, though, is not simply an interrelation between two completely different and separate entities; rather the relation between soul and body is far more complicated. The purpose of the introduction is to present a preliminary view of the soul, in that way we could better understand the background that Plato had to take under consideration. Within the introduction the Apology is used so as to show the importance of the idea of the soul in Socratic ethics, and to indicate that the Socratic idea that we should care for the soul rather than the body, becomes crucial within Plato's philosophy. The dialogues that follow, the Gorgias and the Meno, provide early indications of the complex relation required between soul and body, for Plato's moral, metaphysical and epistemological concerns. Thus, although Plato, in these dialogues, does not give us a clear definition of the soul's nature and its relation to the body, the perplexity and ambiguity concerning the soul's nature leads to the more detailed analysis of it in later dialogues. The Phaedo appears to offer a view of the soul as a simple immaterial entity wholly distinct from the body. Even within this dialogue, though, there are signs that this simple view of the soul is not adequate for Plato's moral and metaphysical concerns, this becomes evident as well in the Symposium.

Whilst Hegel's influence upon the Frankfurt School's reconstruction of Marx has not gone unnoticed, this influence has never really been adequately theorised. In particular, the question of how the Frankfurt School understood the relation between Hegel's method and Marx's materialism has received very little systematic attention. The present study is a response to this situation: it presents the Frankfurt Marxist tradition as a significant although by no means uncritical contribution to the theory of historical materialism. Moreover, that contribution is shown to derive from some of the central concepts of Hegel's philosophy. Thus in opposition to those commentators, Marxists and non-Marxists alike, who have tended to view Frankfurt Marxism as an exercise in eclectic revisionism, I argue that the work of Horkheimer and his colleagues constitutes an attempt to restate and defend, on the basis of an immanent critique of Hegel's idealism, the fundamental principles of Marx's historical materialism. Accordingly, the central chapters of this thesis are devoted to a close examination of the way in which members of the Frankfurt School, building on the work of Lukács and Korsch, sought to appropriate Hegel's subject-object dialectic on behalf of materialism. In the course of this investigation the following themes come to prominence: the relation between Hegel's social philosophy and a critical theory of society; Horkheimer's project of multi-disciplinary materialism; the methodological significance of the category of totality; materialism as the preponderance of the object; the possibility and nature of a Freud-Marx synthesis; the concept of a critical as opposed to a traditional scientific theory of society. Taken together these themes constitute the basic problematic of the Frankfurt Marxist tradition. The intention of this study is to demonstrate the importance of that problematic for the further development of the materialist theory of history and society.

The consumerist lifestyle of modernity has had a detrimental impact on the environment. In part, this is supposed by the traditional philosophical conceptualisation of subjectivity, which privileges human subjects from surrounding objects. Concern over our attitude to the environment has been present from the beginning of civilisation and particularly since the emergence of the industrial revolution. This thesis traces a genealogy of these concerns, from the Romantics, to 20th century philosophers such as Heidegger, through the political movements of the 1960-1980s and the recognition of pollution, resource depletion and climate change by pan global organisation from the 1980s to the present day. The changes in epistemology in the wide context of society have influenced the way environmental education has emerged. Philosophy informs the way we understand subjectivity, language, pedagogy, curriculum, and our understanding of the environment. Education also operates in a political context, and the concepts that inform policies permeate educational institutions. Heidegger’s philosophy engages with the scope of the environmental problem, offers a critique of modernity, develops a new conceptualisation of subjectivity and the relationship between humanity and Being, and an analysis of the impact modern technology has mediating that relationship. Heidegger began to develop his ideas on technology during the period between World Wars, in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. His philosophy was influenced by the Romantic Volk movement, and the ideas of Nietzsche, Spengler and Jünger. The tense political surroundings have influenced his thinking, in both constructive and detrimental ways. Heidegger remains one of the most influential philosophers to engage with the framework of technological modernity and its constraints on human subjectivity, and our way of relating to the earth. He challenges traditional ontology and epistemology. He raises the status of poetry from mere lyrical wordplay to means of developing a more authentic relationship between beings and Beings. I make a critical analysis of his philosophy, to distinguish the elements that remain inherently conservative and nationalistic from those that are immanently helpful in throwing light on the dilemma of modern life, and the escalating problem of environmental devastation.

In this thesis, I propose to explore Plato's moral and political thought in the Republic and compare it with similar ideas in Confucian thought, and in modern liberal thought. In Part I, I deal with Plato's notion of 'doing one's own job' in the just state (ch. 1), and with the Confucian approach to achieving an orderly society (ch. 2). In Chapter 3 the idea that both the Platonic just state and Confucian orderly society are communitarian by nature will be discussed. It is noticeable that although both Plato's and Confucius' accounts of the just state have the colour of communitarianism, yet their accounts are in one way or another different from the modern communitarian's account of the just state. In addition, there are also important differences between Plato and Confucius. Take the relation between personal good and the common good as an example. Both Plato and Confucius hold that in the ideal state one's own good is identical with the good of the state as a whole. But communitarians hold that the common good is prior to personal good. That is, for the communitarians, there is a distinction between personal good and the common good (Section 3). In Part II, I shall consider a problem which arises from the discussion of Plato's notion of the tripartite soul that there is a sub-division in each part of the soul, which leads to infinite regress. I argue in Chapter 4 that this problem can be avoided. So long as there is no 'degree of rationality' among the three parts. That is, only reason is capable of calculating, and the other two parts do not have the capacity of reasoning. This account of the tripartite soul makes sense of why Plato puts such strong emphasis on education. For through education, spirit and appetite are willing to be under the control of reason.