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Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University / The purpose of this thesis is to find a basis of comparison between the educational practices of ancient Greece, specifically those of Athens and Sparta, and the educational theories put forth by Plato in his book, The Republic. This basis will be formed on the relationship between the individual and the society of which he is a member. As the historical approach is to be used, not only will the educational systems of Athens and Sparta be studied, but also the educational ideals of the Greeks all the way back to Homer, and the histories of the city-states themselves. This latter is an especially important point, for the city-states of ancient Greece were unqiue in themselves. They were not merely organizations for the preservation of law and order, but the very life source of all Greek activity and thought. As a result, education was an integral part of the function of the polis, just as the polis was an integral part, if not the consuming part, of a Greek's daily life. The education of each group is in accordance with its objectives. The Artisans receive practical training in their craft or profession; the Guardians receive a liberal education designed to produce a strong feeling of loyalty toward the state and its rulers; while the Rulers themselves receive the training of the Guardians for their primary education, and then pass on to advanced study of mathematics and philosophy, finally culminating in the study of ultimate reality, the Forms, and especially in the Form of Goodness, from whence all reality and truth and virtue and goodness derive their very existence. [TRUNCATED]

Timaeus 69a6-92c9 is a causal theory of the nature of man. Demigods, created heavenly bodies, take over soul and four elements, structured by a divine, good craftsman, who uses mathematical processes on things of two unlike origins. Imitating their creator, the demigods build man and leave him to run his life. What each individual man ‘takes over’ varies as does his individual and society’s handling of it, resulting in human lives ranging from the god-like to the murkiest low-life. This, through cycles of reincarnation, diversifies fauna bringing life, and extending the influence of reason into every elemental region; in a word it brings the heavens down to earth. Presented as anatomy, physiology, nosology and care of man, this is ancient Greek medical theory in the widest sense, including the use of hypothesis and claims about the soul. It mentions but stops short of addressing social and political levels. As cosmogony it is concerned with a micro-cosmos, but as cosmology with the running of this micro-cosmos within the macro-cosmos and as a part serving its overall being and purpose, as an organ serves and is served by the whole body of which it is an inner part. As a medical theory it brims with debated issues. Has Plato successfully answered the objections against using hypotheses, raised in On Ancient Medicine (Ch. III)? Is Aristotle’s objection to the theory of breathing a challenge to Plato’s analogy of macro- and micro cosmology? Why did Plato, unlike Galen later, chose to include soul in medicine, and to emphasise the elements, rather than the humours? Does movement as a cause of change and the different kinds of movements available for man’s self-care (Ch. V), mirror the intellectual and motivational division of human soul? Is the shaking receptacle a paradigm for vital human self-reflection? Chapter I discusses how introductions to English translations of the Timaeus reflect the old debate on keeping either to the heavens or to earth, to theology or to physics. Chapter II contains an introductory discussion on the Timaeus as a whole, with emphasis on its structure. In chapters III on anatomy, IV on physiology and in V on diseases and care of man, I focus on the structure of the causal account with regard to man as a mixed being. Using other texts purely for contrast and comparison I keep, to the extent possible, to the Timaeus, and mostly to 68e1-92c9. I argue that the transition between demiurgic and lesser gods’ causation at the junction of our main text and the previous lines, later carries over from the demigods to man’s self-care, individually and collectively, and that it mirrors the division of labour between Timaeus, Critias and Hermocrates, as natural philosophers, whereas Socrates, the fourth participant is a philosopher of a different kind along the line of division drawn at 29b. This thesis offers an outline of an argument for re-evaluating the Timaeus on the nature of man, particularly with regard to its formal logical side and its relation to rational persuasion.

Thesis (M.A. (Applied Ethics for Professionals))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, School of Social Sciences, 2015. / Plato in his dialogue the Republic designs an ideal polis, the Kallipolis, seeking ‗justice, our good and the knowledge of the good required for understanding and bringing justice, happiness and good government into our lives and society‘ (Santas 2010, p.7). The first step in the Kallipolis‘ development is a polis without formal government whose citizens live a modest, stable, sustainable lifestyle. Disparaged by Glaucon as a polis for pigs, Socrates‘ incongruous rejoinder is ‗the true polis… is the one we‘ve described, the healthy one, as it were‘ (Rep. 372e). Contemporary commentators are critical of this polis, questioning its role in the Republic. In trying to understand the polis for pigs, and Socrates‘ praise thereof, I posit it is a village, and consider it has virtue, is good and its citizens are happy. However, despite being true and healthy, it is not the best or an ideal polis, but it is crucial to the development of the Kallipolis.

The Platonic ontology and the participation scheme have been 'dissected' and reformulated by many scholars. The specific elements and dynamics of 'participation' have been continuing subjects of controversy in Platonic studies. This project is not intended to ratify Plato's doctrine of participation in order that it be 'corrected' . Rather, the thesis focuses on the examination of the details of the ontoloqy which Plato provides in the dialogues themselves. As he was developing the Theory of Forms and the relationships between the primary ontological entities, he recognized certain inconsistencies that spurred him on to readjust the theory. It is in the spirit of discovering the true elements of the reformed participation story that this thesis was developed. In a study of two dissenting interpretations of Plato's ontolgoy (the bipartite and tripartite interpretations), the tripartite ontology offers solutions to some of the more significant problems arising from the bipartite interpretation. The tripartite incorporation of an immanent character, along with the textual evidence supporting this interpretation, are integral to the proper elucidation of Plato's ratified participation story. Beyond unfolding Plato's immanent character it is important to understand the nature of this distinct (though not separate) entity, and the role it performs in the later ontology. It is with the desire to present the textual support for, and details of, the immanent character that this thesis diverges from traditional Plato scholarship. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

The Platonic ontology and the participation scheme have been 'dissected' and reformulated by many scholars. The specific elements and dynamics of 'participation' have been continuing subjects of controversy in Platonic studies. This project is not intended to ratify Plato's doctrine of participation in order that it be 'corrected' . Rather, the thesis focuses on the examination of the details of the ontoloqy which Plato provides in the dialogues themselves. As he was developing the Theory of Forms and the relationships between the primary ontological entities, he recognized certain inconsistencies that spurred him on to readjust the theory. It is in the spirit of discovering the true elements of the reformed participation story that this thesis was developed. In a study of two dissenting interpretations of Plato's ontolgoy (the bipartite and tripartite interpretations), the tripartite ontology offers solutions to some of the more significant problems arising from the bipartite interpretation. The tripartite incorporation of an immanent character, along with the textual evidence supporting this interpretation, are integral to the proper elucidation of Plato's ratified participation story. Beyond unfolding Plato's immanent character it is important to understand the nature of this distinct (though not separate) entity, and the role it performs in the later ontology. It is with the desire to present the textual support for, and details of, the immanent character that this thesis diverges from traditional Plato scholarship. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Thesis advisor: Christopher Bruell / This dissertation is an approach to Plato’s longest political work, The Laws, with a view to the problem of the harmony of the goods. Since I understand the problem of the harmony of the goods as a universal one, i.e., as a problem stemming from human condition rather than from the reading of Plato, the first task is to present what it means to adopt a Platonic perspective on this problem. This is what I do in the first chapter through a discussion of the Euthydemus and the Statesman. This discussion leads me to these three questions: (1) What is the relation between the happiness of the individual and that of the city? (2) What is the model that guides the statesman’s work of harmonizing the goods in one whole? (3) How can the knowledge of harmonizing the various goods be passed to the citizens? Since these three questions concern the city, it is the city that I examine next. But since there are two cities in the Platonic corpus, I thus turn to a brief exposition of the Republic (Books I-VII) and the Laws (Books I-III). From my discussion of the Republic, in the first part of chapter two, I draw the conclusion that the happiness of the city and that of the individual may not necessarily coincide. This conclusion justifies my turn to the Laws in the second part of chapter two, for in the Laws the emphasis is more on individual happiness than on that of the city, as it is in the Republic. I then show that the first Books of the Laws provide an answer to the central question phrased at the end of chapter one, namely that it is by translating the natural hierarchy of the goods into a coherent and harmonized way of life that the good lawgiver can pass his knowledge to the citizens. Yet, since this solution is challenged in the sequel, I then move on in that dialogue. The third and last chapter is devoted to the Books IV and V of the Laws. The core of that chapter consists in a close analysis of the general prelude to the law code of the city to be built in the Laws. I show that the aim of the prelude is to educate the citizens and that the prelude is therefore the means by which the lawgiver passes on his knowledge to them. Yet, since the prelude is a twofold speech which conveys a teaching that can be understood in accordance with the power of the listener’s soul, I come to the conclusion that the answer to the question about the lawgiver’s solution to the problem of the harmony of the goods is inseparable from my own interpretation of the prelude. My interpretation of the prelude is that the harmony of the goods will always remain partly imperfect and that this is why the knowledge of the hierarchy of the goods is, ultimately, more important than that of the harmony of the goods. This I take to be Plato’s position. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

In this thesis I propose an interpretation of Plato's middle period dialectic. I contend that the method of such dialectic has two components, the doctrine of recollection and the method of hypothesis, and that the two are intimately related. In contrast to the orthodox interpretation, which ignores recollection and sees the method of hypothesis as essentially deductive, I suggest that the discovery of knowledge occurs from the recollection of a pre-natal vision of reality (the world of forms), where such recollection is stimulated by dialectical questioning. Recollection is gradual and uncertain. The direction of the dialectical questioning is itself guided by one's intuition, or (incomplete) recollection of reality at the time, thus providing a progressive interaction between recollection and the method of dialectical questioning, reasoning by hypothesis. In this way, one builds a provisional picture of reality, where the prime relation between hypotheses about such reality is one of coherence. The true dialectician will not only develop a complete and coherent picture of reality, but will ultimately verify the accuracy of this picture upon apprehension of the unhypothetical first principle, the form of the good. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

This thesis juxtaposes Plato's allegory of the cave with Jacques Derrida's concept of the always already aspect of meaning, a concept derived from Ferdinand de Saussure's work. This theoretical investigation examines the implications of universal Signified forms of word meanings for postmodern composition theory.