Another Platonic Method:Four genealogical myths about human nature and their philosophical contribution in Plato

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Rowett, Catherine ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4860-0323 (2022) Another Platonic Method:Four genealogical myths about human nature and their philosophical contribution in Plato. In: New Perspectives on Platonic Dialectic. Roultledge, New York and Abingdon, pp. 213-232. ISBN 9780367622763

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Abstract

In this chapter Rowett challenges the view that when Plato includes stories or myths in his dialogues, he is giving up on philosophy, avoiding dialectic, or is unable to find a proof. She considers four cases, from Plato’s Laws, Statesman, Symposium and Protagoras, where Plato’s characters tell stories of a “genealogy” kind, narrating a development from a pre-social state, or “original condition”, and shows that such myths about past ages function as a heuristic tool, a method of scrutiny, and, when successful, a kind of proof. Plato uses them, Rowett suggests, across many dialogues, of all periods, in the mouth of various characters, to address a range of questions in moral theory, political philosophy and philosophical anthropology. They constitute a philosophical method, deployed in all seriousness by Plato, to good effect, in many of his most famous enquiries.

Item Type: Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords: arts and humanities(all) ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1200
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Philosophy
Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Wittgenstein
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 25 Mar 2022 16:30
Last Modified: 21 Jul 2023 10:46
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/84279
DOI: 10.4324/9781003111429-11

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