×


 x 

Shopping cart
Lloyd P. Gerson - From Plato to Platonism - 9780801452413 - V9780801452413
Stock image for illustration purposes only - book cover, edition or condition may vary.

From Plato to Platonism

€ 170.79
FREE Delivery in Ireland
Description for From Plato to Platonism hardcover. Num Pages: 360 pages, black & white illustrations. BIC Classification: HPCA. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 235 x 156 x 28. Weight in Grams: 657.

Was Plato a Platonist? While ancient disciples of Plato would have answered this question in the affirmative, modern scholars have generally denied that Plato’s own philosophy was in substantial agreement with that of the Platonists of succeeding centuries. In From Plato to Platonism, Lloyd P. Gerson argues that the ancients were correct in their assessment. He arrives at this conclusion in an especially ingenious manner, challenging fundamental assumptions about how Plato’s teachings have come to be understood. Through deft readings of the philosophical principles found in Plato's dialogues and in the Platonic tradition beginning with Aristotle, he shows that Platonism, broadly conceived, is the polar opposite of naturalism and that the history of philosophy from Plato until the seventeenth century was the history of various efforts to find the most consistent and complete version of "anti-naturalism."Gerson contends that the philosophical position of Plato—Plato’s own Platonism, so to speak—was produced out of a matrix he calls "Ur-Platonism." According to Gerson, Ur-Platonism is the conjunction of five "antis" that in total arrive at anti-naturalism: anti-nominalism, anti-mechanism, anti-materialism, anti-relativism, and anti-skepticism. Plato’s Platonism is an attempt to construct the most consistent and defensible positive system uniting the five "antis." It is also the system that all later Platonists throughout Antiquity attributed to Plato when countering attacks from critics including Peripatetics, Stoics, and Sceptics. In conclusion, Gerson shows that Late Antique philosophers such as Proclus were right in regarding Plotinus as "the great exegete of the Platonic revelation."

Product Details

Format
Hardback
Publication date
2013
Publisher
Cornell University Press
Number of pages
336
Condition
New
Number of Pages
360
Place of Publication
Ithaca, United States
ISBN
9780801452413
SKU
V9780801452413
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1

About Lloyd P. Gerson
Lloyd P. Gerson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is the author of many books, including Aristotle and Other Platonists, also from Cornell, and Knowing Persons: A Study in Plato, and editor of The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity.

Reviews for From Plato to Platonism
..the book is an important achievement. It is full of precious observations and suggestions. Even if someone is not fully convinced by the application of such an historical set of criteria he will find the book a highly rewarding reading.
Péter Lautner
The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition
Gerson's book is a highly valuable, well-written contribution to Plato nism research. It persuasively makes a case for understanding Plato's philosophy as a coherent system that has an intricate and meaningful relation to later Platonistic philosophical positions. From this point, Plato appears as a Platonist indeed.
Claas Lattman
CLASSICAL JOURNAL

Goodreads reviews for From Plato to Platonism