Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Some light tanning due to age. Year 1970. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> In this book John Herman Randall Jr. offers a personal statement of what he has found to be the eternal and ever- renewed significance of Plato. In his analysis the dialogues emerge not as programs of action but as dramatic portrayals of the life of the mind-of the follies contradictions and great- ness of human thinking. The opening chapters prepare the political social and philosophical set- ting for the discussion of the dialogues. Professor Randall sees Plato as a dra- matist whose dialogues “cannot be ade- quately considered as straightforward philosophical treatises in which every scrap of discussion is to be viewed as the literal expression of their author’s views.” He shows how the dialogues cannot be read or understood in the same manner that one reads or under- stands Aristotle or Kant. He feels that Plato’s own philosophy cannot be justly identified with the opinions put into the mouth of Socrates that portions of the dialogues cannot be taken out of context and labeled Plato’s views and that the dialogues must always be approached in awareness of the ambiguity and irony that Plato used as a dramatic technique. (SP)