Knowing Persons: A Study in Plato

by Lloyd P. Gerson

Overview

Lloyd Gerson offers an original new study of Plato's account of persons, a topic of continuing interest to philosophers. His book locates Plato's psychology within his two-world metaphysics, showing that embodied persons are images of a disembodied ideal, and that they reflect many of the conflicting states of the sensible world. For Plato, Gerson argues, philosophy is the means to recognizing one's true identity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199288670
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/04/2006
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

University of Toronto

Table of Contents

Introduction1. Souls and Persons1. Souls and Persons2. Socrates and Self-Knowledge3. Protagoras and the Power of Knowledge2. Immortality and Persons in Phaedo1. The Structure of the Argument for Immortality2. The Cyclical Argument3. The Recollection Argument4. The Affinity Argument5. The Objections of Simmias and Cebes6. Socrates' Reply to Cebes and the Argument from Exclusion of Opposites1. 3. Divided Persons: Republic and Phaedrus2. Tripartition and Immortality in Republic X3. Phaedrus4. Knowledge and Belief in Republic1. Knowledge Versus Belief2. The Form of the Good3. The Divided Line and the Allegory of the Cave5. Theaetetus: What is Knowledge?1. Interpreting Theaetetus2. Knowledge is not Sense-Perception3. Knowledge is not True Belief4. Knowledge is not True Belief with an Account6. Personhood in the Later Dialogues1. Timaeus2. Philebus3. Laws7. Concluding RemarksBibliography

Editorial Reviews

"The discussions of the dialogues found in the book are worthy of consideration and valuable to scholars, even if one does not hold that separation is the ultimate aim of Platonic philosophy."—The Thomist

From the Publisher