Plato: A Civic Life

by Carol Atack

Overview

Now in paperback, a new reading of Plato’s philosophy that reveals it as deeply shaped by his experiences in Athens.
 
Plato is a key figure from the beginnings of Western philosophy, yet the impact of his lived experience on his thought has rarely been explored. Born during a war that would lead to Athens’ decline, Plato lived in turbulent times. Carol Atack explores how Plato’s life in Athens influenced his thought, how he developed the Socratic dialogue into a powerful philosophical tool, and how he used the institutions of Athenian society to create a compelling imaginative world. Accessibly written, this book shows how Plato made Athens the place where diverse ideas were integrated into a new way of approaching the big questions about our lives, then and now.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789149463
Publisher:	Reaktion Books, Limited
Publication date:	01/10/2025
Series:	Great Lives of the Ancient World
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.43(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Carol Atack teaches classical Greek and ancient philosophy at the University of Cambridge. She is the author and coauthor of two books, most recently Anachronism and Antiquity.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1: A Wartime Childhood
2: Education in a Divided City
3: The Trial and Death of Socrates
4: Plato Outside Athens
5: Establishing an Academy
6: The Academy Flourishes
7: Legacy
Abbreviations
References
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"A richly enjoyable and illuminating account of Plato's life, and its social and political contexts. Atack handles the wealth of scholarship with a deft touch: she provides considered support for her interpretations, but never obscures the main, vivid narrative, into which she skilfully weaves a number of Plato's key ideas and arguments."

Angie Hobbs

"Atack’s study of Plato achieves more in 240 pages than many other writers manage in biographies three times the length . . . A gem for anyone interested in this ancient Greek philosopher and the world he inhabited. Approachable, enlightening, informative."

Bookmunch

"Atack excels, contextualizing the dialogues smoothly and authoritatively, with neither the gatekeeping condescension of the expert nor the oversimplifying condescension of the pedagogue . . . As a primer to the man, his works, and his time, the general-interest reader could scarcely ask for something better."

Open Letters Review

"Philosophy is just the beginning in Carol Atack's page-turner. From Plato’s own travels and troubles to the strange life and peculiar death of his teacher Socrates, the struggles of his city at the hands of enemies at home and abroad to the efforts of its citizens to make sense of things in an era of unending crisis, this is a gripping account of Classical Athens under siege told through the sharp eyes and shifting ideas of its most notable son."

Josephine Quinn

"Atack handles her material, as throughout, with a steady touch . . . All in all, Atack’s book is crisply written, shrewd, and well-informed . . . Readers of many kinds are likely to derive both pleasure and profit from reading this book."

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"Plato: A Civic Life traces Plato’s philosophy back to his biography . . . Atack's vividly human Plato."

Wall Street Journal

"Anyone who finds raw Plato indigestible will welcome these accessible explanations of his work . . . [in] this humanizing and carefully contextualized biography."

Times Literary Supplement