Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy III: Plato

by John P. Anton (Editor)

The Plato who emerges from these essays is the seminal thinker, the profound philosopher, the master of dialectic who offers, together with his insights into reality and human values, a systematically developed set of powerful devices for the articulation and defence of his ideas. In each case the discussion unfolds not as advocacy of Platonic doctrines but as critical assessment of argument, and is meant as judicious explication of the logical form of significant theses often believed, during centuries of Platonic commentary, to be cornerstones of a monumental speculative system. It demonstrates a shared and strikingly high regard for Plato as a major thinker in the western philosophical tradition, a recognition that the dialogues he wrote continue to exert influence as well as attract theoretical attention. Taken together with the material on Plato in Volume II, Volume III displays a definite continuity in direction, scope, and quality, strengthening the conviction that Platonic scholarship has entered a new and different phase and has consolidated the approach that this new movement introduced.

364 pages, Hardcover

Published July 3, 1989

About the author

John P. Anton (Greek: Ιωάννης Π. Αντωνόπουλος) was Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Greek Philosophy and Culture at the University of South Florida. He was Corresponding Member of the Academy of Athens, Honorary Member of the Parnassos Literary Society, Honorary Member Phi Beta Kappa and a member of the Florida Philosophical Association. He featured in the Who is Who in the World, the Dictionary of International Biography, the Directory of American Scholars. He received four Honorary Doctorates from: the University of Athens, the University of Patras, the University of Ioannina and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His areas of specialization were classical Greek philosophy, History of Philosophy, American Philosophy, Philosophy of Art, and Metaphysics. He studied at Columbia University and earned his B.S, M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy. In 1973 he was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto II.
Anton authored ten books and edited eighteen books, among them Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy (with Anthony Preus, five volumes, SUNY Press). He was the editor of the autobiographical work titled Upward Panic by Eva Palmer-Sikelianos. Professor Anton was the Editor of the Twayne Series in the late 1980s and early edited Constantine Santas' Aristotelis Valaoritis in 1976, which was translated into Greek in 2012 by Fagottoe Books. He has published more than 125 articles in various journals, and presented over 250 papers and addresses at various national and international conferences.