Description
CAMBRIDGE Socratic and Platonic Political Philosophy Practicing a Politics of Reading 2014 Edition by Christopher P. Long
In the Gorgias, Socrates claims to practice the true art of politics, but the peculiar politics he practices involves cultivating in each individual he encounters an erotic desire to live a life animated by the ideals of justice, beauty and the good. Socratic and Platonic Political Philosophy demonstrates that what Socrates sought to do with those he encountered, Platonic writing attempts to do with readers. Christopher P. Long's attentive readings of the Protagoras, Gorgias, Phaedo, Apology, and Phaedrus invite us to cultivate the habits of thinking and responding that mark the practices of both Socratic and Platonic politics. Platonic political writing is here experienced in a new way as the contours of a politics of reading emerges in which the community of readers is called to consider how a commitment to speaking the truth and acting toward justice can enrich our lives together. Table of contents :- Overture; 1. Politics as philosophy; 2. Crisis of community; 3. Attempting the political art; 4. The politics of finitude; 5. Socratic disturbances, Platonic politics; 6. The politics of writing; 7. Philosophy as politics.