Noburu Notomi

... Sedley, 1999; and in this volume Betegh, greek philosophy and religion). Through philosophical efforts to behold the forms, we human beings strive to live as good a life as we can. In the subsequent section of the Phaedo, Socrates buttresses this ethical motivation by the theory ...

Working against the recent arguments against Plato's authorship of the Seventh Letter in the Anglophone scholarship, this paper demonstrates the historical possibility that Plato wrote his letters for philosophical purposes, most likely in competition with Isocrates, who skilfully used the literary genre of letters for his rhetorical and philosophical purposes. Because Isocrates and Plato experimented with various writing styles in response to each other, letters and autobiographies may well have been their common devices. The paper concludes that we should respect the tradition that had included and respected the Seventh Letter as Plato's own writing.

Images are familiar to us, but if asked what they are, philosophical difficulties emerge. This paper examines how Plato dealt with the difficulties concerning images. Plato faced the basic question about the image because the Sophist insists that images do not exist, based on the Parmenidean prohibition of combination between what is and what is not, in the Sophist. This treatment of images should be considered along with the Republic because the Sophistic counterattack in the Sophist is closely related to the critical treatment of images in the Republic, and we can detect the Parmenidean backgrounds in these two dialogues. In these dialogues, Plato treated the notion of the image in two ways. First, the image is not simply an inferior entity but a transforming factor. Images guide philosophical inquiry by visualising the target of discussion. Second, by distinguishing between true and false images, we can investigate the truth by means of the former. To consider the role that images play in philosophical inquiry, this paper discusses three examples: two are from the Republic and one is from the Sophist. Firstly, two opposite figures, one of the most just and the other of the most unjust, are presented by Glaucon in Republic II. They serve as a model of opposite personality for considering what justice and injustice are. Secondly, the Ideal City is depicted in words, in Republic V, as a model of the Form of justice. Thirdly, the Sophist of Noble Lineage, in the Sophist, shows that the same image appears differently to different observers. From an improper point of view, this person looked like a sophist at first, but at the final examination, it turned out to be a philosopher. Thus, this paper shows the correct philosophical attitude towards images.

I. The title ‘Politeia’ The Politeia (Republic) is without doubt one of the greatest works of Plato. However, it is widely admitted that this English title is a hopeless translation of the Greek. First, the English word ‘republic’ does not mean the Greek ‘politeia’. Moreover, ‘republic’ conveys an image quite different from that which the dialogue presents.1 Karl Popper, a formidable critic of Plato in the mid-twentieth century, explains how ‘the idealization of the great idealist’ emerges:

Plato’s Timaeus is the first philosophical work that discussed the concept of Time in the history of Western philosophy. The dialogue explains the creation of Time as the Demiurge’s imitating the Eternity of the model Being. This explanation is based on the ontological distinction between the forms, which always are in themselves, and the sensible things, which constantly change but never remain the same. The article examines the key text (37C-38C) in order to observe how Plato defines Time as “the moving image of eternity” (37D). He argues that Time has three parts, namely, “was”, “is” and “will be”, while it is a mistake to attribute “was” and “will be” to the eternal being. This claim corresponds to the Parmenidean notion of Being, in that it excludes “was” and “will be” (DK B8.19-20), contra Melissus, who accepts “was”, “is” and “will be” for the one Being. Parmenides, on the other hand, drops the word “always” (aei) from Xenophanes’ notion of the god (B26). In describing Eterni...

This chapter examines the concept of ' poiesis' in its historical context. It shows that the general term of 'making' was relatively new in the time of Plato, which had just come to be used for the specific activity of poetry. The chapter examines the relation between the sophist and the poet whose activities and contents of teaching overlap. It explores the obvious correspondences between the criticism of the poet in Republic X and the definition of the sophist in the Sophist . The examination reveals that Plato treats them as complementary, or presents the latter as the ontological basis of the former. The concept of 'making' is treated and saved against the sophistic counter-attack based on Parmenides' position in the Sophist . Finally, different treatments of 'image-making' in the two dialogues are examined. Keywords: image-making; Plato's criticism; Republic X; Sophist

Parmenides , one of the greatest and most influential Greek thinkers, is not mentioned in Plato?s earlier dialogues. His name appears only in four dialogues: Symposium, Parmenides, Theaetetus, and Sophist . In order to judge how much Plato owes to Parmenides and in what way he reacts to this great philosopher, this chapter focuses on the Sophist . For this is the main dialogue to tackle the philosophy of Parmenides?the project postponed in the Theaetetus . This chapter discusses the various contexts in the Sophist where the name of Parmenides appears. It examines Denis O?Brien?s interpretation of Plato?s reaction to Parmenides concerning what is not. The chapter presents the author's arguments against O?Brien?s criticisms, first by focusing on the key text, secondly by reconsidering Plato?s strategy, and finally in respect of philosophical interpretation. Keywords: Denis O?Brien; Parmenides; Plato; Sophist; Symposium; Theaetetus

In order to re-examine what role Plato gives to images in the Republic, this chapter argues against modern commentators’ views and demonstrates that for Plato, images represent reality in special ways and that the simile is not simply a didactic method of explaining familiar objects, but is an effective method of inquiry to reveal a reality unknown to us. First it shows that Plato ascribes to images a special role of transforming our souls, by examining the famous story of Gyges’ ring; second, by analysing the simile of the Sun, it shows that images are real in the sense that they reveal to us the world beyond sensible things. These two examples represent two important aspects, namely, a psychological exercise for changing ourselves and an ontological possibility for such images. In order to rehabilitate our conception of the image, the chapter considers views on images by Japanese philosophers, Megumi Sakabe and Toshihiko Izutsu.