Published in Rhizomata
In the Parmenides Plato claims that by relinquishing Forms one would entirely destroy tên tou dialegesthai dunamin. I argue that this peculiar phrase does not indicate, as often suggested, the power or possibility of all discourse or thought, but the power of dialectic, i. e. the highest science; and that its preservation is, for Plato, a decisive ...
Published in Rhizomata
My aim in this paper is to show that Plato’s Phaedo makes an important contribution to the development of ideas about the commensuration in value of heterogeneous items that is needed for practical reasoning and rational choice. Because the passage I focus on, the so-called ‘right exchange’ passage at 69a-c, has not usually been read this way, I mo...
Published in Open Theology
This article explores the use of feminine metaphorical language in the works of Plato and Origen. Drawing from Hanne Løland’s definition of gendered metaphorical language, it examines how Plato and Origen both inherit and challenge the stereotypical use of feminine metaphorical language to advance their philosophical and theological agendas. While ...
Published in Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
Scholars have long recognized significant similarities between Plato’s Phaedo and the Gospel of Luke. However, the absence of convincing evidence confirming that Luke was acquainted with Phaedo has prevented scholars from asserting that he drew directly from Plato’s dialogue. Notably, previously overlooked are the remarkable resemblances between th...
Published in Elenchos
In this paper I examine Socrates’ argument that presupposes an audience familiar with Forms and explains why the sight-lovers are not philosophers. It is divided into three parts: the first part (476a1–6) shows why each Form is one in number; the second part (476a6–9) distinguishes Forms from their sensible appearances; and the third part (476a10–d...
Published in Elenchos
This article asks the question “Why did Plato not write the ‘unwritten doctrine’?” and answers it by citing a combination of two obstacles. The first derives from the limitations of the episteme available to an embodied soul about the essence of the good. Even if the dialectician has access to some kind of knowledge, the mismatch between the unchan...
Published in Elenchos
This essay investigates the little-known dialogue by Zacharias Scholasticus entitled Ammonius, a philosophical dispute over the creation of the world. It examines in particular Zacharias’ skill in portraying the character of Ammonius, a pagan teacher of philosophy in Alexandria. Even before illustrating his own eternalist theses, which are later re...
Published in Trends in Classics
Sources provide conflicting accounts of the role of Socrates during the trial of the generals after the Battle of Arginusae: in Plato’s Apology and Xenophon’s Hellenica he is presented as the only πρύτανις that opposed the will of the crowd to judge the generals in a single vote. In the Gorgias and Xenophon’s Memorabilia he is elevated to the statu...
La noción de mímesis es una de las más complejas de la filosofía platónica. Para Platón, esta noción implica de manera integral distintas dimensiones del alma humana y las vincula a una actividad reflectiva que se da entre dichas dimensiones y aquello en lo que se proyectan, a fin de reproducirlo. La problemática de la mímesis gana, de este modo, u...
This paper offers a new reading of the literary evidence about the Spartan krypteia. It examines the two different literary traditions of Plato (survival training) and ‘Aristotle’ (helot hunting) and shows that Plutarch’s source for helot hunting during the krypteia was not Aristotle but Heraclides Lembos and epitomes of the Aristotelian Politeiai ...
