This comprehensive, yet compact, introduction examines Plato's understanding of law, justice, virtue, and the connection between politics and philosophy. Focusing on three of Plato's dialogues— The Laws, The Republic, and The Statesman—Mark Blitz lays out the philosopher's principal interests in government and the strength and limit of the law, the connection between law and piety, the importance of founding, and the status and limits of political knowledge.
Plato's Ghost: The Modernist Transformation of Mathematics
In Plato's Ghost, he has ... present[ed] us with an ambitious and in many respects remarkable synthesis of the modern transformation of mathematics via structural and set-theoretic notions, together not only with its logic and philosophy but also with related developments in artificial languages and psychology... I can certainly recommend Plato's Ghost highly as a rich resource and point of departure for readers who want to learn more about this exciting period in the development of modern mathematics.
In Plato in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Plato's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world. The book also includes selections from Plato's work, a brief list of suggested reading for those who wish to delve deeper, and chronologies that place Plato within his own age and in the broader scheme of philosophy.
In an age when philosophers had scarcely glimpsed the horizons of the mind, a boy named Aristocles decided to forgo his ambitions as a wrestler. Adopting the nickname Plato, he embarked instead on a life in philosophy. In 387 B.C. he founded the Academy, the world's first university, and taught his students that all we see is not reality but merely a reproduction of the true source. And in his famous Republic he described the politics of "the highest form of state."
