Thread 24455783

what's the best non-straussian secondary material on plato? I'm starting with the Greeks since I have nothing else to do

>>24455783 (OP)
For ancient takes on Platonism, see the introductions/handbooks/essays by Albinus, Alcinous, Apuleius, and the Michael Haslam article "Plato, Sophron, and the Dramatic Dialogue" on an Oxyrhyncus fragment on the mouthpiece question. See also the George Boys-Stones translation of the Anonymous Commentary on Theaetetus.

For prosopography, see Debra Nails's The People of Plato, which contains a thorough accunt of every historical personage in the dialogues, and how they're attested to in archaeology and in other ancient writers.

For phenomenological readings, see Heidegger's lecture course on Plato's Sophist, and his essays/lectures on the Essence of Truth from the early 30s (on the Cave in the Republic and from Theaetetus), and Gadamer's collection of essays (plus book on the Philebus and his book on Plato and Aristotle on the Good).

For Tubingen esoteric readings, see Hans Joachim Krämer's "Plato and the Foundations of Metaphysics."

For two older traditional takes that take the dialogue form seriously, read Schleiemacher's "Introductions" to the dialogues, and Paul Friedländer's 3 volume "Plato: An Introduction."

The analytic standard is Julia Annas's commentary on Plato's Republic, and the Richard Kraus edited Cambridge Companion.

On the older "unitary" reading, see anything by Paul Shorey or Harold Cherniss on Plato (or the latter's books on Aristotle, which defend a certain reading of Plato against Aristotle).

For Neo-Platonist sympathetic readings, see anything by Lloyd Gerson or John Dillon.

For sorta-analytic, sorta-dramatic readings, see the books by Charles Griswold, G.R.F. Ferrari, Kenneth Sayre, and Charles Kahn.

For "mouthpiece" issues, see anything edited by Gerald Press or Francisco Gonzalez.

For non-Straussian dramatic readings, check out Drew Hyland, Mitchell Miller, Eva Brann, Kenneth Dorter, with Jacob Klein's Commentary on Plato's Meno being a kind of model.

For background on the Academy, see Debra Milker's book from the 90s, John Dillon's books, and Paul Kalligas's edited volume.

(Straussian, btw. Don't sleep on Stanley Rosen, a "heterodox" Straussian who taught several of the above non-Straussian scholars.)

>>24455890
>For background on the Academy, see Debra Milker's
Lmao, *Debra Nails's

>>24455890
Thank you so much! Anything you would especially recommend? I'm not too anti-straussian (I've read city and man and the one on the symposium) I just don't want to be too bogged down as I systematically go through all of Plato, I do have a few books by Rosen and Benardete on the list (it'd be interesting to know what you think about Benardete as well). As of now I don't have any secondary material on the earlier dialogues (except Klein's Meno, which while difficult and which I'm presumably trying to read too early I hope I can still go through) so that'd be: Laches, Charmides, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Protagoras, Euthydemus, Gorgias, Hippias Major, Symposium (like I said I've already read Strauss' book but with how important the Symposium is maybe I should get something more.) I also don't have anything on Cratylus, Sophist, Timaeus, Critias and Laws.

I don't wanna actually go overboard with secondary material, my own perspective should still be my main concern. But if there's anything you would call an absolute masterpiece I'll add it to the list.

>>24455783 (OP)
Who was Strauss and why don't you want his influence in your reading, anon?

>>24455932
The Friedländer book might be your best bet for studies of the "earlier" dialogues; he covers those in the second volume (I think you can find all three on Anna's Archive), offering succinct but thoughtful readings of all of them, otherwise they tend to be treated in short essays devoted to just an element of any of them in the broader literature. There is a great dramatic reading of Gorgias by George Kimball Plochmann and Franklin Robinson (don't let "dramatic reading" give the wrong impression, it's also brimming with technical insights), and a good study of the Symposium by Gary Alan Scott and William Welton. For the Laws, maybe look to Glenn Morrow's "Plato's Cretan City," and for Timaeus, consider John Sallis's "Chorology" and A.E. Taylor's commentary (Cornford's interesting too, but take him with skepticism).

Rosen's books are hands down great. I don't tend to agree with him all the way, but he's a remarkable well-rounded rarity, covering something from almost every school of interpretation. I like Benardete a lot, but he really requires you to be checking whatever you're reading the whole way through with his writings, so he doesn't reward you if you only need him for this or that passage, you'll end up lost if you don't use him from the beginning. His students, Ronna Burger and Michael Davis, are more accessible.

>>24455985
Thank you so much, I genuinely appreciate the insight. Lastly, I wanna ask if you have any advice on Aristotle? I have two books by Heidegger that I've read parts of (and while brilliant) they're not exactly what I'm looking for. Last time I went through Aristotle I struggled with the Organon quite a lot, maybe something to make that slightly easier would be great.

>>24455997
>I have two books by Heidegger
Which books?

>>24455997
Joseph Owens's "The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics," but otherwise, Aquinas or any ancient or medieval commentary tends to be helpful walking you through the treatises. Brentano's "Manifold Senses of Being" is good too, especially if you're already reading Heidegger.

>>24455997
>>24456616
I'll also add that there's a new set of translations of the complete works of Aristotle coming out, with the majority of them done by C.D.C. Reeve, which might help in parsing Aristotle with a consistent set of translation choices. There are a pretty big number of book-length studies on any given work by Aristotle, and the analytics tend to be fine when they're committing their autism to working out the arguments or the differences between terms. Just be wary of their occasional commitments to saying Aristotle must've come up with this or that set of arguments during his time in the Academy or after; the development hypotheses over Aristotle tend to be very speculative in an unsatisfying way.

>>24456549
basic concepts & aristotle's metaphysics, there's also ğhenomenological interpretations but the title is slightly misleading and it's more about pre being and time early heidegger building up most of what was to come, so not really all too relevant if you just want aristotle (even less so than his other stuff) but could be good if you wanna ease your way into being and time

>>24456616
>>24456696
I appreciate the help, anon.

>>24455997
Besides Aquinas "Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom" is worth reading

>>24456794
Thank you!

The cambridge critical guides series is quite good