The Poetics of Philosophical Language (eBook)

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Zacharoula A. Petraki, University of the Peloponnese andUniversity of Crete, Greece.

Acknowledgments 6
Contents 8
1. Introduction 10
1.1 Plato and the Presocratics: Old and new problems 10
1.2 The language problem 15
1.3 The literary and the philosophical in Plato: Philosophy against poetry 17
1.4 The poetics of philosophical language 21
1.5 The Republic’s main motifs: Mixture, diversity and purity 24
1.6 Philosophy, poetry, painting and the poikilia-motif 27
1.7 The Republic’s interlocutors 35
1.8 Plato and Post-Platonic problems about language 39
Section One: The Theory 44
1. Aims and perspectives 46
2. Poetics 51
3. Mythos and eikõn 67
4. Imagistic discourse 73
4.1 Poikilia and images 73
4.2 Eikones in Gorgias’ Helen 74
4.3 Definition of Platonic imagery 78
5. Imagistic language, the dramatization of language and metaphoric language 87
5.1. Platonic Eikones: A homoiõsis? 87
5.2 Dramatization of language: the theory 99
5.3 Metaphoric language 103
Section Two: The Republic 116
1. Human nature and philosophical style in the Republic Book 5 118
1.1 Introduction 118
1.2 The “two waves” of the argument 120
1.2.1 The first wave of argument: women in the guardians’ agele˜ 125
1.2.2 The second wave of argument: the guardians’ mixis and class purity 133
1.2.3 The third wave of argument 145
2. Philosophical style in the third wave of argument in Book 5 151
2.1 Glaucon 151
2.2 The third wave again 164
2.2.1 Part one: the mixed style 172
2.2.2 Part two: the cleansed style 176
2.2.3 Part three: the imagistic style 182
3. Verbal Images in the Republic Books 2 and 6 186
3.1 The poets’ eikones in the Republic 186
3.2 Plato’s eikones in the Republic 197
3.2.1 Images of human nature 197
3.2.2 The way to the Form of the Good 203
3.2.3 Plato’s eikones: The Image of the Sun 209
4. Philosophers, non-philosophers and the unjust in the Republic 224
4.1 Adeimantus’ philosophers 224
4.2 Human nature, “true” philosophers and “false” philosophers 229
4.3 The poetics of the unjust in Books 8 and 9 238
4.4 The Language of Democracy and Tyranny 248
4.4.1 Democracy 248
4.4.2 Tyranny 252
5. Conclusion. ‘Viewing’ the skiagraphia 264
Bibliography 276
Index 300

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"The idea that the language of the Republic constitutes a highly complex mosaic in which images predominate and in which different modes of linguistic configuration converge is at any rate interesting."
Patrizia Marzillo in: BMCR 2012.08.59