Add to wishlist
Platos Four Muses reconstructs Platos authorial self-portrait through a fresh reading of the Phaedrus, with an Introduction and Conclusion that contextualize the construction more broadly. The Phaedrus, it is argued, is Platos most self-referential dialogue, and Platos reference to four Muses in Phaedrus 259cd is read as a hint at the ingredients of philosophical discourse, which turns out to be a form of provocatively old-fashioned mousike.Andrea Capra maintains that Socratess conversion to demoticas opposed to metaphoricalmusic in the Phaedo closely parallels the Phaedrus and is apologetic in character, since Socrates was held responsible for dismissing traditional mousike. This parallelism reveals three surprising features that define Platos works: first, a measure of anti-intellectualism (Plato counters the rationalistic excesses of other forms of discourse, thus distinguishing it from both prose and poetry); second, a new beginning for philosophy (Plato conceptualizes the birth of Socratic dialogue in, and against, the Pythagorean tradition, with an emphasis on the new role of writing); and finally, a self-consciously ambivalent attitude with respect to the social function of the dialogues, which are conceived both as a kind of resistance literature and as a preliminary move toward the new poetry of the Kallipolis.
Description
Platos Four Muses reconstructs Platos authorial self-portrait through a fresh reading of the Phaedrus, with an Introduction and Conclusion that contextualize the construction more broadly. The Phaedrus, it is argued, is Platos most self-referential dialogue, and Platos reference to four Muses in Phaedrus 259cd is read as a hint at the ingredients of philosophical discourse, which turns out to be a form of provocatively old-fashioned mousike.Andrea Capra maintains that Socratess conversion to demoticas opposed to metaphoricalmusic in the Phaedo closely parallels the Phaedrus and is apologetic in character, since Socrates was held responsible for dismissing traditional mousike. This parallelism reveals three surprising features that define Platos works: first, a measure of anti-intellectualism (Plato counters the rationalistic excesses of other forms of discourse, thus distinguishing it from both prose and poetry); second, a new beginning for philosophy (Plato conceptualizes the birth of Socratic dialogue in, and against, the Pythagorean tradition, with an emphasis on the new role of writing); and finally, a self-consciously ambivalent attitude with respect to the social function of the dialogues, which are conceived both as a kind of resistance literature and as a preliminary move toward the new poetry of the Kallipolis.
