Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos

Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos by Cropsey, Joseph. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780226121215.

In this culmination of a lifetimes study, Joseph Cropsey examines the crucial relationship between Platos conception of the nature of the universe and his moral and political thought. Cropsey interprets seven of Platos dialogues—Theaetetus, Euthyphro, Sophist, Statesman, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo—in light of their dramatic consecutiveness and thus as a conceptual and dramatic whole. The cosmos depicted by Plato in these dialogues, Cropsey argues, is often unreasonable, and populated by human beings unaided by gods and dealt with equivocally by nature. Masterfully leading the reader through the seven scenes of the drama, Cropsey shows how they are, to an astonishing degree, concerned with the resources available to help us survive in such a world. This is a world—and a Plato—quite at odds with most other portraits. Much more than a summary of Platos thinking, this book is an eloquent, sometimes amusing, often moving guide to the paradoxes and insights of Platos philosophy.