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11 books match the query 'Symposium'

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A Dictatorship of Relativism ?

Symposium in Response to Cardinal Ratzinger’s Last Homily, Volume 13

Jeffrey M. Perl, ed.

Duke University Press, 0

In the last homily he gave before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger described modern life as ruled by a “dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely” of satisfying “the desires of one’s own ego.” An eminent scholar familiar with the centuries-old debates over relativism, Ratzinger chose to oversimplify or even caricature a philosophical approach of great sophistication and antiquity. His homily depicts the relativist as someone blown about “by every wind of doctrine,” whereas the relativist sticks firmly to one argument—that human knowledge is not absolute. Gathering prominent intellectuals from disciplines most relevant to the controversy—ethics, theology, political theory, anthropology, psychology, cultural studies, epistemology, philosophy of science, and classics—this special double issue of Common Knowledge contests Ratzinger’s denunciation of relativism.

One essay relates the arguments of Ratzinger to those of two other German scholars—the conservative political theorist Ernst Wolfgang Böckenförde and the liberal philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas—since all three men assume that social order depends on the existence of doctrinal authority (divine or otherwise). The contributors here argue for an intellectual and social life free of the desire for an “infantilizing” authority. One proposes that the Christian god is a relativist who prefers limitation and ambiguity; another, initially in agreement with Ratzinger about the danger relativism poses to faith and morals, then argues that this danger is what makes relativism valuable. The issue closes with the first English translation of an extract from a book on Catholic-Jewish relations by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, one of the Catholic Church’s most progressive figures.

Contributors. David Bloor, Daniel Boyarin, Mary Baine Campbell, Lorraine Daston, Arnold I. Davidson, John Forrester, Kenneth J. Gergen, Simon Goldhill, Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Julia Kristeva, Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini, Christopher Norris, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Richard Shusterman, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Jeffrey Stout, Gianni Vattimo

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How Socrates Became Socrates

A Study of Plato’s “Phaedo,” “Parmenides,” and “Symposium”

Laurence Lampert

University of Chicago Press, 2021

Plato dispersed his account of how Socrates became Socrates across three dialogues. Thus, Plato rendered his becoming discoverable only to readers truly invested. In How Socrates Became Socrates, Laurence Lampert recognizes the path of Plato’s strides and guides us through the true account of Socrates’ becoming. He divulges how and why Plato ordered his Phaedo, Parmenides, and Symposium chronologically to give readers access to Socrates’ development on philosophy’s fundamental questions of being and knowing.

In addition to a careful and precise analysis of Plato’s Phaedo,Parmenides, and Symposium, Lampert shows that properly entwined, Plato’s three dialogues fuse to portray a young thinker entering philosophy’s true radical power. Lampert reveals why this radicality needed to be guarded and places this discussion within the greater scheme of the politics of philosophy.

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Hypertension

A Symposium

Elexious Bell

University of Minnesota Press, 1951

Hypertension: A Symposium was first published in 1951. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.In the words of Dr. Eduardo Braun-Menendez of Buenos Aires, brilliant representative of the distinguished South American group of workers in the field, “Hypertension is today one of the deadliest enemies of mankind.”Though most medical men will not dispute the insidiousness of hypertension as an enemy of human health, there is far less agreement on what is of more immediate concern to the physician – the causes and treatment of the disease.This book summarizes existing knowledge with regard to hypertension, its problems, and its therapy, and thereby points the way for future research which may solve the problems. The volume presents the proceedings of a symposium on hypertension which was held at the University of Minnesota in the fall of 1950 in honor of Drs. Elexious T. Bell, Benjamin J. Clawson, and George E. Fahr. Thirty papers by twenty-four physicians, together with the related questions and discussion, are published. A bibliography is given for each paper, and there are 125 illustrations. The authors represent every section of the United States and three foreign countries.The series of papers takes up, in addition to the pathologic anatomy of the disease, such widely different approaches to the treatment as the dietary, the pharmacologic, the surgical, and the psychological.

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Leo Strauss On Plato's Symposium

Leo Strauss

University of Chicago Press, 2001

The first major piece of unpublished work by Leo Strauss to appear in more than thirty years, this volume offers the public the unprecedented experience of encountering this renowned scholar as his students did. Given as a course in autumn 1959 under the title "Plato's Political Philosophy," these provocative lectures—until now, never published, but instead passed down from one generation of students to the next—show Strauss at his subtle and insightful best.

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Plato's Symposium

Stanley Rosen

St. Augustine's Press, 1999

This is the first full-length study of the Symposium to be published in English, and one of the first English works on Plato to take its bearings by the dramatic form of the Platonic dialogue, a thesis that was regarded as heterodox at the time but which today is widely accepted by scholars of the most diverse standpoint. Rosen was also one of the first to study in detail the philosophical significance of the phenomenon of concrete human sexuality, as it is presented by Plato in the diverse characters of the main speakers in the dialogue. His analysis of the theoretical significance of pederasty in the dialogue was highly controversial at the time, but is today accepted as central to Plato's dramatic phenomenology of human existence.

Rosen discusses a variety of topics that had previously been neglected in the secondary literature, including the problem of the hybristic nature of the philosopher, the poetical dimension of Plato's conception of philosophy, and the theoretical implication of the difference between Platonic writing and Socratic conversation.

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Plato's Symposium

A Translation by Seth Benardete with Commentaries by Allan Bloom and Seth Benardete

Plato

University of Chicago Press, 2001

Plato, Allan Bloom wrote, is "the most erotic of philosophers," and his Symposium is one of the greatest works on the nature of love ever written. This new edition brings together the English translation of the renowned Plato scholar and translator, Seth Benardete, with two illuminating commentaries on it: Benardete's "On Plato's Symposium" and Allan Bloom's provocative essay, "The Ladder of Love." In the Symposium, Plato recounts a drinking party following an evening meal, where the guests include the poet Aristophanes, the drunken Alcibiades, and, of course, the wise Socrates. The revelers give their views on the timeless topics of love and desire, all the while addressing many of the major themes of Platonic philosophy: the relationship of philosophy and poetry, the good, and the beautiful.

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Savings in the Modern Economy

A Symposium

Walter Heller

University of Minnesota Press, 1953

Savings in the Modern Economy was first published in 1953. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.How will savings affect the future economy of the United States and other parts of the world? Will savings continue to aid economy expansion or will they lead, sooner or later, to difficult problems? What are the motivations that cause people to save? How has the pattern of saving changed in recent times? What is the effect of retirement and pension funds? What is the role of savings in periods of inflation? In economy depression? How can savings foster economy progress in underdeveloped countries?To provide a scholarly yet thoroughly practical basis for answers to questions like these, a group of distinguished economists pool their thinking in this volume. The series of 28 papers bring to the problem varied backgrounds and different viewpoints. Professors, bankers, government officials, and industrialists, representing national and international organizations and business enterprises, contribute papers and related comments. There is not always agreement in the discussion, and no quick and easy solutions are offered, but the resulting analysis is realistic and timely, yet long-range in approach and value.The material covers four broad topics: savings and economic policy; savings concepts, data, and behavior; the savings problem in underdeveloped countries (with specific reference to the Far East and Latin America); and savings and inflation.The volume is based on papers given at a conference on Savings, Inflation, and Economy Progress held at the University of Minnesota through the cooperation of the university’s School of Business Administration and a number of sponsoring business firms.

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Socrates Founding Political Philosophy in Xenophon's "Economist", "Symposium", and "Apology"

Thomas L. Pangle

University of Chicago Press, 2020

The oeuvre of the Greek historian Xenophon, whose works stand with those of Plato as essential accounts of the teachings of Socrates, has seen a new surge of attention after decades in the shadows. And no one has done more in recent years to spearhead the revival than Thomas L. Pangle. Here, Pangle provides a sequel to his study of Xenophon’s longest account of Socrates, the Memorabilia, expanding the scope of inquiry through an incisive treatment of Xenophon’s shorter Socratic dialogues, the Economist, the Symposium, and the Apology of Socrates to the Jury. What Pangle reveals is that these three depictions of Socrates complement and, in fact, serve to complete the Memorabilia in meaningful ways.

Unlike the Socrates of Plato, Xenophon’s Socrates is more complicated and human, an individual working out the problem of what it means to live well and virtuously. While the Memorabilia defends Socrates by stressing his likeness to conventionally respectable gentlemen, Xenophon’s remaining Socratic texts offer a more nuanced characterization by highlighting how Socrates also diverges from conventions of gentlemanliness in his virtues, behaviors, and peculiar views of quotidian life and governmental rule. One question threads through the three writings: Which way of life best promotes human existence, politics, and economics—that of the Socratic political philosopher with his philosophic virtues or that of the gentleman with his familial, civic, and moral virtues? In uncovering the nuances of Xenophon’s approach to the issue in the Economist, Symposium, and Apology, Pangle’s book cements the significance of these writings for the field and their value for shaping a fuller conception of just who Socrates was and what he taught.

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Symposium Of Plato

Shelley Translation

Percy Bysshe Shelley

St. Augustine's Press, 2002

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The Symposium of Plato

Suzy Q. Groden

University of Massachusetts Press, 1970

This new translation of Plato’s dialogue on love avoids the cumbersome locutions of Victorian versions and presents Plato’s ancient drinking party in a vigorous contemporary idiom. The character of Socrates emerges with unexpected wit and humor, adding new dimensions to his familiar irony. A poet and philosopher have collaborated to give an English version that is fresh and clear, and accurately renders the ideas of the speakers.

A detailed internal analysis of the structure of the dialogue is given in the introduction. The afterword presents an historical interpretation of the two ways of love, eros and agapé, an a reinterpretation of eros in Plato.

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