Traditional and Cosmic Gods in Later Plato and the Early Academy

Traditional and Cosmic Gods in Later Plato and the Early Academy

by Vilius Bartninkas
Traditional and Cosmic Gods in Later Plato and the Early Academy

Traditional and Cosmic Gods in Later Plato and the Early Academy

by Vilius Bartninkas

Paperback

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Overview

This book sheds new light on Plato's cosmology in relation to Greek religion by examining the contested distinction between the traditional and cosmic gods. A close reading of the later dialogues shows that the two families of gods are routinely deployed to organise and structure Plato's accounts of the origins of the universe and of humanity and its social institutions, and to illuminate the moral and political ideals of philosophical utopias. Vilius Bartninkas argues that the presence of the two kinds of gods creates a dynamic, yet productive, tension in Plato's thinking which is unmistakable and which is not resolved until the works of his students. Thus the book closes by exploring how the cosmological and religious ideas of Plato's later dialogues resurfaced in the Early Academy and how the debates initiated there ultimately led to the collapse of this theological distinction.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781009322614
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication date: 04/13/2023
Series: Cambridge Classical Studies
Pages: 300
Product dimensions: 5.47(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

VILIUS BARTNINKAS is an Assistant Professor at Vilnius University. He has published various articles on Greek philosophy and political theory, and Lithuanian translations of Plato's Lysis (2014) and Alcibiades (2016).

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Plato's Theogony; 2. Plato's Anthropogony and Politogony; 3. Plato on Divinity and Morality; 4. Cosmic Religion in the Early Academy; Conclusions.
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