- Title
- Dangerous sailing: [Plato] Second Alcibiades 147a1-4
- Creator
- Tarrant, Harold
- Relation
- Second Sailing: Alternative Perspectives on Plato p. 59-71
- Publisher
- Societas Scientiarum Fennica
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2015
- Description
- I want to use one dialogue as the basis for a plea for the proper study of works normally thought of as ‘spurious’. I include here the proper study of the manuscript tradition and of responsible ways of emending texts so that the continuity of thought within these works may be respected. Only thus can we truly understand the variety that exists within the corpus and value of leaving nothing out. I may seem here to be affirming the value of knowledge that has no direct bearing on the endeavours of most philosophers — a knowledge that could indeed be conceived of as a hindrance to the proper appreciation of Plato and of Greek philosophy more widely. Am I perhaps sailing into dangerous and uncharted waters far from any sensible destination? The value of peripheral knowledge is in fact an issue that often arises when one studies the views expressed by the Platonic Socrates, and the passage that I want to deal with here also concerns the value of knowledge that does not contribute to one’s goals.
- Subject
- Plato; Second Alcibiades; authenticity; dialogue
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1309479
- Identifier
- uon:21886
- Identifier
- ISBN:9789516534094
- Language
- eng
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