By Gerald F. Else (NHC Fellow, 1978–79) This book is a guide to the poetics of the two Greek fountainheads of Western literary theory. Part I traces the development of Plato's great themes of inspiration and imitation but makes no attempt to reduce his disparate statements to a system. Part II demonstrates that Aristotle's Poetics embodies a … Continued
Edited by James H. Lesher (NHC Fellow, 2004–05), Debra Nails, and Frisbee C. C. Sheffield In his Symposium, Plato crafted a set of speeches in praise of love that has influenced writers and artists from antiquity to the present. Early Christian writers read the dialogue’s “ascent passage” as a vision of the soul’s journey to heaven. … Continued
By Samuel Scolnicov (NHC Fellow, 1978–79) This volume provides a comprehensive, learned and lively presentation of the whole range of Plato's thought but with a particular emphasis upon how Plato developed his metaphysics with a view to supporting his deepest educational convictions. The author explores the relation of Plato's metaphysics to the epistemological, ethical and … Continued
By Jon Moline (NHC Fellow, 1979–80)
By Waller R. Newell (NHC Fellow, 1985–86) Ruling Passion is the only book-length study of tyranny, statesmanship, and civic virtue in three major Platonic dialogues, the Georgias, the Symposium, and the Republic. It is also the first extended interpretation of eros as the key to Plato's understanding of both the depths of human vice and … Continued
By Todd W. Reeser (NHC Fellow, 2003–04) When we talk of platonic love or relationships today, we mean something very different from what Plato meant. For this, we have fifteenth and sixteenth-century European humanists to thank. As these scholars—most of them Catholic—read, digested, and translated Plato, they found themselves faced with a fundamental problem: how … Continued
By George of TrebizondEdited and translated by John Monfasani (NHC Fellow, 2011–12) The Greek philosopher George of Trebizond started the Plato-Aristotle Controversy of the Renaissance with two works published in Rome in the late 1450s. The first was his  Protectio Aristotelis Problematum (The Protection of Aristotle’s Problemata), which was as much a treatise on translation as it was a polemic in … Continued
As a college freshman, Thérèse Cory encountered Plato’s Socratic dialogue Euthyphro for the first time. Reading Socrates’ exhortations for Euthyphro—a man bringing charges of murder against his father—to articulate a clear and universal definition of piety, Cory realized the extent to which many of us take key terms and ideas for granted. The story ignited … Continued