A List of Key Continental Readings of Plato by Dialogue?

April 8, 2015 2:59 AM

I've been going back over a bunch of Plato's Dialogues lately as a long-term philosophy project and it would be good to also read a few significant readings of particular dialogues as I'm reading them. However, I am having trouble finding what / who has written on each particular dialogue. I am mostly interested in continental philosophy, and mostly 19th / 20th century philosophy. Although any significant Modern Philosopher's readings of Plato might also be of interest.

Ideally it would be readings/commentaries listed or sortable by dialogue. Where could I find such a thing?

Examples would be:
- Heidegger's 1930 / 1942 essay "Plato's Doctrine of Truth". might be listed under "Republic"
- or some of Derrida's writings on Plato - didn't he write a bunch of stuff on Plato?
- J S Mill writing on Protagoras
- Michel Foucault (1982 lectures "L'Hermeneutique du Sujet") reading of Alcibiades.

So, I read Ion recently last but have not been able to find what exists on Ion. Where / How could I search for such things?

posted by mary8nne to Education (9 answers total)

Derrida wrote a long essay mostly about (iirc) the dialogue Phaedrus, called something like "Plato's Pharmacy"

Badiou recently did a not-exactly-a-translation of The Republic.
posted by thelonius at 4:10 AM on April 8, 2015

I hesitate to suggest him because I find his reading of Plato's main thesis to be suspect, but Leo Strauss is one of the most important perspectives on the dialogues. You have to deal with his interpretation of the Republic in order to understand current Political Philosophy, especially on the right.

Sort of the equal and opposite reading of Plato is Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies , which I find to be equally incorrect, but definitely important.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:39 AM on April 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Alcibiades:
- Michel Foucault - 1982 lectures "L'Hermeneutique du Sujet"

Republic
- Martin Heidegger "Plato's Doctrine of Truth"
- Leo Strauss - "Plato", 33–89 in History of Political Philosophy,
- Alain Badiou - "Plato's Republic: A Dialogue in 16 Chapters" (2013)
- Karl Popper - "The Spell of Plato" Open Society and Its Enemies



Phaedrus
- Jacques Derrida "Plato's Pharmacy"

Meno
?
posted by mary8nne at 6:50 AM on April 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

For commentary on the Meno, and Plato's Forms in general, you may want to investigate the concept of Neo-Platonism in the philosophy of mathematics.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:04 AM on April 8, 2015

I haven't read it but a friend assures me that Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Volume 2: Plato and the Platonists contains many specific discussions of Platonic dialogues.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:35 AM on April 8, 2015

Speaking of Strauss, Alan Bloom is another difficult critical voice on Plato's political intentions. His translation and commentary on the Symposium is pretty bracing stuff.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:51 AM on April 8, 2015

Lacan's 8th seminar (on transference) looked the the Symposium and Alcibiades a bunch, if I remember correctly.
posted by experiencing a significant gravitas shortfall at 10:07 AM on April 8, 2015

I really liked John Sallis' work on Plato, which should be plenty continental for you. Chorology is on the Timaeus, and Being and Logos has chapters on many dialogues. It's about Plato, but each chapter focuses on a different dialogue and really goes in depth. It's been years since I read either but I remember both as just being really exciting commentaries.

Same goes—with a little more heavy weather—for Seth Benardete's commentaries on the Theaetetus, the Sophist, and the Statesman, gathered here (with his translations of same) as The Being of the Beautiful.
posted by felix grundy at 10:19 AM on April 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

For readings that treat the diaglogues as dialogues (i.e, a form of art / a mode of mimesis, as recognized by Aristotle in Poetics, rather than philosophical treatises), see Platonic Errors: Plato, a kind of Poet (by Gene Fendt and David Rozema) and Comic Cure for Delusional Democracy: Plato's Republic, also by Gene Fendt. Not "continental", but the readings will build off of ideas such as those found in Derrida's "Plato's Pharmacy".
posted by chaotic_neutral at 10:37 AM on April 8, 2015