Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness and the Impersonal Good

by Angela Hobbs

• ISBN13: 9780521417334
• ISBN10: 0521417333
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-11-06
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Plato's thinking on courage, manliness and heroism is both profound and central to his work, but these areas of his thought remain under-explored. This book examines his developing critique of both the notions and embodiments of manliness prevalent in his culture (particularly those in Homer), and his attempt to redefine them in accordance with his own ethical, psychological and metaphysical principles. It further seeks to locate the discussion within the framework of his general approach to ethics, an approach which focuses on concepts of flourishing and virtue, rather than on consequences or duty. The question of why courage is necessary in the flourishing life in its turn leads to Plato's bid to unify the noble and the beneficial and the tensions this unification creates between human and divine ideals. The issue of manliness also raises problems of gender: does Plato conceive of the ethical subject as human or male?

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	x
Preface	xii
Glossary	xvi
The puzzle of Plato's thumos	1	(49)
The life of reason and the life of desire	1	(2)
The puzzle of the thumos	3	(3)
Thumos or thumoeides?	6	(1)
Thumos in Homer	7	(1)
The thumos in the Republic	8	(22)
Book 2	8	(3)
Primary education (Books 2 and 3)	11	(3)
Book 4	14	(9)
Books 8 and 9	23	(4)
The timocratic state and man	27	(3)
The thumos as a coherent whole	30	(1)
The thumos and Plato's general psychology	31	(6)
The meaning of psuche	31	(2)
The meaning of `part'	33	(4)
Aristotle	37	(4)
Nietzsche	41	(3)
Adler	44	(2)
Freud	46	(4)
Thumos, andreia and the ethics of flourishing	50	(26)
Plato's ethical framework	50	(2)
Happiness and virtue	52	(2)
Just persons and just acts	54	(1)
Reason, desire and the self	54	(2)
The norms of nature	56	(1)
First- and second-order desires	57	(2)
Role models	59	(8)
Role models and society	67	(1)
Male and female virtue	68	(6)
The complexity of courage	74	(2)
Arms and the man: andreia in the Laches	76	(37)
Training men	76	(3)
Fighting in armour: Nicias' defence	79	(3)
Fighting in armour: Laches' critique	82	(2)
Matter and method	84	(2)
Socrates' questioning of Laches	86	(13)
Socrates' questioning of Nicias	99	(11)
Conclusion	110	(3)
Odd virtue out: courage and goodness in the Protagoras	113	(24)
Virtue and the virtues	113	(2)
Courage, daring and technique	115	(8)
The unification of values	123	(7)
The pleasures of courage	130	(5)
Conclusion	135	(2)
Why should I be good? Callicles, Thrasymachus and the egoist challenge	137	(38)
Man and superman	137	(4)
The use and abuse of pleasure	141	(6)
The Calliclean challenge	147	(4)
Socrates' response to Callicles	151	(7)
The philosopher as role model	158	(4)
The need for the thumos	162	(2)
Thrasymachus and the law	164	(6)
Socrates' response to Thrasymachus	170	(5)
Heroes and role models: the Apology, Hippias Major and Hippias Minor	175	(24)
Homeric role models and Alexander the Great	175	(3)
The Apology	178	(8)
The Crito	186	(1)
The Hippias Major	187	(6)
The Hippias Minor	193	(6)
The threat of Achilles	199	(21)
Thumos amok	199	(11)
The tragic shadow	210	(10)
Plato's response: the valuable as one	220	(30)
The Beautiful and the Good	220	(7)
Beauty, goodness and early education	227	(4)
Andreia revisited	231	(4)
Role models for a new age	235	(5)
The philosophic ideal	240	(10)
Alcibiades' revenge: thumos in the Symposium	250	(12)
Self-perpetuating heroes	250	(1)
The Symposium: thumos as intermediary	250	(4)
Alcibiades and the tragic victory	254	(8)
Epilogue The weaver's art: andreia in the Politicus and Laws	262	(6)
Bibliography	268	(9)
Index	277