Plato on Soul and Agency, by Karel Thein - Brill's Plato Studies Series, Volume 20

[Gabriele Cornelli]

NEW RELEASE from Brill's Plato Studies Series

Plato on Soul and Agency (Volume: 20)
Author: Karel Thein

Giving souls strong individuality is one of Plato’s most influential but also most controversial innovations. This book addresses such souls’ agency, which is a prerequisite of their many functions not only in human life but in the universe at large. Its conclusion is that the agency proper to the soul stands apart from other Platonic causes as the only full-blooded agent whose actions and passions organize our short moral and civic life, all the while participating, thanks to the soul’s immortal existence and repeated incarnation, in the maintenance of the cosmos as a home to innumerable living species. Together with treating this multitude of the soul’s tasks, the book pays attention to the unavoidable personification of the soul and to the carefully constructed images that impress on the reader its complexity.
See more here:
https://brill.com/display/title/70812

Brill’s Plato Studies Series aims to gather together the most recent and relevant contributions, in order to identify debates and trends within the study of Plato and to provide a holistic understanding of the wide range of issues related to Plato’s philosophy. Of special significance for the series will be the examination of Plato’s literary style and its relationship to his theoretical project as, perhaps, one of the central problems in the study of Plato and Ancient Philosophy as a whole. Even after two thousand years there is still no consensus about why Plato expresses his ideas in such a unique style and the series will aim to address this question. In addition, the Series will warmly welcome contributions focusing on internal and recurrent issues like the relation between myth and philosophy, language, epistemology and ontology in Plato’s work. Special attention will also be given to new interpretative challenges and recent hermeneutical trends, which have emerged from the globalization of current Platonic studies. These new approaches to Plato are likely to change the future frame of Platonic scholarship, providing instruments and renewed impulses for the generations of philosophers to come.

Editors: Gabriele Cornelli and Gábor Betegh

Gabriele Cornelli (he/him/his)

Full Professor - Philosophy Department

Postgraduate Programme in Metaphysics

Archai UNESCO Chair on the Plural Origins of the Western Thought - Coordinator

Universidade de Brasília