Papers by Ivor Ludlam
Unpublished, 2024
This dialogue dramatizes a concept which is portrayed as held in one way or another by everyone: ... more This dialogue dramatizes a concept which is portrayed as held in one way or another by everyone: that the holy is respect. The character of Socrates accurately exemplifies this concept (he respects), while the character of Euthyphro exemplifies its misconception (he makes a disrespectful show of mercenary respect), with all that that entails: the show of respect is intended to placate the frightening gods of Athenian mythology who are considered easily offended both by certain injustices such as murder, and by the sort of disrespect of which the historical Socrates was accused. Euthyphro differs from the Many in that his knowledge of, and belief in, mythology is extreme; he is therefore to be seen as a personification of the miasma-court system itself which, like him, acts on its extreme beliefs.
Plato and His Legacy (see in my "Books" section), 2021
At the publisher's request, I am uploading only a few pages of my article.
In a paper read in ... more At the publisher's request, I am uploading only a few pages of my article.
In a paper read in the conference in Bar Ilan University on Plato and his legacy, I present some conclusions based on my previously published analyses of Hippies Minor, Hippias Major, and Politeia (= Republic) regarding Plato's initial steps in creating a dialogue (at least the early and middle ones). The process of concept -> aspects (including actual and apparent) -> paradeigmata (basic models reflecting these aspects) -> deigmata (the characters as particular models) -> necessarily perverse conversation is confirmed by the unusually explicit and neat presentation of the process in Politeia, obscured to some extent by the necessarily perverse nature of the conversation. I then outline how Plato would have gone about preparing the three dialogues already mentioned. While the dialogues are very different, the process from concept to conversation is essentially the same. I have made a read-through of Hippias Minor in my podcast The Plato Paradigm.
A holistic analysis of Hippias Minor, to supplement my earlier holistic analysis of Hippias Major... more A holistic analysis of Hippias Minor, to supplement my earlier holistic analysis of Hippias Major. The (dramatic) reality is in the characters, not in what they say, and through an analysis of them as paradeigmata [EDIT: deigmata of paradeigmata] it becomes possible to see how the two dialogues connect together and reveal a development in Plato's thought regarding the good itself, its manifestations, and the ramifications of these manifestations. Both dialogues should be read before Politeia (aka Republic) which presupposes them, on which see my holistic analysis of that dialogue.
I analyse Hippias Minor line by line at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCruvPuEgxOAVWlkpm8qP3UA
Elenchos Rivista Di Studi Sul Pensiero Antico, 2003
Mnemosyne, 2000
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Maynooth Philosophical Papers
[Update] The book appeared in 2015 entitled Plato's Republic as a Philosophical Drama on Doing We... more [Update] The book appeared in 2015 entitled Plato's Republic as a Philosophical Drama on Doing Well, published by Lexington Books.
[Original Abstract] This is part of a forthcoming book analysing Plato’s Politeia as a philosophical drama, in which the participants turn out to be models of various types of psychic constitution, and nothing is said by them which may be considered to be an opinion of Plato himself (with all that that entails for Platonism). The debate in Book I between Socrates and Thrasymachus serves as a test case for the assumptions that the Socratic method involves searching for truth or examining the opinions of interlocutors and that Socrates is the mouthpiece of Plato. Socrates and Thrasymachus are usually assumed to be arguing about justice. In fact, they are going through the motions of an eristic debate, where the aim is not to discover the truth about the matter under discussion but to defeat the opponent by fair means or foul, but especially foul. The outrageous wordplay used by both men is not so obvious in translation, and in any case tends to be ignored or explained away by scholars who assume that Plato the philosopher was writing a philosophical treatise (an exposition of philosophical ideas) and not a philosophical drama (a presentation of philosophically interesting models, to be compared and contrasted by the reader).
Books by Ivor Ludlam
Plato and His Legacy, 2021
Proceedings of a conference held in Bar Ilan University on Plato and his legacy.
The Front Matter... more Proceedings of a conference held in Bar Ilan University on Plato and his legacy.
The Front Matter uploaded here provides a list of contributors and their papers.
Edited (in alphabetical order) by John Glucker, Yosef Z. Liebersohn, and Ivor Ludlam.
The File link connects to Chapter 3 and much of Chapter 4.
List of Chapters: 1. Introduction 2.... more The File link connects to Chapter 3 and much of Chapter 4.
List of Chapters: 1. Introduction 2. The Thrasymachus Problem 3. A Philosophical Drama 4. The Characters 5. Socrates and the Logos 6. The Digression 7. A Model Dialogue 8. Doing Well 9. A Dialogue on Apparently Doing Well
This book is a holistic analysis of Plato's Republic, presented methodically from the ground up. The conversation is, as so often in Platonic dialogues, perverse, and presents ever-changing opinion, rather like shadows on a cave wall. Analysing the speakers helps to some extent (like looking at the models casting the shadows). Seeing the characters as models "intending" philosophical aspects of a concept (like geometrical shapes intending abstract shapes) finally allows us to reach the concept at the heart of this dialogue, namely, living well, which may be divided into as many species as there are apparent goods (benefit, pleasure, and reputation, with pleasure further divided into one, few and many). There are as many characters in the dialogue as are required to dramatize these aspects, with some aspects needing more than one representative. Each character has different motivations for participating in the dialogue, and all fail to speak truthfully for one reason or another, adding to the perversity of the conversation itself; but all is as it should be in this philosophical drama which accurately dramatizes the various aspects of apparent phronesis (apparently doing well), and does not simply settle for a neat philosophical disquisition which, so far as Plato appears to be concerned, would benefit the unchallenged, non-dialectical, reader very little.
Book Reviews by Ivor Ludlam
The Classical Review, 2022
A commissioned two-page review in The Classical Review of a book on Plato's Hippias Minor
Philosophia, 1999
A reply to the reply to my review of Sternfeld and Zyskind's book on Plato's Parmenides
Philosophia, 1991
My review (with mangled Greek) of
Meaning, Relation, and Existence in Plato's Parmenides: The ... more My review (with mangled Greek) of
Meaning, Relation, and Existence in Plato's Parmenides: The Logic of Relational Realism
by Robert Stemfeld and Harold Zyskind. New York: Peter Lang, 1987, xv+187 pp
Scripta Classica Israelica 39, 2020
A review of Philosophy as Drama: Plato’s Thinking through Dialogue
A Hebrew review appearing in the Israeli review journal
Katharsis: a Critical Review in the Huma... more A Hebrew review appearing in the Israeli review journal
Katharsis: a Critical Review in the Humanities and Social Sciences 26 (November 2016), 113-136
Review of Shimon Bouzaglo’s Hebrew translation of I.F. Stone’s The Trial of Socrates, Aliath Gag, 2016, 360pp.
Isidor Feinstein Stone made a name for himself as an independent journalist. When he retired in 1971 due to illness, he devoted himself to researching the history of freedom of expression. This led him back to the Classical Athenians who, in his eyes, were its model practitioners. That they killed Socrates was therefore something of a conundrum, and one that Stone solved to his own satisfaction by assuming that Socrates must have given them reason for killing him; and given that they loved freedom of expression above everything, Socrates must have been the greatest opponent of that right. As Stone and his translator, Shimon Bouzaglo, demonstrate, this right is not justified by two wrongs: Stone’s book The Trial of Socrates (1988) is a travesty of scholarship but an excellent example of freedom of expression in the hands of a journalist; Shimon Bouzaglo’s Hebrew translation adds even more freedom of expression in its new approach to basic English and editorial work. The result is an extended character assassination of Socrates which is bound to do a disservice to Hebrew readers who may until now have been sympathetic to Greek philosophy. Aristotle may have saved the Athenians from sinning twice against philosophy, but Stone’s attempt to save the Athenians from sinning even once seems to have backfired.
Stone and Bouzaglo share a desire to appear to the unwashed masses well-versed in Classical literature and proficient in all manner of tongues. Stone had read the fragments of Heraclitus even before learning Greek for one semester at college, and returned to his linguistic studies after retiring from journalism; Bouzaglo seems to read texts for the first time as he translates them. Stone presents his Greek translations as those of the Loeb series; Bouzaglo claims to translate directly from the Greek when there are no Hebrew translations available, but patently translates from the English of the Loeb. At least when it comes to Stone’s English, we can confidently assert that Bouzaglo has broken with past practice, especially with regard to Plato’s dialogues, and has translated directly from his source.
Stone uses a hard-hitting journalistic manner which appears to aim at exposing the truth. In fact, he pounces on statements taken out of context which tend to support his preconceived notion that Socrates hated free speech and democracy. He ignores the literary genre of his sources, especially Plato’s dialogues, Aristophanes’ comedies, and Xenophon’s apologetics. There is much negative material in all these which should not be, but is, taken at face value; at the same time, Stone is careful to explain away all apparent evidence suggesting that Socrates was an obedient citizen of democratic Athens. Bouzaglo and his editor, Yehuda Meltzer, have seen fit not to correct any of the more glaring errors and misconceptions, to put it mildly. Readers are apparently expected to consume this repackaged stew of half-baked ideas at their own risk, and without warning of the consequences.
Antipater of Tarsus - unpublished book by Ivor Ludlam
Probably the final pre-print version of my edition of Antipater of Tarsus. The testimonia for phy... more Probably the final pre-print version of my edition of Antipater of Tarsus. The testimonia for physics and logic are not clearly about Antipater of Tarsus and they have been excluded from this edition, unlike the testimonia for his life and logic. This supersedes the revised version of my doctorate. The main differences are in the later parts of the Dialectic section.
Uploads
Papers by Ivor Ludlam
In a paper read in the conference in Bar Ilan University on Plato and his legacy, I present some conclusions based on my previously published analyses of Hippies Minor, Hippias Major, and Politeia (= Republic) regarding Plato's initial steps in creating a dialogue (at least the early and middle ones). The process of concept -> aspects (including actual and apparent) -> paradeigmata (basic models reflecting these aspects) -> deigmata (the characters as particular models) -> necessarily perverse conversation is confirmed by the unusually explicit and neat presentation of the process in Politeia, obscured to some extent by the necessarily perverse nature of the conversation. I then outline how Plato would have gone about preparing the three dialogues already mentioned. While the dialogues are very different, the process from concept to conversation is essentially the same. I have made a read-through of Hippias Minor in my podcast The Plato Paradigm.
I analyse Hippias Minor line by line at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCruvPuEgxOAVWlkpm8qP3UA
[Original Abstract] This is part of a forthcoming book analysing Plato’s Politeia as a philosophical drama, in which the participants turn out to be models of various types of psychic constitution, and nothing is said by them which may be considered to be an opinion of Plato himself (with all that that entails for Platonism). The debate in Book I between Socrates and Thrasymachus serves as a test case for the assumptions that the Socratic method involves searching for truth or examining the opinions of interlocutors and that Socrates is the mouthpiece of Plato. Socrates and Thrasymachus are usually assumed to be arguing about justice. In fact, they are going through the motions of an eristic debate, where the aim is not to discover the truth about the matter under discussion but to defeat the opponent by fair means or foul, but especially foul. The outrageous wordplay used by both men is not so obvious in translation, and in any case tends to be ignored or explained away by scholars who assume that Plato the philosopher was writing a philosophical treatise (an exposition of philosophical ideas) and not a philosophical drama (a presentation of philosophically interesting models, to be compared and contrasted by the reader).
Books by Ivor Ludlam
The Front Matter uploaded here provides a list of contributors and their papers.
Edited (in alphabetical order) by John Glucker, Yosef Z. Liebersohn, and Ivor Ludlam.
List of Chapters: 1. Introduction 2. The Thrasymachus Problem 3. A Philosophical Drama 4. The Characters 5. Socrates and the Logos 6. The Digression 7. A Model Dialogue 8. Doing Well 9. A Dialogue on Apparently Doing Well
This book is a holistic analysis of Plato's Republic, presented methodically from the ground up. The conversation is, as so often in Platonic dialogues, perverse, and presents ever-changing opinion, rather like shadows on a cave wall. Analysing the speakers helps to some extent (like looking at the models casting the shadows). Seeing the characters as models "intending" philosophical aspects of a concept (like geometrical shapes intending abstract shapes) finally allows us to reach the concept at the heart of this dialogue, namely, living well, which may be divided into as many species as there are apparent goods (benefit, pleasure, and reputation, with pleasure further divided into one, few and many). There are as many characters in the dialogue as are required to dramatize these aspects, with some aspects needing more than one representative. Each character has different motivations for participating in the dialogue, and all fail to speak truthfully for one reason or another, adding to the perversity of the conversation itself; but all is as it should be in this philosophical drama which accurately dramatizes the various aspects of apparent phronesis (apparently doing well), and does not simply settle for a neat philosophical disquisition which, so far as Plato appears to be concerned, would benefit the unchallenged, non-dialectical, reader very little.
Book Reviews by Ivor Ludlam
Meaning, Relation, and Existence in Plato's Parmenides: The Logic of Relational Realism
by Robert Stemfeld and Harold Zyskind. New York: Peter Lang, 1987, xv+187 pp
Katharsis: a Critical Review in the Humanities and Social Sciences 26 (November 2016), 113-136
Review of Shimon Bouzaglo’s Hebrew translation of I.F. Stone’s The Trial of Socrates, Aliath Gag, 2016, 360pp.
Isidor Feinstein Stone made a name for himself as an independent journalist. When he retired in 1971 due to illness, he devoted himself to researching the history of freedom of expression. This led him back to the Classical Athenians who, in his eyes, were its model practitioners. That they killed Socrates was therefore something of a conundrum, and one that Stone solved to his own satisfaction by assuming that Socrates must have given them reason for killing him; and given that they loved freedom of expression above everything, Socrates must have been the greatest opponent of that right. As Stone and his translator, Shimon Bouzaglo, demonstrate, this right is not justified by two wrongs: Stone’s book The Trial of Socrates (1988) is a travesty of scholarship but an excellent example of freedom of expression in the hands of a journalist; Shimon Bouzaglo’s Hebrew translation adds even more freedom of expression in its new approach to basic English and editorial work. The result is an extended character assassination of Socrates which is bound to do a disservice to Hebrew readers who may until now have been sympathetic to Greek philosophy. Aristotle may have saved the Athenians from sinning twice against philosophy, but Stone’s attempt to save the Athenians from sinning even once seems to have backfired.
Stone and Bouzaglo share a desire to appear to the unwashed masses well-versed in Classical literature and proficient in all manner of tongues. Stone had read the fragments of Heraclitus even before learning Greek for one semester at college, and returned to his linguistic studies after retiring from journalism; Bouzaglo seems to read texts for the first time as he translates them. Stone presents his Greek translations as those of the Loeb series; Bouzaglo claims to translate directly from the Greek when there are no Hebrew translations available, but patently translates from the English of the Loeb. At least when it comes to Stone’s English, we can confidently assert that Bouzaglo has broken with past practice, especially with regard to Plato’s dialogues, and has translated directly from his source.
Stone uses a hard-hitting journalistic manner which appears to aim at exposing the truth. In fact, he pounces on statements taken out of context which tend to support his preconceived notion that Socrates hated free speech and democracy. He ignores the literary genre of his sources, especially Plato’s dialogues, Aristophanes’ comedies, and Xenophon’s apologetics. There is much negative material in all these which should not be, but is, taken at face value; at the same time, Stone is careful to explain away all apparent evidence suggesting that Socrates was an obedient citizen of democratic Athens. Bouzaglo and his editor, Yehuda Meltzer, have seen fit not to correct any of the more glaring errors and misconceptions, to put it mildly. Readers are apparently expected to consume this repackaged stew of half-baked ideas at their own risk, and without warning of the consequences.
Antipater of Tarsus - unpublished book by Ivor Ludlam
In a paper read in the conference in Bar Ilan University on Plato and his legacy, I present some conclusions based on my previously published analyses of Hippies Minor, Hippias Major, and Politeia (= Republic) regarding Plato's initial steps in creating a dialogue (at least the early and middle ones). The process of concept -> aspects (including actual and apparent) -> paradeigmata (basic models reflecting these aspects) -> deigmata (the characters as particular models) -> necessarily perverse conversation is confirmed by the unusually explicit and neat presentation of the process in Politeia, obscured to some extent by the necessarily perverse nature of the conversation. I then outline how Plato would have gone about preparing the three dialogues already mentioned. While the dialogues are very different, the process from concept to conversation is essentially the same. I have made a read-through of Hippias Minor in my podcast The Plato Paradigm.
I analyse Hippias Minor line by line at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCruvPuEgxOAVWlkpm8qP3UA
[Original Abstract] This is part of a forthcoming book analysing Plato’s Politeia as a philosophical drama, in which the participants turn out to be models of various types of psychic constitution, and nothing is said by them which may be considered to be an opinion of Plato himself (with all that that entails for Platonism). The debate in Book I between Socrates and Thrasymachus serves as a test case for the assumptions that the Socratic method involves searching for truth or examining the opinions of interlocutors and that Socrates is the mouthpiece of Plato. Socrates and Thrasymachus are usually assumed to be arguing about justice. In fact, they are going through the motions of an eristic debate, where the aim is not to discover the truth about the matter under discussion but to defeat the opponent by fair means or foul, but especially foul. The outrageous wordplay used by both men is not so obvious in translation, and in any case tends to be ignored or explained away by scholars who assume that Plato the philosopher was writing a philosophical treatise (an exposition of philosophical ideas) and not a philosophical drama (a presentation of philosophically interesting models, to be compared and contrasted by the reader).
The Front Matter uploaded here provides a list of contributors and their papers.
Edited (in alphabetical order) by John Glucker, Yosef Z. Liebersohn, and Ivor Ludlam.
List of Chapters: 1. Introduction 2. The Thrasymachus Problem 3. A Philosophical Drama 4. The Characters 5. Socrates and the Logos 6. The Digression 7. A Model Dialogue 8. Doing Well 9. A Dialogue on Apparently Doing Well
This book is a holistic analysis of Plato's Republic, presented methodically from the ground up. The conversation is, as so often in Platonic dialogues, perverse, and presents ever-changing opinion, rather like shadows on a cave wall. Analysing the speakers helps to some extent (like looking at the models casting the shadows). Seeing the characters as models "intending" philosophical aspects of a concept (like geometrical shapes intending abstract shapes) finally allows us to reach the concept at the heart of this dialogue, namely, living well, which may be divided into as many species as there are apparent goods (benefit, pleasure, and reputation, with pleasure further divided into one, few and many). There are as many characters in the dialogue as are required to dramatize these aspects, with some aspects needing more than one representative. Each character has different motivations for participating in the dialogue, and all fail to speak truthfully for one reason or another, adding to the perversity of the conversation itself; but all is as it should be in this philosophical drama which accurately dramatizes the various aspects of apparent phronesis (apparently doing well), and does not simply settle for a neat philosophical disquisition which, so far as Plato appears to be concerned, would benefit the unchallenged, non-dialectical, reader very little.
Meaning, Relation, and Existence in Plato's Parmenides: The Logic of Relational Realism
by Robert Stemfeld and Harold Zyskind. New York: Peter Lang, 1987, xv+187 pp
Katharsis: a Critical Review in the Humanities and Social Sciences 26 (November 2016), 113-136
Review of Shimon Bouzaglo’s Hebrew translation of I.F. Stone’s The Trial of Socrates, Aliath Gag, 2016, 360pp.
Isidor Feinstein Stone made a name for himself as an independent journalist. When he retired in 1971 due to illness, he devoted himself to researching the history of freedom of expression. This led him back to the Classical Athenians who, in his eyes, were its model practitioners. That they killed Socrates was therefore something of a conundrum, and one that Stone solved to his own satisfaction by assuming that Socrates must have given them reason for killing him; and given that they loved freedom of expression above everything, Socrates must have been the greatest opponent of that right. As Stone and his translator, Shimon Bouzaglo, demonstrate, this right is not justified by two wrongs: Stone’s book The Trial of Socrates (1988) is a travesty of scholarship but an excellent example of freedom of expression in the hands of a journalist; Shimon Bouzaglo’s Hebrew translation adds even more freedom of expression in its new approach to basic English and editorial work. The result is an extended character assassination of Socrates which is bound to do a disservice to Hebrew readers who may until now have been sympathetic to Greek philosophy. Aristotle may have saved the Athenians from sinning twice against philosophy, but Stone’s attempt to save the Athenians from sinning even once seems to have backfired.
Stone and Bouzaglo share a desire to appear to the unwashed masses well-versed in Classical literature and proficient in all manner of tongues. Stone had read the fragments of Heraclitus even before learning Greek for one semester at college, and returned to his linguistic studies after retiring from journalism; Bouzaglo seems to read texts for the first time as he translates them. Stone presents his Greek translations as those of the Loeb series; Bouzaglo claims to translate directly from the Greek when there are no Hebrew translations available, but patently translates from the English of the Loeb. At least when it comes to Stone’s English, we can confidently assert that Bouzaglo has broken with past practice, especially with regard to Plato’s dialogues, and has translated directly from his source.
Stone uses a hard-hitting journalistic manner which appears to aim at exposing the truth. In fact, he pounces on statements taken out of context which tend to support his preconceived notion that Socrates hated free speech and democracy. He ignores the literary genre of his sources, especially Plato’s dialogues, Aristophanes’ comedies, and Xenophon’s apologetics. There is much negative material in all these which should not be, but is, taken at face value; at the same time, Stone is careful to explain away all apparent evidence suggesting that Socrates was an obedient citizen of democratic Athens. Bouzaglo and his editor, Yehuda Meltzer, have seen fit not to correct any of the more glaring errors and misconceptions, to put it mildly. Readers are apparently expected to consume this repackaged stew of half-baked ideas at their own risk, and without warning of the consequences.