Plato's Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics
by: Bobonich, Christopher

Softcover. UK, Oxford University Press, 1st pbk., 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 643 pages. An illuminating reappraisal of Plato's later works, which reveals radical changes in his ethical and political theory. Christopher Bobonich argues that in these works Plato both rethinks and revises important positions which he held in his better-known earlier works such as the Republic and the Phaedo. Bobonich analyses Plato's shift from a deeply pessimistic view of non-philosophers in the Republic, where he held that only philosophers were capable of virtue and happiness, to his far more optimistic position in the Laws, where he holds that the constitution and laws of his ideal city of Magnesia would allow all citizens toachieve a truly good life. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.