With Ascent to the Beautiful, William H. F. Altman completes his five-volume reconstruction of the Reading Order of the Platonic dialogues. Although published last, this book covers Platos elementary dialogues, grappling from the start with F. D. E. Schleiermacher, who created an enduring prejudice against the works Plato wrote for beginners. Recognized in antiquity as the place to begin, Alcibiades Major was banished from the canon but it was not alone: with the exception of Protagoras and Symposium, Schleiermacher rejected as inauthentic all seven of the dialogues this book places between them. In order to prove their authenticity, Altman illuminates their interconnections and shows how each prepares the student to move beyond self-interest to gallantry, and thus from the doctrinal intellectualism Aristotle found in Protagoras to the emergence of philosophy as intermediate between wisdom and ignorance in Symposium en route to Diotimas ascent to the transcendent Beautiful. Based on the hypothesis that it was his own eminently teachable dialogues that Plato taught-and bequeathed to posterity as his Academys eternal curriculum-Ascent to the Beautiful helps the reader to imagine the Academy as a school and to find in Plato the brilliant teacher who built on Homer, Thucydides, and Xenophon.
William Henry Furness Altman devoted his professional life to the cause of public education; since retiring in 2013, he has been working as an independent scholar on the continuation of Plato the Teacher.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface: Plato the Teacher and Reading Order
Introduction: Schleiermacher and Plato
1 Protagoras as Gateway
1. Protagoras before Alcibiades
2. Xenophon before Plato
3. Taking the Measure of Protagoras
4. Interpreting the Misinterpretation of Simonides
2 The Elementary Dialogues: the Alcibiades dyad and Lovers
5. The Fallacy
6. The More Perfect Mirror
7. Between Alcibiades and Lovers
3 Hippias Major: Between Protagoras and Symposium
8. Reading Order and Authenticity
9. Platos pons asinorum
10. Deceiving with the Double
4 The Musical Dialogues: Hippias Minor, Ion, and Menexenus
11. Deception Defended?
12. Inspired Interpretation?
13. Rhetoric Rejected?
5 Symposium as
14. Integrating Symposium
15. History and Tragedy
16. Alcestis, Codrus, and Achilles
17. Catching Sight of the Sea
Epilogue: Imagining Platos Academy
Bibliography
Index
Index locorum
Index verborum
About the Author
"The single most important thing a Plato scholar needs is a good sense of humor. I dont know about you but a book featuring such an opening sentence is a book that I would definitely want for my personal library. The more so since William Altman has produced, in an intellectually provocative and emotionally engaging manner, a fascinating image of Plato the inspiring teacher of the Academy."--Nikos G. Charalabopoulos, author of the Platonic Drama and its Ancient Reception
"Altmans latest book is creative and ambitious in his ongoing exploration of the pedagogy of Platos dialogues. His impressive work is scholarly, detailed, and offers fresh perspectives on how Plato can educate his readers. Altmans alternative reading to the developmentalist approach is indispensable as a part of the emerging conversation on reading the dialogues as a corpus."--Marina McCoy, Boston College
"As a true outgrowth of Platos thought, Altmans book is offered to us as the ideal occasion to undertake an ascent to the beauty of the Platonic corpus, represented here by minor dialogues that connect the risky Protagoras to the beautiful Symposium. With this volume, Altman concludes the set of five books dedicated to Platos dialogues, although, in a delightful paradox full of teachings, this is just the beginning of a longer way. The reader who starts with Plato will hardly find a better guide than this beginning, which experts will find enlightening as well."--Alfonso Florez, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana
