num_pages: 238
description: In this culmination of a lifetime's study Joseph Cropsey examines the crucial relationship between Plato's conception of the nature of the universe and his moral and political thought.Cropsey interprets seven of Plato's dialogues Theaetetus  Euthyphro  Sophist  Statesman  Apology  Crito  and Phaedo in light of their dramatic consecutiveness and thus as a conceptual and dramatic whole. The cosmos depicted by Plato in these dialogues Cropsey argues is often unreasonable and populated by human beings unaided by gods and dealt with equivocally by nature. Masterfully leading the reader through the seven scenes of the drama Cropsey shows how they are to an astonishing degree concerned with the resources available to help us survive in such a world.This is a worldand a Platoquite at odds with most other portraits. Much more than a summary of Plato's thinking this book is an eloquent sometimes amusing often moving guide to the paradoxes and insights of Plato's philosophy.
language: English
title: Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos
publisher: University of Chicago Press