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Abstract

This dissertation examines the appropriation of Plato by three thinkers in the context of post-Heideggerian German philosophy: Leo Strauss, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Gerhard Krüger. I argue that their interpretations of Platonic philosophy represent attempts to respond to Heidegger’s influential critique of Plato and, thereby, to Heidegger’s philosophy more broadly. The crux of their response is the emphasis on Socrates’ turn to human speech and human affairs (his so-called “second sailing”). They think that this Socratic reorientation justifies the dialogical form of the philosophical inquiry and prompts a dialogical encounter with ways of life that claim authority on the question of the good and are thus the most challenging to the philosophic life, namely the lives devoted to poetry or politics. Their Platonism is therefore dialogical and opposes Heidegger’s dogmatic interpretation of Plato and of his role in the history of philosophy. Chapters 1 to 3 set out the philosophical context of this inquiry. Chapter 1 surveys the Platonism of Marburg Neo-Kantian philosophers. Chapter 2 examines three problems in Heidegger’s interpretations of Plato. Chapter 3 deals with the novelty of Paul Friedländer’s philological approach to Plato’s dialogues. Chapters 4 to 7 compare the Platonism of Strauss, Gadamer, and Krüger on the four sets of problems that characterize their understanding of the second sailing. Chapter 4 treats the philosophical meaning of dialogue as a form of writing and thinking. Chapter 5 turns to the “old quarrel between philosophy and poetry”. Chapter 6 turns to the relation between philosophy and politics in Plato’s Republic. Chapter 7 is a critical analysis of their respective interpretations of Platonic metaphysics.

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