Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T11:20:37.651Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Plato, Isocrates, and the property of philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2009

Andrea Wilson Nightingale
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
Get access

Summary

I am prepared for a demand for money and he wants – truth. Truth! And wants it like that – so bare, so blank, as though truth were coin!… However, such modern coin that is only made by stamp, that one needs only to count upon the counting board – that is not truth by any means. Like money into the bag, should one be able to sweep truth into the head?

Lessing, Nathan the Wise

Slow Gold – but Everlasting –

The Bullion of Today –

Contrasted with the Currency

Of Immortality –

A Beggar – Here and There –

Is gifted to discern

Beyond the Broker's insight –

One's – Money – One's – the Mine –

Emily Dickinson

In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel explains that there is a paradox inherent in the very notion of a “history of philosophy.” As he states in the introduction,

The thought which may first occur to us in the history of Philosophy, is that the subject itself contains a contradiction. For Philosophy aims at understanding what is unchangeable, eternal, in and for itself: its end is Truth. But history tells us of that which has at one time existed, at another time has vanished, having been expelled by something else. Truth is eternal; it does not fall within the sphere of the transient, and has no history.

Although few scholars would now endorse Hegel's solution to the problem of “how it happens that Philosophy appears to be a development in time and has a history,” the tension between philosophy and history still remains.

Type
Chapter
Information
Genres in Dialogue
Plato and the Construct of Philosophy
, pp. 13 - 59
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×