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i3o JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 35: I JANUARY I997 the Context of Xenophon's Political Writings"), David K. O'Connor ("The Erotic SelfSufficiency of Socrates: A Reading of Xenophon's Memorabilia"), Donald R. Morrison ("Xenophon's Socrates as a Teacher"), and John A. Stevens ("Friendship and Profit in Xenophon's Oeconomicus").These last four essays make it perfectly plain that the testimony of Xenophon deserves to be taken as seriously as that of Plato in any attempt either to reconstruct the historical Socrates or to gain an appreciation of the extraordinary influence of the Socratic presence. The second part of the anthology is devoted to Socrates' influence in Hellenistic times. Six essays explore this issue: Gisela Striker's "Plato's Socrates and the Stoics," Joseph G. DeFilippo's and Phillip T. Mitsis's "Socrates and Stoic Natural Law," Paul A. Vander Waerdt's "Zeno's Republic and the Origins of Natural Law," Julia Annas's "Plato the Skeptic," Christopher J. Shields's "Socrates among the Skeptics," and Voula Tsouna McKirahan's "The Socratic Origins of the Cynics and Cyrenaics." The editor has done a superb job in collecting fourteen important contributions to Socratic scholarship, contributions that allow us to appreciate the complexity and relevance of Socrates as a philosopher. The annotations provided throughout the anthology are useful and pertinent, and the general index is of great value. This book is to be highly recommended for any student and scholar of philosophy. L. E. NAVIA New YorkInstitute ofTechnology J. M. E. Moravcsik. Plato and Platonism: Plato's Conceptionof Appearance and Reality in Ontology, Epistemologyand Ethics, and its Modern Echoes. London: Blackwell, 199~. Cloth, $57-95Plato and Platonism is an ambitious book which aims to dislodge certain widespread interpretations of Plato's metaphysics,, epistemology, and ethics, and to forge new readings of these three key areas of Plato's philosophy, showing at the same time how they constitute a larger whole. The main foils against which Moravcsik defines his own positions are (a) that Plato's Forms are essentially the universals of later ontological theories (ante res),(b) his epistemology fits into the modern analytic framework of the a pr/0r/(analytic) and the empirical, including its stress on propositional knowledge, and (c) his ethics must be in some way interpretable within a Kantian-utilitarian dichotomy. Moravcsik offers useful criticisms of these three familiar (though hardly universal) assumptions in his Part I, while formulating his own understanding of what might be called "classical Platonism"--the metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics of the "middle" dialogues. Against (a) he correctly maintains that there will not be a Form for every plurality of things or for every predicate, and argues that universals could not in any event fulfill the Forms' explanatory role as the "fundamental aspects of reality... whose interrelation gives order and harmony in the world" (~76); in contrast to (b) he emphasizes the centrality of "holistic," nonpropositional insight into the manner in which the parts of a complex object of cognition fit together; and against (c) he develops a Platonic "ideal ethics" that involves a theory of the appropriate aim in life BOOK REVIEWS 131 and of a character structure possessing intrinsic merit and necessary for the achievement of life's aim. Part II then takes up some significant problems with the middle-period theory of Forms, arguing (correctly, I think) that although Plato never abandoned the basic theory, he saw the need for important developments or modifications of it. The key idea remains that the order of the intelligible realm makes possible and explains whatever order one finds in the spatio-temporal realm; but now Plato explores, in a way he had at most only pointed toward in earlier dialogues, important structural and hierarchical aspects of the intelligible order. Here we find major chapters on the Parmenides, Sophist, and Philebus. Part III discusses contemporary issues in ideal ethics and the philosophy of mathematics to which Moravcsik believes Platonism--or at least, reflection on Plato's own approach to such issues-- can make a substantial contribution. All three Parts are extremely stimulating for the overall picture they comprise, but even more for their multitude of ideas, proposals, interpretations, and almost continuous comparisons...

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