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Contents Acknowledgments ix Note on Text and List of Abbreviations xi Introduction. Misology and the Modern Academy 1 La raison oblige? 1 • Dogmatism and Skepticism 8 Misological Habits 15 • The Significance of Plato 22 Plan and Method 28 Chapter 1. A Logic of Violence 41 Where Do We Start? 41 • Shadows of Justice 46 The Power of Appearance 55 • Thrasymachus: Relativism as Violence 64 • Common Good or Good of Each? 73 • Crisis 74 • Argument as Drama 78 • Shifting Horizons 81 Chapter 2. With Good Reason 85 The First Sailing 85 • The Twofold Nature of Goodness 88 • Forms, Likenesses, and the Souls That Love Them 93 • The Good as Cause of Truth 104 • Approaches to the Good 107 • Intimate Knowledge 118 • Knowledge and Love as Ascent 122 Surprised by Truth 135 Chapter 3. Breaking In 139 The Overburdened Image 139 • Keeping the Parts Together 143 • Bringing Forth the Good 145 A Good Turn 164 • The “Perfect” Image 167 The Dramatic Structure of Knowledge 171 Chapter 4. On Being Invisible 176 An Altogether Different Level 176 • Socrates as a Stand-in for the Good 179 • Seeing Through 188 Obedience unto Death 199 • Justice and Obedience 208 • Showing the Philosopher’s Invisibility 216 • The Invisible Author 222 viii contents Chapter 5. The Truth Is Defenseless 226 Guarding Reason 226 • Real Knowledge and Ecstatic Reason 228 • Good Communication 240 War and Battle 247 • The Indefensible Defense of the Defenseless 269 • The “Noble Risk” of Ignorance 277 Coda: Restoring Appearances 283 Is Plato a Platonist? 283 • Contradiction in Appearance 289 • Good Distance 300 • The Way Up and the Way Down 307 • Conversio ad phantasmata 318 • Socrates Redivivus 329 Plato Goes Down 334 Bibliography 337 Index 353 ...

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