Sarah Al-Taher presents a working paper on 'Anthropological (pre)condition: Human being as deficient being in Plato´s myths'

There is no explicit systematic anthropology in Plato's work. Nevertheless, elements of an anthropology can be found in several of Plato’s dialogues including the myths.  In this chapter, I am concerned with the question of whether, and if so to what extent, humans can be understood as deficient beings in Plato’s Work, und what kind of anthropology that would bring forth. This is followed by further questions: How can deficiency be understood, how deficiency relates to human beings and what anthropological consequences result from it.

For this purpose this paper will study the myth of the origin of living beings (Protagoras), the myth of the spherical human the so called “Kugelmenschen” (Symposion), as well as the myth of the chariot of the soul (Phaidros).

Andrés Quero-Sánchez, „The Head and Father of True Philosophy“: Schelling‘s Philosophy of Identity and Plato’s Understanding of Being – A Political Approach

Here the introduction to the paper that Andrés Quero-Sánchez delivers today at the Max-Weber-Center:

 

Schelling’s ‚Philosophy of Identity‘ – what exactly is that? The classical answer to this question is a merely historical one, by stating that this term designates Schelling’s philosophical achievements from 1801 –that is to say: from his Description of the System of My Philosophy– up to 1809, when, after having moved from Würzburg to Munich in 1806, he started an (at least to some extent) new period in his philosophical development with his Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of Human Freedom. Now – what are the central theses or even the one central thesis of this philosophical period (1801–1809)? It is surely not easy to answer this question. Scholars have been looking for an answer by analysing the differences existing between the writings of this period and those of the previous one, which, as is well known, came about under the influence of Fichte’s Theory of Science, constituting the so-called ‚transcendentalphilosophy period‘ of Schelling’s philosophy.1 The assumption was here that Schelling’s Philosophy of Identity is primarily to be seen as a particular development, maybe as a misunderstanding, of Fichte’s Theory of Science. We have to see the origin of Schelling’s Philosophy of Identity therefore, so it seems, in the context of the Philosophy of German Idealism, not only because of the influence of Fichte’s philosophy as mentioned before, but primarily because of the impact of Kantian philosophy on the young Schelling during his first philosophico-theological studies at the Tübinger Stift. As Wilhelm G. Jacobs wrote: „Schelling had taken the beginning [of his philosophy] from Kant“.2 Of course, we know, on the one hand, of the crucial role that Plato’s dialogues had played during Schelling’s early studies at the Tübinger Stift, with some of Schelling’s papers and notes on Plato as well as a relatively long commentary on Timaeus having survived from that time. Should we not speak therefore of a ‚Platonic beginning of Schelling’s philosophy‘? The dominant thesis states, however, that the young Schelling was here interpreting Plato from a Kantian point of view.3 On the other hand, we know of the crucial role mysticism had played in Schelling’s early education, with his parents being strongly influenced by Swabian Pietism. Schelling’s first publication, the Elegy Sung at Hahn’s Grave (Elegie bei Hahn’s Grabe gesungen) (1790) was dedicated to one of the most important representatives of Swabian Pietism: Philipp Matthäus Hahn, whom the young Schelling personally knew. Some scholars tried to emphasize such a ‚pietistic substratum‘;4 they did so, however, only with regard to some aspects of Schelling’s Philosophy of Nature as well as to some passages in his Philosophy and Religion (1804). Mystical influence is, of course, especially palpable in Schelling’s writings from 1809 onwards: Franz von Baader, Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, Jakob Böhme, as well as, which I think I have managed to show in the years past, Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler and the Pseudo-Taulerian Book of Spiritual Poverty. 5 As far as I can see, no scholar, apart from Kurt Leese in his Hamburg PhD under Ernst Cassirer, published here in Erfurt in 1927,6 and –if I may– myself in some recently published studies,7 has ever seen any important relationship between, on the one hand, Schelling’s Philosophy of Identity and transcendental Philosophy, and, on the other hand, mysticism.

It is important to emphasize, however, that I am not claiming that Schelling’s philosophy is based upon an irrationalistic ground, but rather that mysticism –at least if one understand it in the way Schelling did (and I think this is actually the right way to understand it)– presents itself a rational structure, especially a particular (!) conception of reason, which, strictly speaking, cannot be called ‚a particular‘ one, since ‚absolute reason‘ as a revitalisation of what I‘d like to call ‚mystical reason‘ is presupposing the neutralization of ‚particularity‘ as such. I will try to show in what follows, first, to what extent the understanding of reason which is characteristical of Schelling‘s Philosophy of Identity should be considered a revitalisation of ‚mysticism‘ (Chapter II: ‚Schelling’s Philosophy of Identity‘). [...]. [...]. [...]. Thirdly, and finally, I will discuss how far such a mystical understanding of reason –the one, as I said, constituting the Philosophy of Identity– was already shaping Schelling‘s early reading of Plato’s dialogues at the Tübinger Stift (Chapter IV: ‚Schelling’s Early Reading of Plato‘). By doing so, I am suggesting that Schelling’s Philosophy of Identity is not a particular development or a misunderstanding of Fichte’s Theory of Science or of Kantian philosophy, but rather Schelling’s development of his own philosophical position, which was from the beginning strongly influenced by mysticism and played a determinant role even with regard to Schelling’s understanding of Plato, Kant and Fichte.

Esther Eidinow reads a paper on "Beware of the Wolf: Reading Plato on Mt. Lykaion"

This paper developed from wondering about contemporary attitudes to Greek myths of metamorphosis. It examines one well-known and very brief mention of an Arkadian werewolf myth in Plato’s Republic, used in his description of the development of a tyrant. The passage has usually been read as a source for the rituals that are assumed to have taken place in the sanctuary of Zeus Lykaios on Mount Lykaion in Arkadia. These rituals, some argue, involved a human sacrifice and the consumption of human flesh, after which a man ‘became a wolf’; if, after nine years, he had not tasted human flesh again, he returned to humanity, otherwise he remained a wolf. But such an interpretation of the passage fails to offer a parallel to the case of the tyrant, who, Plato makes clear, cannot be redeemed. This paper suggests that a clearer sense of the analogy may emerge from reconsideration, first, of the myth’s narratives: this enables the drawing out of possible alternative contemporary meanings. But, in addition, the historical and geographical contexts of this analogy are also important, and this paper explores the question of why Plato chose to draw specifically on an Arkadian myth.
The paper is part of a wider project that aims to progress research on the interaction between the individual and ‘culture’ in the context of ancient Greek religion, focusing on questions of the nature, process and conception of change in ritual practice and beliefs over time and place. It builds on two arguments: first, a recasting of ‘embeddedness’ which facilitates a particular focus on the role of the individual and/or institution as relational (using Harrison White’s conception of social network theory); second, within that new version of ‘embeddedness’, a potential reconfiguration of the conception of the individual that emphasises the role and perception of the ‘relational self’ in both a cosmological framework (involving relations with supernatural entities) and the socio-political framework (of larger groups and communities, including, but not only, the polis). The project centres on narratives as constitutive of relational networks, and this research project is focusing on myths of mortal metamorphosis.