Customer Reviews

Plato Rediscovered

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I realize that the headline above will strike many as hyperbole, but this is all I have in my power to persuade others to read this extraordinary account of how Plato arrived at the invention of political philosophy. The book is wildly original in its approach. Seung is guided by no fashions or masters other than Plato himself. He uncovers the centrality of the problems of metaphysics to Plato's program of politics in a manner that no one, to my knowledge, has ever conceived. If you ever plan on seriously grappling with the big picture in Plato's corpus, this is quite clearly the place to start. Seung answers all the big questions in Plato's work (such as the function of the characters in each dialogue and the relationship of each dialogue to one another). Plato Rediscovered is ambitious and successful on every possible level.

Dr. Seung spent many years synthesizing this view. He has a special gift for finding the core theme that runs through poetic and philosophical works. Most philosophers criticize and analyze. This book gives a plausible and coherent synthesis.
By way of full disclosure I was a student of Dr. Seung in 1985-1986. This book puts together many of the philosophical issues that we talked about in those years. It is very refreshing to see the fragmented issues drawn together so beautifully.