John Royal is one of the greatest scholars of ancient philosophy, he believes in it, the Western man, to find and recognize, and then recover to their roots of thinking.
He argues that, to free us from every evil that produced the nihilism in the soul of man, it is necessary to return to the wisdom of the ancients.
he recovers, then, great classics such as Socrates, Aristotle, Plotinus and Augustine S, but in particular, his deep love, and a meeting point between the metaphysics of classicism and modernity, can not to be Plato.
In the Platonic dialogue, the Phaedo, where Socrates is forced to drink the hemlock, Plato deals with the soul. Basic
the final in which the Socratic philosopher, having already swallowed the deadly poison, exhorts his disciples to offer a cock to Asclepius in token of thanks for deliverance from life, the soul is immortal here is the meeting point and the continuum between the Greek and modern Western metaphysics, which passes and strengthens from medieval philosophy, scholasticism. Royal
places in Italy, a new study of Plato, while undermining the romantic idea of \u200b\u200bthe philosopher, going back to Schleiermacher, re-evaluating the unwritten doctrines, they are talking about the disciples of Plaotne, certainly from a trusted source such as that of Aristotle.
But Plato is basically stating that his doctrine must be sought elsewhere, but perhaps the most tangible proof yet that these are the writings of the philosopher to "require a further doctrine, esoteric and probably not accessible to everyone: can the body of the Platonic writings do not present a systematic units?
Perhaps, then, rightly, the true should be sought in Plato's "unwritten doctrines" (or perhaps it would be more correct to say that should be found these doctrines in other works by followers of Plato).
Royal stsso, which supports precisely the presence in Plato's philosophy of some "esoteric" does not speak, however, initiation of studies but, the truth and doctrines that were offered only to the disciples' s Academy.
clear and, therefore, that no mention of any "Platonic sect," no "Platonic mystery cults," though it might be interesting and attractive bike.
Cè been, and there will probably be a dispute between supporters of the esoteric and the anti-ersoteristi Plato, an early advocate of the actual doctrines of "secret" and the latter in seeking the philosopher Plato, and only within, of what has survived until today.
but unfounded, if you read the letter VII of the Phaedrus, Plato states that the script can never represent the most serious thing for the philosopher, if it is truly such, will refrain from writing things of real value.
