Plato's Animals: Gadflies, Horses, Swans, And Other Philosophical Beasts

PL ATO’ S A N I M A L S Studies in Continental Thought John Sallis, editor Consulting Editors Robert Bernasconi William L. McBride Rudolph Bernet J. N. Mohanty John D. Caputo Mary Rawlinson David Carr Tom Rockmore Edward S. Casey Calvin O. Schrag Hubert Dreyfus †Reiner Schürmann Don Ihde Charles E. Scott David Farrell Krell Thomas Sheehan Lenore Langsdorf Robert Sokolowski Alphonso Lingis Bruce W. Wilshire David Wood PLATO'S ANIMALS Gadflies, Horses, Swans, and Other Philosophical Beasts Edited by Jeremy Bell and Michael Naas INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Bloomington and Indianapolis This book is a publication of Indiana University Press Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA iupress.indiana.edu © 2015 by Indiana University Press All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Plato’s animals : gadflies, horses, swans, and other philosophical beasts / Edited by Jeremy Bell and Michael Naas. pages cm. — (Studies in continental thought) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-253-01613-3 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-01617-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-25301620-1 (ebook) 1. Plato. Dialogues. 2. Animals (Philosophy) I. Bell, Jeremy, [date] editor. II. Naas, Michael, editor. B398.A64P53 2015 184—dc23 2014039533 1 2 3 4 5  20 19 18 17 16 15 Contents Editors’ Introduction: Plato’s Menagerie 1 Part I. The Animal of Fable and Myth 1 Making Music with Aesop’s Fables in the Phaedo / Heidi Northwood 2 “Talk to the Animals”: On the Myth of Cronos in the Statesman / David Farrell Krell 13 27 Part II. Socrates as muōps and narkē 3 American Gadfly: Plato and the Problem of Metaphor / Michael Naas 4 Till Human Voices Wake Us and We Drown: The Aporia-fish in the Meno / Thomas Thorp 43 60 Part III. The Socratic Animal as Truth-Teller and Provocateur 5 We the Bird-Catchers: Receiving the Truth in the Phaedo and the Apology / S. Montgomery Ewegen 6 The Dog on the Fly / H. Peter Steeves 79 96 Part IV. The Political Animal 7 Taming Horses and Desires: Plato’s Politics of Care / Jeremy Bell 115 8 Who Let the Dogs Out? Tracking the Philosophical Life among the Wolves and Dogs of the Republic / Christopher P. Long 131 Part V. The (En)gendered Animal 9 T