Plato and Platonism

Written in 1893 by one of the finest prose stylists in the English language, Plato and Platonism traces the roots of Platonic thought through the pre-Socratic philosophers, the Sophists, and Socrates himself. Pater reads Plato not as a system-builder but as a literary and philosophical genius shaped by — and reacting against — the intellectual currents of his age. The lectures range from metaphysics (the doctrines of Motion, Rest, and Number) to aesthetics and politics (Lacedaemon, the Republic), delivered with Pater's characteristic elegance and sensitivity to beauty in thought.