Moments of Plato’s Aporia, a Commentary Open Access

Abstract

Reading Plato’s dialogues, including the Euthyphro, Republic, Ion, Symposium, Timaeus, and Philebus, this work traces and describes the aporetic movements in the Platonic corpus. It argues that, though aporia exists most prominently in the early dialogues, it plays a crucial role in the entire corpus. This crucial role is one of destruction and restoration. By creating perplexity, aporia destroys certainty, and no fixed, rigid account can be built. This perplexity, however, creates wonders and motivates thought, which fuels all accounts. Aporia in Plato’s thought, therefore, is not only the frustrating un- knowing and the unsettling lack of recourse. It is a negative space that keeps everything apart while glueing them together, engaging in a dialectic. Aporia, though not being the dialectic itself, keeps it ever animate and life ever flowing.

Table of Contents

Preface ...............................................................................................................i

Introduction .......................................................................................................1-3

Chapter 1: Aporia in the Euthyphro .......................................................................4-27

Chapter 2: Ποίησις: the Mimetic, Possessed, MAKING...and Love ...........................28-53

Chapter 3: The Spilling Over: a Discourse, a life—an Excess ...................................54-84

Conclusion .........................................................................................................85-86

Bibiography ........................................................................................................87-89

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Philosophy
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Classical Studies Philosophy Literature, Comparative
Keyword	Aporia Khōra Poiesis Plato Creation Mimesis
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Kevin Corrigan, Emory University Jeremy Bell, Emory University
Committee Members	Elena Glazov-Corrigan, Emory University

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