Gregory Vlastos
Greek scholar of ancient philosophy (1907–1991)
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Gregory Vlastos (/ˈvlæstoʊs/; Greek: Γρηγόριος Βλαστός; July 27, 1907 – October 12, 1991) was a preeminent scholar of ancient philosophy, and author of many works on Plato and Socrates. He transformed the analysis of classical philosophy by applying techniques of modern analytic philosophy to restate and evaluate the views of Socrates and Plato.[1]
Gregory Vlastos | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 27, 1907 |
| Died | October 12, 1991 (aged 84) Berkeley, California, U.S. |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | Chicago Theological Seminary Harvard University |
| Alfred North Whitehead | |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| Analytic philosophy | |
Doctoral students | Terence Irwin, Richard Kraut, Alexander Nehamas, Paul Woodruff, Gerasimos Santas |
Main interests | Philosophy of religion |
Notable ideas | Socratic philosophy as distinct from what is commonly known as Platonism |
Biography
Early Life and Education
Vlastos was born in Istanbul, to a Scottish mother and a Greek father, Kimon Vlastos (his parents later moved to Brussels, Belgium).[2] His father was associated with the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Instanbul (then Constantinople) before the revolution.[3] In Istanbul his parents belonged to a small sect of Greek Protestants and he received a Presbyterian Church upbringing. After graduating from Istanbul's American-sponsored school, Robert College, in 1925, he enrolled in the Chicago Theological Seminary, where he earned a Bachelor of Divinity in 1929. He was ordained a minister in the Congregational Church, but he never became a pastor. He attended graduate school in philosophy at Harvard University where he received a PhD in 1931. His dissertation, "God as a Metaphysical Concept," was supervised by Alfred North Whitehead. His teachers included Whitehead and Raphael Demos.[4]
Career
He accepted a position at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada in 1931. While he was at Queen's he wrote two books and edited a third book, all concerning Christianity. In 1938 he had completed a manuscript of 30,000 words on 'Religion and the State in Plato', which he never published.[4] His first articles were for the journal Christendom ("What Is Love?" (1935) and "Jesus's Conflict with the Pharisees" (1937)). He also published "Organic Categories in Whitehead" in the Journal of Philosophy (1937).
His first articles in ancient philosophy were published during these years. They included “The Disorderly Motion in the Timaeus” (1939) in Classical Quarterly and “Slavery in Plato’s Thought,” in the Philosophical Review (1941). He published more articles in ancient philosophy after the war, including “Ethics and Physics in Democritus I” and “Ethics and Physics in Democritus II” in the Philosophical Review (1945 and 1946) and "Equality and Justice in Early Greek Cosmologies" in Classical Philology (1947).
In 1948 he moved to Cornell University. His publications included "The Physical Theory of Anaxagoras" (Philosophical Review (1950)), "Theology and Philosophy in Early Greek Thought" (Philosophical Quarterly (1952). While there he produced his first book-length study of Socrates, which, like his earlier book on Plato, he withheld from publication.[4]
In 1954–1955 he was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. While there he published “The Third Man Argument in the Parmenides” in the Philosophical Review in 1954. According to Alexander Phoebus Dionysiou Mourelatos, the middle and late 1950s saw a revolution in the study of ancient Greek philosophy: “The techniques of rigorous analysis and formal modeling that philosophers had applied ahistorically to the study of philosophical concepts and arguments came to be applied to the analysis of Greek philosophical texts. . . . In North America, the revolution had a single precipitating event and a single instigator: the publication in July 1954 in the Philosophical Review of ‘The Third Man Argument in the Parmenides’ by Gregory Vlastos.”[4]
In 1955 he became the Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, a position which he held until 1976. He was twice chair of the Department of Philosophy and was a member of the "Committee of Three" for tenure and promotion at Princeton.[5] He cofounded the Princeton Program in Classical Philosophy with Whitney J. Oates.[6] He also helped created the National Humanities Center and the Council for Philosophical Studies. He participated in negotiations leading to the creation of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Upon his retirement from Princeton in 1976, he taught as Mills Professor of Philosophy at University of California, Berkeley until 1987. For one year he taught at the University of Cambridge. He received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1990.[1] At the time, he was the oldest person to win a MacArthur award.[7] He was twice awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship,[8] was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and a member of the American Philosophical Society.[9] In 1988 he gave the British Academy's Master-Mind Lecture.[10] His book on Socrates, "Socrates–Ironist and Moral Philosopher" was published in June 1991, months before he passed away. At the time of his death, he was finishing a new compilation of essays on Socratic philosophy, "Socratic Studies," which was published posthumously in 1994, edited by Myles Burnyeat.
Personal Life
He married Vernon Abbott Ladd ('Val' to family and friends) on December 16, 1932. She made her debut in 1927 when she became a member of the Vincent Club and the Junior League. She graduated from Vassar College in 1930 and won a fellowship to study the philosophy of religion at the University of Chicago and Radcliffe College. At their wedding, Vlastos's best man was Morris B. Storer, instructor in philosophy at Dartmouth College. According to the New York Times, for their honeymoon the bridal couple "will tour the mountains by motor and will also attend the conference in philosophy at Bryn Mawr, to which they have been invited."[3]
While in Ontario, Canada, the couple became active in causes on the political left, especially through the movement of Christian Socialism. During World War II Vlastos served in the Canadian Air Force. In 1971 he gave up his Canadian citizenship to become a U.S. citizen in order protest against the Vietnam War.[4] They had two children: Stephen Vlastos and Margaret Vlastos.
He died in 1991, aged 84, from bone cancer.
Philosophical work
Vlastos is credited with bringing about a renaissance of interest in Plato among philosophers throughout the world.[9] Many of Vlastos' students have become important scholars of ancient philosophy, including Terence Irwin, Richard Kraut, Paul Woodruff, and Alexander Nehamas.
Theory of Socratic philosophy
In his work The Philosophy of Socrates: a Collection of Critical Essays (UNDP 1971), Vlastos advanced the idea "that one can identify in certain Platonic dialogues a philosophical method and a collection of philosophical theses which may properly be attributed to Socrates."[11] He suggested a plausible modern analytic framework for Socratic philosophy as a pursuit distinct from Platonic philosophy. The dialogues of Plato’s Socratic period, called "elenctic dialogues" for Socrates’s preferred method of questioning, are Apology, Charmides, Crito, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches, Protagoras and book 1 of the Republic.[12] The idea remains controversial[13][14] and those who agree with his position are referred to as Vlastosians.[11]
Works
- The Religious Way, Woman's Press, 1934.
- Christian Faith and Democracy, Association Press, 1939.
- The Philosophy of Socrates: A Collection of Critical Essays, University of Notre Dame Press, 1971.
- Platonic Studies, Princeton University Press, 1973, ISBN 978-0-691-07162-6 ISBN 0691071624; 1981, 2nd edition, pbk
- Plato's Universe, Claredon Press, 1975.
- Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher, Cornell University Press, 1991, ISBN 978-0-8014-9787-2 ISBN 0801497876[15]
- Socratic Studies, Cambridge University Press, 1994, ISBN 978-0-521-44735-5 ISBN 0521447356; 1995 pbk reprint
- Studies in Greek Philosophy Volume I: the Presocratics, Princeton University Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0-691-03310-5 ISBN 0691033102
- Studies in Greek Philosophy; Volume II: Socrates, Plato, and Their Tradition, Princeton University Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0-691-03311-2 ISBN 0691033110
Edited
- Towards the Christian Revolution - with R.B.Y. Scott, Willett, Clark & Company, 1936.
- Plato, a Collection of Critical Essays: I, Metaphysics and Epistemology; II, Ethics, Politics, and Philosophy of Art and Religion. Anchor Books / Doubleday and Company, 1971
- The Philosophy of Socrates: a Collection of Critical Essays, Anchor, 1971. New ed., (Modern Studies in Philosophy), University of Notre Dame Press, 1980, ISBN 978-0-268-01537-4 ISBN 0268015376
See also
- Harold F. Cherniss, for the Cherniss-Vlastos critique of the Tübingen School