Plato and the Moving Image

Series: 

Editors:
Shai Biderman
and
Michael Weinman
This book shows how and why debates in the philosophy of film can be advanced through the study of the role of images in Plato’s dialogues, and, conversely, why Plato studies stands to benefit from a consideration of recent debates in the philosophy of film. Contributions range from a reading of Phaedo as a ghost story to thinking about climate change documentaries through Plato’s account of pleonexia. They suggest how philosophical aesthetics can be reoriented by attending anew to Plato’s deployment of images, particularly images that move. They also show how Plato’s deployment of images is integral to his practice as a literary artist. Contributors are Shai Biderman, David Calhoun, Michael Forest, Jorge Tomas Garcia, Abraham Jacob Greenstine, Paul A. Kottman, Danielle A. Layne, David McNeill, Erik W. Schmidt, Timothy Secret, Adrian Switzer, and Michael Weinman.
Copyright Year:
2019
E-Book (PDF)
Availability:
Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-39829-0
Publication date:
27 May 2019
Hardback
Availability:
Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-39810-8
Publication date:
13 Jun 2019
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Shai Biderman, Ph.D. (2012), Boston University, teaches Philosophy and Film at Tel Aviv University and Beit-Berl College, Israel. He has co-edited The Philosophy of David Lynch (UPK, 2011) and Kafka and the Moving Image (CUP, 2016) and published many articles on philosophy of film.
Michael Weinman, Ph.D. (2005), New School for Social Research, is Professor of Philosophy at Bard College Berlin. He has published three books, most recently The Parthenon and Liberal Education (SUNY Press, 2018), and many articles on Greek philosophy and political philosophy.
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors

Introduction
 Shai Biderman and Michael Weinman

Part 1: From Plato to the Moving Image: Reorienting Film-Philosophy


1 Accounting for Images in the Sophist
 Abraham Jacob Greenstine
2 Pseudos, Kalos and Eikōs Mythos in Plato and Film
 Danielle A. Layne and Erik W. Schmidt
3 Dead Ringers: Plato and Turning the Camera Back
 Timothy Secret
4 The Cinematic Image as Platonic Simulacrum
 Jorge Tomas Garcia
5 The Myth of Er as Rationalizing Recording Device
 Michael Weinman

Part 2: From the Moving Image to Plato: Reorienting Plato Studies


6 Learning to Notice: Light and Shadow, from Chauvet Cave to Plato’s Cave and Beyond
 Paul A. Kottman
7 Phaedo: a Ghost Story
 David McNeill
8 Fascism Re-performed: Benjaminian Mimesis, Platonic Methexis and Bertolucci’s The Conformist
 Adrian Switzer
9 Entranced by the Spectacle of Truth: Wonder and Ascent in Plato and Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups and To the Wonder
 David H. Calhoun
10 Plato, Pleonexia and Environmental Documentaries
 Michael Forest
11 Truth, Reality and Fiction in the Documentary of Errol Morris: Refiguring ‘Platonism’ in Epistemology and Aesthetics
 Shai Biderman

Index
All interested in the philosophy of film, in Plato's dialogues as works of literary art, and most especially those who are in interested in both.
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Publisher:
Brill
Language:
English
Pages:
xii, 264 pp.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004398290