Irina Protopopova | Russian State University for the Humanities (original) (raw)

Papers by Irina Protopopova

Plato’s Parmenides SelectedPlato’s Parmenides / Papers of the Twelfth Symposium Platonicum /Academia Verlag within Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden, Germany 2022., 2022

The paper deals with the typology of eide in Plato considered through the prism of the problems ... more The paper deals with the typology of eide in Plato considered through the prism of the problems posed in the Parmenides. Parmenides asks Socrates how do things participate in eide, as in something divisible or otherwise? Already in the Hippias Major, Plato differentiates between qualitative, or indivisible, eide (beauty, gold, the identical), which can only be divided
into homogeneous parts, and assembling ones, in which the parts are not homogeneous in relation to each other and to the whole (numbers, the pleasure of hearing and seeing). Eide of the second type look divisible, but if we try to divide them, we will completely destroy them as a ‘whole’; they may be called quasi-divisible, and partial participation in them is impossible. In the Protagoras, the question is raised, how do virtues relate to each other, as gold or as parts of the face? The first is impossible because wisdom, courage, etc. are different from each other, and the second too, because the owner of one virtue may not have another, and then the ‘face’ (virtue) would be imperfect, which is unacceptable. In the
Republic, both soul and polis consist of three different principles dissimilar to each other but constituting a ‘whole’ with a new quality; and the perfect soul and polis have all the four main virtues. We see here a certain mixture of quasi-divisible eide (from the point of view of three parts) and ssembling eide defined by the idea of perfection as a virtue. In the Sophist, the interaction of the five summa genera is presented: ‘Movement-Rest-Identical-Other-Being’ interact as inseparable and undivided eide by participating in each other through the Other. I call this pentad an ‘intelligible atom’, in which the activity of nous is demonstrated and
thus the unity of eidos as both divisible and indivisibly perfect is achieved.

Платоновские исследования / Platonic Investigations 17.2 (2022) , 2022

The article continues the topic “Plato and phenomenology”, touched upon by the author in a number... more The article continues the topic “Plato and phenomenology”, touched upon
by the author in a number of previous works, where Plato is considered as the first representative of transcendentalism in European philosophy, that is, a philosopher looking for the intelligible foundations and conditions of thinking and cognition: for him, it is the “Good” (R. 508a–509d) and eide (Prm. 135cd). In this context, the author also refers to Descartes and Husserl, who both, each in his own right, are qualified representatives of the transcendental tradition. In this article the author considers doubt as
such in Plato and Descartes, believing that in the context of transcendentalism, a comparative study of “radical doubt”, phenomenological reduction”, and “transcendental level of mind” in different representatives of the trend is required. The analysis of a number of passages from Plato’s dialogues (primarily, Alcibiades I and Theaetetus),
as well as Descartes’ treatises Rules for the Guidance of the Mind and Reflections on the First Philosophy, leads to the following conclusions. Plato’s Socrates comes to radical doubt fundamentally in dialogue with others; it can be said that for him, the guarantee of truth is discovery of the same unchanging transcendental reality in both the questioner and the responder. Descartes does not conduct a dialogue with others, but
turns exclusively to his own consciousness, thereby questioning the existence of these “others”. Moreover, Plato insists on the need to completely purify the soul from everything empirical and even rational, whereas for Descartes the area of cogitare is very extensive and includes, in addition to reason, desires, imagination, and feelings. Different methods of applying doubt in research lead to different types of reduction and,
accordingly, different ways of understanding transcendence and transcendentalities.

ΣΧΟΛΗ (Schole) ФИЛОСОФСКОЕ АНТИКОВЕДЕНИЕ И КЛАССИЧЕСКАЯ ТРАДИЦИЯ ΣΧΟΛΗ Vol. 17. 1 (2023)), 2023

A BSTRACT . The purpose of this article is to compare the ethics that can be found in Plato’s Soc... more A BSTRACT . The purpose of this article is to compare the ethics that can be found in Plato’s Socrates with the ethics of Aristotle in the context of Plato’s and Aristotle’s understanding of the good. The first part analyzes Aristotle’s understanding of ethics. He proceeds from the fact that there is no good in itself, there are many of them. The highest good, according to Aristotle, is the good of polis; his ethics is determined by politics. The high-
est happiness is to live according to virtue; moral (ethical) virtue (ἀρετὴ ἠθικὴ) can be taught by suggestion and repetition of certain actions; the nature of virtue is connected with the middle, it is necessary to avoid both excess and lack of passions and actions in order to acquire the habit of sticking to the middle. The second part demonstrates the difference between Aristotelian and Platonic concepts of virtue. For Plato, the main thing is the good in itself, which is beyond being (ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας), but at the same time it is
the cause of all things, the cognizable and cognition as such (Rep. 509b6–10). Accordingly, the good of polis for him is by no means the topmost good; in general, polis and politics are only one of the levels of the so-called visible realm of existence, where opinion rules. Since the good itself goes beyond the limits of existence, a person striving for it must go beyond the limits of existence, and his own self: such transcendence is described in the dialogues “Symposium”, “Phaedrus”, “Phaedo”; in the “Symposium”, it is emphasized that only this transcendence allows to give birth to a genuine virtue, and not merely a ghost of it. Thus, virtue according to Plato can in no way be the middle, and it is also impossible to teach it; it is in this sense that the views of Plato’s Socrates may be called anti-ethics (the word “ethics” in Plato does not exist at all).

Общенациональный интерактивный энциклопедический портал "Знания"

ΣΧΟΛΗ. Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition

The main purpose of the paper is to comment on Prm. 158d3-6. Consideration of this passage is pre... more The main purpose of the paper is to comment on Prm. 158d3-6. Consideration of this passage is preceded by a brief overview of various approaches to “Parmenides”. The most important difference in the approaches is determined by the attitude of the researchers to the “subject” of the eight hypotheses. F. Cornford believes that “one” and “is” in Plato’s text are not unambiguous, therefore the “subjects” of hypotheses are different, and, consequently, the conclusions from these hypotheses, although different, are not contradictory. Cornford’s approach is productively developed by K. Sayre and R. Turnbull. The author’s interpretation of the “Parmenides” is based on the same premise of the ambiguity of “one” and “is”. Other researchers (R. Allen, S. Rickless, M. Tabak) disagree with this, insisting that the “subject” in all hypotheses is the same, so the conclusions of different hypotheses are contradictory, and the conclusion from the most extensive, the second hypothesis, is obviously a...

Общенациональный интерактивный энциклопедический портал "Знания"

ΣΧΟΛΗ. Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, 2021

The article considers the correlation between the ‘metaphysical’ and ‘phenomenological’ approache... more The article considers the correlation between the ‘metaphysical’ and ‘phenomenological’ approaches in Plato’s “Phaedo”. Here, the ‘metaphysics’ refers to philosophical judgments that are considered as certain external principles that are not directly related to the philosopher’s ‘work of consciousness’. The ‘phenomenology’, on the other hand, refers to the specific philosophical experience of observing one’s own ways of grasping things in the immediate reality of awareness. At the beginning of the dialogue, in the so-called ‘defense of Socrates’, he first offers several premises that are accepted as axioms by his interlocutors and, secondly, he describes a philosophical purification as the ‘gathering of the soul’, which results in a confusion of ideas about the soul as either separated and existing after death or ‘being collected in itself’ in the process of philosophical, metaphorical ‘dying’. The first and the third arguments for the immortality of the soul can be considered as ‘m...

ΣΧΟΛΗ. Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, 2021

The article deals with a splitting undergone by Plato’s Eros and desire, into opposite, deviant p... more The article deals with a splitting undergone by Plato’s Eros and desire, into opposite, deviant poles represented, respectively, by philosopher and tyrant. The author shows how different types of deviation are formed depending on the understanding of the desire and the good, and the fixation on the ways to achieve them. This is due to identification and deidentification in relation to various images of self, but also with the “transcending”, which in turn is related to two main principles of the existence of things, “in itself” (τὰ αὐτὰ μὲν καθ' αὑτά) and “in relation to the other” (τὰ δὲ πρὸς ἄλλα). Socrates, realizing the “unsubstantiality” of self (οὐδὲν ὤν, Smp. 219a2), liberates himself and helps others to get rid of false ideas about themselves and go out into what is “transcendent”, “in itself”. The tyrant, on the contrary, always identifies with his want and the way to overcome it, and is increasingly immersed in the infinitely “other”, finding himself, as a result, in t...

Philosophy. Journal of Higher School of Economics, 2019

Abstract. The paper aims to examine the semantics of hybris as “inversion” as one of the leitmoti... more Abstract. The paper aims to examine the semantics of hybris as “inversion” as one of the leitmotifs of the Symposium relating to the topic of interacting opposites. This theme unfolds throughout the dialogue at the level of the vocabulary, the characters’ behavior, the philo-sophical content and the structure of the dialogue. The analysis of these levels of the text is implemented by means of the key metaphors of inversion and hybris in the Symposium – androgynes of Aristophanes and silenes from the speech of Alcibiades. The author concludes that the Symposium may be called, overall, a philosophical apology of hybris as inversion of “object” and “method” in the form of a sui generis “satyric drama”. Keywords: Plato, Symposium , hubris, inversion, mystery, androgyne. * Работа выполнена в рамках Федерального государственного задания № 2890 «Когнитивный подход к интерпретации диалогов Платона». В платоновском корпусе слова с корнем ὑβρ- встречаются 75 раз. В подавляю-щем большинстве он...

ΣΧΟΛΗ. Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, 2020

The article provides a commentary on the “Sophist” 255c8–d7, where a question arises, whether it ... more The article provides a commentary on the “Sophist” 255c8–d7, where a question arises, whether it is necessary to introduce the eidos “Other” after the justification of Movement, Rest, Being, and Same as separate genera. In the discussion of the Other, two more eide resurface, τὰ αὐτὰ καθ' αὑτά and τὰ δὲ πρὸς ἄλλα, whose logical necessity in the course of the discussion stays in doubt. The question is raised, why was it necessary to introduce these types of being when discussing the genus of the “Other”? A brief summary of modern approaches to the passage is given; thereupon the ontological meaning of these eide is examined on the example of several Plato’s dialogues (“Phaedo”, “Symposium”, “Republic”, “Philebus”). Consulting the “Timaeus” allows us to show how these eide, in the form of two main genera (“paradigm” and “imprint”), relate to the division of existence into “self” and “reflection” in the “Sophist” (266a8–c4), and the third genus, “chora”, to the “nature of the Other...

ΣΧΟΛΗ. Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, 2019

The article deals with new approaches to the solution of the so-called “Socratic question” associ... more The article deals with new approaches to the solution of the so-called “Socratic question” associated with the search for a “historical” Socrates in different sources. The author outlines the history of the issue starting with Schleiermacher and his distinction between the images of Socrates in Plato and Xenophon. It is shown how, at the beginning of the 20th century, a consensus on the authenticity of Plato’s Socrates was reached (Robin, Taylor, Burnet, Maier), and then a sceptical view on the possibility itself to ever solve the “Socratic question” developed (Gigon). Vlastos’ position, which became influential in the late 20th century, is considered: he believed that Socrates of early Platonic dialogues is “historical”, while Socrates of the middle dialogues is a fiction of Plato’s. The second part of the article provides a brief overview of the six editions devoted to Socrates in 2006–2018, and the conclusion is made that there is an obvious trend towards a return to the sceptica...

RSUH/RGGU Bulletin. Series History. Philology. Cultural Studies. Oriental Studies, 2018

ΣΧΟΛΗ. Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, 2022

The article examines the Platonism of Oscar Wilde, starting from his studies at Trinity College a... more The article examines the Platonism of Oscar Wilde, starting from his studies at Trinity College and Oxford, and how it was related to his aestheticism. Plato was one of the key figures for the so-called Oxford Hellenistic movement (1850–70s of the 19th century). In its context, the “Symposium” was read almost as a manifesto of a new aestheticism, an important part of which was homoeroticism. Wilde believed that Plato should be interpreted as a “critique of Beauty” and compared a philosopher of the Platonic school with a poet. At the same time, considering himself a Platonist, Wilde turned Plato upside down. The metaphor of the “Cave” remained relevant to him as well, and the Cave itself was understood in about the same way, viz. as a vulgar sensual life with its senseless utilitarianism, taking shadows for genuine reality. But while for Plato the exit from the Cave was associated with pure comprehension in the rarefied and, most importantly, extra-figurative space of merging oneself...

ΣΧΟΛΗ (Schole) 15.1, 2021

ΣΧΟΛΗ (Schole) 15.1 (2021): 432–353. The article considers the correlation between the 'metaphysi... more ΣΧΟΛΗ (Schole) 15.1 (2021): 432–353.
The article considers the correlation between the 'metaphysical' and 'phe-nomenological' approaches in Plato's "Phaedo". Here, the 'metaphysics' refers to philosophical judgments that are considered as certain external principles that are not directly related to the philosopher's 'work of consciousness'. The 'phenomenology', on the other hand, refers to the specific philosophical experience of observing one's own ways of grasping things in the immediate reality of awareness. At the beginning of the dialogue , in the so-called 'defense of Socrates', he first offers several premises that are accepted as axioms by his interlocutors and, secondly, he describes a philosophical purification as the 'gathering of the soul', which results in a confusion of ideas about the soul as either separated and existing after death or 'being collected in itself' in the process of philosophical, metaphorical 'dying'. The first and the third arguments for the immortality of the soul can be considered as 'metaphysical', based on analogies, and the second and the fourth, as 'phenomenological', based on the practice of contemplation of 'eide in themselves' by the soul 'in itself'. It is concluded that Plato's eide do not appear due to induction or deduction and are not a doubling of general concepts, as Aristotle believed, but are revealed as a result of some effort to realize one's own awareness of one's own grasping of being. This is what is outlined here as the difference between 'metaphysics' and 'phenomenology'. KEYWORDS: Plato, the "Phaedo", metaphysics, phenomenology, arguments for the immortality of the soul.

ΣΧΟΛΗ (Schole), 2020

ΣΧΟΛΗ 14.2 (2020): 693–701. The article provides a commentary on the “Sophist” 255c8–d7, where a ... more ΣΧΟΛΗ 14.2 (2020): 693–701.
The article provides a commentary on the “Sophist” 255c8–d7, where a question arises, whether it is necessary to introduce the eidos “Other” after
the justification of Movement, Rest, Being, and Same as separate genera. In the discussion of the Other, two more eide resurface, τὰ αὐτὰ καθ' αὑτά
and τὰ δὲ πρὸς ἄλλα, whose logical necessity in the course of the discussion stays in doubt. The question is raised, why was it necessary to introduce
these types of being when discussing the genus of the “Other”? A brief summary of modern approaches to the passage is given; thereupon the ontological meaning
of these eide is examined on the example of several Plato’s dialogues (“Phaedo”, “Symposium”, “Republic”, “Philebus”). Consulting the “Timaeus” allows
us to show how these eide, in the form of two main genera (“paradigm” and “imprint”), relate to the division of existence into “self” and “reflection”
in the “Sophist” (266a8–c4), and the third genus, “chora”, to the “nature of the Other” in the “Sophist”. The closeness of the descriptions of “chora”
in the “Timaeus” with being figuring as Other in the analyzed passage from the “Sophist”, is reinforced by the description of being as Other in the “Parmenides”.
It is concluded that the unexpected inclusion in the discussion of the five great genera of the two main eide of being indicates the ontological status
of the “noetic whole” described through the interaction of the five great genera. In the final part of the paper, it is shown that the World Soul in the “Timaeus”
is a “three-dimensional” cosmological image of the “noetic quintet” of the “Sophist”, which can probably explain the unnecessary, at first glance, inclusion
of two ontological eide, τὰ αὐτὰ καθ' αὑτά and τὰ δὲ πρὸς ἄλλα, in the logical reasoning about the need for a genus of the “Other”.

Platonic Investigations / Платоновские исследования, 2020

Platonic Investigations / Платоновские исследования 12.1 (2020): 110–124. The article carries on ... more Platonic Investigations / Платоновские исследования 12.1 (2020): 110–124.
The article carries on my study of Socrates as ‘essence’ and ‘method’, where Plato’s Socrates is considered not as a character, but as a method by which Plato
indicates the progress of consciousness through the stages described, in particular, in the ‘divided Line’ (R. 509–511). In the first part, it was
shown how elenchos and aporia are realized through the figure of Socrates: thanks to elenchos, the interlocutors, including Socrates himself,
get into an aporia that relates not only to the subject of the question, but also to the questioners themselves. The negativity, which requires further
research, leads to the need to go beyond any images and opinions about both the object and the perceiving agent: this is a transcendence, a transition
to ἐπέκεινα. In this second part of the work, I show that the paradoxical description of the ‘itself’ (Smp. 211–212, Phdr. 247)
is, on the one hand, a kind of analogue of ‘nothing’, and on the other, it is capable of being perceived in a way. I connect this with the two genera,
‘in themselves’ (τὰ αὐτὰ καθ' αὑτά) and ‘to others’ (τὰ πρὸς ἄλλα) (Sph. 255c), and analyze their role in several dialogues
(Phaedo, Phaedrus, Symposium). By referring it to these two genera, I interpret the image of Socrates in these dialogues as either
‘transcendent’, associated with τὰ αὐτὰ καθ' αὑτά, or ‘transcending’, associated with τὰ πρὸς ἄλλα, and demonstrate the philosophical
function of his ‘irony’ and ‘hybris’ (e.g., Socrates as Eros and as ‘nothing’ in the Symposium). In my opinion, Socrates in his conflicting roles
is a figurative realization of a philosophical concept in which ‘itself’ and ‘other’ are justified as a necessary unity of opposites, as different modes
of mind and being.

Plato’s Parmenides SelectedPlato’s Parmenides / Papers of the Twelfth Symposium Platonicum /Academia Verlag within Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden, Germany 2022., 2022

Платоновские исследования / Platonic Investigations 17.2 (2022) , 2022

ΣΧΟΛΗ (Schole) ФИЛОСОФСКОЕ АНТИКОВЕДЕНИЕ И КЛАССИЧЕСКАЯ ТРАДИЦИЯ ΣΧΟΛΗ Vol. 17. 1 (2023)), 2023

Общенациональный интерактивный энциклопедический портал "Знания"

ΣΧΟΛΗ. Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition

Общенациональный интерактивный энциклопедический портал "Знания"

ΣΧΟΛΗ. Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, 2021

Philosophy. Journal of Higher School of Economics, 2019

ΣΧΟΛΗ. Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, 2020

ΣΧΟΛΗ. Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, 2019

RSUH/RGGU Bulletin. Series History. Philology. Cultural Studies. Oriental Studies, 2018

ΣΧΟΛΗ. Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, 2022

ΣΧΟΛΗ (Schole) 15.1, 2021

ΣΧΟΛΗ (Schole), 2020

Platonic Investigations / Платоновские исследования, 2020

ΣΧΟΛΗ, 2017

ΣΧΟΛΗ 1.1 (2015): 683–688. The review deals with a thesis by William John Kennedy devoted to Anti... more ΣΧΟΛΗ 1.1 (2015): 683–688. The review deals with a thesis by William John Kennedy devoted to Antisthenes. The authors of the review are chiefly interested in the first part of the work where Kennedy is attempting to substantiate his controversial view on Antisthenes' philosophical affiliation, asserting that he had nothing to do with the Cynics and in his ethical judgment abided by traditional tenets of Athenian aristocracy. The review is focusing on those hermeneutical devices, including rather biased translations that allow the author to come to a conclusion that breaks so starkly with the standard position in modern Classical studies.

Moscow: RSUH/RGGU / Москва: Издательство РГГУ, 2001

Платоновские исследования / Platonic Investigations 15.2 (2021) , 2021

AbstRact. Alan Kim’s article considers Husserl’s specific phenomenological Platonism, a rather in... more AbstRact. Alan Kim’s article considers Husserl’s specific phenomenological Platonism, a rather innovative area of the comparative history of philosophy, not least due to Husserl’s own criticism of “naive Platonism” that interprets Plato in the spirit of “metaphysical dualism”. Still, Kim with good reason juxtaposes Husserl and Plato, since Husserl’s own reading of Plato is quite different, and he even calls himself a Platonist. He attributes to Plato the ideal of metascience and, considering phenomenology as such, believes that Plato’s theory of forms implements this ideal. Kim shows how Husserl’s phenomenological Platonism manifests itself in the 1907 course of lectures Ding und Raum and in the book Erfahrung und Urteil, published in 1939. An impressive similarity is demonstrated when comparing the phenomenological method with the anamnesis from the Phaedo and the myth of the Сave from the Republic. Both Husserl and Plato enclose the natural attitude in brackets and ascend to the world of eidē as a priori conditions of consciousness. Eidos reveals itself as a model, in relation
to which all its sensual incarnations look defective, i.e. just shadows. In conclusion, Kim identifies Husserl’s key understanding of eidē as rules (Wesensgesetze). More precisely, eidos is the (only) universal rule, F, for creating an indefinite set of specific indivi-dual f ’s, whether empirical or imaginary. Thus, Husserl’s “Platonism” operates with a functional interpretation of eidos, and this is a kind of genetic idealism associated with Lotze and the neo-Kantian Natorp. For all three of them — Lotze, Natorp, and Husserl — Plato was not a Platonist in the usual metaphysical sense, and Husserl has read him as a transcendental phenomenologist.

Philosophy. Journal of the Higher School of Economics / Философия. Журнал Высшей школы экономики, 2019

Philosophy. Journal of the Higher School of Economics / Философия. Журнал Высшей школы экономики ... more Philosophy. Journal of the Higher School of Economics / Философия. Журнал Высшей школы экономики 3.1 (2019): 265–285. The paper reviews the new Russian translation of Plato’s “Symposium” presented along with the original Greek text by Alexander Markov and published by RIPOL Classic (Moscow, 2019). This translation is devoid of any value for scholarship and shockingly demonstrates the translator’s blatant disregard for the basic criteria for a scholarly rendering of an ancient written monument, his ignorance of the (1) textual criticism, (2) languages and idiom, and (3) subject matter of the text he translates. The original Greek text featuring in the parallel column appears to be a mixture of the texts established by J. Burnet (1910) and C.Fr. Hermann (1851), though it is never openly acknowledged and the principles of such a “collation” are in no way explained or substantiated. A closer examination of a number of passages confirms the extreme inadequacy of the translation, not to be accounted for by the alleged originality of the translator’s approach that in a sweeping and vague manner he tries to outline in the Introduction. Rather prominent, even obtrusive, is the translator’s tendency to “enliven” the text of the “Symposium”, bring it closer to the contemporary Russian-speaking audience; he insists on a “carnavalization” of the text, which supposedly was lacking in all previous Russian translations of the dialogue. The inferior quality of the new translation derives primarily from the translator’s strident negligence in rendering the exact meaning of the most common terms and phrases, never mind their intertextual play inside Corpus Platonicum or in the literature of Plato’s time in general.