Philosophy in Italy

Abstract

Platonic studies continue to be cultivated, even in Italy, with undiminished fervour. And in Italy, as in England and Germany, interpretation tends to pass from one extreme to the opposite. At one time the chief concern of the exponents of Plato was to reconstruct his ”system“; and since his thought did not easily lend itself to unification, every effort was made to force it within the limits of a preconceived scheme. The present tendency, however, is to start from the opposite standpoint–that there is no philosophy of Plato, only a variable philosophical activity which is, as it were, consumed in each dialogue in turn, to be rekindled inexplicably in the next. Hence the work of interpretation reduces itself to a summary of the contents of various writings, arranged as far as possible in chronological order, and each examined independently as a complete and self-sufficing entity. The systematic interpreters used to make all the dialogues burn with a single flame, for which is now substituted a series ofignes fatuiin which the connection is lost, or only visible at intervals.