This book takes as its starting point Plato's incorporation of specific genres of poetry and rhetoric into his dialogues. The author analyzes the intertextuality in Plato's dialogues in the context of both literary and social history, arguing in particular that Plato's "dialogues" with traditional genres are part and parcel of his effort to define "philosophy." Before Plato, "philosophy" denoted "intellectual cultivation" in the broadest sense. When Plato appropriated the term for his own intellectual project, he created a new and specialized discipline. In order to define and legitimize "philosophy," Plato had to match it against genres of discourse that had authority and currency in democratic Athens. By incorporating the text or discourse of another genre into his own dialogues, Plato "defines" his new brand of wisdom in opposition to traditional modes of thinking and speaking> By targeting individual genres of discourse, each of which had a specific audience and performative context, Plato marks the boundaries of "philosophy" as a discursive and as a social practice. Buy Now!
