Plato as Allegorist and Anti-Allegorist

Clicks: 3
ID: 318154
2026
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Emerging

Ranked #1,415 of 1,518 articles by views in Oxford University Press eBooks

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 1,518 in total.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
Abstract This chapter addresses a problem in the interpretation of Plato’s views on allegory. On the one hand, Plato delivers harsh criticisms of poets that promiscuously use literary representations, including allegorical ones, and is acutely sceptical of the idea that poets have access to the higher order meanings that the allegorically minded members of their audiences were accustomed to finding in their poetry. On the other, Plato makes his own consequential use of highly evocative figurative images—including the so-called Allegory of the Cave in the Republic, among many others—which richly repay the sort of energetic interpretive attention the allegorists were accustomed to applying to poetry, and further these images are linked with some of his most substantive philosophical positions in the dialogues. This chapter argues for a compatibilist view and seeks to resolve at least some of the tension between these two positions.
Reference Key
openalex_W7165544234 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Peter T. Struck
Journal Oxford University Press eBooks
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192894359.013.0001
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192894359.013.0001
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.