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“... philosophy and history. She became fluent in French and Italian, was translating Homer and Plato in her teens, and at 19 was learning German. Her knowledge of geology was said by the president of the Geological Society to be bold and broad. Her Unitarian background cultivated an ethos of good works inspired by a belief in the individual’s moral ...”

“... and electric ray. He extols the prophets and sages ‘who came from Egypt’, among them Jesus, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Empedocles and Alexander the Great. ‘In Egypt many of the sciences were born that made the world civilised and prosperous, such as Greek medicine,’ he writes. He folds the great Greek philosophers into Egypt’s own ...”

“... cloak, walk in the streets right through the middle of town, and publicly interpret Plato, Aristotle, or the works of any other philosopher to those who wanted to listen to her. In addition to her expertise in teaching she rose to the pinnacle of civic virtue. She was both just and chaste and remained always a virgin; however, because she was ...”

“... Size, of course, is not a virtue in itself, and very large states have their own problems. Plato thought the ideal state would have a population of just 5040: ‘numbers enough for war and peace, and for all contracts and dealings’. Aristotle believed large states to be ‘almost incapable of constitutional government’, and that large populations ...”

“... on the nature of pictorial art. The discussion moves rapidly, but clearly and sure-footedly, from Plato to Gombrich, from Kepler to Panofsky, from Pliny to Winckelmann; and a major part of its value is that it carefully traces the ways in which philosophical, psychological, physiological and art historical inquiries into various aspects of these questions ...”

“... is the bulwark of civilisation itself. To the contrary, Rorty said: the great philosophers from Plato through Descartes to Kant are apostles of intellectual intolerance, and the only reason for reading their books is to bore yourself so rigid that you will never be tempted to pick one up again. On the other side he attacked the scientistic triumphalists who ...”

“... for instance, a running motif, is illustrated with examples which extend from Homer, Pindar, Plato and Thucydides to an altar at Olympia to appease a malevolent hero who causes chariots to crash, and a carpet-maker who weaves a boastful piece of self-aggrandisement into the textile itself. The cult of youth is illustrated by both a discussion of old age ...”

“... ancient parentage. Karl Popper points out in The Open Society that it won’t do to pretend that Plato was merely talking about ‘a bold invention’ – to quote Francis Cornford’s formulation – or a ‘necessary myth’, as it is also sometimes translated. The word Plato uses is pseude, ‘lie’, not ...”

“... in my parents. We are surrounded by live & rather pathetic objects.’ And in 1992 (quoting Plato quoting Thales): ‘All things are full of gods.’ If nothing in particular must be adored, everything may be.Such adoration often wore a sensual aspect. Like anything else of importance (goodness, understanding, God), adoration (or love, as we might as ...”

“... and heliocentric models of the planetary system were known to be equivalent from the time of Plato. Thus the technical side of Copernicus’s reform caused no consternation. It was quite another matter, however, if the heliocentric model were taken to reflect the actual structure of the planetary system, as Copernicus believed. To counteract objections ...”

“... moral action, punishment, religion, liberalism, fascism, communism, education, war, sex, Plato, Marx, Freud. Some of these essays are dated, others slight, but there is plenty of interest here for readers other than the dedicated Collingwoodian. I found ‘Economics as a Philosophical Science’ and ‘Punishment and Forgiveness’ especially fresh ...”

“... verbal abuse, Glesca style’ around the dining table, from philosophical disputes (‘This bloke Plato – a right flannel merchant, eh?’), to the hilariously unequal encounter between a bubble-car and a man swathed in mummy bandages, Torrington translates Glasgow into ‘Laughsville’. His language is a constant delight: a stream of doggerel, quips and ...”

“... spit-roast chicken and a salad dressed with ‘oil of the mountain olives worthy of the palate of Plato’, washed down with the local wine ‘out of raised pitchers, and possessing more soul, and penetrating the soul more deeply, than many a poem or sacred book’. (There is no indigestion on this occasion, of course.) This scene with the country wine ...”

“... the treatment is necessarily selective: for example, ten pages on Homer, six on Hesiod, nine on Plato, 12 on Virgil, 20 on Enoch, 17 on St Paul, two and a half on the Gospel of John. Bernstein’s task is easier, and he does understandably better, when his author has a coherent and argued view. But his prose accounts of heroic verse are irredeemably ...”

“... and pursuing aims and goals of our own. The contemplative picture of knowledge that dates back to Plato is an entirely misleading one, for a being without aims whose only life consisted in contemplation would not have a language to enable it to describe the world in the first place. And a creature all of whose beliefs turned out, per impossible, to be ...”