Summary
Hans Kramer: Plato's foundation of metaphysics
There is not a single researcher of ancient philosophy or reader of Plato who does not know who Hans Kramer is, who has been working as a professor at the University of Tubingen since 1969. Already his first monumental volume, Arete bei Platon und Aristoteles from 1959, a book of a high degree of maturity, even if it was his debut, immediately and permanently drew the attention of the scientific world to him. Two of the latter's major works, Der Ur-sprung der Geistmetaphvsik (Amsterdam 1964) and Platonismus und hellenistische Philosophie (Berlin-New York 1971), largely confirmed the expectations of experts, and his revision of the section on the Older Academy in Uberweg's History of Philosophy resulted in the most extensive, complete and original monograph yet written on the subject.
Kramer's "Italian Plato" — so we this book was christened by the author and I in our lively correspondence — it offers the reader many surprises, for several reasons. Kramer really did not limit himself to merely presenting the results achieved by the Tiibingen school, but he thought them through from the ground up with regard to the goal that the book should serve, and in doing so he went even further by offering many unpublished things; this refers especially to the philosophical-theoretical elaboration of his studies of Plato's theory of beginnings. What emerged from this is not only the manifesto of the Tiibingen School, which revolves around the already secured achievements, but also opens up a whole series of perspectives that can stimulate many new works.
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