Plato and the Invention of Life - by Michael Naas (Paperback)

About the Book

Beginning with a reading of Plato's Statesman, this work interrogates the relationship between life and being in Plato's thought. It argues that in his later dialogues Plato discovers--or invents--a form of true or real life that transcends all merely biological life and everything that is commonly called life.

Book Synopsis

The question of life, Michael Naas argues, though rarely foregrounded by Plato, runs through and structures his thought. By characterizing being in terms of life, Plato in many of his later dialogues, including the Statesman, begins to discover--or, better, to invent--a notion of true or real life that would be opposed to all merely biological or animal life, a form of life that would be more valuable than everything we call life and every life that can actually be lived.

This emphasis on life in the Platonic dialogues illuminates the structural relationship between many of Plato's most time-honored distinctions, such as being and becoming, soul and body. At the same time, it helps to explain the enormous power and authority that Plato's thought has exercised, for good or ill, over our entire philosophical and religious tradition.

Lucid yet sophisticated, Naas's account offers a fundamental rereading of what the concept of life entails, one that inflects a range of contemporary conversations, from biopolitics, to the new materialisms, to the place of the human within the living world.

From the Back Cover

"Michael Naas's remarkable account of Plato traces the contemporary line between bios and zōē, which has been an abiding feature of recent discussions of biopolitics, to reveal the original Platonic invention of the division between 'Life itself' and all other forms of living, including eternal life. Perhaps another way of saying this, according to Naas, is that already in Plato there is Platonism, the opposite of Platonism, and the deconstruction of every future Platonism."--Gregg Lambert, Syracuse University

"This book offers a novel, timely, and provocative reading of the pervasive theme of life in Plato and its significance for the history of Western thought. Naas highlights the dialogue that Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben, and others have carried on with Plato--offering his own supplements and corrections along the way. The result is a compelling and thought-provoking reading of Plato's contribution to what is perhaps the most vital and volatile concept in contemporary theoretical discourse."--Sara Brill, Fairfield University

The question of life, Michael Naas argues, though rarely foregrounded by Plato, runs through and structures his thought. By characterizing being in terms of life, Plato in many of his later dialogues, including the Statesman, begins to discover--or, better, to invent--a notion of true or real life that would be opposed to all merely biological or animal life, a form of life that would be more valuable than everything we call life and every life that can actually be lived.

This emphasis on life in the Platonic dialogues illuminates the structural relationship between many of Plato's most time-honored distinctions, such as being and becoming, soul and body. At the same time, it helps to explain the enormous power and authority that Plato's thought has exercised, for good or ill, over our entire philosophical and religious tradition.

Lucid yet sophisticated, Naas's account offers a fundamental rereading of what the concept of life entails, one that inflects a range of contemporary conversations, from biopolitics, to the new materialisms, to the place of the human within the living world.

Michael Naas is Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University. He is the author most recently of The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments: Jacques Derrida's Final Seminar.

Review Quotes

The significance of the gigantomachia, the battle between Titans and Olympians, for the history of philosophy and contemporary theory is illuminated with exceptional learning and insight in Naas's analysis of Plato's struggle to articulate the relation of the being of the world to the existence of the living.-- "Choice"

This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the Statesman, and it is filled with original insights about its importance in the corpus, its connections to other dialogues, and its centrality to a range of Platonic themes not normally associated with it.-- "Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews"

Michael Naas's remarkable account of Plato traces the contemporary line between bios and zōē, which has been an abiding feature of recent discussions of biopolitics, to reveal the original Platonic invention of the division between 'Life itself' and all other forms of living, including eternal life. Perhaps another way of saying this, according to Naas, is that already in Plato there is Platonism, the opposite of Platonism, and the deconstruction of every future Platonism.---Gregg Lambert, Syracuse University

This book offers a novel, timely, and provocative reading of the pervasive theme of life in Plato and its significance for the history of Western thought. Naas highlights the dialogue that Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben, and others have carried on with Plato--offering his own supplements and corrections along the way. The result is a compelling and thought-provoking reading of Plato's contribution to what is perhaps the most vital and volatile concept in contemporary theoretical discourse.---Sara Brill, Fairfield University

About the Author

Michael Naas is Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago. His books include The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments: Jacques Derrida's Final Seminar and Miracle and Machine: Jacques Derrida and the Two Sources of Religion, Science, and the Media (both Fordham).