Ascent to the Beautiful

Reviews / Votes

"Altman's latest book is creative and ambitious in his ongoing exploration of the pedagogy of Plato's dialogues. His impressive work is scholarly, detailed, and offers fresh perspectives on how Plato can educate his readers. Altman's alternative reading to the developmentalist approach is indispensable as a part of the emerging conversation on reading the dialogues as a corpus." -- Marina McCoy, Boston College As a true outgrowth of Plato's thought, Altman's book is offered to us as the ideal occasion to undertake an ascent to the beauty of the Platonic corpus, represented here by minor dialogues that connect the risky Protagoras to the beautiful Symposium. With this volume, Altman concludes the set of five books dedicated to Plato's dialogues, although, in a delightful paradox full of teachings, this is just the beginning of a longer way. The reader who starts with Plato will hardly find a better guide than this beginning, which experts will find enlightening as well. -- Alfonso Florez, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana 'The single most important thing a Plato scholar needs is a good sense of humor.' I don't know about you but a book featuring such an opening sentence is a book that I would definitely want for my personal library. The more so since William Altman has produced, in an intellectually provocative and emotionally engaging manner, a fascinating image of Plato the inspiring teacher of the Academy. -- Nikos G. Charalabopoulos, author of the Platonic Drama and its Ancient Reception With Ascent to the Beautiful, Altman adds the final entry to his five-volume series Plato the Teacher, an ambitious re-reading of Plato's work. As the title suggests, Altman interprets Plato-the founder of the Academy-as primarily a teacher, and his written works (the dialogues) as teaching texts. In this series, Altman endeavors to reconstruct the "Eternal Curriculum" of the Academy, a highly sophisticated and intentional educational program he finds in Plato's surviving written work. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review * The appearance of The Ascent to the Beautiful should orient significant scholarly attention to Altman's earlier books and help to uncover their Platonic light. * The Review of Politics *