Die Resokratisierung Platons

This is a critical inquiry into H.-G. Gadamer's controversial interpretation of Plato. The interest of the Gadamerian reading is at least threefold: it forms a key element in the current reception of Platonism and the ongoing debate in philosophy, as well as significant contribution to Platonic scholarship. This work systematically exposes the principal theses of Gadamer's nondualist, dialogical reading (such as those concerning the dramatic form, the 'theory of ideas', the 'unwritten doctrines' and the relationship between Plato and Aristotle), and probes some of the exegetical and theoretical difficulties of such reading. The analysis of Gadamer's Socratic appropriation, in connection with his own theory of interpretation, also raises fundamental questions concerning hermeneutical presuppositions and strategies commonly operative in Plato's studies but insufficiently discussed or defended. Renaud's study deliberately avoids a limitation typical of many publications on the subject - an unduly immanent approach - and situates Gadamer's studies on Plato in the larger context of the German tradition in philosophy and classical philology. This book thus forms a substantial contribution both to Platonic scholarship and to contemporary hermeneutics.