This unique collection of essays focuses on various aspects of Plato's Philosophy of Art, not only in The Republic , but in the Phaedrus, Symposium, Laws and related dialogues. The range of issues addressed includes the contest between philosophy and poetry, the moral status of music, the love of beauty, censorship, motivated emotions.

DORIT BARCHANA-LORAND specializes in the aesthetics and the philosophy of art and aesthetics
MYLES BURNYEAT is an Honorary Fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge and was the fifth Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Cambridge, UK
PIERRE DESTRÉE is Research Associate at the Fonds belge de la Recherche Scientifique and Associate Professor at the University of Louvain, Belgium
G. R. F. ('JOHN') FERRARI is Professor of Classics at the University of California, Berkeley, USA
STEPHEN HALLIWELL is Professor in the School of Classics at St. Andrew's University, UK
JESSICA MOSS is Tutorial Fellow in Ancient Philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford, UK
IRIS MURDOCH was a novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, and Fellow of St. Anne's College, Oxford, UK
ALEXANDER NEHAMAS is the Edmund N. Carpenter II Class of 1943 Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University, USA
C. D. C. REEVE is Delta Kappa Epsilon Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
DAVID SIDER is Professor of Classics at New York University, USA

Preface Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors Abbreviations Editor's Introduction PART I: WHY CENSOR THE ARTISTS? UNDERSTANDING PLATO'S QUARREL From The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists ; I.Murdoch Plato and the Mass Media; A.Nehamas Art and Mimesis in Plato's Republic ; M.F.Burnyeat PART II: ART AND BEAUTY: BEFORE AND BEYOND REPUBLIC X Plato's Early Aesthetics: The Hippias Major ; D.Sider A Divinity Moving You: Inspiration and Knowledge in the Ion ; D.Barchana-Lorand The Philosopher's Antidote; G.R.F.Ferrari Plato on Tragic and Comic Pleasures; P.Destrée Plato on Begetting in Beauty; C.D.C.Reeve Beyond the Mirror of Nature: Plato's Ethics of Visual Form; S.Halliwell Art and Ethical Perspective: Notes on the Kalon in Plato's Laws ; J.Moss Index