Graduation Year

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Philosophy

Major Professor

Thomas Slabon, Ph.D.

Co-Major Professor

Michael DeJonge, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Mor Segev, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Joanne Waugh, Ph.D.

Keywords

Alētheia, Echo Principle, Ideal Standard, Justice, Literate, Multi-Form

Abstract

Reading Echoes of Homer in Plato: Assessing the legitimacy of the macro-level thesis that approaching Plato from the poetic tradition starting with Homer generates philosophical insights not available when reading his dialogues as the first installments in the Western tradition of philosophy. It begins by identifying equivocal nuances in the dramatic content of Plato’s dialogues that are left unexplored by the current standard approach that attributes a progressive developmentalist approach to Plato’s authorial intent before suggesting an alternative unitarian approach to Plato as an author who maintains an unchanged point of view throughout his corpus of work. It then identifies the preliterate environment in which Greek authors from Homer through Plato composed their words as being neither completely oral nor fully literate. The literate approach employs book and line numbers to isolate and analyze specific words and ideas apart from their dramatic content whereas an oral multi-form approach harmonizes key thematic ideas in the context of their dramatic content. It then compares some literate “philosophical” interpretations of selected preliterate passages with a multi-form analysis of the “poetic” content of the passages. Exploring the macro-level thesis leads to the micro-level thesis that Plato modifies the archaic and classical poetic ideal standards so that Socrates’ practice of philosophy pursues justice—the classical ideal standard—to realize the archaic ideal standard that pursues immortal glory.

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