This book examines what we can reliably know about Plato and the historical Socrates. It shows how pervasively the sources of information were biased by Pythagoreanism, Platonism, and Neoplatonism. It gives a source-critical account of how the climate of opinion in fourth-century Athens was captured by the Pythagoreans and how Speusippos's Academy also came to be pythagorized--adding definitional idealism to Pythagorean number idealism, and elevating Plato to a divine level that makes him into a coequal of Pythagoras, thus capturing Plato for Pythagoreanism. By showing how Plato's...

History and Anti-History in Philosophy demonstrates the viability of the idea of the unity of philosophic thinking and the reflective practice of the history of philosophy. It is a concise in-depth history of the deconstructive turn in philosophy, and of the styles of historical and interpretive contextualization afforded by diverse schools of thought. Thematic unity arises from the focus of contributors on the historical dimension of reflection in philosophy.

History of philosophy and intellectual history come together when they are forced to practice foundational analysis,...