Erotic Economics: Metaphysical Foundations in Three Platonic Dialogues

Reading the arguments of the Meno, the Republic, and the Symposium within their mytho-historical context, this thesis proposes that there is an essentially economic dimension to Plato’s moral and political thought. By articulating a fuller and more nuanced account of the role of property in achieving Platonic virtue, conceived of here as a kind of activity that is inherently practical in nature, this thesis suggests alternative resolutions to a number of philosophical problems, including the apparent oppositions between nature and convention, the body and the soul, the individual and the city, and the material and immaterial realms.