Parmenides - Protagoras - Platon - Marc Aurel

This book contains a selection of the writings of Salzburg Hellenist Joachim Dalfen since 1971 as well as an extensive unpublished essay contributing to Socratic-Platonic ethical intellectualism. Based on the relationship between the arête, the knowledge of good and doing the right thing, Plato comes to the conception of anamnesis and the theory of ideas which previously received little attention in the research complex. Other topics include over twenty essays on the ontology of Parmenides, the homo-mensura of Protagoras and Plato's confrontation with him, Plato's literary techniques, and the social philosophy and social policy of Marcus Aurelius. The Prometheus myth is interpreted in terms of "Is it worthwhile for people to suffer?" The author also discusses the scientific concept of Greek medicine, the Greeks' present tense thinking of modern science, the roots of the European concept of culture, policy and utopia in a comedy of Aristophanes, the field of religion and prayer of Cleanthes to Zeus, and the fate interpretations of human existence in the early Greek poetry.