Abstract

Plato's Individuals is rich and rewarding. McCabe's reading will compel us to examine anew the presuppositions we bring to the enterprise of understanding Plato. Her devotion to showing that her thesis is found almost everywhere in the corpus is noteworthy. At times she also seems to strain to assimilate modern and Platonic concerns. If one can accept that Plato's tripartite soul goes over into something we might recognize as the problem of personal identity, it can only be because we are writing off his devotion to reincarnation and transmigration. It is, however, McCabe's novel and energetic defense of individuation that deserves closest scrutiny. Here charges of anachronism and projection will be heard.