Plato's 'Politicus': The relationship between late Platonic ontology and political philosophy

This thesis attempts to explore the relationship between Plato's political thought and his later ontology as it appears in Plato's Politicus . Implicit in this consideration is the assumption that though the Platonic philosophic system is based on the same principles throughout his dialogues, his later thought can be interpreted as an attempt to reformulate and give a more detailed articulation of his earlier works.;The Politicus can be situated between the Republic , traditionally considered one of his middle dialogues, and the Laws, his final work. The drama of dialogue confirms a relationship to the Sophist, where a new ontology emerges that brings Being and Non-Being into a determinate relationship as constitutive elements of the cosmos.;By identifying the relationship between political philosophy and the eidetic ontology as it appears in the early books of the Republic , it becomes possible to discern an important new strain of thought in the Politicus and read it as a reformulation of the Republic's political order. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).