Download or read book Authority and Authoritative Texts in the Platonist Tradition written by Michael Erler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All disciplines can count on a noble founder, and the representation of this founder as an authority is key in order to construe a discipline's identity. This book sheds light on how Plato and other authorities were represented in one of the most long-lasting traditions of all time. It leads the reader through exegesis and polemics, recovery of the past and construction of a philosophical identity. From Xenocrates to Proclus, from the sceptical shift to the re-establishment of dogmatism, from the Mosaic of the Philosophers to the Neoplatonist Commentaries, the construction of authority emerges as a way of access to the core of the Platonist tradition.