Plato in Germany

This study explores Plato in the work of Kant, Natorp, and Heidegger. The author aims sympathetically to present their important if unfamiliar Plato-interpretations, and to grasp how these are related to their philosophical projects.
He argues that Natorp's interpretation of the Platonic forms as laws and not 'things' grows out of the Marburg School's struggle against psychologism: his reading is thus not simply foisted upon the text, but reveals an important dimension of Plato's thought.
Yet Natorp's insight is blind to the key aspects of form and vision-a flaw that Heidegger and such archaist interpreters as Friedländer and Reinhardt try in turn to remedy. The merit of their contributions to our understanding of Plato only emerges when considered against the neo-Kantian and Husserlian background.

Tracing the continuities and ruptures of these readings, the author demonstrates the significance of Plato's theory of forms in post-Kantian German thought, not merely as an object of interpretation, but also as a model of philosophical understanding.