Platonic Revivalists? The Cases of Simone Weil and Leo Strauss

Plato wrote dramas, not treatises, and he did not limit his works to rationalistic discourse. Many of them articulate a strange and enduring mythology whose ultimate purpose is famously enigmatic. This chapter examines the controversial readings of two twentieth-century thinkers who place these literary elements at the centre of their interpretations. Simone Weil and Leo Strauss are seldom discussed in the same context, but their approaches to Plato bear surprising resemblances. These figures shared a hope that the philosophic life according to Plato might be revived, and both see in the mythical and dialogic aspects of Plato’s works the key to his understanding of philosophy. Paradoxically, however, it is a testament to that understanding that it inspires radically divergent readings, even or precisely when its relationship to Plato’s dramaturgy is appreciated.