Mitchell H. Miller, Jr. is an American philosopher. He was, until his retirement in 2013, the Dexter Ferry Professor in Philosophy at

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely fol ...

. The majority of his work concerns the late

dialogue Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophical or didactic device, it is ...

s of

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institutio ...

, but he has also written on

Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...

Parmenides Parmenides of Elea (; grc-gre, Παρμενίδης ὁ Ἐλεάτης; ) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia. Parmenides was born in the Greek colony Greek colonization was an organised Colonies in antiquity ...

, and

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends ...

Career

Mitchell “Mitch” Miller earned his bachelor's degree from Stanford University and his MA and PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He joined Vassar’s Philosophy Department in 1972, rising to the rank of professor in 1984. He served as chair of the department from 1984 to 1987, in 1988, and again from 1994 to 1996. In 2009, he was appointed to the Dexter M. Ferry Jr. Chair. Miller is an exponent of the significance of the so-called " unwritten teachings" of Plato, as Miller holds the controversial idea that Plato taught advanced concepts to his students at the

Academy An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosop ...

beyond those explicitly discussed by

Socrates Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...

and other principal interlocutors in Plato's dialogues. The idea, which is dismissed by many Plato scholars, is based on a brief description of such teachings by

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatet ...

in his ''

Metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

'' and ''

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rel ...

''. The ''

Seventh Letter The ''Seventh Letter of Plato'' is an epistle that tradition has ascribed to Plato. It is by far the longest of the epistles of Plato and gives an autobiographical account of his activities in Sicily as part of the intrigues between Dion and ...

'', which was attributed to Plato in antiquity and is now the subject of debate concerning authenticity among scholars, also includes indications of such teachings. Miller has argued that evidence of these teachings can be found in the dialogues, but only through careful reading of structure and irony within them. Miller's work has focused on several of the late dialogues, notably the ''

'', ''

Statesman A statesman or stateswoman typically is a politician who has had a long and respected political career at the national or international level. Statesman or Statesmen may also refer to: Newspapers United States * ''The Statesman'' (Oregon), a n ...

'', and ''

Philebus The ''Philebus'' (; occasionally given as ''Philebos''; Greek: ) is a Socratic dialogue written in the 4th century BC by Plato. Besides Socrates (the main speaker) the other interlocutors are Philebus and Protarchus. Philebus, who advocates the ...

'', as well as the '' Republic''. In his book on the ''Parmenides'', Miller argues that the eight bewildering and contradictory hypotheses that end the dialogue form an ironic guide that allows the informed reader to interpret the whole, revealing through what Miller has called "psychagogy"—a transformation of the philosophical disciple's soul—the true nature of Plato's conception of the forms. That is, the ultimate purpose of the text is not to teach the reader didactically but to draw them into a different kind of thinking.

Books

*''The Philosopher in Plato's'' Statesman. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980. Reprinted with additional material, Las Vegas: Parmenides, 2004, *''Plato's'' Parmenides: ''The Conversion of the Soul''. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1986. Reprinted University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1991.

References

External links

Mitchell Miller at Vassar College
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Mitchell 21st-century American philosophers Vassar College faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Living people University at Buffalo alumni

Career

Books

See also

References

External links