Upwards and downwards. Hans Jonas and the dual tension of the Platonic system

In this contribution, I do not attempt to enumerate the many possible references to Plato and his works scattered throughout Jonas' writings; rather, I focus on one of his lectures (Major Systems of Philosophy), in which the comparison with Plato does not take the form of a detailed or almost 'manualistic' reconstruction, nor does it claim to provide an account in the manner of a historian of philosophy. Instead, it is characterised by a marked and self-conscious theoretical approach, with the ultimate aim of showing that Plato's philosophical position is oriented towards rejecting the idea of an unbridgeable gap between the intelligible and the sensible world, or the dichotomy within being between subject and object.