Plato has been one of the most important philosophers in the West and is now read all over the world. He has undergone a lot of research in academia, but Noburu Notomi suspects that modern readers have missed some essential factors in analyzing Plato’s texts and thoughts. In order to correctly understand his central theory of Ideas and reconsider the potential of Plato’s philosophy in the modern world, Notomi discusses the reactions of four Japanese philosophers of the twentieth century to Plato’s Ideas, showing how a Japanese perspective can shed light on how to read Plato today.

Noburu Notomi is a professor at the graduate school of humanities and sociology at the university of Tokyo. He specializes in western ancient philosophy and in his career he’s been in many different universities including Cambridge, where he completed his PhD in classics. He is the author of many published works in Japanese and in English his most notable work is The Unity of Plato’s Sophist (1999)