Plato’s Journey through the Conflict: Knowledge, Action and καιρός in the Syracusan Experience

The first aim of the paper is to discuss the relationship between knowing and acting in Plato’s Seventh Letter, showing that we can interpret it in two ways: first, in strictly theoretical terms (i.e. the relationship between knowing and acting in general); and second, from a more biographical and historical point of view (i.e. in connection with the life and action of Plato). Although the two ways are strictly linked, we do not have to think that Plato wanted to export his kallipolis to the Sicilian context. Therefore, it’s not by chance that the Seventh Letter shows the highest concentration of the Kairos lexicon in the whole Corpus Platonicum. The second aim of the paper is to carry out an extensive investigation of pre-Platonic and Platonic use of the word kairos. In the last part of the paper I examine the so-called “philosophical excursus” of the Seventh Letter, showing that it is part of the text in a very strict way.