John Burnet (philologist)

John Burnet ( December 9, 1863 - May 26, 1928 ) was a Scottish classical philologist . He taught between 1892 and 1926 as a professor of Greek studies at St Andrews University . His philological work and his editions by the Greek philosopher Plato are still significant today .

Life

Burnet was educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, the University of Edinburgh and Balliol College, Oxford, and received his master's degree in 1887. In 1887, Burnet became Lewis Campbell's assistant at the University of St. Andrews. From 1890 to 1915 he was a fellow at Merton College, Oxford; he was professor of Latin in Edinburgh; from 1892 to 1926 he was Professor of Greek at the University of St. Andrews. In 1916 he became a Fellow of the British Academy. In 1909 Burnet was offered the chair of Greek at Harvard University, but he did not accept it.

In 1894 he married Mary Farmer, daughter of John Farmer, who wrote the foreword to a collection of essays and speeches by Burnet, which were not published until after his death.

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Burnet is best known for his work on Plato. His interest in philosophy, and especially in Plato, seems to have begun while he was working as Lewis Campbell's assistant in St. Andrews . Burnet was known to defend novel views of Plato and Socrates, particularly the view that the portrayal of Socrates in all of Plato's dialogues was historically correct and that the philosophical views peculiar to Plato himself were not found until the later dialogues be. He believed that Socrates was closely associated with the early Greek philosophical school we now call the pre-Socratics, and believed that Socrates, in his youth, was a student of Archelaus, who in turn was in the tradition of Anaxagoras .

Burnet's philological work on Plato is still widespread and authoritative for 100 years, including the five-volume critical edition of the Oxford Classical Texts on Plato and the Plato Works and Spuria (1900-1907). His comments on Plato's Euthyphro, the Apology and Crito as well as on the Phaedo are still widespread and respected among scholars. Myles Burnyeat , for example, describes the edition of "Plato: Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, Crito" as "the still unsurpassed edition". SR Slings , editor of the new 2003 edition of the Oxford Classical Texts of Plato's "Politeia", described Burnet as "an excellent editor with a feel for Platonic Greek that will probably never be surpassed".

Individual evidence

1. ↑ [p. 93, SR Slings (1998), "Platonis Opera. Tomus I tetralogias I-II continens", Mnemosyne 51 (1): 93-102.]

Web links

• Literature by and about John Burnet in the catalog of the German National Library