The paper discusses two different approaches of W. Tatarkiewicz to Plato and Platonism. As a former student of the neo-Kantian school in Marburg he shared Paul Natorp’s reading of Plato’s theory of ideas. Tatarkiewicz expressed his agreement with Natorp’s interpretation of the ideas as laws and explanations, in a paper titled A Dispute about Plato (Spór o Platona, 1911). Twenty years later, however, while working on his academic textbook of the history of philosophy, Tatarkiewicz presented Plato’s philosophy in a more balanced manner. In his History of Philosophy two interpretations of the theory of ideas – traditional, Aristotelian and neo-Kantian – were both presented as well-founded. The differences between these two images of Plato in Tatarkiewicz’s works are emphasized. Moreover, some remarks on the reception of the neo-Kantian interpretation of Plato in Poland are presented, as well as the early reaction on the monumental Tatarkiewicz’s History of Philosophy.
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