Plato (427—347 B.C.East.)

platoPlato is one of the globe's best known and most widely read and studied philosophers. He was the student of Socrates and the instructor of Aristotle, and he wrote in the eye of the 4th century B.C.East. in ancient Greece. Though influenced primarily by Socrates, to the extent that Socrates is ordinarily the main character in many of Plato's writings, he was also influenced by Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Pythagoreans.

There are varying degrees of controversy over which of Plato's works are accurate, and in what society they were written, due to their antiquity and the style of their preservation through fourth dimension. Nonetheless, his earliest works are generally regarded as the nearly reliable of the ancient sources on Socrates, and the character Socrates that nosotros know through these writings is considered to be ane of the greatest of the ancient philosophers.

Plato'south middle to later works, including his most famous work, the Republic, are generally regarded as providing Plato'south own philosophy, where the primary character in outcome speaks for Plato himself. These works alloy ideals, political philosophy, moral psychology, epistemology, and metaphysics into an interconnected and systematic philosophy. It is about of all from Plato that we get the theory of Forms, according to which the world we know through the senses is only an faux of the pure, eternal, and unchanging world of the Forms. Plato'due south works also contain the origins of the familiar complaint that the arts piece of work by inflaming the passions, and are mere illusions. We also are introduced to the ideal of "Platonic beloved:" Plato saw love every bit motivated by a longing for the highest Form of beauty—The Cute Itself, and dearest equally the motivational ability through which the highest of achievements are possible. Because they tended to distract us into accepting less than our highest potentials, nonetheless, Plato mistrusted and mostly brash against physical expressions of love.

Table of Contents

  1. Biography
    1. Nascency
    2. Family
    3. Early Travels and the Founding of the Academy
    4. After Trips to Sicily and Expiry
  2. Influences on Plato
    1. Heraclitus
    2. Parmenides and Zeno
    3. The Pythagoreans
    4. Socrates
  3. Plato'due south Writings
    1. Plato'southward Dialogues and the Historical Socrates
    2. Dating Plato's Dialogues
    3. Transmission of Plato'southward Works
  4. Other Works Attributed to Plato
    1. Spuria
    2. Epigrams
    3. Dubia
  5. The Early Dialogues
    1. Historical Accuracy
    2. Plato'south Characterization of Socrates
    3. Ethical Positions in the Early Dialogues
    4. Psychological Positions in the Early on Dialogues
    5. Religious Positions in the Early on Dialogues
    6. Methodological and Epistemological Positions in the Early on Dialogues
  6. The Middle Dialogues
    1. Differences between the Early on and Heart Dialogues
    2. The Theory of Forms
    3. Immortality and Reincarnation
    4. Moral Psychology
    5. Critique of the Arts
    6. Platonic Love
  7. Late Transitional and Belatedly Dialogues
    1. Philosophical Methodology
    2. Critique of the Earlier Theory of Forms
    3. The Myth of Atlantis
    4. The Creation of the Universe
    5. The Laws
  8. References and Further Reading
    1. Greek Texts
    2. Translations Into English
    3. Plato's Socrates and the Historical Socrates
    4. Socrates and Plato'due south Early Period Dialogues
    5. General Books on Plato

1. Biography

a. Nativity

It is widely accustomed that Plato, the Athenian philosopher, was born in 428-7 B.C.E and died at the historic period of eighty or eighty-one at 348-7 B.C.E. These dates, however, are not entirely certain, for according to Diogenes Laertius (D.L.), following Apollodorus' chronology, Plato was built-in the twelvemonth Pericles died, was 6 years younger than Isocrates, and died at the historic period of lxxx-four (D.L. 3.2-3.iii). If Plato'due south date of death is correct in Apollodorus' version, Plato would have been born in 430 or 431. Diogenes' claim that Plato was built-in the twelvemonth Pericles died would put his nascence in 429. Subsequently (at three.6), Diogenes says that Plato was 20-eight when Socrates was put to death (in 399), which would, once more, put his year of birth at 427. In spite of the confusion, the dates of Plato'south life we gave above, which are based upon Eratosthenes' calculations, accept traditionally been accepted every bit accurate.

b. Family

Little can be known about Plato'southward early life. According to Diogenes, whose testimony is notoriously unreliable, Plato'south parents were Ariston and Perictione (or Potone—see D. L. 3.ane). Both sides of the family claimed to trace their ancestry dorsum to Poseidon (D.L. 3.ane). Diogenes' report that Plato'southward nascence was the effect of Ariston's rape of Perictione (D.L. 3.1) is a good case of the unconfirmed gossip in which Diogenes then often indulges. We can be confident that Plato too had two older brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, and a sister, Potone, by the same parents (run across D.Fifty. 3.iv). (W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 4, 10 n. iv argues plausibly that Glaucon and Adeimantus were Plato's older siblings.) Afterwards Ariston'southward death, Plato's mother married her uncle, Pyrilampes (in Plato's Charmides, we are told that Pyrilampes was Charmides' uncle, and Charmides was Plato's mother's brother), with whom she had another son, Antiphon, Plato's half-brother (see Plato, Parmenides 126a-b).

Plato came from one of the wealthiest and near politically active families in Athens. Their political activities, however, are not seen every bit commendable ones past historians. One of Plato's uncles (Charmides) was a member of the notorious "Thirty Tyrants," who overthrew the Athenian democracy in 404 B.C.Eastward. Charmides' own uncle, Critias, was the leader of the Thirty. Plato's relatives were not exclusively associated with the oligarchic faction in Athens, however. His stepfather Pyrilampes was said to have been a close associate of Pericles, when he was the leader of the autonomous faction.

Plato'southward actual given name was apparently Aristocles, after his grandfather. "Plato" seems to have started as a nickname (for platos, or "broad"), mayhap first given to him by his wrestling teacher for his physique, or for the breadth of his way, or even the breadth of his forehead (all given in D.50. 3.4). Although the name Aristocles was notwithstanding given as Plato's proper name on ane of the two epitaphs on his tomb (meet D.L. 3.43), history knows him equally Plato.

c. Early on Travels and the Founding of the Academy

When Socrates died, Plato left Athens, staying first in Megara, but then going on to several other places, including perhaps Cyrene, Italian republic, Sicily, and even Egypt. Strabo (17.29) claims that he was shown where Plato lived when he visited Heliopolis in Egypt. Plato occasionally mentions Egypt in his works, only not in ways that reveal much of any consequence (see, for examples, Phaedrus 274c-275b; Philebus 19b).

Better evidence may exist found for his visits to Italy and Sicily, especially in the Seventh Letter. According to the account given there, Plato get-go went to Italian republic and Sicily when he was "about forty" (324a). While he stayed in Syracuse, he became the instructor to Dion, brother-in-law of the tyrant Dionysius I. According to doubtful stories from later antiquity, Dionysius became annoyed with Plato at some point during this visit, and arranged to have the philosopher sold into slavery (Diod. 15.seven; Plut. Dion 5; D.L. 3.19-21).

In any upshot, Plato returned to Athens and founded a school, known as the Academy. (This is where we get our word, "bookish." The Academy got its name from its location, a grove of copse sacred to the hero Academus—or Hecademus [see D.50. iii.7]—a mile or so outside the Athenian walls; the site can still be visited in modern Athens, but visitors will find information technology depressingly void of interesting monuments or features.) Except for two more trips to Sicily, the University seems to take been Plato'south domicile base for the remainder of his life.

d. Afterward Trips to Sicily and Death

The commencement of Plato's remaining two Sicilian adventures came after Dionysius I died and his young son, Dionysius II, ascended to the throne. His uncle/blood brother-in-police Dion persuaded the young tyrant to invite Plato to come to help him become a philosopher-ruler of the sort described in the Democracy. Although the philosopher (now in his sixties) was not entirely persuaded of this possibility (Seventh Letter 328b-c), he agreed to get. This trip, like the last one, all the same, did not become well at all. Within months, the younger Dionysius had Dion sent into exile for sedition (Seventh Letter 329c, 3rd Alphabetic character 316c-d), and Plato became effectively under business firm abort as the "personal invitee" of the dictator (Seventh Letter 329c-330b).

Plato eventually managed to proceeds the tyrant's permission to return to Athens (Seventh Letter 338a), and he and Dion were reunited at the Academy (Plut. Dion 17). Dionysius agreed that "afterward the state of war" (7th Alphabetic character 338a; perhaps the Lucanian War in 365 B.C.E.), he would invite Plato and Dion back to Syracuse (Tertiary Letter 316e-317a, Seventh Letter 338a-b). Dion and Plato stayed in Athens for the next four years (c. 365-361 B.C.E.). Dionysius then summoned Plato, just wished for Dion to look a while longer. Dion accustomed the condition and encouraged Plato to get immediately anyhow (Third Alphabetic character 317a-b, Seventh Letter of the alphabet 338b-c), but Plato refused the invitation, much to the consternation of both Syracusans (3rd Alphabetic character 317a, 7th Letter of the alphabet 338c). Inappreciably a year had passed, nonetheless, before Dionysius sent a ship, with i of Plato's Pythagorean friends (Archedemus, an associate of Archytas—run across Seventh Letter 339a-b and side by side section) on board begging Plato to return to Syracuse. Partly because of his friend Dion'due south enthusiasm for the plan, Plato departed one more than time to Syracuse. Again, yet, things in Syracuse were non at all to Plato's liking. Dionysius again effectively imprisoned Plato in Syracuse, and the latter was merely able to escape again with help from his Tarentine friends ( Seventh Letter 350a-b).

Dion subsequently gathered an regular army of mercenaries and invaded his own homeland. But his success was short-lived: he was assassinated and Sicily was reduced to chaos. Plato, perhaps now completely disgusted with politics, returned to his beloved Academy, where he lived out the last thirteen years of his life. Co-ordinate to Diogenes, Plato was buried at the school he founded (D.L. three.41). His grave, nonetheless, has not still been discovered by archeological investigations.

2. Influences on Plato

a. Heraclitus

Aristotle and Diogenes concord that Plato had some early association with either the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus, or with one or more of that philosopher's followers (see Aristotle Metaph. 987a32, D.L. 3.4-3.5). The furnishings of this influence tin perhaps exist seen in the mature Plato'due south conception of the sensible world as ceaselessly irresolute.

b. Parmenides and Zeno

In that location can be no doubt that Plato was also strongly influenced by Parmenides and Zeno (both of Elea), in Plato'due south theory of the Forms, which are plainly intended to satisfy the Parmenidean requirement of metaphysical unity and stability in knowable reality. Parmenides and Zeno too appear as characters in his dialogue, the Parmenides. Diogenes Laertius also notes other important influences:

He mixed together in his works the arguments of Heracleitus, the Pythagoreans, and Socrates. Regarding the sensibles, he borrows from Heraclitus; regarding the intelligibles, from Pythagoras; and regarding politics, from Socrates. (D.50. 3.8)

A piffling later, Diogenes makes a serial of comparisons intended to show how much Plato owed to the comic poet, Epicharmus (3.9-3.17).

c. The Pythagoreans

Diogenes Laertius (3.6) claims that Plato visited several Pythagoreans in Southern Italian republic (1 of whom, Theodorus, is likewise mentioned as a friend to Socrates in Plato's Theaetetus). In the Seventh Letter, nosotros larn that Plato was a friend of Archytas of Tarentum, a well-known Pythagorean statesman and thinker (run across 339d-e), and in the Phaedo, Plato has Echecrates, another Pythagorean, in the grouping around Socrates on his final mean solar day in prison. Plato'due south Pythagorean influences seem particularly evident in his fascination with mathematics, and in some of his political ideals (encounter Plato'southward political philosophy), expressed in diverse ways in several dialogues.

d. Socrates

Yet, information technology is obviously that no influence on Plato was greater than that of Socrates. This is evident not but in many of the doctrines and arguments we find in Plato'southward dialogues, but perhaps virtually evidently in Plato's pick of Socrates equally the main graphic symbol in most of his works. According to the Seventh Letter, Plato counted Socrates "the justest man alive" (324e). According to Diogenes Laertius, the respect was mutual (three.5).

iii. Plato's Writings

a. Plato's Dialogues and the Historical Socrates

Supposedly possessed of outstanding intellectual and creative ability even from his youth, according to Diogenes, Plato began his career as a writer of tragedies, but hearing Socrates talk, he wholly abased that path, and even burned a tragedy he had hoped to enter in a dramatic competition (D.L. 3.five). Whether or non any of these stories is true, there can exist no question of Plato's mastery of dialogue, characterization, and dramatic context. He may, indeed, have written some epigrams; of the surviving epigrams attributed to him in antiquity, some may be genuine.

Plato was not the but writer of dialogues in which Socrates appears as a chief character and speaker. Others, including Alexamenos of Teos (Aristotle Poetics 1447b11; De Poetis fr. three Ross [=Rose2 72]), Aeschines (D.L. 2.60-63, 3.36, Plato Apology 33e), Antisthenes (D.L. 3.35, 6; Plato, Phaedo 59b; Xenophon, Memorabilia 2.4.5, 3.2.17), Aristippus (D.L. 2.65-104, three.36, Plato Phaedo 59c), Eucleides (D.50. ii.106-112), Phaedo (D.L. 2.105; Plato, Phaedo passim), Simon (D.L. 122-124), and particularly Xenophon (come across D.L. ii.48-59, 3.34), were also well-known "Socratics" who composed such works. A contempo study of these, by Charles H. Kahn (1996, i-35), concludes that the very being of the genre—and all of the conflicting images of Socrates we discover given past the various authors—shows that we cannot trust as historically reliable any of the accounts of Socrates given in antiquity, including those given by Plato.

But it is one thing to merits that Plato was not the only i to write Socratic dialogues, and quite another to hold that Plato was just following the rules of some genre of writings in his ain work. Such a claim, at any rate, is hardly established just by the existence of these other writers and their writings. We may still wish to ask whether Plato'due south own use of Socrates as his main character has anything at all to do with the historical Socrates. The question has led to a number of seemingly irresolvable scholarly disputes. At least one of import ancient source, Aristotle, suggests that at least some of the doctrines Plato puts into the oral fissure of the "Socrates" of the "early on" or "Socrates" dialogues are the very ones espoused past the historical Socrates. Because Aristotle has no reason non to be truthful about this issue, many scholars believe that his testimony provides a solid footing for distinguishing the "Socrates" of the "early" dialogues from the character by that name in Plato's supposedly later works, whose views and arguments Aristotle suggests are Plato'due south own.

b. Dating Plato'due south Dialogues

Ane fashion to approach this issue has been to discover some style to arrange the dialogues into at to the lowest degree relative dates. It has frequently been assumed that if nosotros tin plant a relative chronology for when Plato wrote each of the dialogues, we can provide some objective exam for the claim that Plato represented Socrates more accurately in the earlier dialogues, and less accurately in the later dialogues.

In antiquity, the ordering of Plato'south dialogues was given entirely along thematic lines. The best reports of these orderings (see Diogenes Laertius' discussion at three.56-62) included many works whose actuality is at present either disputed or unanimously rejected. The uncontroversial internal and external historical testify for a chronological ordering is relatively slight. Aristotle (Politics two.half dozen.1264b24-27), Diogenes Laertius (iii.37), and Olympiodorus (Prol. 6.24) state that Plato wrote the Laws afterward the Republic. Internal references in the Sophist (217a) and the Statesman (also known as the Politicus; 257a, 258b) show the Statesman to come up later the Sophist. The Timaeus (17b-19b) may refer to Democracy every bit coming before information technology, and more clearly mentions the Critias as following it (27a). Similarly, internal references in the Sophist (216a, 217c) and the Theaetetus (183e) may be thought to show the intended order of three dialogues: Parmenides, Theaetetus, and Sophist. Even so, it does not follow that these dialogues were actually written in that order. At Theaetetus 143c, Plato announces through his characters that he will abandon the somewhat cumbersome dialogue course that is employed in his other writings. Since the form does non appear in a number of other writings, it is reasonable to infer that those in which it does not announced were written after the Theaetetus.

Scholars take sought to augment this fairly scant evidence past employing unlike methods of ordering the remaining dialogues. I such method is that of stylometry, past which various aspects of Plato's diction in each dialogue are measured confronting their uses and frequencies in other dialogues. Originally washed by laborious study by individuals, stylometry can now be done more efficiently with help by computers. Another, even more popular, mode to sort and grouping the dialogues is what is chosen "content analysis," which works by finding and enumerating apparent commonalities or differences in the philosophical style and content of the various dialogues. Neither of these full general approaches has allowable unanimous assent among scholars, and it is unlikely that debates about this topic tin e'er exist put entirely to rest. Nonetheless, almost recent scholarship seems to assume that Plato's dialogues can be sorted into unlike groups, and information technology is not unusual for books and manufactures on the philosophy of Socrates to land that past "Socrates" they mean to refer to the graphic symbol in Plato'southward "early on" or Socratic dialogues, as if this Socrates was as close to the historical Socrates as nosotros are probable to become. (We have more to say on this bailiwick in the adjacent section.) Perhaps the most thorough examination of this sort tin be found in Gregory Vlastos's, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cambridge and Cornell, 1991, chapters 2-iv), where ten pregnant differences between the "Socrates" of Plato's "early" dialogues and the character by that name in the afterward dialogues are noted. Our own view of the probable dates and groups of dialogues, which to some extent combine the results of stylometry and content analysis, is equally follows (all lists but the last in alphabetical order):

Early on
(All after the decease of Socrates, but before Plato's first trip to Sicily in 387 B.C.E.):

Amends, Charmides, Crito, Euthydemus, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Hippias Major, Hippias Modest, Ion, Laches, Lysis, Protagoras, Republic Bk. I.

Early-Transitional
(Either at the end of the early group or at the beginning of the middle group, c. 387-380 B.C.E.):

Cratylus, Menexenus, Meno

Centre
(c. 380-360 B.C.E.)

Phaedo, Commonwealth Bks. 2-X, Symposium

Late-Transitional
(Either at the cease of the middle grouping, or the beginning of the late group, c. 360-355 B.C.E.)

Parmenides, Theaetetus, Phaedrus

Tardily
(c. 355-347 B.C.E.; possibly in chronological order)

Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, Timaeus, Critias, Laws

c. Transmission of Plato's Works

Except for the Timaeus, all of Plato's works were lost to the Western world until medieval times, preserved only by Moslem scholars in the Middle East. In 1578 Henri Estienne (whose Latinized name was Stephanus) published an edition of the dialogues in which each folio of the text is separated into 5 sections (labeled a, b, c, d, and e). The standard style of citation for Platonic texts includes the name of the text, followed past Stephanus page and section numbers (east.yard. Democracy 511d). Scholars sometimes also add numbers afterward the Stephanus section letters, which refer to line numbers inside the Stephanus sections in the standard Greek edition of the dialogues, the Oxford Classical texts.

4. Other Works Attributed to Plato

a. Spuria

Several other works, including thirteen letters and eighteen epigrams, accept been attributed to Plato. These other works are mostly called the spuria and the dubia. The spuria were collected among the works of Plato but suspected equally frauds even in antiquity. The dubia are those presumed authentic in later artifact, but which have more recently been doubted.

Ten of the spuria are mentioned by Diogenes Laertius at 3.62. Five of these are no longer extant: the Midon or Horse-breeder, Phaeacians, Chelidon, Seventh Day, and Epimenides. 5 others practice be: the Halcyon, Axiochus, Demodocus, Eryxias, and Sisyphus. To the ten Diogenes Laertius lists, nosotros may uncontroversially add On Justice, On Virtue, and the Definitions, which was included in the medieval manuscripts of Plato'due south work, but not mentioned in artifact.

Works whose actuality was too doubted in artifact include the Second Alcibiades (or Alcibiades Ii), Epinomis, Hipparchus, and Rival Lovers (besides known as either Rivals or Lovers), and these are sometimes defended as authentic today. If any are of these are authentic, the Epinomis would be in the late group, and the others would become with the early or early transitional groups.

b. Epigrams

Seventeen or eighteen epigrams (poems advisable to funerary monuments or other dedications) are also attributed to Plato past various aboriginal authors. Nearly of these are almost certainly non by Plato, but some few may exist authentic. Of the ones that could be accurate (Cooper 1997, 1742 names 1, 2, 7, and especially three equally possibly authentic), 1 (1) is a beloved verse form dedicated to a pupil of astronomy, possibly at the Academy, some other (2) appears to be a funerary inscription for that aforementioned student, another (3) is a funerary inscription for Plato's Syracusan friend, Dion (in which the author confesses that Dion "maddened my heart with erôs"), and the last (vii) is a love poem to a young adult female or girl. None appear to provide anything of groovy philosophical involvement.

c. Dubia

The dubia present special risks to scholars: On the one manus, any decision not to include them among the authentic dialogues creates the risk of losing valuable evidence for Plato'due south (or perhaps Socrates') philosophy; on the other paw, any decision to include them creates the take chances of obfuscating the right view of Plato's (or Socrates') philosophy, by including non-Platonic (or non-Socratic) elements within that philosophy. The dubia include the Outset Alcibiades (or Alcibiades I), Minos, and Theages, all of which, if authentic, would probably get with the early on or early on transitional groups, the Cleitophon, which might exist early, early transitional, or middle, and the letters, of which the Seventh seems the best candidate for authenticity. Some scholars have also suggested the possibility that the Third may likewise be genuine. If any are authentic, the letters would announced to be works of the late flow, with the possible exception of the Thirteenth Letter of the alphabet, which could be from the middle catamenia.

About all of the dialogues now accepted equally genuine have been challenged as inauthentic past some scholar or some other. In the 19th Century in item, scholars often considered arguments for and against the authenticity of dialogues whose authenticity is now merely rarely doubted. Of those we listed as authentic, above (in the early on group), simply the Hippias Major continues occasionally to exist listed as inauthentic. The strongest evidence confronting the authenticity of the Hippias Major is the fact that it is never mentioned in any of the ancient sources. However, relative to how much was actually written in antiquity, and so little at present remains that our lack of ancient references to this dialogue does not seem to be an acceptable reason to doubt its authenticity. In style and content, it seems to most contemporary scholars to fit well with the other Platonic dialogues.

five. The Early Dialogues

a. Historical Accurateness

Although no one thinks that Plato simply recorded the actual words or speeches of Socrates verbatim, the argument has been made that there is naught in the speeches Socrates makes in the Amends that he could have not uttered at the historical trial. At any rate, it is fairly mutual for scholars to care for Plato's Apology as the most reliable of the aboriginal sources on the historical Socrates. The other early on dialogues are certainly Plato's own creations. But as we have said, almost scholars treat these as representing more or less accurately the philosophy and behavior of the historical Socrates—even if they practice non provide literal historical records of actual Socratic conversations. Some of the early dialogues include anachronisms that prove their historical inaccuracy.

It is possible, of class, that the dialogues are all wholly Plato's inventions and have nothing at all to do with the historical Socrates. Contemporary scholars generally endorse one of the post-obit four views about the dialogues and their representation of Socrates:

  1. The Unitarian View:
    This view, more than popular early on in the 20th Century than it is now, holds that there is but a single philosophy to exist plant in all of Plato'due south works (of any period, if such periods can even be identified reliably). At that place is no reason, according to the Unitarian scholar, always to talk about "Socratic philosophy" (at least from anything to be found in Plato—everything in Plato's dialogues is Ideal philosophy, according to the Unitarian). One recent version of this view has been argued by Charles H. Kahn (1996). Nigh later on, but still aboriginal, interpretations of Plato were substantially Unitarian in their approach. Aristotle, however, was a notable exception.
  2. The Literary Atomist View:
    We phone call this approach the "literary atomist view," because those who propose this view treat each dialogue as a complete literary whole, whose proper interpretation must be accomplished without reference to any of Plato's other works. Those who endorse this view pass up completely whatever relevance or validity of sorting or grouping the dialogues into groups, on the ground that any such sorting is of no value to the proper interpretation of any given dialogue. In this view, likewise, at that place is no reason to make any distinction between "Socratic philosophy" and "Platonic philosophy." Co-ordinate to the literary atomist, all philosophy to exist establish in the works of Plato should be attributed but to Plato.
  3. The Developmentalist View:
    According to this view, the nigh widely held of all of the interpretative approaches, the differences betwixt the early and later dialogues represent developments in Plato'due south own philosophical and literary career. These may or may not be related to his attempting in any of the dialogues to preserve the memory of the historical Socrates (meet approach 4); such differences may simply represent changes in Plato'south own philosophical views. Developmentalists may by and large identify the earlier positions or works equally "Socratic" and the later on ones "Ideal," but may be agnostic about the relationship of the "Socratic" views and works to the actual historical Socrates.
  4. The Historicist View:
    Perhaps the almost mutual of the Developmentalist positions is the view that the "evolution" noticeable betwixt the early and later dialogues may be attributed to Plato's attempt, in the early dialogues, to correspond the historical Socrates more or less accurately. Afterwards on, yet (perhaps considering of the development of the genre of "Socratic writings," within which other authors were making no attempt at historical fidelity), Plato began more than freely to put his own views into the oral cavity of the character, "Socrates," in his works. Plato's own pupil, Aristotle, seems to have understood the dialogues in this way.

At present, some scholars who are skeptical about the entire program of dating the dialogues into chronological groups, and who are thus strictly speaking not historicists (see, for instance, Cooper 1997, xii-xvii) nonetheless accept the view that the "early" works are "Socratic" in tone and content. With few exceptions, however, scholars agreed that if we are unable to distinguish any grouping of dialogues as early on or "Socratic," or even if we can distinguish a separate set of "Socratic" works but cannot identify a coherent philosophy within those works, it makes petty sense to talk about "the philosophy of historical Socrates" at all. There is just likewise little (and too petty that is at all interesting) to be found that could reliably be attributed to Socrates from whatever other ancient authors. Any serious philosophical interest in Socrates, then, must be pursued through written report of Plato's early or "Socratic" dialogues.

b. Plato's Characterization of Socrates

In the dialogues mostly accepted every bit early on (or "Socratic"), the main character is ever Socrates. Socrates is represented as extremely agile in question-and-respond, which has come up to be known equally "the Socratic method of educational activity," or "the elenchus" (or elenchos, from the Greek term for refutation), with Socrates almost e'er playing the role equally questioner, for he claimed to take no wisdom of his own to share with others. Plato's Socrates, in this menstruation, was adept at reducing fifty-fifty the well-nigh difficult and recalcitrant interlocutors to confusion and cocky-contradiction. In the Apology, Socrates explains that the embarrassment he has thus caused to so many of his contemporaries is the upshot of a Delphic oracle given to Socrates' friend Chaerephon (Apology 21a-23b), co-ordinate to which no one was wiser than Socrates. As a issue of his endeavour to discern the truthful meaning of this oracle, Socrates gained a divinely ordained mission in Athens to expose the false conceit of wisdom. The embarrassment his "investigations" have caused to so many of his contemporaries—which Socrates claims was the root cause of his existence brought upward on charges (Apology 23c-24b)—is thus no i's error but his "victims," for having chosen to live "the unexamined life" (run across 38a).

The mode that Plato'south represents Socrates going about his "mission" in Athens provides a plausible explanation both of why the Athenians would have brought him to trial and bedevilled him in the troubled years after the terminate of the Peloponnesian State of war, and too of why Socrates was non actually guilty of the charges he faced. Fifty-fifty more importantly, nonetheless, Plato's early dialogues provide intriguing arguments and refutations of proposed philosophical positions that interest and claiming philosophical readers. Platonic dialogues proceed to exist included among the required readings in introductory and avant-garde philosophy classes, not just for their set accessibility, but also because they heighten many of the most basic problems of philosophy. Unlike nearly other philosophical works, moreover, Plato frames the discussions he represents in dramatic settings that brand the content of these discussions peculiarly compelling. And then, for example, in the Crito, we find Socrates discussing the citizen'south duty to obey the laws of the state equally he awaits his own legally mandated execution in jail, condemned past what he and Crito both agree was a terribly wrong verdict, the effect of the virtually egregious misapplication of the very laws they are discussing. The dramatic features of Plato's works have earned attention even from literary scholars relatively uninterested in philosophy as such. Whatever their value for specifically historical research, therefore, Plato's dialogues will go along to be read and debated by students and scholars, and the Socrates nosotros notice in the early or "Socratic" dialogues volition continue to exist counted amongst the greatest Western philosophers.

c. Ethical Positions in the Early on Dialogues

The philosophical positions near scholars concord can be found directly endorsed or at least suggested in the early or "Socratic" dialogues include the following moral or ethical views:

  • A rejection of retaliation, or the return of harm for harm or evil for evil (Crito 48b-c, 49c-d; Republic I.335a-e);
  • The claim that doing injustice harms one's soul, the thing that is most precious to one, and, hence, that it is improve to suffer injustice than to do it (Crito 47d-48a; Gorgias 478c-eastward, 511c-512b; Commonwealth I.353d-354a);
  • Some form of what is called "eudaimonism," that is, that goodness is to be understood in terms of conduciveness to human happiness, well-beingness, or flourishing, which may also exist understood equally "living well," or "doing well" (Crito 48b; Euthydemus 278e, 282a; Republic I. 354a);
  • The view that only virtue is good simply by itself; annihilation else that is good is proficient only insofar equally it serves or is used for or past virtue (Apology 30b; Euthydemus 281d-e);
  • The view that there is some kind of unity amid the virtues: In some sense, all of the virtues are the same (Protagoras 329b-333b, 361a-b);
  • The view that the citizen who has agreed to alive in a country must always obey the laws of that country, or else persuade the land to change its laws, or leave the state (Crito 51b-c, 52a-d).

d. Psychological Positions in the Early Dialogues

Socrates also appears to argue for, or straight makes a number of related psychological views:

  • All wrongdoing is done in ignorance, for everyone desires only what is adept (Protagoras 352a-c; Gorgias 468b; Meno 77e-78b);
  • In some sense, everyone actually believes certain moral principles, even though some may think they do not have such behavior, and may disavow them in statement (Gorgias 472b, 475e-476a).

e. Religious Positions in the Early on Dialogues

In these dialogues, we also detect Socrates represented equally belongings certain religious beliefs, such as:

  • The gods are completely wise and skillful (Apology 28a; Euthyphro 6a, 15a; Meno 99b-100b);
  • Ever since his babyhood (come across Apology 31d) Socrates has experienced a sure "divine something" (Amends 31c-d; 40a; Euthyphro 3b; see also Phaedrus 242b), which consists in a "vocalisation" (Amends 31d; encounter also Phaedrus 242c), or "sign" (Apology 40c, 41d; Euthydemus 272e; see also Republic Vi.496c; Phaedrus 242b) that opposes him when he is about to do something wrong (Amends 40a, 40c);
  • Various forms of divination can allow human beings to come to recognize the volition of the gods (Amends 21a-23b, 33c);
  • Poets and rhapsodes are able to write and exercise the wonderful things they write and do, non from knowledge or expertise, just from some kind of divine inspiration. The same canbe said of diviners and seers, although they do seem to have some kind of expertise—perhaps only some technique by which to put them in a land of advisable receptivity to the divine (Apology 22b-c; Laches 198e-199a; Ion 533d-536a, 538d-e; Meno 99c);
  • No 1 actually knows what happens after decease, but it is reasonable to think that decease is not an evil; there may be an afterlife, in which the souls of the proficient are rewarded, and the souls of the wicked are punished (Amends 40c-41c; Crito 54b-c; Gorgias 523a-527a).

f. Methodological and Epistemological Positions in the Early Dialogues

In addition, Plato's Socrates in the early dialogues may plausibly be regarded as having certain methodological or epistemological convictions, including:

  • Definitional knowledge of upstanding terms is at to the lowest degree a necessary status of reliable judging of specific instances of the values they name (Euthyphro 4e-5d, 6e; Laches 189e-190b; Lysis 223b; Greater Hippias 304d-e; Meno 71a-b, 100b; Commonwealth I.354b-c);
  • A mere listing of examples of some upstanding value—even if all are authentic cases of that value—would never provide an adequate analysis of what the value is, nor would it provide an adequate definition of the value term that refers to the value. Proper definitions must state what is common to all examples of the value (Euthyphro 6d-e; Meno 72c-d);
  • Those with expert knowledge or wisdom on a given subject exercise non err in their judgments on that subject (Euthyphro 4e-5a; Euthydemus 279d-280b), go about their business in their area of expertise in a rational and regular mode (Gorgias 503e-504b), and can teach and explain their subject field (Gorgias 465a, 500e-501b, 514a-b; Laches 185b, 185e, 1889e-190b); Protagoras 319b-c).

6. The Middle Dialogues

a. Differences betwixt the Early and Middle Dialogues

Scholarly attempts to provide relative chronological orderings of the early on transitional and centre dialogues are problematical because all hold that the main dialogue of the eye menstruum, the Republic, has several features that make dating it precisely especially difficult. As nosotros have already said, many scholars count the first volume of the Democracy as among the early on group of dialogues. But those who read the entire Republic volition also encounter that the first book also provides a natural and effective introduction to the remaining books of the work. A contempo study by Debra Nails ("The Dramatic Date of Plato's Republic," The Classical Journal 93.4, 1998, 383-396) notes several anachronisms that suggest that the process of writing (and maybe re-editing) the work may accept continued over a very long flow. If this central work of the menstruation is hard to place into a specific context, there tin be no bully assurance in positioning any other works relative to this one.

Nonetheless, it does non take especially careful study of the transitional and middle period dialogues to observe clear differences in mode and philosophical content from the early on dialogues. The nearly obvious change is the mode in which Plato seems to narrate Socrates: In the early dialogues, nosotros detect Socrates simply asking questions, exposing his interlocutors' confusions, all the while professing his own inability to shed any positive low-cal on the subject, whereas in the center menstruum dialogues, Socrates of a sudden emerges equally a kind of positive expert, willing to affirm and defend his own theories almost many important subjects. In the early on dialogues, moreover, Socrates discusses mainly ethical subjects with his interlocutors—with some related religious, methodological, and epistemological views scattered inside the primarily ethical discussions. In the center flow, Plato's Socrates' interests aggrandize outward into nearly every area of inquiry known to humankind. The philosophical positions Socrates advances in these dialogues are vastly more systematical, including broad theoretical inquiries into the connections between linguistic communication and reality (in the Cratylus), knowledge and caption (in the Phaedo and Commonwealth, Books Five-Vii). Different the Socrates of the early period, who was the "wisest of men" only because he recognized the full extent of his own ignorance, the Socrates of the middle period acknowledges the possibility of infallible human knowledge (especially in the famous similes of low-cal, the simile of the lord's day and good and the simile of the divided line in Volume VI and the parable of the cave in Book VII of the Republic), and this becomes possible in virtue of a special sort of cerebral contact with the Forms or Ideas (eidê ), which exist in a supra-sensible realm available merely to thought. This theory of Forms, introduced and explained in diverse contexts in each of the center menses dialogues, is perhaps the single best-known and virtually definitive attribute of what has come to be known as Platonism.

b. The Theory of Forms

In many of his dialogues, Plato mentions supra-sensible entities he calls "Forms" (or "Ideas"). And then, for example, in the Phaedo, nosotros are told that item sensible equal things—for case, equal sticks or stones (run into Phaedo 74a-75d)—are equal considering of their "participation" or "sharing" in the grapheme of the Form of Equality, which is admittedly, changelessly, perfectly, and essentially equal. Plato sometimes characterizes this participation in the Form every bit a kind of imaging, or approximation of the Form. The same may be said of the many things that are greater or smaller and the Forms of Great and Small (Phaedo 75c-d), or the many tall things and the Form of Tall (Phaedo 100e), or the many beautiful things and the Form of Beauty (Phaedo 75c-d, Symposium 211e, Republic Five.476c). When Plato writes about instances of Forms "approximating" Forms, it is easy to infer that, for Plato, Forms are exemplars. If so, Plato believes that The Class of Dazzler is perfect dazzler, the Form of Justice is perfect justice, and so forth. Conceiving of Forms in this manner was important to Plato considering it enabled the philosopher who grasps the entities to be best able to judge to what extent sensible instances of the Forms are good examples of the Forms they approximate.

Scholars disagree about the telescopic of what is oftentimes called "the theory of Forms," and question whether Plato began property that there are only Forms for a pocket-sized range of properties, such as tallness, equality, justice, beauty, and so on, and so widened the telescopic to include Forms corresponding to every term that can exist applied to a multiplicity of instances. In the Republic, he writes as if there may exist a great multiplicity of Forms—for example, in Volume X of that work, we find him writing most the Course of Bed (come across Republic X.596b). He may accept come up to believe that for any set of things that shares some belongings, there is a Form that gives unity to the gear up of things (and univocity to the term by which we refer to members of that set of things). Noesis involves the recognition of the Forms (Commonwealth V.475e-480a), and any reliable awarding of this knowledge will involve the power to compare the particular sensible instantiations of a property to the Form.

c. Immortality and Reincarnation

In the early transitional dialogue, the Meno, Plato has Socrates introduce the Orphic and Pythagorean idea that souls are immortal and existed before our births. All knowledge, he explains, is actually recollected from this prior existence. In perhaps the most famous passage in this dialogue, Socrates elicits recollection nearly geometry from one of Meno'southward slaves (Meno 81a-86b). Socrates' apparent interest in, and adequately sophisticated knowledge of, mathematics appears wholly new in this dialogue. It is an interest, however, that shows upward obviously in the middle period dialogues, peculiarly in the middle books of the Democracy.

Several arguments for the immortality of the soul, and the idea that souls are reincarnated into different life forms, are also featured in Plato's Phaedo (which also includes the famous scene in which Socrates drinks the hemlock and utters his final words). Stylometry has tended to count the Phaedo among the early dialogues, whereas analysis of philosophical content has tended to identify information technology at the beginning of the middle catamenia. Similar accounts of the transmigration of souls may be found, with somewhat different details, in Book X of the Republic and in the Phaedrus, likewise as in several dialogues of the late flow, including the Timaeus and the Laws. No traces of the doctrine of recollection, or the theory of reincarnation or transmigration of souls, are to exist constitute in the dialogues nosotros listed above as those of the early period.

d. Moral Psychology

The moral psychology of the heart period dialogues also seems to be quite dissimilar from what we observe in the early on menses. In the early dialogues, Plato'southward Socrates is an intellectualist—that is, he claims that people always act in the mode they believe is best for them (at the time of activity, at whatever rate). Hence, all wrongdoing reflects some cognitive error. But in the middle menstruation, Plato conceives of the soul every bit having (at to the lowest degree) 3 parts:

  1. a rational part (the part that loves truth, which should rule over the other parts of the soul through the use of reason),
  2. a spirited part (which loves honor and victory), and
  3. an appetitive office (which desires food, drinkable, and sex),

and justice will be that condition of the soul in which each of these 3 parts "does its own work," and does not interfere in the workings of the other parts (come across esp. Republic 4.435b-445b). It seems clear from the fashion Plato describes what tin can become wrong in a soul, however, that in this new picture show of moral psychology, the appetitive role of the soul can simply overrule reason's judgments. 1 may endure, in this account of psychology, from what is chosen akrasia or "moral weakness"—in which one finds oneself doing something that 1 actually believes is not the correct affair to practise (see peculiarly Republic IV.439e-440b). In the early on menses, Socrates denied that akrasia was possible: I might alter ane's mind at the last minute about what one ought to do—and could perhaps modify one'southward listen again later to regret doing what one has done—but one could never do what one actually believed was wrong, at the fourth dimension of acting.

east. Critique of the Arts

The Commonwealth also introduces Plato's notorious critique of the visual and imitative arts. In the early menses works, Socrates contends that the poets lack wisdom, but he besides grants that they "say many fine things." In the Democracy, on the contrary, information technology seems that there is petty that is fine in verse or whatever of the other fine arts. Most of poetry and the other fine arts are to be censored out of existence in the "noble land" (kallipolis) Plato sketches in the Republic, as only imitating appearances (rather than realities), and as arousing excessive and unnatural emotions and appetites (run into esp. Republic X.595b-608b).

f. Ideal Love

In the Symposium, which is normally dated at the beginning of the middle period, and in the Phaedrus, which is dated at the stop of the centre flow or later on yet, Plato introduces his theory of erôs (usually translated as "love"). Several passages and images from these dialogues continued to prove up in Western culture—for instance, the epitome of two lovers as beingness each other's "other half," which Plato assigns to Aristophanes in the Symposium. Also in that dialogue, nosotros are told of the "ladder of love," by which the lover can ascend to direct cognitive contact with (unremarkably compared to a kind of vision of) Beauty Itself. In the Phaedrus, love is revealed to be the bully "divine madness" through which the wings of the lover'due south soul may sprout, allowing the lover to take flying to all of the highest aspirations and achievements possible for humankind. In both of these dialogues, Plato clearly regards actual physical or sexual contact between lovers as degraded and wasteful forms of erotic expression. Because the true goal of erôs is real beauty and real beauty is the Course of Beauty, what Plato calls Beauty Itself, erôs finds its fulfillment only in Platonic philosophy. Unless information technology channels its ability of honey into "higher pursuits," which culminate in the cognition of the Form of Beauty, erôs is doomed to frustration. For this reason, Plato thinks that nigh people sadly squander the real power of dear by limiting themselves to the mere pleasures of physical beauty.

7. Late Transitional and Belatedly Dialogues

a. Philosophical Methodology

One of the novelties of the dialogues later on those of the heart period is the introduction of a new philosophical method. This method was introduced probably either tardily in the heart flow or in the transition to the late catamenia, simply was increasingly important in the belatedly period. In the early on period dialogues, as we have said, the mode of philosophizing was refutative question-and-answer (chosen elenchos or the "Socratic method"). Although the middle period dialogues continue to show Socrates asking questions, the questioning in these dialogues becomes much more overtly leading and didactic. The highest method of philosophizing discussed in the eye menstruum dialogues, called "dialectic," is never very well explained (at best, it is only barely sketched in the divided line paradigm at the end of Volume VI of the Democracy). The correct method for doing philosophy, nosotros are now told in the later works, is what Plato identifies as "collection and division," which is perhaps first referred to at Phaedrus 265e. In this method, the philosopher collects all of the instances of some generic category that seem to take common characteristics, and then divides them into specific kinds until they cannot be further subdivided. This method is explicitly and extensively on display in the Sophist, Statesman, and Philebus.

b. Critique of the Earlier Theory of Forms

One of the most puzzling features of the late dialogues is the strong proffer in them that Plato has reconsidered his theory of Forms in some way. Although in that location seems still in the tardily dialogues to be a theory of Forms (although the theory is, quite strikingly, wholly unmentioned in the Theaetetus, a later dialogue on the nature of noesis), where it does appear in the later on dialogues, it seems in several ways to take been modified from its conception in the middle menses works. Perhaps the most dramatic signal of such a modify in the theory appears first in the Parmenides, which appears to subject the middle catamenia version of the theory to a kind of "Socratic" refutation, only this fourth dimension, the master refuter is the older Eleatic philosopher Parmenides, and the hapless victim of the refutation is a youthful Socrates. The most famous (and apparently fatal) of the arguments provided by Parmenides in this dialogue has come to be known as the "Third Man Statement," which suggests that the formulation of participation (by which individual objects have on the characters of the Forms) falls casualty to an space regress: If individual male person things are male in virtue of participation in the Class of Homo, and the Form of Homo is itself male, then what is common to both The Form of Man and the item male person things must be that they all participate in some (other) Class, say, Man 2. But then, if Man ii is male, then what information technology has in common with the other male person things is participation in some farther Form, Human 3, and then on. That Plato'south theory is open to this problem gains back up from the notion, mentioned to a higher place, that Forms are exemplars. If the Form of Human is itself a (perfect) male, then the Form shares a property in mutual with the males that participate in it. But since the Theory requires that for any grouping of entities with a common property, there is a Form to explain the commonality, it appears that the theory does indeed give rise to the vicious backslide.

There has been considerable controversy for many years over whether Plato believed that the Theory of Forms was vulnerable to the "Tertiary Man" statement, equally Aristotle believed it was, and and then uses the Parmenides to announce his rejection of the Theory of Forms, or instead believed that the Third Man argument can be avoided by making adjustments to the Theory of Forms. Of relevance to this discussion is the relative dating of the Timaeus and the Parmenides, since the Theory of Forms very much as information technology appears in the middle period works plays a prominent role in the Timaeus. Thus, the assignment of a later date to the Timaeus shows that Plato did non regard the objection to the Theory of Forms raised in the Parmenides equally in whatsoever fashion decisive. In any upshot, it is agreed on all sides that Plato'due south interest in the Theory shifted in the Sophist and Stateman to the exploration of the logical relations that hold between abstract entities. In the Laws, Plato'southward last (and unfinished) piece of work, the Theory of Forms appears to have dropped out birthday. Whatever value Plato believed that noesis of abstract entities has for the proper deport of philosophy, he no longer seems to accept believed that such cognition is necessary for the proper running of a political community.

c. The "Eclipse" of Socrates

In several of the late dialogues, Socrates is even further marginalized. He is either represented equally a mostly mute bystander (in the Sophist and Statesman), or else absent-minded altogether from the cast of characters (in the Laws and Critias). In the Theaetetus and Philebus, however, we find Socrates in the familiar leading role. The and so-called "eclipse" of Socrates in several of the later dialogues has been a subject of much scholarly discussion.

d. The Myth of Atlantis

Plato's famous myth of Atlantis is outset given in the Timaeus, which scholars now more often than not agree is quite late, despite being dramatically placed on the day afterwards the word recounted in the Republic. The myth of Atlantis is continued in the unfinished dialogue intended to be the sequel to the Timaeus, the Critias.

e. The Creation of the Universe

The Timaeus is also famous for its account of the creation of the universe by the Demiurge. Dissimilar the creation past the God of medieval theologians, Plato'southward Demiurge does not create ex nihilo, only rather orders the cosmos out of chaotic elemental matter, imitating the eternal Forms. Plato takes the iv elements, burn down, air, water, and world (which Plato proclaims to be composed of diverse aggregates of triangles), making various compounds of these into what he calls the Torso of the Universe. Of all of Plato's works, the Timaeus provides the most detailed conjectures in the areas we at present regard as the natural sciences: physics, astronomy, chemistry, and biology.

f. The Laws

In the Laws, Plato's final work, the philosopher returns once once more to the question of how a club ought all-time to exist organized. Unlike his earlier handling in the Republic, however, the Laws appears to business organization itself less with what a all-time possible state might be similar, and much more squarely with the project of designing a genuinely practicable, if admittedly non ideal, form of regime. The founders of the community sketched in the Laws business organization themselves with the empirical details of statecraft, fashioning rules to meet the multitude of contingencies that are apt to arise in the "real world" of human diplomacy. A piece of work enormous length and complication, running some 345 Stephanus pages, the Laws was unfinished at the time of Plato's expiry. Co-ordinate to Diogenes Laertius (3.37), it was left written on wax tablets.

8. References and Further Reading

a. Greek Texts

  • Platonis Opera (in 5 volumes) – The Oxford Classical Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press):
  • Volume I (East. A. Duke et al., eds., 1995): Euthyphro, Apologia Socratis, Crito, Phaedo, Cratylus, Theaetetus, Sophista, Politicus.
  • Volume II (John Burnet, ed., 1901): Parmenides, Philebus, Symposium, Phaedrus, Alcibiades I, Alcibiades II, Hipparchus, Amatores.
  • Volume III (John Burnet, ed., 1903): Theages, Charmides, Laches, Lysis, Euthydemus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno, Hippias Maior, Hippias Minor, Io, Menexenus.
  • Volume Four (John Burnet, ed., 1978): Clitopho, Respublica, Timaeus, Critias.
  • Volume 5 (John Burnet, ed. 1907): Minos, Leges, Epinomis, Epistulae, Definitiones, De Iusto, De Virtute, Demodocus, Sisyphus, Eryxias, Axiochus.
    • The Oxford Classical Texts are the standard Greek texts of Plato's works, including all of the spuria and dubia except for the epigrams, the Greek texts of which may be found in Hermann Beckby (ed.), Anthologia Graeca (Munich: Heimeran, 1957).

b. Translations into English language

  • Cooper, J. 1000. (ed.), Plato: Consummate Works (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997).
    • Contains very contempo translations of all of the Platonic works, dubia, spuria, and epigrams. Now mostly regarded as the standard for English language translations.

c. Plato's Socrates and the Historical Socrates

  • Kahn, Charles H., Plato and the Socratic Dialogue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
    • Kahn's own version of the "unitarian" reading of Plato'south dialogues. Although scholars accept not widely accepted Kahn's positions, Kahn offers several arguments for rejecting the more than established held "developmentalist" position.
  • Vlastos, Gregory, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991).
    • Capacity 2 and 3 of this volume are invariably cited equally providing the most influential recent arguments for the "historicist" version of the "developmentalist" position.

d. Socrates and Plato'due south Early Menstruum Dialogues

  • Benson, Hugh H. (ed.), Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates (New York: Oxford Academy Printing, 1992).
    • A drove of previously published manufactures by various authors on Socrates and Plato's early dialogues.
  • Brickhouse, Thomas C. and Nicholas D. Smith, Plato's Socrates (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
    • 6 chapters, each on different topics in the study of Plato'southward early on or Socratic dialogues.
  • Brickhouse, Thomas C. and Nicholas D. Smith, The Philosophy of Socrates (Bedrock: Westview, 2000).
    • Vii chapters, each on dissimilar topics in the study of Plato's early or Socratic dialogues. Some changes in views from those offered in their 1994 book.
  • Prior, William (ed.), Socrates: Critical Assessments (London and New York, 1996) in four volumes: I: The Socratic Problem and Socratic Ignorance; II: Issues Arising from the Trial of Socrates; III: Socratic Method; IV: Happiness and Virtue.
    • A collection of previously published articles past various authors on Socrates and Plato'due south early dialogues.
  • Santas, Gerasimos Xenophon, Socrates: Philosophy in Plato'south Early Dialogues (Boston and London: Routledge, 1979).
    • Viii capacity, each on different topics in the report of Plato'due south early or Socratic dialogues.
  • Taylor, C. C. Westward. Socrates: A Very Curt Introduction (Oxford: Oxford Academy Press, 1998).
    • Very brusk, indeed, but nicely written and by and large very reliable.
  • Vlastos, Gregory, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge Academy Press and Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Academy Press, 1991). (Likewise cited in Viii.iii, above.)
    • Viii chapters, each on different topics in the report of Plato'south early or Socratic dialogues.
  • Vlastos, Gregory, Socratic Studies (ed. Myles Burnyeat; Cambridge: Cambridge Academy Press, 1994).
    • Edited and published later on Vlastos's death. A collection of Vlastos's papers on Socrates not published in Vlastos's 1991 book.
  • Vlastos, Gregory (ed.) The Philosophy of Socrates (South Bend: Academy of Notre Dame Press, 1980).
    • A drove of papers past various authors on Socrates and Plato's early dialogues. Although now somewhat dated, several articles in this collection proceed to be widely cited and studied.

e. General Books on Plato

  • Cherniss, Harold, The Riddle of the Early University (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1945).
    • A written report of reports in the Early Academy, following Plato'due south death, of the so-called "unwritten doctrines" of Plato.
  • Fine, Gail (ed.), Plato I: Metaphysics and Epistemology and Plato Ii: Ethics, Politics, Faith and the Soul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
    • A collection of previously published papers past various authors, mostly on Plato'due south heart and later on periods.
  • Grote, George, Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates second ed. 3 vols. (London: J. Murray, 1867).
    • 3-volume drove with full general discussion of "the Socratics" other than Plato, too as specific discussions of each of Plato's works.
  • Guthrie, W. K. C., A History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge Academy Printing) vols. 3 (1969), four (1975) and 5 (1978).
    • Book 3 is on the Sophists and Socrates; volume 4 is on Plato's early dialogues and continues with capacity on Phaedo, Symposium, and Phaedrus, and then a final chapter on the Commonwealth.
  • Irwin, Terence, Plato's Ethics (New York and Oxford: Oxford Academy Press, 1995).
    • Systematic discussion of the ethical thought in Plato's works.
  • Kraut, Richard (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge University Printing, 1992).
    • A drove of original discussions of diverse full general topics nigh Plato and the dialogues.
  • Smith, Nicholas D. (ed.), Plato: Critical Assessments (London and New York: Routledge, 1998) in 4 volumes: I: Full general Issues of Estimation; Two: Plato'due south Heart Catamenia: Metaphysics and Epistemology; Iii: Plato's Eye Menstruum: Psychology and Value Theory; Four: Plato's Subsequently Works.
    • A collection of previously published manufactures past diverse authors on interpretive bug and on Plato'southward eye and later on periods. Plato'south early period dialogues are covered in this series by Prior 1996 (see VIII.4).
  • Vlastos, Gregory, Platonic Studies 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).
    • A collection of Vlastos's papers on Plato, including some important earlier work on the early dialogues.
  • Vlastos, Gregory, Plato I: Metaphysics and Epistemology and Plato Ii: Ethics, Politics, and Philosophy of Fine art and Religion (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Printing, 1987).
    • A drove of papers past various authors on Plato's middle menstruation and afterward dialogues. Although now somewhat dated, several articles in this collection proceed to exist widely cited and studied.

Writer Information

Thomas Brickhouse
Email: brickhouse@lynchburg.edu
Lynchburg College
U. S. A.

and

Nicholas D. Smith
E-mail: ndsmith@lclark.edu
Lewis & Clark College
U. S. A.