Major Works

• Apology

  - Recommended translation: Plato. "Apology." In Four Texts on Socrates, translated by Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West, 1–33. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984; revised edition, 1998.
  Excerpt from Plato’s Apology: “How you, men of Athens, have been affected by my accusers, I do not know; but I, for my part, almost forgot my own identity, so persuasively did they talk; and yet there is hardly a word of truth in what they have… More

• Phaedo

  - Recommended translations: Phaedo, trans. G. M. A. Grube (Hackett: 1977) Phaedo, trans. E. Brann (Focus, 1998)
  Excerpt: Echecrates Were you with Socrates yourself, Phaedo, on the day when he drank the poison in prison, or did you hear about it from someone else? Phaedo I was there myself, Echecrates. Echecrates Then what did he say before his death? and how did he… More

• Theaetetus

  - Recommended translation: "Theaetetus" in The Being of the Beautiful: Plato's Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman,  trans. Seth Benardete (University of Chicago Press: 1984).
  About the dialogue: In the Theaetetus, Plato explores the nature of knowledge.

Commentary

• Plato’s Trilogy: “Theaetetus,” “The Sophist,” and “The Statesman”

  - Klein, Jacob, Plato's Trilogy:"Theaetetus," "The Sophist," and "The Statesman", Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1977.

• The Final Proof of the Immortality of the Soul in Plato’s Phaedo

  - Frede, Dorothea, "The Final Proof of the Immortality of the Soul in Plato's Phaedo 102a – 107a," Phronesis, Vol. 23, No. 1 (1978), pp. 27-41.
  Excerpt: Among the arguments presented by Socrates as proofs for the everlastingness of the human soul the last one has greatly puzzled philosophers because it seems that, in opposition to the earlier arguments, Plato considered this last argument conclusive.

• Plato and Nietzsche on Death

  - Davis, Michael, "Plato and Nietzsche on Death: An Introduction to Plato's Phaedo," Ancient Philosophy, Vol. 1 (1980), 69-80.
  Excerpt: The title of this paper is something of a lie. It is a noble lie, but it is a lie. Plato and Nietzsche will not be equally treated here. Still, the title reflects one of the crucial problems of contemporary philosophy, and of contemporary life. For… More

• Socrates’ Pre-Socratism: Some Remarks on the Structure of Plato’s Phaedo

  - Davis, Michael, "Socrates' Pre-Socratism: Some Remarks on the Structure of Plato's Phaedo," Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 33, No. 3 (March 1980).
  Excerpt: To Speak of Socrates’ pre-Socraticism is puzzling. It suggests that there was a time at which Socrates was not Socrates. That is not entirely misleading. There was something special about Socrates, special enough so that Nietzsche, for one,… More

• On Plato’s Apology of Socrates and Crito by Leo Strauss

  - Strauss, Leo. “On Plato's Apology of Socrates and Crito.” In Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, 68–97. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.
  From the publisher: “One of the outstanding thinkers of our time offers in this book his final words to posterity. Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy was well underway at the time of Leo Strauss’s death in 1973. Having chosen the title for the… More

• The Phaedo: A Platonic Labyrinth

  - Burger, Ronna, The Phaedo: A Platonic Labyrinth, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.

• The Life of Philosophy and the Immortality of the Soul

  - Bolotin, David, "The Life of Philosophy and the Immortality of the Soul: An Introduction to Plato's Phaedo," Ancient Philosophy, Vol. 7 (1987), 39-56.
  Excerpt: It is widely acknowledged that Plato’s dialogues are artistic wholes, in which the ‘content’, or the speeches of the various characters, is inseparable from the ‘form’, or the dramatic context within which these speeches… More

• Socratic Rationalism and Political Philosophy: An Interpretation of Plato’s Phaedo

  - Stern, Paul, Socratic Rationalism and Political Philosophy: An Interpretation of Plato's Phaedo, New York: State University of New York Press, 1993.
  Excerpt: I undertake this study of the Phaedo in order to understand the rationalism of Plato’s Socrates. It is a striking feature of the contemporary intellectual situation that a study such as this can be of more than simply historical interest. But… More

• Euthyphro

  - Cropsey, Joseph, "Euthyphro," Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995.  
  Excerpt: There are at least three principles on which the Dialogues of Plato, or some of them, can be arranged to form a general schema. The first to be employed was the ancient grouping of the dialogues in the famous tetralogies according to their perceived… More

• The Death of Socrates and the Life of Philosophy

  - Ahrensdorf, Peter J., The Death of Socrates and the Life of Philosophy, New York: State University of New York, 1995.
  Excerpt: While all of Plato’s dialogues celebrate the philosophic life as a whole and the life of Socrates in particular, none does so more dramatically or more movingly than the Phaedo. There we see the philosopher face death with a nobility which all… More

• Phaedo

  - Cropsey, Joseph, "Phaedo," Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
  Excerpt: Phaedo, so important by reason of its substance and occasion, receives its name from a historical figure about whom little can now be said to be known. Litle enough was remembered of him in later antiquity when Diogenes Laertius wrote his paragraph… More

• Theaetetus

  - Cropsey, Joseph, "Theaetetus," Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
  Excerpt: The dialogue Theaetetus reports a conversation between Socrates and Theaetetus that occurred when the latter was perhaps fifteen years old. The conversation took place in the weeks or months preceding the death of Socrates, as the end of the… More

• Apology of Socrates

  - Cropsey, Joseph, "Apology of Socrates," Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
  Excerpt: There are at least three principles on which the Dialogues of Plato, or some of them, can be arranged to form a general schema. The first to be employed was the ancient grouping of the dialogues in the famous tetralogies according to their perceived… More

• On Plato’s Phaedo

  - Benardete, Seth, "On Plato's Phaedo," The Argument of the Action: Essays on Greek Poetry and Philosophy, eds. Ronna Burger and Michael Davis, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
  Excerpt: I wish to discuss four things in Plato’s Phaedo. First, the intention of the dialogue as a whole; second, the plan or structure of the Phaedo, third, some arguments of the Phaedo, and fourth, the reason for the structure of the dialogue.

• Introduction to the Phaedo

  - Brann, Eva, "Introduction to the Phaedo" and "Socrates' Legacy: Plato's Phaedo," The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates' Conversations and Plato's Writings, Philadelphia: Paul Dry, 2004.
  Excerpt: In the first book of his Inquiries, Herodotus tells the story of Solon and Croesus. The Athenian wise man gives the Lydian tyrant a piece of advice. “Look to the end,” he says, if you want to know whether a human life has really been… More

• The Trial and Death of Socrates

  - Zuckert, Catherine H., "The Trial and Death of Socrates," Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
  Excerpt: Alfred North Whitehead’s quip that all subsequent philosophy is merely a footnote to Plato has often been repeated, but those who repeat it do not seem to have thought much about the difference between the source and the scholarship on it.… More

• The Ironic Defense of Socrates: Plato’s Apology

  - Leibowitz, David M., The Ironic Defense of Socrates: Plato's Apology, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
  Excerpt: Thirty-five Platonic dialogues have come down to us as genuine. Socrates is present in at least thirty-three and the chief speaker in at least twenty-seven. Yet he is mentioned in a title only this once. Plato’s Socrates first comes to sigh,… More