Major Works

• 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.

Other Works

• Rival Lovers

  - Recommended translation:
  • "Rival Lovers," trans. J. Leake in The Roots of Political Philosophy, ed. Thomas L. Pangle (Cornell, 1987).
  Excerpt: Socrates I entered the grammar school of the teacher Dionysius, and saw there the young men who are accounted the most comely in form and of distinguished family, and their lovers. Now it chanced that two of the young people were disputing, but about… More

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.

• Science, Faith, and Politics

  - Weinberger, Jerry, "Preface," Science, Faith, and Politics: Francis Bacon and the Utopian Roots of the Modern Age: A Commentary on Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985.

• On the Original Meaning of Political Philosophy: An Interpretation of Plato’s Lovers

  - Bruell, Christopher, "On the Original Meaning of Political Philosophy: An Interpretation of Plato's Lovers," The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, ed. Thomas L. Pangle, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987, 91-110.
  Excerpt: The Lovers is one of only four dialogues narrated from the beginning to end by Socrates, the others being the Republic, Charmides, and Lysis. This fact may tell us something as to the place of these dialogues within the Platonic corpus. When he… More

• The Soul’s Silent Dialogue: A Non-Apporetic Reading of the Theaetetus

  - Frede, Dorothea, "The Soul's Silent Dialogue: A Non-Apporetic Reading of the Theaetetus," The Cambridge Classical Journal 35 (December 1989), 20-49.
  Excerpt: Our situation with respect to Plato is paradoxical. Here is a philosopher who emphatically insisted on truth and repudiated persuasion. And yet the community of Plato’s admirers finds itself in the predicament that persuasion (or plausibility)… More

• The Rational Enterprise: Logos in Plato’s Theaetetus

  - Desjardins, Rosemary, The Rational Enterprise: Logos in Plato's Theaetetus, Albany, NY: SUNY, 1990.
  Excerpt: “Any discourse ought to be constructed like a living creature, with its own body as it were; it must not lack either heard or feet; it must have a middle and extremities so composed as to suit each other and the whole work.” (Phaedr.… 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

• Protagoras’s Myth and Logos

  - Benardete, Seth, "Protagoras's Myth and Logos," The Argument of the Action: Essays on Greek Poetry and Philosophy, ed. Ronna Burger and Michael Davis, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, 186-97.

• Plato’s Theaetetus: On the Way of the Logos

  - Benardete, Seth, "Plato's Theaetetus: On the Way of the Logos," 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: The opening of the Theaetetus is curious. The report we have of another opening of nearly the same length indicates that it was always a curiosity. If both openings are Plato’s, and the rest of the dialogue they preface were not different,… More

• The Essence of the Truth: On Plato’s Parable of the Cave

  - Heidegger, Martin, The The Essence of the Truth: On Plato's Parable of the Cave, New York: Continuum, 2002.
  Excerpt: We wish to consider the essence of truth. ‘Truth’: what is that? The answer to the question ‘what is that?’ brings us to the ‘essence’ of a thing. ‘Table’: What is that? ‘Mountain,… More