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

• Gorgias

  - Recommended Translation: Plato. The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy: Plato's Gorgias and Phaedrus. Translated by Seth Benardete. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
  From the publisher: “The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy, one of the most groundbreaking works of twentieth-century Platonic studies, is now back in print for a new generation of students and scholars to discover. In this volume, distinguished… 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.

• Sophist

  - Recommended translation: Plato. "Sophist." In The Being of the Beautiful: Plato's Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman, translated by Seth Benardete, 123–234. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
  In the Sophist, which takes place the day after the Theaetetus and was written c. 360 BCE, Plato explores what constitutes sophistry and how sophists differ from philosophers and statesmen.   From the publisher: The Being of the Beautiful collects… More

• Statesman

  - Recommended translation: "Statesman" in The Being of the Beautiful: Plato's Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman,  trans. Seth Benardete (University of Chicago Press: 1984).
  Excerpt: Socrates Really I am greatly indebted to you, Theodorus, for my acquaintance with Theaetetus and with the Stranger, too. Theodorus Presently, Socrates, you will be three times as much indebted, when they have worked out the statesman and the… More

• Parmenides

  - Recommended translations:
  • Plato's Parmenides, trans. Samuel Scolnicov (Berkeley, 2003).
  • Plato's Parmenides,  trans. Albert Keith Whitaker (Focus, 1996).
  • "Parmenides," trans. M. L. Gill and Paul Ryan in Plato: Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper (Hackett, 1997).
  Excerpt: Cephalus When we came from our home at Clazomenae to Athens, we met Adeimantus and Glaucon in the market-place. Adeimantus took me by the hand and said, “Welcome, Cephalus, if there is anything we can do for you here, let us know.” “Why,”… More

• Symposium

  - Recommended translations:
  • Plato. Plato’s Symposium: A Translation by Seth Benardete with Commentaries by Allan Bloom and Seth Benardete. Translated by Seth Benardete. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
  • Plato. "Symposium." Translated by A. Nehamas and P. Woodruff. In Plato: Complete Works, edited by J. M. Cooper, 457–505. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997.
  An excerpt- Socrates’ recounting of Diotima’s teachings on the “Ladder of Love”: “He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward… More

• Republic

  - Recommended translations:
  • Plato. The Republic of Plato. Translated by Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, 1968.
  • Plato. The Republic. Translated by Tom Griffith. Edited by G. R. F. Ferrari. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  Excerpt: “What you say is very fine indeed, Cephalus,” I said. “But as to this very thing, justice, shall we so simply assert that it is the truth and giving back what a man has taken from another, or is to do these very things sometimes just and… More

Other Works

• Euthyphro

  - Recommended translation: "Euthyphro" in Four Texts on Socrates,  trans. Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West (Cornell University Press: 1984, rev. 1998).  
  About the dialogue: Euthyphro (ca. 399 BCE) is a Socratic dialogue by Plato, set in the weeks leading up to Socrates’ trial and death. While awaiting a preliminary hearing near the king archon’s court, Socrates meets Euthryphro, and the two men… More

• Cleitophon

  - Recommended translation: "Cleitophon," trans. C. Orwin in The Roots of Political Philosophy, ed. Thomas L. Pangle (Cornell, 1987).
  Excerpt: Socrates It was told us recently by someone about Cleitophon, the son of Aristonymus, that in a conversation he had with Lysias he was finding fault with the instructions of Socrates and praising to the skies the lectures of Thrasymachus. Cleitophon… More

• Philebus

  - Recommended translations:
  • The Tragedy and Comedy of Life: Plato's Philebus, trans. Seth Benardete (University of Chicago Press: 1991).
  • "Philebus," trans. D. Frede in Plato: Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper (Hackett, 1997).
   
  Excerpt: Socrates Observe, then, Protarchus, what the doctrine is which you are now to accept from Philebus, and what our doctrine is, against which you are to argue, if you do not agree with it. Shall we make a brief statement of each of them? Protarchus By… More

• 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: The Man and His Work

  - A. E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and His Work, Dover Publications, 2011.  Originally published in 1926.
  From the publisher: This outstanding work by a renowned Plato scholar presents the thought of the great Greek philosopher with historical accuracy and objective analysis. A brief introductory chapter about the philosopher’s life is followed by an… More

• Plato and Parmenides

  - Cornford, Francis MacDonald, Plato and Parmenides: Parmenides' Way of Truth and Plato's Parmenides, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1939; repr. Routledge, 2010.
  Excerpt: Parmenides was likely written within the last two decades preceding Plato’s death in 347 BCE. Despite two millennia of documented commentary, scholars struggle to make sense of it. Almost every major discussion of the Parmenides in this… More

• On Plato’s Republic

  - Strauss, Leo, "On Plato's Republic," The City and Man, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964, 50-138.
  Excerpt: Generally speaking, we can know the thought of a man only through his speeches oral or written. We can know Aristotle’s political philosophy through his Politics. Plato’s Republic on the other hand, in contradistinction to… More

• The Republic of Plato

  - Bloom, Allan, The Republic of Plato, New York: Basic Books, 1968, 1991.
  Excerpt: The Republic is the true Apology of Socrates, for only in the Republic does he give an adequate treatment of the theme which was forced on him by Athens’ accusation against him. That theme is the relationship of the philosopher to the… More

• The Argument and the Action of Plato’s Laws

  - Strauss, Leo, The Argument and the Action of Plato's Laws, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.
  Excerpt: In the traditional order of the Platonic dialogues the Laws is preceded by the Minos, the only Platonic dialogue in which Socrates raises the question What is law? It appears that not all laws are good or, at any rate equally good. The Cretan laws… More

• 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.

• An Introduction to Plato’s Republic

  - Annas, Julia, An Introduction to Plato's Republic, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
  Excerpt: The Republic is Plato’s best-known work, and there are ways in which it is too famous for its own good. It gives us systematic answers to a whole range of questions about morality, politics, knowledge, and metaphysics, and the book is written… 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

• Plato’s Sophist: The Drama of Original & Image

  - Rosen, Stanley, Plato's Sophist: The Drama of Original & Image, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.

• 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.

• Rumplestilskin’s Pleasures: True and False Pleasures in Plato’s Philebus

  - Frede, Dorothea, "Rumplestilskin’s Pleasures: True and False Pleasures in Plato's Philebus," Phronesis 30, no. 2 (1985), 151-80.
  Excerpt: Everyone who is moderately familiar with Plato’s dialogues will have the impression that pleasure according to Plato is a mixed blessing; often enough he refuses to regard it as a good – let alone the good – for mankind. It is easy to see… More

• Plato’s Parmenides: The Conversion of the Soul

  - Miller, Mitchell H., Plato's Parmenides: The Conversation of the Soul, University Park, PA: Princeton University Press, 1986.
  Excerpt: Plato’s stage-setting in the Parmenides is remarkably intricate and detailed. This is especially so in the opening pages, in which Plato provides a series of intermediary personae to introduce the conversation proper between Socrates, Zeno,… More

• The Impossibility of Perfection: Socrates’ Criticism of Simonides’ Poem in the Protagoras

  - Frede, Dorothea, "The Impossibility of Perfection: Socrates' Criticism of Simonides' Poem in the Protagoras," The Review of Metaphysics 39, no. 4 (June 1986), 729-53.
  Excerpt: The claim that even Plato could not say everything at once nor could have thought or worked out everything at once is, of course, a platitude. It is generally acknowledged that there is development in Plato’s thought. But what the development… More

• 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

• The Political Philosopher in Democratic Society: The Socratic View

  - Bloom, Allan, "The Political Philosopher in Democratic Society: The Socratic View," The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, ed. Thomas L. Pangle, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987, 32-52.
  Excerpt: In an age in which not only the alternatives of action but also those of thought have become peculiarly impoverished, it behooves us to search for the lost, profound possibilities of human life. We are in need of a comprehensive reflection on the… More

• 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

• On the Cleitophon

  - Orwin, Clifford, "On the Cleitophon," The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, ed. Thomas L. Pangle, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987, 117-31.
  Excerpt: The Cleitophon is by far the shortest of the dialogues ascribed to Plato. It is also the only one that features an unanswered blame of Socrates. These facts encouraged many critics of the last century to try to pronounce it spurious. None of the… More

• Plato

  - Strauss, Leo, "Plato," History of Political Philosophy, 3rd edition, eds. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
  Excerpt: Thirty-five dialogues and thirteen letters have come down to us as Platonic writings, not all of which are now regarded as genuine. Some scholars go so far as to doubt that any of the letters is genuine. In order not to encumber our presentation with… More

• On Pleasure and the Human Good: Plato’s Philebus

  - Cropsey, Joseph, "On Pleasure and the Human Good: Plato's Philebus," Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy 16, no. 2 (Winter 1988-89), 167-93.
  Excerpt: Plato’s Philebus is said, under the encouragement of its subtitle, to be about pleasure; but how far it is from being simply about pleasure, or even primarily about pleasure, may be seen from the development of the argument toward and then… More

• The Problem of Socrates: Five Lectures

  - Strauss, Leo, "The Problem of Socrates: Five Lectures," The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism: An Introduction to the Thought of Leo Strauss, Thomas L. Pangle, ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. Published, complete and unedited, as Strauss, Leo, "The Origins of Political Science and the Problem of Socrates: Six Public Lectures," Interpretation 23, no. 2 (Winter 1996).
  Excerpt: For according to Plato as well as to Aristotle, to the extent to which the human problem cannot be solved by political means it can be solved only by philosophy, by and through the philosophic way of life. Plato too presents men who are not good or… More

• Socrates’ Second Sailing: On Plato’s Republic

  - Benardete, Seth, Socrates' Second Sailing: On Plato's Republic, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
  Excerpt: The title of this book alludes to the phrase Plato has Socrates use in his intellectual autobiography in the Phaedo. Socrates tells his story as a preface to his reply to Cebes’ counterargument to the proof Socrates has given about the… 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

• Legislation and Demiurgy: On the Relationship Between Plato’s Republic and Laws

  - Laks, Andre, "Legislation and Demiurgy: On the Relationship Between Plato’s Republic and Laws," Classical Antiquity 9, no. 2 (Oct. 1990), 209-29.
  Excerpt: Glenn Morrow, who did so much to illuminate the historical background of the Laws in his book Plato’s Cretan City, also had a sense, one quite unusual among commentators, of how the Laws really belonged to Plato’s philosophy and was… More

• Plato’s Parmenides

  - Meinwald, Constance C., Plato's Parmenides, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
  Excerpt: Plato’s Parmenides today finds itself in a strange position: it is clearly an important work, but its import remains remarkably unclear. The difficulty of analyzing this text is due, in part, to its complicated structure. Within three frames… More

• The Tragedy and Comedy of Life: Plato’s Philebus

  - Benardete, Seth, The Tragedy and Comedy of Life: Plato's Philebus, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
  Excerpt: The criticism of poetry in the Philebus does not deny to poetry its truthfulness to life. It locates its falsity in poetry’s denial of the goodness of life. Poetry’s exposition of life does not redeem it; rather, it makes life worth… More

• The Ladder of Love

  - Bloom, Allan, "The Ladder of Love," Plato's Symposium, trans. Seth Benardete, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
  Excerpt: All of this amounts to nothing more than an abstraction, the improbable assertion that thinking is erotic, unless there is some real connection between the activity of thinking and the phenomena everyone recognizes as erotic. This paradoxical… More

• On Plato’s Symposium

  - Benardete, Seth, "On Plato's Symposium," Plato's Symposium, trans. Seth Benardete, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
  Excerpt: Some Platonic dialogues are bound closely to the life and times of Socrates, and some are set at a particular time of day. The Phaedo and Symposium satisfy both criteria; they are also non-Socratically reported dialogues, and both contain… More

• On Plato’s Political Philosophy

  - Bruell, Christopher, "On Plato's Political Philosophy," The Review of Politics 56, no. 2 (Spring 1994), 261-82.
  Abstract: This article consists chiefly in an examination of the Republic, but that examination attempts to determine the place of the Republic in relation to Plato’s other works (especially the Laws and the Statesman) as well as their place in… 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

• Plato’s Statesman by Stanley Rosen

  - Rosen, Stanley, Plato's Statesman: Web of Politics, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.
  Excerpt: “The Statesman, like Plato’s earlier Sophist, features a Stranger who tries to refute Socrates. Much of his conversation is devoted to a minute analysis of the art of weaving, selected by the Stranger as a paradigm of the royal art of… More

• Statesman

  - Cropsey, Joseph, "Statesman," Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995, 111-44.
  Excerpt: The Stranger begins his colloquy with Young Socrates by proposing to seek out the statesman and to do so by identifying the statesman’s peculiar “science” or knowledge (episteme). If one knows what the statesman singularly knows,… More

• Sophist

  - Cropsey, Joseph, "Sophist," Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995, 69-110.
  Excerpt: The transition to the Sophist is made complex by the complexity of what precedes it, for this dialogue is preceded in one way by Theaetetus and in another by Euthyphro. As preceded by Theaetetus, the transition is from the atmosphere of… 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

• Plato’s Sophist

  - Heidegger, Martin, Plato's Sophist, trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Andre Schuwer, Indiana University Press, 1997.
  Excerpt: This book is a translation of Platon: Sophistes, which was published in 1992 as volume 19 of Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe (Collected Works). The text is a reconstruction of the author’s lecture course delivered under the same title at the… More

• Plato’s Republic: Critical Essays

  - Kraut, Richard, ed., Plato's Republic: Critical Essays, New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997.
  Excerpt: Plato (427-347 B.C.) is the first Western philosopher who wrote systematically about the wide range of questions that make up the subject of philosophy, and it is in the Republic that he most fully expresses his conception of what philosophy is and… More

• On the Intention of Plato’s Cleitophon

  - Davis, Michael, "On the Intention of Plato's Cleitophon," Metis: Revue d'anthropologie du monde greg ancien 13 (1998), 271-85.
  Excerpt: Perhaps the one thing clear about the Cleitophon is that it belongs together with the Republic. Plato has for some reason invited us to pair what is by far his shortest dialogue with his longest dialogue save one. Each is about justice, but in four… More

• Inside and Outside the Republic

  - Lear, Jonathan, "Inside and Outside the Republic," Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, 219-46.
  Excerpt: An engaged reader of the Republic must at some point wonder how—or if—it all fits together. There seems to be jumbled within that text a challenge to conventional justice, a political theory, a psychology, a metaphysics, a theory of education,… More

• Plato’s Doctrine of Truth

  - Heidegger, Martin, "Plato's Doctrine of Truth," trans. Thomas Sheehan, Pathmarks, ed. William McNeill, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 155-82.
  Whatever one makes of Heidegger’s own views, or his criticism of Plato and what he calls the Platonic tradition, this essay offers a profound meditation on Plato’s Cave and Plato’s “doctrine” of truth. Excerpt: The knowledge that… More

• On the Socratic Education: An Introduction to the Shorter Platonic Dialogues

  - Bruell, Christopher, On the Socratic Education: An Introduction to the Shorter Platonic Dialogues, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.
  Excerpt: Nothing is so well established in our Western democracies today as the right of each to seek happiness in his or her own way. It is as if a pass to that effect had been issued to us at birth. This much is obvious. Less obvious is the fact that… More

• Plato’s Symposium

  - Rosen, Stanley, Plato's Symposium, 3rd ed., South Bend: St. Augustine's Press, 1999.
  Book description (from the publisher): This is the first full-length study of the Symposium to be published in English [originally published in 1967], and one of the first English works on Plato to take its bearings by the dramatic form of the Platonic… More

• The Plan of Plato’s Statesman

  - Benardete, Seth, "The Plan of Plato’s Statesman," The Argument of the Action: Essays on Greek Poetry and Philosophy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, 354-75.
  Excerpt: One one realizes that the unemployed king could be the wise man in charge of himself, it is possible to reinterpret the Stranger’s fourth piece of evidence that politics is a gnostic science. He says that the king’s hands and body… More

• On Plato’s Sophist

  - Benardete, Seth, "On Plato's Sophist," The Argument of the Action, Ronna Burger and Michael Davis, eds., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, 323-52.
  Excerpt: Once the stranger takes over the discussion at the beginning of the Sophist and agrees to discuss the sophist, the statesman, and the philosopher, it is hard to remember that Socrates had arranged to meet with Theodorus, Theaetetus, and young… More

• 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

• On Plato’s Symposium

  - Strauss, Leo, On Plato's Symposium, ed. Seth Benardete, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
  Excerpt: This course will be on Plato’s political philosophy and it will be conducted in the form of an explanation and an interpretation of the Symposium. by way of introduction I have to answer these two questions: (1) Why do we study Plato’s… More

• The Speech of Alcibiades: A Reading of the Symposium

  - Nussbaum, Martha C., "The Speech of Alcibiades: A Reading of the Symposium," The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 165-195.
  Excerpt: He was, to begin with, beautiful. He was endowed with a physical grace and splendor that captivated the entire city. They did not decline as he grew, but flourished at each stage with new authority and power. He was always highly conscious of his… 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

• Of Myth, Life, and War in Plato’s Republic

  - Baracchi, Claudia, Of Myth, Life, and War in Plato's Republic, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.
  Excerpt: Yet another work on Plato, on that most universally recognized among the Platonic dialogues—the Republic. The Republic of Plato (so we call it, today, in this part of the world): a seminal text, inaugurating an epoch of which we are still… More

• Plato’s Parmenides

  - Scolnicov, Samuel, Plato's Parmenides, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003.
  Excerpt: Of all Plato’s dialogues, the Parmenides is notoriously the most difficult to interpret. Scholars of all periods have disagreed about its aims and subject matter. The interpretations have ranged from reading the dialogue as an introduction to the… More

• Why Justice? The Answer of the Republic

  - Brann, Eva, "Why Justice? The Answer of the Republic," The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates' Conversations and Plato's Writings, Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2004, 246-55.
  Excerpt: In literature as in life, justice is taken to be something good, and there are two questions about “good” that are hard to ask. The harder one is “Why is good better than bad?” When Stan leaps over the wall into Milton’s… More

• Introduction to Reading the Republic

  - Brann, Eva, "Introduction to Reading the Republic," The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates' Conversations and Plato's Writings, Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2004, 88-107.
  Excerpt: The Republic is a dialogue, that is to say, a conversation. Since it is a conversation recorded between the covers of a book we cannot help but begin by reading it, but I think the author wants us as soon as possible to join it, to be converted… More

• The Philosopher in Plato’s Statesman

  - Miller, Mitchell, The Philosopher in Plato's Statesman, Las Vegas, NV: Parmenidies Publishing, 2004.
  Excerpt: In contemporary writings on Plato it is almost commonplace to remark that he is at once a profound philosopher and dramatist and teacher. Even by its form, however, this remark may confess more about contemporary scholarship and higher education… More

• Plato and the Good: Illuminating the Darkling Vision

  - Desjardins, Rosemary, Plato and the Good: Illuminating the Darkling Vision, Boston, MA: Brill Publishers, 2004.
  Excerpt: Named for a young man whose contribution to the dialogue is largely significant silence, the Philebus explores the notion of good in the context of human life. But right away we run into difficulty. It turns out that, for the Greeks as for us, there… More

• City and Soul in Plato’s Republic

  - Ferrari, G. R. F., City and Soul in Plato's Republic, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
  Excerpt: In this short book I attempt to say what Plato is getting at in the Republic. That is a grand ambition for a slim volume. My strategy has been to trace one bright thread, the comparison between the structure of a society and that of the individual… More

• Plato’s Republic: A Study

  - Rosen, Stanley, Plato's Republic: A Study, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.
  Excerpt: Plato’s Republic is one of those works in the history of philosophy that is both excessively familiar and inexhaustibly mysterious. It has been studied endlessly by a wide range of readers, specialists and amateurs alike, and has become a… More

• The Unity of Plato’s Gorgias

  - Stauffer, Devin, The Unity of Plato's Gorgias Rhetoric, Justice, and the Philosophic Life, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
  Excerpt: Few philosophers have endured more criticism and abuse in modern times than Plato. As one of the great figures of the classical tradition, Plato was subjected to powerful attacks by the founders of modern philosophy and their followers, who set out… More

• Metaphysics and Method in Plato’s Statesman

  - Sayre, Kenneth M., Metaphysics and Method in Plato's Statesman, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
  Excerpt: The Statesman begins with Socrates thanking Theodorus for introducing him to Theaetetus and the Stranger from Elea. After a bantering interchange on the relative values of sophistry, statesmanship, and philosophy, and after acquiescing to the… More

• Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato’s Republic

  - Reeve, C. D. C., Philosopher Kings: The Argument of Plato's Republic, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2006.
  Excerpt: Book I of the Republic differs markedly in philosophical style from its fellows. In it we find Socrates questioning all and sundry about what justice is, using the elenchus to refute them, and refusing to provide any positive answers of his own.… More

• The Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic

  - Ferrari, G. R. F., ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plato's Republic, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  Excerpt: When is it that we choose to journey with companions? Most often, I suppose, when we want to make the journey fuller, more pleasant, more vivid. But we may also want a fellow traveler to point out landmarks we might be missing or perhaps to assure us… More

• Timaeus-Critias: Completing or Challenging Socratic Political Philosophy?

  - Zuckert, Catherine H., "Timaeus-Critias: Completing or Challenging Socratic Political Philosophy?," Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 420-81.
  Excerpt: Socrates concluded his discussion of the city in speech, which he proposed in the Republic, by observing that it did not matter whether this city ever actually came into being, because it would serve as “a paradigm laid up in heaven for the… More

• Using Pre-Socratic Philosophy to Support Political Reform: The Athenian Stranger

  - Zucker, Catherine H., "Using Pre-Socratic Philosophy to Support Political Reform: The Athenian Stranger," Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 51-146.
  Excerpt: The Laws and the Epinomis are the only Platonic dialogues in which Socrates does not appear. They are usually thought to be the last dialogues Plato wrote. All three of the interlocutors are elderly, and there is an ancient report that Laws was… More

• Plato’s Parmenides: Parmenides’ Critique of Scrates and Plato’s Critique of Parmenides

  - Zuckert, Catherine H., "Plato's Parmenides: Parmenides' Critique of Scrates and Plato's Critique of Parmenides," Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 147-79.
  Excerpt: The conversation depicted in the Parmenides between the elderly Eleatic and Socrates is usually thought to have occurred in 450. The Parmenides thus gives Plato’s readers their first view of the young Socrates, when he was eighteen or… 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

• Prudes, Perverts, and Tyrants: Plato’s Gorgias and the Politics of Shame

  - Tarnopolsky, Christina H., Prudes, Perverts, and Tyrants: Plato's Gorgias and the Politics of Shame, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.
  About: In recent years, most political theorists have agreed that shame shouldn’t play any role in democratic politics because it threatens the mutual respect necessary for participation and deliberation. But Christina Tarnopolsky argues that not every… More

• Knowledge and Politics: The Statesman

  - Blitz, Mark, "Knowledge and Politics: The Statesman," Plato's Political Philosophy, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010, 241-68.
  Excerpt: The Stranger and young Socrates begin to search for the statesman by agreeing that he is characterized by knowledge or art. What, then, defines his art as opposed to other arts? They first divide all knowledge into practical and cognitive science,… More

• Plato’s Sophist 223 b1-7

  - Benardete, Seth, "Plato's Sophist 223 b1-7," The Archaeology of the Soul: Platonic Readings in Ancient Poetry and Philosophy, Ronna Burger and Michael Davis, eds., South Bend: St. Augustine's Press, 2010.

• Philosophy and Politics: The Republic

  - Blitz, Mark, "Philosophy and Politics: The Republic," Plato's Political Philosophy, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010, 166-90.
  Excerpt: We have now discussed several experiences that are at the root of philosophy, and a phenomenon, beauty, that helps to define both ethical and intellectual virtue. It is therefore reasonable to turn next to Plato’s Republic. For, beyond any… More

• Introduction to the Sophist

  - Brann, Eva, "Introduction to the Sophist," The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates' Conversations and Plato's Writings, Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2011, 278-93.
  Excerpt: The drama of the Sophist is part of a continuing conversation. Three of its participants had talked the day before: Socrates who is known to the world as a philosopher; the brilliant young geometer Theaetetus who so uncannily resembles the ugly… More

• Nonbeing Enfolded in Being: The Sophist

  - Brann, Eva, "Nonbeing Enfolded in Being: The Sophist," The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates' Conversations and Plato's Writings, Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2011, 294-303.
  Excerpt: Parmenides’ discovery of Being as One and as the one and only truth is, I think, the primordial event of First Philosophy. But in named Nonbeing so as to proscribe it as unthinkable and unsayable, he establishes it—an unintended… More

• On Translating the Sophist

  - Brann, Eva, "On Translating the Sophist," The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates' Conversations and Plato's Writings, Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2011, 304-20.
  Excerpt: In 1995, I was asked by the series adviser Keith Whitaker to do a translation for the nascent Focus Philosophical Library; Plato was suggested as a possibility. The Focus Press under its editor Ron Pullins publishes fresh translations, intended to be… More

• Eidos and Diaeresis in Plato’s Statesman

  - Benardete, Seth, "Eidos and Diaeresis in Plato's Statesman," The Archaeology of the Soul: Platonic Readings in Ancient Poetry and Philosophy, ed. Ronna Burger and Michael Davis, St. Augustine Press, 2012.

• Plato’s Parmenides: A Sketch

  - Benardete, Seth, "Plato's Parmenides: A Sketch," The Archaeology of the Soul: Platonic Readings in Ancient Poetry and Philosophy, ed. Ronna Burger and Michael Davis, St. Augustine Press, 2012.

Multimedia

• Leo Strauss Courses on Plato

  - Audio of courses taught by Leo Strauss, 1958 - 1973, provided by the Leo Strauss Center at the University of Chicago.
  Courses include: Plato’s Laws, Symposium, Gorgias, Meno, Apology/Crito, Protagoras, Euthydemus and Republic.

• Miles Burnyeat on Plato

  - "On Plato," The Great Philosophers, BBC, 1987.
  About the program: The dialogues of Plato are analyzed in this episode of the BBC series The Great Philosophers (1987), in which Bryan Magee interviews Cambridge philosophy professor Miles Burnyeat. Seeing Plato’s ideas initially as extensions of… More

• Christopher Bruell: Problem of Teaching Plato Today

  - Christopher Bruell, "Problem of Teaching Plato Today," Kenyon College, 1991.
  Christopher Bruell of Boston College lectures on the problem of teaching Plato today at Kenyon College in 1991.

• Masters of Greek Thought: Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle

  - Masters of Greek Thought: Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle, a 36-lecture course, either audio or video, taught by Professor Robert C. Bartlett, Boston College, provides a detailed analysis of the golden age of Athenian philosophy and the philosophical consequences that occurred when Socrates—followed first by his student Plato and then by Plato's own student Aristotle—permanently altered our approach to the most important questions humanity can pose.
  Course description: For more than two millennia, philosophers have grappled with life’s most profound issues. It is easy to forget, however, that these “eternal” questions are not eternal at all; rather, they once had to be asked for the… More

• Steven B. Smith: Introduction to Political Philosophy

  - Smith, Steven B., "Introduction to Political Philosophy," Open Yale Courses, 24 lectures, Fall 2006.
  About the course: This course is intended as an introduction to political philosophy as seen through an examination of some of the major texts and thinkers of the Western political tradition. Three broad themes that are central to understanding political life… More

• David Roochnik on Plato’s Republic

  - Roochnik, David, "Plato's Republic," Audio downloads, The Great Courses, 24 lectures.
  Course description: It is the first work in the history of Western political philosophy and, arguably, the most influential—so influential that the entire European philosophical tradition has been described as being nothing more than a “series of… More

• David Roochnik: Introduction to Greek Philosophy

  - Roochnik, David, "Introduction to Greek Philosophy," Audio lectures, The Great Courses, 24 lectures.
  Course description: The first philosophers in Western history—the ancient Greeks—asked the most fundamental questions about human beings and their relationship to the world. More than 2,500 years later, the issues they pondered continue to challenge,… More

• Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

  - O'Connor, David, "Ancient and Medieval Philosophy," Podcast,  iTunes University.
  Course description: This course, led by Professor David O’Connor (Notre Dame), will concentrate on major figures and persistent themes in ancient and medieval philosophy. A balance will be sought between scope and depth, the latter ensured by a close… More