Major Works

• Laws

  - Recommended translation: The Laws of Plato, trans. Thomas L. Pangle (Basic, 1980; University of Chicago Press, 1988).
  This is the best edition of the Laws available in English. Thomas L. Pangle’s edition also includes an extended interpretative essay that introduces the work. Excerpt: Athenian To whom do you ascribe the authorship of your legal arrangements, Strangers?… More

• Protagoras and Meno

  - Recommended translation: Plato: "Protagoras" and "Meno,"  trans. Robert C. Bartlett (Cornell, 2004).
  From the Publisher: This volume contains new translations of two dialogues of Plato, the Protagoras and the Meno, together with explanatory notes and substantial interpretive essays. Robert C. Bartlett’s translations are as literal as is compatible… More

Other Works

• Lesser Hippias

  - Recommended translations:
  • "Lesser Hippias," trans. J. Leake in The Roots of Political Philosophy, ed. Thomas L. Pangle (Cornell, 1987).
  • "Lesser Hippias," trans. N. Smith in Plato: Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper (Hackett, 1997).
  Excerpt: Eudicus Why, then, are you silent, Socrates, when Hippias has been delivering such a fine display? Why do you not join us in praising some part of his speech, or else, if he seems to you to have been wrong in any point, refute him—especially now… 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

• Critias

  - Recommended translation: "Critias," trans. D. Clay in Plato: Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper (Hackett, 1997).
  Excerpt: Timaeus How gladly do I now welcome my release, Socrates, from my protracted discourse, even as a traveller who takes his rest after a long journey! And I make my prayer to that God who has recently been created by our speech (although in reality… More

• Protagoras

  - Recommended translations:
  • Plato: "Protagoras" and "Meno", trans. Robert C. Bartlett (Cornell, 2004).
  • "Protagoras," trans. S. Lombardo and K. Bell in Plato: Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper (Hackett, 1997).
  Excerpt: Friend Where have you been now, Socrates? Ah, but of course you have been in chase of Alcibiades and his youthful beauty! Well, only the other day, as I looked at him, I thought him still handsome as a man—for a man he is, Socrates, between you and… More

Commentary

• A Commentary on Plato’s Meno

  - Klein, Jacob, A Commentary on Plato's Meno, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.
  Excerpt: In the past, for long stretches of time, writing commentaries was a way of expounding the truth. It still may be that. But how about commentaries on Platonic dialogues? Must they not be based on a variety of preconceptions and predecisions, on a vast… 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.

• 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

• Introduction to the Lesser Hippias

  - Leake, James, "Introduction to the Lesser Hippias," The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, ed. Thomas L. Pangle, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987, 300-06.
  Excerpt: The major interlocutor of Socrates in this dialogue is Hippias, one of the most renowned sophists at the end of the fifth century. His fellows citizens at Elis, the small city in the northwestern Peloponese, chose him on numerous occasions to… 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

• Protagoras

  - Cropsey, Joseph, "Protagoras," Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995, 3-26.
  Excerpt: Given the dialectical character of the Platonic writings individually, it is not surprising that the Platonic corpus as a whole consists as largely as it does of engagements with one or another alternative to the understandings of Plato/Socrates. It… More

• The Problem of Socrates

  - Strauss, Leo, "The Problem of Socrates," Interpretation 22, no. 2 (Spring 1995).  Talk given on April 17, 1970, at St. John's College, Annapolis.
  Excerpt: [I was told that the local paper has announced that I lecture tonight on “The problems of Socrates.” This was an engaging printing error; for there is more than one problem of Socrates, in the first place, the problem with which Socrates… 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

• 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 “Laws” by Seth Benardete

  - Benardete, Seth, Plato's "Laws": The Discovery of Being, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
  From the publisher: “The Laws was Plato’s last work, his longest, and one of his most difficult. In contrast to the Republic, which presents an abstract ideal, the Laws appears to provide practical guidelines for the establishment and maintenance… More

• The Protagoras: A Science of Practical Reasoning

  - Nussbaum, Martha C., "The Protagoras: A Science of Practical Reasoning," The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001, 89-121.
  Excerpt: Throughout the dialogues that we shall study here, Plato’s elaboration of radical ethical proposals is motivated by an acute sense of the problems caused by ungoverned luck in human life. The need of human beings for philosophy is, for him,… More

• The Development of Plato’s Political Theory

  - George Klosko, The Development of Plato's Political Theory, Oxford University Press, 2007.
  From the publisher: The Development of Plato’s Political Theory provides a clear, scholarly account of Plato’s political theory in the context of the social and political events of his time. This second edition has been thoroughly revised to take… 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

• Moral and Criminal Responsibility in Plato’s Laws

  - Pangle, Lorraine Smith, "Moral and Criminal Responsibility in Plato's Laws," American Political Science Review 103, no. 3 (August 2009), 456-73.
  Abstract: In his most practical work, the “Laws”, Plato combines a frank statement of the radical Socratic thesis that virtue is knowledge and vice involuntary with a prudential acceptance of the political community’s need for retributive… More

• Plato’s “Laws”: A Critical Guide

  - Bobonich, Christopher, ed., Plato's Laws: A Critical Guide, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
  About the Book: Long understudied, Plato’s Laws has been the object of renewed attention in the past decade, and is now considered to be his major work of political philosophy besides the Republic. In his last dialogue, Plato returns to the project of… More

• Virtue and Politics: The Laws

  - Blitz, Mark, "Virtue and Politics: The Laws," Plato's Political Philosophy, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010, 82-114.
  Excerpt: We pursue our study of virtue by considering more fully Plato’s understanding of its place in politics. His thematic discussion of politics occurs in three dialogues, the Laws, the Republic, and the Statesman. As we have seen, moreover,… More

Multimedia

• 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