Plato's Dialogues

Gerald A. Press, associate professor of philosophy at Hunter College of the City University of New York, is the author of The Development of the Idea of History in Antiquity and Maps of Knowledge.

... will be of interest to Plato scholars and useful for graduate seminars on Plato. Religious Studies Review Plato's Dialogues is one of the more useful contributions to the discussion ... the gem of the collection was Rosemary Kent Sprague's pungent characterization of Platonic studies in the sixties ... British scholars particularly will benefit by reading what she has to say. Greece & Rome ... bears witness to a major new development in Plato studies ... yields a rich harvest of new insights into Plato's thought. -- Walter Watson, State University of New York at Stony Brook ... a fine contribution to the ongoing effort to understand what it means to interpret a Platonic dialogue. -- Charles Griswold, Boston University ... should generate some interesting arguments in the next few years. CHOICE

• Chapter 1 Introduction Part 2 Part I: Methods and Principles Chapter 3 Looking for Clues: An Interpretation of Some Literary Aspects of Plato's "Two Level Model" Chapter 4 Analysis of Meaning: Some Problems and Suggestions Chapter 5 Plato's Dialogues as Subversive Activity Chapter 6 Asebeia and Synousia: The Issues Behind the Indictment of Socrates Chapter 7 Principles of Dramatic and Non-Doctrinal Plato Interpretation Chapter 8 The Hellenistic Obliteration of Plato's Dialogism Part 9 Part II: Interpretations Chapter 10 An Ironic Dilemma, or Incompatible Interpretations of Euthyphro 5 a-b Chapter 11 Framing the Question of Knowledge: Plato's Theaetetus Chapter 12 Pan, the Cicadas, and Plato's Use of Myth in the Phaedrus Chapter 13 Plato's Philosophical Antiope: the Gorgias Chapter 14 How is the Eleatic Stranger of the Sophist Eleatic? Part 15 Part III: Assessment Chapter 16 Four Types of Plato Interpretation Chapter 17 Some Platonic Recollections Chapter 18 In Search of Dialogue Chapter 19 Index