Thomas A. Szlezák – författare

Reading Plato offers a concise and illuminating insight into the complexities and difficulties of the Platonic dialogues, providing an invaluable text for any student of Plato's philosophy.Taking as a starting point the critique of writing in the Phaedrus -- where Socrates argues that a book cannot choose its reader nor can it defend itself against misinterpretation -- Reading Plato offers solutions to the problems of interpreting the dialogues. In this ground-breaking book, Thomas A. Szlezak persuasively argues that the dialogues are designed to stimulate philosophical enquiry and to elevate philosophy to the realm of oral dialectic.

Reading Plato offers a concise and illuminating insight into the complexities and difficulties of the Platonic dialogues, providing an invaluable text for any student of Plato's philosophy.Taking as a starting point the critique of writing in the Phaedrus -- where Socrates argues that a book cannot choose its reader nor can it defend itself against misinterpretation -- Reading Plato offers solutions to the problems of interpreting the dialogues. In this ground-breaking book, Thomas A. Szlezak persuasively argues that the dialogues are designed to stimulate philosophical enquiry and to elevate philosophy to the realm of oral dialectic.

Th. A. Szlezák's book Platon und die Schriftlichkeit der Philosophie. Interpretationen zu den frühen und mittleren Dialogen published in 1985 rapidly became an internationally recognised classic in the interpretation of Plato. A close textual analysis of the Dialogues revealed new insights into the relationship of Plato's textual criticism and his auctorial activity. Following on logically from this, Szlezák now brings the same approach to bear on Plato's late dialogues. With this, he presents the first comprehensive study of Socrates the dialectician in the totality of Plato's work with results which are highly relevant for Plato's concept of philosophy.