{ "meta": { "schema_version": "1.2", "endpoint": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/index.json" }, "work": { "slug": "plato-dialogues", "name": "Dialogues of Plato", "stream": "greco-christian", "epoch_reflected": "greco-latin", "epoch_written": "greco-latin", "form": "philosophical dialogues", "tradition": "Greek philosophy / Platonic", "author": "Plato", "year_approx": -380, "note": "Benjamin Jowett's translation (1871; 4th edition 1892) of Plato's complete dialogues — the standard English version through the early 20th century.", "books_slug": "plato--the-dialogues", "books_slugs": null, "has_project_translation": false, "steiner_loci": [ "GA 87: Ancient Mysteries and the Greek Spiritual World", "GA 18: The Riddles of Philosophy — Plato + Aristotle chapters", "GA 233: World History in the Light of Anthroposophy" ] }, "parents": [], "translation": { "title": null, "author": null, "source": null }, "chapters": [ { "num": 1, "slug": "01-apology-the-death-of-socrates", "title": "Apology (the Death of Socrates)", "words": 16107, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/01-apology-the-death-of-socrates/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/01-apology-the-death-of-socrates.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Apology — Socrates's defence speech", "blurb": "Socrates's defence at his trial in 399 BC. The charge: corrupting the youth and impiety. *The unexamined life is not worth living.* Socrates refuses to escape sentence, accepts the death penalty. The foundation-text of Western philosophy's image of itself as a way of life capable of dying for the truth." }, { "num": 2, "slug": "02-crito", "title": "Crito", "words": 5361, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/02-crito/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/02-crito.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Crito — *should one disobey unjust laws?*", "blurb": "Socrates in prison awaiting execution. Crito proposes escape; Socrates argues against. The famous personification of the *Laws of Athens* speaking in their own voice: the citizen who has accepted the city's benefits cannot now disown her judgments. The classic Western statement of the obligation to obey law." }, { "num": 3, "slug": "03-charmides-or-temperance", "title": "Charmides, or Temperance", "words": 10626, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/03-charmides-or-temperance/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/03-charmides-or-temperance.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Charmides — what is *sōphrosynē* (temperance)?", "blurb": "An early dialogue. Socrates returns from the campaign at Potidaea; encounters the young Charmides; the inquiry into *sōphrosynē* (self-restraint, temperance, sound-mindedness). Through several proposed definitions to aporetic close. The Socratic discipline of definition-pursuit established." }, { "num": 4, "slug": "04-laches-or-courage", "title": "Laches or Courage", "words": 10266, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/04-laches-or-courage/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/04-laches-or-courage.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Laches — what is courage?", "blurb": "The generals Laches and Nicias are asked about the education of two young men; the discussion turns to courage (*andreia*). Standard Socratic definitional pursuit; courage as *knowledge of what to fear and dare*; the difficulty of distinguishing this kind of knowledge from wisdom in general." }, { "num": 5, "slug": "05-lysis-or-friendship", "title": "Lysis, or Friendship", "words": 9157, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/05-lysis-or-friendship/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/05-lysis-or-friendship.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Lysis — what is friendship?", "blurb": "Socrates meets the boy Lysis and his friend Menexenus at a wrestling school. The inquiry into *philia* (friendship). Through several proposed definitions to aporia. One of the few sustained Platonic treatments of friendship as such, propaedeutic to the deeper *erōs* doctrine of the Symposium." }, { "num": 6, "slug": "06-euthyphro", "title": "Euthyphro", "words": 6780, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/06-euthyphro/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/06-euthyphro.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Euthyphro — what is piety? — and the *dilemma*", "blurb": "On the day Socrates goes to file his case against his accusers, he meets Euthyphro on the way to prosecute his own father. The inquiry into *to hosion* (piety). The famous **Euthyphro Dilemma**: *Is what is pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or pious because it is loved by the gods?*" }, { "num": 7, "slug": "07-ion", "title": "Ion", "words": 5175, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/07-ion/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/07-ion.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Ion — the rhapsode and the divine madness of poetry", "blurb": "The rhapsode Ion has just won a contest reciting Homer. Socrates probes whether Ion's skill is properly *technē* (art) or *theia mania* (divine inspiration). The doctrine: the poet is moved by divine madness, not by skill; the rhapsode by inspiration from the poet; the audience from the rhapsode." }, { "num": 8, "slug": "08-gorgias", "title": "Gorgias", "words": 35697, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/08-gorgias/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/08-gorgias.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Gorgias — rhetoric versus philosophy; *it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong*", "blurb": "Long, dramatic dialogue. Three opponents successively: Gorgias (mild), Polus (harder), Callicles (the philosophical opposition incarnate). Socrates's startling theses: rhetoric is mere flattery; the tyrant is the most miserable of men; *it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong*. Closes with the famous afterlife-myth." }, { "num": 9, "slug": "09-protagoras", "title": "Protagoras", "words": 22867, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/09-protagoras/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/09-protagoras.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Protagoras — can virtue be taught?", "blurb": "Socrates against the great Sophist. The question whether virtue can be taught (Protagoras claims it can; Socrates probes); the unity of the virtues (Socrates argues for; Protagoras resists); the famous discussion of the *measurement of pleasures* and *no one does wrong willingly*. One of Plato's liveliest dramatic compositions." }, { "num": 10, "slug": "10-meno", "title": "Meno", "words": 12746, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/10-meno/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/10-meno.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Meno — the doctrine of recollection (*anamnesis*)", "blurb": "Famous for two doctrinal innovations. The **paradox of inquiry** (*how can you seek what you do not know? — if you know it, why seek; if not, how recognise it?*); the **doctrine of recollection** (*all learning is recollection of what the soul knew before birth*); demonstrated with the slave-boy's geometrical insight." }, { "num": 11, "slug": "11-euthydemus", "title": "Euthydemus", "words": 15590, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/11-euthydemus/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/11-euthydemus.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Euthydemus — comic sophistical dialectic", "blurb": "Socrates encounters the brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, masters of sophistical eristic. Comic exchange of paradoxical arguments and Socratic responses. The dialogue's serious core: the contrast between genuine dialectic (Socrates) and mere verbal trickery (the sophists)." }, { "num": 12, "slug": "12-cratylus", "title": "Cratylus", "words": 23908, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/12-cratylus/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/12-cratylus.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Cratylus — the correctness of names", "blurb": "On the philosophy of language. Hermogenes argues names are merely conventional; Cratylus argues they are naturally correct. Socrates mediates: there is *some* naturalness to names (etymological signification, sound-symbolism) but also conventional element. The most sustained ancient philosophical treatment of language." }, { "num": 13, "slug": "13-phaedo", "title": "Phaedo", "words": 27155, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/13-phaedo/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/13-phaedo.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Phaedo — the death of Socrates; the soul's immortality", "blurb": "The dialogue of Socrates's last day. The four arguments for the soul's immortality (cyclical, recollection, affinity, doctrine of forms as essences). The closing scene: Socrates drinks the hemlock, says his last words about the cock owed to Asclepius, dies among his friends. The classic Platonic statement of the immortality of the soul." }, { "num": 14, "slug": "14-phaedrus", "title": "Phaedrus", "words": 22934, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/14-phaedrus/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/14-phaedrus.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Phaedrus — love, rhetoric, the chariot of the soul", "blurb": "Socrates and Phaedrus walking outside Athens. Three speeches on love (the conventional, Socrates's first, Socrates's palinode); the famous **chariot of the soul** image (the soul as charioteer with two horses, one obedient, one unruly); critique of writing (the famous *invention of writing* myth of Theuth and Thamus)." }, { "num": 15, "slug": "15-symposium", "title": "Symposium", "words": 22043, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/15-symposium/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/15-symposium.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Symposium — the speeches on Eros; the ladder of love", "blurb": "The famous drinking-party. Six speeches on love (Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates) culminating in Socrates's report of Diotima's teaching — the **ladder of love** ascending from a single beautiful body to the form of Beauty itself. Then Alcibiades bursts in. The greatest of Plato's love-dialogues." }, { "num": 16, "slug": "16-the-republic", "title": "The Republic", "words": 128, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/16-the-republic/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/16-the-republic.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "The Republic — justice; the ideal city; the philosopher-king", "blurb": "The longest and most influential of the dialogues. Ten books on justice — its analogy in the structure of the soul and of the just city; the philosopher-king; the three classes; the noble lie; the analogy of the divided line; the **allegory of the cave**; the doctrine of the form of the Good. The crown of Plato's middle period." }, { "num": 17, "slug": "17-theaetetus", "title": "Theaetetus", "words": 31189, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/17-theaetetus/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/17-theaetetus.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Theaetetus — what is knowledge?", "blurb": "Socrates and the young Theaetetus on the question *what is knowledge?* Three proposed definitions: knowledge as perception (refuted with the *Protagoras measure* discussion); knowledge as true belief (refuted); knowledge as true belief with an account (left aporetic). The major Platonic engagement with epistemology." }, { "num": 18, "slug": "18-parmenides", "title": "Parmenides", "words": 18873, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/18-parmenides/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/18-parmenides.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Parmenides — the *Third Man*; the gymnastic of hypotheses", "blurb": "The famous late dialogue. The young Socrates is interrogated by the aged Parmenides about his theory of forms; severe critique of the forms, including the **Third Man Argument**. Then Parmenides demonstrates dialectical method on the hypothesis *that the One is*. Plato's most rigorous self-critique." }, { "num": 19, "slug": "19-sophist", "title": "Sophist", "words": 22034, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/19-sophist/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/19-sophist.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Sophist — the *Eleatic Stranger*; not-being", "blurb": "First of the late critical dialogues. The Eleatic Stranger replaces Socrates as the dialectician. The hunt for the sophist by repeated division; the great metaphysical core: the rehabilitation of *not-being* as *difference*; the *parricide* of Parmenides through the demonstration that not-being in some sense *is*." }, { "num": 20, "slug": "20-statesman", "title": "Statesman", "words": 23403, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/20-statesman/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/20-statesman.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Statesman — the *Eleatic Stranger* on rulership", "blurb": "Continuation of the Sophist. The Eleatic Stranger turns to the statesman. The art of weaving the courageous and the temperate dispositions in the citizens; the contrast between rule by law and rule by knowledge; the seven possible constitutions ranked. Late-Platonic political theory." }, { "num": 21, "slug": "21-philebus", "title": "Philebus", "words": 23310, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/21-philebus/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/21-philebus.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Philebus — pleasure and the good life", "blurb": "The good life as the mixed life of pleasure and intelligence. The classification of pleasures (true vs false; pure vs mixed); the fivefold ranking of goods that closes the dialogue (measure, beauty, intelligence, true pleasures, mere relief). One of Plato's most subtle ethical investigations." }, { "num": 22, "slug": "22-timaeus", "title": "Timaeus", "words": 32312, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/22-timaeus/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/22-timaeus.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Timaeus — the cosmogony; the *Demiurge*", "blurb": "Plato's cosmological dialogue and the most read of his works through late antiquity and the medieval West (in Calcidius's Latin). The Demiurge fashioning the cosmos by reference to the eternal forms; the *receptacle* (chōra); the world-soul; the four elements arranged in geometrical solids. The cosmological foundation of all later Platonic tradition." }, { "num": 23, "slug": "23-critias", "title": "Critias", "words": 6804, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/23-critias/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/23-critias.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Critias — the *Atlantis* narrative (unfinished)", "blurb": "The unfinished sequel to *Timaeus*. The Egyptian priests' narrative of ancient Athens's war against Atlantis 9,000 years before. Detailed description of the Atlantean kingdom and its degeneration. Breaks off mid-sentence as Zeus prepares to address the gods about Atlantis's fate — the most tantalising unfinished work of antiquity." }, { "num": 24, "slug": "24-the-seventh-letter", "title": "The Seventh Letter", "words": 13501, "url": "/sources/plato-dialogues/24-the-seventh-letter/", "api": "/api/sources/plato-dialogues/24-the-seventh-letter.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Seventh Letter — Plato's autobiographical apologia", "blurb": "The longest and most important of the *Epistles* — Plato's autobiographical defence of his political involvement in Syracuse with the tyrants Dionysius I and II. Contains the famous **philosophical digression** denying that Plato has any written doctrine — *only spoken in unwritten conversation*. The most direct biographical witness to Plato's self-understanding." } ] }