Some dialogues of Plato are of so various a character that their relation to the other dialogues cannot be determined with any degree of certainty. The Theaetetus, like the Parmenides, has points of similarity both with his earlier and his later writings. The perfection of style, the humour, the dramatic interest, the complexity of structure, the fertility of illustration, the shifting of the points of view, are characteristic of his best period of authorship. The vain search, the negative...

Awaiting his trial on charges of impiety and heresy, Socrates encounters Euthyphro, a self-proclaimed authority on matters of piety and the will of the gods. Socrates, desiring instruction in these matters, converses with Euthyphro, but as usual, the man who professes to know nothing fares better than the man who claims to be an expert. One of Plato’s well-known Socratic Dialogues, Euthyphro probes the nature of piety, and notably poses the so-called Euthyphro Dilemma: Do the gods love a t...

In Phaedrus, Plato records the conversation of love and rhetoric between Socrates and Phaedrus.Socrates uses love as a metaphor for rhetoric by categorizing the differences between love and lust, as well as the differences between a philosopher who pursues divine truth, and a poet who forgoes truth for ostentations. Then Socrates and Phaedrus eventually conclude the requirements for being a dialectician. In the course of defending proper love and truth, Socrates pointes out that be...

"Plato's Phaedo is one of the great dialogues of his middle period, along with the Republic and the Symposium. The Phaedo, which depicts the death of Socrates, is also Plato's seventh and last dialogue to detail the philosopher's final days (the first six being Theaetetus, Euthyphro, Sophist, Statesman, Apology, and Crito). In the dialogue, Socrates discusses the nature of the afterlife on his last day before being executed by drinking hemlock. Socrates has been imprisoned and sentenced to...

The Protagoras, like several of the Dialogues of Plato, is put into the mouth of Socrates, who describes a conversation which had taken place between himself and the great Sophist at the house of Callias-'the man who had spent more upon the Sophists than all the rest of the world'-and in which the learned Hippias and the grammarian Prodicus had also shared, as well as Alcibiades and Critias, both of whom said a few words-in the presence of a distinguished company consisting of disciples of...

The Republic (Greek: Politeia) is a Socratic dialogue, written by Plato around 380 BC, concerning the definition of (justice), the order and character of the just city-state and the just man, reason by which ancient readers used the name On Justice as an alternative title (not to be confused with the spurious dialogue also titled On Justice). The dramatic date of the dialogue has been much debated and though it must take place some time during the Peloponnesian War, "there would be jarring...

Finally available, a high quality book of the original classic edition of Timaeus.This is a new and freshly published edition of this culturally important work by Plato, which is now, at last, again available to you.Enjoy this classic work today. These selected paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside Timaeus:With a view to the illustration of the Timaeus I propose to divide this Introduction into sections, of which the first will contain an ...

THE Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist; the Politicus or Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of the State are more clearly drawn out in the Laws; as works of art, the Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence. But no other Dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view and the same perfection of s...

Of all the writings of Plato the Timaeus is the most obscure and repulsive to the modern reader, and has nevertheless had the greatest influence over the ancient and mediaeval world. The obscurity arises in the infancy of physical science, out of the confusion of theological, mathematical, and physiological notions, out of the desire to conceive the whole of nature without any adequate knowledge of the parts, and from a greater perception of similarities which lie on the surface than of di...

The Symposium (Ancient Greek: Συμπόσιον) is a philosophical book written by Plato sometime after 385 BCE. On one level the book deals with the genealogy, nature and purpose of love, on another level the book deals with the topic of knowledge, specifically how does one know what one knows. The topic of love is taken up in the form of a group of speeches, given by a group of men at a symposium or a wine drinking party at the house of the tragedian Agathon at Athens. Plato constructed the Sym...

Fascinating ancient treatise on the nature of Love: in many pieces of ancient Roman and Greek literature you will come away greatly surprised at how these 2000 to 3000-year old cultures were so similar to ours in many ways. Well, Platos dialogue The Symposium both re-affirms and counters these past impressions.The Symposium investigates the nature of romantic Love. What is it? From where does it arise? What is the aim of Love? What does it accomplish?On the one hand, this d...

"When all the gods had assembled in conference, Zeus arose among them and addressed them thus" . . ."it is with this line that Plato's story of Atlantis ends; and the words of Zeus remain unknown."-- Francis Bacon, New AtlantisOf all the writings of Plato the Timaeus is the most obscure and repulsive to the modern reader, and has nevertheless had the greatest influence over the ancient and mediaeval world. The obscurity arises in the infancy of physi...