Preface

This is not a book to read straight through, even by those familiar with the dialogues, and it is not a book about Platonism. It is about the dialogues as individual plays, as individual and separate works of theatre. I urge my audience to read each chapter after they have read the relevant dialogue. The outrageous claims and arguments in which Plato’s dramatis personae engage have a way of settling down in the consciousness when the dialogues are put aside and the remarks fade in the memory. With the passage of time, we also have a way of refashioning what we have read so that it fits our familiar notions. It will be of little value to read the chapter on the Timaeus if the dialogue is not fresh in the memory, for understanding the dialogue includes, among other things, recognizing the puns, the wild etymologies, the deadpan farce, the intricate playfulness in which Plato indulged (not always successfully)-the sheer abundance of which precludes a full recall after any significant time has passed. What I try to do in this book, then, is interpret the dialogues as they would be experienced while they are read or heard; it tries, in part, to recapture the effect the dialogues had on Plato’s original audience—an audience yet not yet influenced by the long tradition of Platonic scholarship. As I shall argue, the tradition went off in the wrong direction in the generation after Plato and is itself the major obstacle to interpreting Plato.

I should like to acknowledge those who over the years have helped me think about Plato (even if I haven’t gotten it right, I am still grateful). I should like to thank first the wonderful teachers I had a long time ago at Grinnell College, Hippocrates G. Apostle, William S. Cobb, John M. Crossett, and William T. McKibben, who encouraged and stimulated a love of Greek learning. I should also like to give thanks to David Curry, Anthony E. Podlecki, and Diana Rhoads, who recently read parts of the manuscript and offered advice, and to Gerry Randall, librarian at Hampden-Sydney College, who helped me track down and gather lots and lots of material I used. Finally, I should like to record my thanks to Hampden-Sydney College, which granted me a sabbatical to work on the Timaeus and two summer fellowships to work on the rest of the book.