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the cambridge companion to
PLATO

The first edition of The Cambridge Companion to Plato

(1992), edited by Richard Kraut, shaped scholarly research
and guided new students for thirty years. This second edition
introduces students to fresh approaches to Plato’s dialogues
while advancing the next generation of research. Of its
seventeen chapters, nine are entirely new, written by some
of today’s leading scholars. Six others have been thoroughly
revised and updated by their original authors. The volume
covers the full range of Plato’s interests, including ethics,
political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics,
religion, mathematics, and psychology. Plato’s dialogues are
approached as unified works and considered within their
intellectual context, and the revised introduction suggests
a way of reading the dialogues that attends to the differences
between them while also tracing their interrelations. The
result is a rich and wide-ranging volume which will be
valuable for all students and scholars of Plato.

david ebrey is Researcher at Humboldt-Universität zu

Berlin
richard kraut is Charles and Emma Morrison Professor in
the Humanities at Northwestern University
other volumes in the s eries of cambridge
companions

ABELARD Edited by jeffrey e. brower and kevin guilfoy

ADORNO Edited by thomas huhn
ANCIENT ETHICS Edited by christopher bobonich
ANCIENT GREEK AND ROMAN SCIENCE Edited by liba taub
ANCIENT SCEPTICISM Edited by richard bett
ANSELM Edited by brian davies and brian leftow
AQUINAS Edited by norman kretzmann and eleonore stump
ARABIC PHILOSOPHY Edited by peter adamson and richard c. taylor
HANNAH ARENDT Edited by dana villa
ARISTOTLE Edited by jonathan barnes
ARISTOTLE’S ‘POLITICS’ Edited by marguerite deslauriers and
paul destrée
ATHEISM Edited by michael martin
AUGUSTINE 2nd edition Edited by david meconi and eleonore stump
BACON Edited by markku peltonen
BERKELEY Edited by kenneth p. winkler
BOETHIUS Edited by john marenbon
BRENTANO Edited by dale jacquette
CARNAP Edited by michael friedman and richard creath
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE Edited by william w. scheuerman
COMMON-SENSE PHILOSOPHY Edited by rik peels and rené
van woudenberg
THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO Edited by terrell carver and james farr
CONSTANT Edited by helena rosenblatt
CRITICAL THEORY Edited by fred rush
DARWIN 2nd edition Edited by jonathan hodge and gregory radick
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR Edited by claudia card
DELEUZE Edited by daniel w. smith and henry somers-hall
DESCARTES Edited by john cottingham
DESCARTES’ ‘MEDITATIONS’ Edited by david cunning
DEWEY Edited by molly cochran
DUNS SCOTUS Edited by thomas williams
EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY Edited by a. a. long
EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY Edited by donald rutherford
EPICUREANISM Edited by james warren
EXISTENTIALISM Edited by steven crowell
‘THE FEDERALIST’ Edited by jack n. rakove and colleen a. sheehan

Continued at the back of the book

The Cambridge Companion to

PLATO
second edition

Edited by
David Ebrey
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Richard Kraut
Northwestern University, Illinois
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre,
New Delhi – 110025, India
103 Penang Road, # 05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108471190
DOI: 10.1017/9781108557795
First edition © Richard Kraut 1992
Second edition © David Ebrey and Richard Kraut 2022
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1992
22nd printing 2010
Second edition 2022
Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ Books Limited, Padstow Cornwall
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ebrey, David, 1978– editor. | Kraut, Richard, 1944– editor.
Title: The Cambridge companion to Plato / edited by David Ebrey, Humboldt-
Universität zu Berlin, Richard Kraut, Northwestern University, Illinois.
Description: Second edition. | Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA :
Cambridge University Press, 2022. | Series: Cambridge companions to philosophy |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021025369 (print) | LCCN 2021025370 (ebook) | ISBN
9781108471190 (hardback) | ISBN 9781108457262 (paperback) | ISBN
9781108557795 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Plato.
Classification: LCC B395 .C28 2122 (print) | LCC B395 (ebook) | DDC 184–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025369
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025370
ISBN 978-1-108-47119-0 Hardback
ISBN 978-1-108-45726-2 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
the cambridge companion to
PLATO

The first edition of The Cambridge Companion to Plato

(1992), edited by Richard Kraut, shaped scholarly research
and guided new students for thirty years. This second edition
introduces students to fresh approaches to Plato’s dialogues
while advancing the next generation of research. Of its
seventeen chapters, nine are entirely new, written by some
of today’s leading scholars. Six others have been thoroughly
revised and updated by their original authors. The volume
covers the full range of Plato’s interests, including ethics,
political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics,
religion, mathematics, and psychology. Plato’s dialogues are
approached as unified works and considered within their
intellectual context, and the revised introduction suggests
a way of reading the dialogues that attends to the differences
between them while also tracing their interrelations. The
result is a rich and wide-ranging volume which will be
valuable for all students and scholars of Plato.

david ebrey is Researcher at Humboldt-Universität zu

Berlin
richard kraut is Charles and Emma Morrison Professor in
the Humanities at Northwestern University
other volumes in the s eries of cambridge
companions

ABELARD Edited by jeffrey e. brower and kevin guilfoy

ADORNO Edited by thomas huhn
ANCIENT ETHICS Edited by christopher bobonich
ANCIENT GREEK AND ROMAN SCIENCE Edited by liba taub
ANCIENT SCEPTICISM Edited by richard bett
ANSELM Edited by brian davies and brian leftow
AQUINAS Edited by norman kretzmann and eleonore stump
ARABIC PHILOSOPHY Edited by peter adamson and richard c. taylor
HANNAH ARENDT Edited by dana villa
ARISTOTLE Edited by jonathan barnes
ARISTOTLE’S ‘POLITICS’ Edited by marguerite deslauriers and
paul destrée
ATHEISM Edited by michael martin
AUGUSTINE 2nd edition Edited by david meconi and eleonore stump
BACON Edited by markku peltonen
BERKELEY Edited by kenneth p. winkler
BOETHIUS Edited by john marenbon
BRENTANO Edited by dale jacquette
CARNAP Edited by michael friedman and richard creath
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE Edited by william w. scheuerman
COMMON-SENSE PHILOSOPHY Edited by rik peels and rené
van woudenberg
THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO Edited by terrell carver and james farr
CONSTANT Edited by helena rosenblatt
CRITICAL THEORY Edited by fred rush
DARWIN 2nd edition Edited by jonathan hodge and gregory radick
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR Edited by claudia card
DELEUZE Edited by daniel w. smith and henry somers-hall
DESCARTES Edited by john cottingham
DESCARTES’ ‘MEDITATIONS’ Edited by david cunning
DEWEY Edited by molly cochran
DUNS SCOTUS Edited by thomas williams
EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY Edited by a. a. long
EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY Edited by donald rutherford
EPICUREANISM Edited by james warren
EXISTENTIALISM Edited by steven crowell
‘THE FEDERALIST’ Edited by jack n. rakove and colleen a. sheehan

Continued at the back of the book

The Cambridge Companion to

PLATO
second edition

Edited by
David Ebrey
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Richard Kraut
Northwestern University, Illinois
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre,
New Delhi – 110025, India
103 Penang Road, # 05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108471190
DOI: 10.1017/9781108557795
First edition © Richard Kraut 1992
Second edition © David Ebrey and Richard Kraut 2022
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1992
22nd printing 2010
Second edition 2022
Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ Books Limited, Padstow Cornwall
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ebrey, David, 1978– editor. | Kraut, Richard, 1944– editor.
Title: The Cambridge companion to Plato / edited by David Ebrey, Humboldt-
Universität zu Berlin, Richard Kraut, Northwestern University, Illinois.
Description: Second edition. | Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA :
Cambridge University Press, 2022. | Series: Cambridge companions to philosophy |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021025369 (print) | LCCN 2021025370 (ebook) | ISBN
9781108471190 (hardback) | ISBN 9781108457262 (paperback) | ISBN
9781108557795 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Plato.
Classification: LCC B395 .C28 2122 (print) | LCC B395 (ebook) | DDC 184–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025369
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025370
ISBN 978-1-108-47119-0 Hardback
ISBN 978-1-108-45726-2 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
the cambridge companion to
PLATO

The first edition of The Cambridge Companion to Plato

(1992), edited by Richard Kraut, shaped scholarly research
and guided new students for thirty years. This second edition
introduces students to fresh approaches to Plato’s dialogues
while advancing the next generation of research. Of its
seventeen chapters, nine are entirely new, written by some
of today’s leading scholars. Six others have been thoroughly
revised and updated by their original authors. The volume
covers the full range of Plato’s interests, including ethics,
political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics,
religion, mathematics, and psychology. Plato’s dialogues are
approached as unified works and considered within their
intellectual context, and the revised introduction suggests
a way of reading the dialogues that attends to the differences
between them while also tracing their interrelations. The
result is a rich and wide-ranging volume which will be
valuable for all students and scholars of Plato.

david ebrey is Researcher at Humboldt-Universität zu

Berlin
richard kraut is Charles and Emma Morrison Professor in
the Humanities at Northwestern University
other volumes in the s eries of cambridge
companions

ABELARD Edited by jeffrey e. brower and kevin guilfoy

ADORNO Edited by thomas huhn
ANCIENT ETHICS Edited by christopher bobonich
ANCIENT GREEK AND ROMAN SCIENCE Edited by liba taub
ANCIENT SCEPTICISM Edited by richard bett
ANSELM Edited by brian davies and brian leftow
AQUINAS Edited by norman kretzmann and eleonore stump
ARABIC PHILOSOPHY Edited by peter adamson and richard c. taylor
HANNAH ARENDT Edited by dana villa
ARISTOTLE Edited by jonathan barnes
ARISTOTLE’S ‘POLITICS’ Edited by marguerite deslauriers and
paul destrée
ATHEISM Edited by michael martin
AUGUSTINE 2nd edition Edited by david meconi and eleonore stump
BACON Edited by markku peltonen
BERKELEY Edited by kenneth p. winkler
BOETHIUS Edited by john marenbon
BRENTANO Edited by dale jacquette
CARNAP Edited by michael friedman and richard creath
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE Edited by william w. scheuerman
COMMON-SENSE PHILOSOPHY Edited by rik peels and rené
van woudenberg
THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO Edited by terrell carver and james farr
CONSTANT Edited by helena rosenblatt
CRITICAL THEORY Edited by fred rush
DARWIN 2nd edition Edited by jonathan hodge and gregory radick
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR Edited by claudia card
DELEUZE Edited by daniel w. smith and henry somers-hall
DESCARTES Edited by john cottingham
DESCARTES’ ‘MEDITATIONS’ Edited by david cunning
DEWEY Edited by molly cochran
DUNS SCOTUS Edited by thomas williams
EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY Edited by a. a. long
EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY Edited by donald rutherford
EPICUREANISM Edited by james warren
EXISTENTIALISM Edited by steven crowell
‘THE FEDERALIST’ Edited by jack n. rakove and colleen a. sheehan

Continued at the back of the book

The Cambridge Companion to

PLATO
second edition

Edited by
David Ebrey
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Richard Kraut
Northwestern University, Illinois
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre,
New Delhi – 110025, India
103 Penang Road, # 05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108471190
DOI: 10.1017/9781108557795
First edition © Richard Kraut 1992
Second edition © David Ebrey and Richard Kraut 2022
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1992
22nd printing 2010
Second edition 2022
Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ Books Limited, Padstow Cornwall
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ebrey, David, 1978– editor. | Kraut, Richard, 1944– editor.
Title: The Cambridge companion to Plato / edited by David Ebrey, Humboldt-
Universität zu Berlin, Richard Kraut, Northwestern University, Illinois.
Description: Second edition. | Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA :
Cambridge University Press, 2022. | Series: Cambridge companions to philosophy |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021025369 (print) | LCCN 2021025370 (ebook) | ISBN
9781108471190 (hardback) | ISBN 9781108457262 (paperback) | ISBN
9781108557795 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Plato.
Classification: LCC B395 .C28 2122 (print) | LCC B395 (ebook) | DDC 184–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025369
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025370
ISBN 978-1-108-47119-0 Hardback
ISBN 978-1-108-45726-2 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
the cambridge companion to
PLATO

The first edition of The Cambridge Companion to Plato

(1992), edited by Richard Kraut, shaped scholarly research
and guided new students for thirty years. This second edition
introduces students to fresh approaches to Plato’s dialogues
while advancing the next generation of research. Of its
seventeen chapters, nine are entirely new, written by some
of today’s leading scholars. Six others have been thoroughly
revised and updated by their original authors. The volume
covers the full range of Plato’s interests, including ethics,
political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics,
religion, mathematics, and psychology. Plato’s dialogues are
approached as unified works and considered within their
intellectual context, and the revised introduction suggests
a way of reading the dialogues that attends to the differences
between them while also tracing their interrelations. The
result is a rich and wide-ranging volume which will be
valuable for all students and scholars of Plato.

david ebrey is Researcher at Humboldt-Universität zu

Berlin
richard kraut is Charles and Emma Morrison Professor in
the Humanities at Northwestern University
other volumes in the s eries of cambridge
companions

ABELARD Edited by jeffrey e. brower and kevin guilfoy

ADORNO Edited by thomas huhn
ANCIENT ETHICS Edited by christopher bobonich
ANCIENT GREEK AND ROMAN SCIENCE Edited by liba taub
ANCIENT SCEPTICISM Edited by richard bett
ANSELM Edited by brian davies and brian leftow
AQUINAS Edited by norman kretzmann and eleonore stump
ARABIC PHILOSOPHY Edited by peter adamson and richard c. taylor
HANNAH ARENDT Edited by dana villa
ARISTOTLE Edited by jonathan barnes
ARISTOTLE’S ‘POLITICS’ Edited by marguerite deslauriers and
paul destrée
ATHEISM Edited by michael martin
AUGUSTINE 2nd edition Edited by david meconi and eleonore stump
BACON Edited by markku peltonen
BERKELEY Edited by kenneth p. winkler
BOETHIUS Edited by john marenbon
BRENTANO Edited by dale jacquette
CARNAP Edited by michael friedman and richard creath
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE Edited by william w. scheuerman
COMMON-SENSE PHILOSOPHY Edited by rik peels and rené
van woudenberg
THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO Edited by terrell carver and james farr
CONSTANT Edited by helena rosenblatt
CRITICAL THEORY Edited by fred rush
DARWIN 2nd edition Edited by jonathan hodge and gregory radick
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR Edited by claudia card
DELEUZE Edited by daniel w. smith and henry somers-hall
DESCARTES Edited by john cottingham
DESCARTES’ ‘MEDITATIONS’ Edited by david cunning
DEWEY Edited by molly cochran
DUNS SCOTUS Edited by thomas williams
EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY Edited by a. a. long
EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY Edited by donald rutherford
EPICUREANISM Edited by james warren
EXISTENTIALISM Edited by steven crowell
‘THE FEDERALIST’ Edited by jack n. rakove and colleen a. sheehan

Continued at the back of the book

The Cambridge Companion to

PLATO
second edition

Edited by
David Ebrey
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Richard Kraut
Northwestern University, Illinois
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre,
New Delhi – 110025, India
103 Penang Road, # 05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108471190
DOI: 10.1017/9781108557795
First edition © Richard Kraut 1992
Second edition © David Ebrey and Richard Kraut 2022
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1992
22nd printing 2010
Second edition 2022
Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ Books Limited, Padstow Cornwall
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ebrey, David, 1978– editor. | Kraut, Richard, 1944– editor.
Title: The Cambridge companion to Plato / edited by David Ebrey, Humboldt-
Universität zu Berlin, Richard Kraut, Northwestern University, Illinois.
Description: Second edition. | Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA :
Cambridge University Press, 2022. | Series: Cambridge companions to philosophy |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021025369 (print) | LCCN 2021025370 (ebook) | ISBN
9781108471190 (hardback) | ISBN 9781108457262 (paperback) | ISBN
9781108557795 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Plato.
Classification: LCC B395 .C28 2122 (print) | LCC B395 (ebook) | DDC 184–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025369
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025370
ISBN 978-1-108-47119-0 Hardback
ISBN 978-1-108-45726-2 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
 Contents

List of Contributors page ix

Acknowledgments xii
Chronology xiii
List of Abbreviations xv

1. Introduction to the Study of Plato 1

d av i d e b re y an d r i c h a r d k r a u t

2. Plato in his Context 39

t. h . i rw in

3. Stylometry and Chronology 82

l e o n a rd b r a n d w o o d

4. Plato’s Socrates and his Conception of Philosophy 117

e r i c b r ow n

5. Being Good at Being Bad: Plato’s Hippias Minor 146

agnes callard

6. Inquiry in the Meno 173

g a i l fi n e

7. Why Erōs? 202

s u z a n n e o b d rz a l e k

8. Plato on Philosophy and the Mysteries 233

g áb o r b e t e gh

9. The Unfolding Account of Forms in the Phaedo 268

d av i d e b re y

vii
viii contents

10. The Defense of Justice in Plato’s Republic 298

r i c h ar d k r au t

11. Plato on Poetic Creativity: A Revision 328

el iza b eth a smi s

12. Betwixt and Between: Plato and the Objects of

Mathematics 358
henry mendell

13. Another Goodbye to the Third Man 399

c o n s t a nc e c. m e i n w a l d

14. Plato’s Sophist on False Statements 433

m i c h a e l fr e d e

15. Cosmology and Human Nature in the Timaeus 464

em il y fl etc h er

16. The Fourfold Classification and Socrates’ Craft Analogy

in the Philebus 493
v e r i t y h ar t e

17. Law in Plato’s Late Politics 522

r ac h a n a k a m t e ka r a n d r a c h el
s i ng p u r w a ll a

Bibliography 559
Index Locorum 592
General Index 612
 Contributors

Elizabeth Asmis is Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago.

She is author of Epicurus’ Scientific Method (1984) and of diverse
articles on ancient philosophy and aesthetics. Her current research
is on Epicurean ideas of sociability, including justice, pity, and
parental love.

Gábor Betegh is Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the

University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Christ’s College
Cambridge. He is the author of The Derveni Papyrus: Cosmology
Theology and Interpretation (Cambridge, 2004) and co-editor of
Cicero’s De Finibus: Philosophical Approaches (with J. Annas)
(Cambridge, 2015).

Leonard Brandwood was Lecturer in the Department of Greek and

Latin at Manchester University. He is the author of A Word Index
to Plato (1976) and The Chronology of Plato’s Dialogues
(Cambridge, 1990).

Eric Brown is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Washington

University in St. Louis. He is the author of Stoic
Cosmopolitanism (Cambridge, forthcoming), and articles on eth-
ical and psychological topics in many ancient authors.

Agnes Callard is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University

of Chicago. She is the author of Aspiration: The Agency of
Becoming (2018).

David Ebrey is Researcher at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He is

author of Plato’s Phaedo: Forms, Death, and the Philosophical Life
(forthcoming), editor of Theory and Practice in Aristotle’s Natural

ix
x list of contributors

Science (Cambridge, 2015), and author of articles on a variety of

topics in Plato and Aristotle.

Gail Fine is Professor of Philosophy Emerita at Cornell University and

Senior Research Fellow Emerita at Merton College, Oxford. She is
the author of On Ideas: Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s Theory of
Forms (1993), Plato on Knowledge and Forms: Selected Essays
(2003), The Possibility of Inquiry: Meno’s Paradox from Socrates
to Sextus (2014), and Essays in Ancient Epistemology (2021); she is
also the editor of Plato 1 and 2 in the Oxford Readings in Philosophy
series (1999) and of the Oxford Handbook of Plato (2nd ed. 2019).

Emily Fletcher is Associate Professor Vilas Distinguished Achievement

Professorship, and Mellon Chair of Ancient Greek Philosophy at
University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on Plato’s
ethics and psychology, especially in the Philebus and Timaeus.

Michael Frede was Professor Emeritus of the History of Philosophy at

University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Keble College. His
books included Prädikation und Existenzaussage (1967), Die
Stoische Logik (1974), Essays in Ancient Philosophy (1987), a trans-
lation and commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Zeta (with
Günther Patzig, 1988), Free Will: origins of the notion in ancient
thought (2011), and The Pseudo-Platonic Seventh Letter (with
Myles Burnyeat, 2015).

Verity Harte is George A. Saden Professor of Philosophy and Classics

at Yale University. She is the author of Plato on Parts and Wholes:
the Metaphysics of Structure (2002) and co-editor of Aristotle and
the Stoics Reading Plato (with M.M. McCabe, R.W. Sharples &
Anne Sheppard, 2011), Politeia in Greek and Roman Philosophy
(with Melissa Lane, Cambridge, 2013), and Rereading Ancient
Philosophy: Old Chestnuts and Sacred Cows (with Raphael
Woolf, Cambridge, 2018).

T. H. Irwin is Emeritus Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the

University of Oxford and Emeritus Susan Linn Sage Professor of
 list of contributors xi

Philosophy at Cornell University. He is the author of Aristotle’s

First Principles (1988), Classical Thought (1988), Plato’s Ethics
(1995), The Development of Ethics (in three volumes, 2007–9),
Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics (trans. with notes, 3rd ed., 2019),
and Ethics Through History (2020). His books have been translated
into Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Greek, and Spanish.

Rachana Kamtekar is Professor of Philosophy and Classics at Cornell

University. She is author of Plato’s Moral Psychology:
Intellectualism, the Divided Soul, and the Desire for Good (2017)
and many articles in ancient philosophy, contemporary moral
psychology, and virtue ethics.

Richard Kraut is the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor in

the Humanities, Northwestern University. His more recent books
are Aristotle: Political Philosophy (2002), What is Good and Why
(2007), Against Absolute Goodness (2011), and The Quality of Life
(2018).

Constance C. Meinwald is Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the

University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the author of Plato’s
Parmenides (1991) and Plato (2016).

Henry Mendell is Professor Emeritus at California State University,

Los Angeles. He has published articles on Plato and Aristotle,
ancient Greek mathematics, and ancient astronomy.

Suzanne Obdrzalek is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Claremont

McKenna College. She is the author of numerous articles on Plato’s
ethics and moral psychology, as well as on Hellenistic
epistemology.

Rachel Singpurwalla is Associate Professor at the University of

Maryland. She has written numerous articles on Plato’s ethics,
politics, and moral psychology.
 Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Malcolm Todd for his meticulous copy editing
and Andrew Hull for producing the indices. We are also grateful to
Hilary Gaskin for proposing and patiently supporting the second edition
of this Companion. Finally, David would like to thank Conni Pätz for
her support through this lengthy process.

xii
 Chronology
All dates are BCE.
Chapter 2 situates Plato’s dialogues in relation to many of these people
and events.
People*
Hesiod: flourished (fl.) 700
Pythagoras: ±570–490
Xenophanes ± 570–>478
Heraclitus: fl. 500
Aeschylus: ± 525–456/5
Parmenides: born ± 515
Anaxagoras: ± 499/8–428/7
Sophocles: ± 497–405
Empedocles: ± 492–432
Protagoras: ± 490–420
Gorgias: ± 485– ±380
Herodotus: ± 485–420
Euripides: ±485–407/6
Hippias: ± 470s–>399
Democritus: fl. 425
Socrates: 469–399
Thucydides: ± 455–400
Cratylus: b. 450s–440s
Isocrates: ±436–338
Events
Composition of Homer’s Iliad
and Odyssey: second half of
eighth century
Solon’s political reforms in
Athens: 594
Cleisthenes’ political reforms in
Athens: 508
Second Persian invasion: 480–79
Athens’ so-called “Golden Age”:
478–431
Pericles’ and Ephialtes’
democratic reforms: 462
Peloponnesian War: 431–404
Aristophanes’ Clouds
produced: 423
xiii
xiv chronology

(cont.)

People* Events

Hippocrates of Chios Socrates’ execution: 399

(mathematician): fl. end
of fifth century
Xenophon: ±425–≥355 Plato’s alleged first voyage to
Plato: 424/3–348/7 Sicily**: 383
Theaetetus: ± 415–391 Plato’s Academy begins: 380s
Aristotle: 384–322 Aristotle arrives at the
Euclid: fl. 300 Academy: 367
Plato’s alleged second voyage to
Sicily**: 366
Plato’s alleged third voyage to
Sicily**: 361/60
*
All dates from Nails 2002, when possible. Note that when these people
lived and flourished is often difficult to determine and so a matter of
conjecture.
**
Dates from Nails 2002. Plato’s journey to Sicily is described in the
Seventh Letter, whose authenticity has recently been substantially
questioned (see esp. Burnyeat and Frede 2015). These journeys are
described by later authors, but it is unclear how much of their evidence
was truly independent of the Seventh Letter.
 Abbreviations

i ancient authors
ARISTOPHANES

Acharn. Acharnians

ARISTOTLE

Ath. Pol. Constitution of the Athenians

Cat. Categories
De An. De Anima
GC On Generation and Corruption
Met. Metaphysics
N.E. Nicomachean Ethics
Phys. Physics
Poet. Poetics
Post. An. Posterior Analytics
Pr. An. Prior Analytics
Rh. Rhetoric
Soph. El. Sophistici Elenchi
Top. Topics

ISOCRATES

Antid. Antidosis
Panath. Panathenaicus

xv
xvi list of abbreviations

OLYMPIODORUS

Prol. Anonymous Prolegomena to the Philosophy of Plato

PLATO

Alc. Alcibiades
Ap. Apology
Chrm. Charmides
Cleit. Cleitophon
Cra. Cratylus
Cri. Crito
Criti. Critias
Epin. Epinomis
Epist. Epistles (Letters)
Euphr. Euthyphro
Euthd. Euthydemus
Grg. Gorgias
H. Ma. Hippias Major
H. Mi. Hippias Minor
La. Laches
Lys. Lysis
Menex. Menexenus
Phd. Phaedo
Phdr. Phaedrus
Phil. Philebus
Pol. Politicus (Statesman)
Prm. Parmenides
Prt. Protagoras
Rep. Republic
Smp. Symposium
Sph. Sophist
Theag. Theages
Tht. Theaetetus
Ti. Timaeus
 list of abbreviations xvii

SEXTUS EMPIRICUS

A.M. Adversus Mathematicos

P.H. Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes

OTHER WORKS

D.L. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

OF Orphic Fragment

ii modern texts

CPD L. Brandwood, The Chronology of Plato’s Dialogues, 1990

DK H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente Der Vorsokratiker,
7th edition, 1954
OCT Oxford Classical Texts
1 Introduction to the Study
of Plato
David Ebrey and Richard Kraut

i approaching plato’s dialogues

Plato (424/3−348/7 BCE)1 stands at the head of the Western philo-
sophical tradition, the first to write on a wide range of topics still
discussed by philosophers today under such headings as metaphys-
ics, epistemology, ethics, political theory, and the philosophies of
art, love, language, mathematics, science, and religion. He may in
this sense be said to have invented philosophy as a distinct subject,
for although all of these topics were discussed by his intellectual
predecessors and contemporaries, he was the first to give them
a unified treatment. He conceives of philosophy as a subject with
a distinctive intellectual method, and he makes radical claims for
its position in human life and the political community. Because
philosophy scrutinizes assumptions that other studies merely take
for granted, it alone can provide genuine understanding; since it
discovers things inaccessible to the senses and yields an organized
system of truths that go far beyond and frequently undermine
common sense, it should transform the way we live our lives
and arrange our political affairs. It is an autonomous subject and
not the instrument of any other subject, power, or creed; on the
contrary, because it alone can grasp what is most important in
human life, all other human endeavors should be subordinate
to it.2

We are most grateful to Terence Irwin, Constance Meinwald, and Ian Mueller for their helpful
comments on drafts of the first edition of this chapter, and Jonathan Beere, Emily Fletcher, and
Suzanne Obdrzalek for comments on drafts of the second edition.

1
2 david ebrey and richard kraut

This conception of philosophy and the theories that support

it were controversial from the very start; although there have
been long periods during which some form of Platonism
flourished,3 there have always been at the same time various
forms of opposition to Plato’s astonishingly ambitious claims. For
this reason he can be considered not only the originator of philoso-
phy but the most controversial figure in its historical development.
For one cannot argue that philosophy must limit its ambitions
without understanding the almost limitless hopes that gave birth
to the subject and explaining why these – all of them or some – are
misguided or unachievable. If we are forced to retreat from his ideal
of a comprehensive and unitary understanding that transforms our
lives and society, we must decide what alternative intellectual goal
to put in its place. Thus, Plato is an invaluable standard of compari-
son: our conception of what philosophy should be (and whether
there should be any such thing) should be developed in agreement
with or opposition to alternatives provided by the history of the
subject, and so inevitably we must ask whether the ambitions of
the subject’s inventor are worthy and capable of fulfillment.
Many of Plato’s works are masterful works of literature.
They are also an invaluable source for historians interested in
many aspects of ancient Athens. But they are first and foremost
philosophical works, and for most readers their greatest interest
lies here. Of course, they were not created in a vacuum, and so to
understand how he arrived at his views we must take account of
the intellectual currents of his time. His attitudes toward political
developments in Athens and Sparta and his reaction to the intel-
lectual issues raised by the science, speculation, and poetry of the
fifth and fourth centuries decisively shaped his philosophical
development. The Sophistic movement, Pythagorean and Orphic
religious practices, contemporary mathematics, the theory of flux
advocated by Heraclitus and Cratylus, the unchanging and unitary
being argued for by Parmenides – each of these played an import-
ant role in his thinking. But the intellectual influence that was
 introduction to the study of plato 3

paramount was Socrates, a man who wrote nothing but whose

personality and ideas were so powerful that no one who came into
contact with him could react with indifference. For Socrates, to
philosophize was to reason together with someone about how best
to live; because the ideas he expressed and the questions he raised
were seen as threatening – and perhaps because he associated with
some of those who became Athens’ thirty tyrants – he was tried,
convicted, and put to death on the charges of refusing to recognize
the gods of the city, introducing new divinities, and corrupting the
youth.4 While Socrates was alive, Plato was one of many young
people who admired him, and so great was his influence that Plato
made him the central figure in most of his works, which were likely
composed after Socrates’ death in 399 BCE, when Plato was between
twenty-five and thirty years old (depending on how one understands
the conflicting reports about his dates).5 Plato’s writings are almost
without exception in dialogue form.6 He did not write a part for
himself in these dialogues; rather, when they put forward philosoph-
ical ideas and arguments, it is typically the character named
“Socrates” who advances them. And so newcomers to Plato’s dia-
logues naturally ask how to understand the relationship between the
character, Socrates, and the author, Plato.
As we will see, this is a complicated question and in general
one need not answer it to engage fruitfully with Plato’s works.
The greatest philosophical interest of Plato’s dialogues lies in
working through their ideas and arguments, regardless of to
whom we should attribute them. Nonetheless, it is important to
think about the character Socrates that Plato makes the lead
figure in most of his dialogues. Authors other than Plato offer
reports about Socrates (including Plato’s pupil, Aristotle) and
many others wrote dialogues with Socrates as the main character
(but only Xenophon’s survive intact).7 Aristophanes wrote
a satirical play, the Clouds, whose main character is Socrates.
The evidence from these other accounts is often difficult to
assess, but the consensus among scholars is that the historical
4 david ebrey and richard kraut

Socrates’ interests were primarily ethical, rather than epistemo-

logical, methodological, cosmological, or metaphysical.8 Scholars
also agree that Plato is not offering a verbatim account of what
the historical Socrates said, but is rather shaping his own charac-
ter, Socrates, who is nonetheless based on the historical figure
who deeply inspired him.
Most of Plato’s dialogues are conversations between Socrates and
a broad array of his contemporaries, including elite young men, major
intellectuals of his time, and his close companions. In general, each
dialogue is a self-contained philosophical conversation, prompted by
a question or offhand comment, in which the interlocutors make
progress, but leave many questions unanswered and puzzles unsolved.
It is important to examine the ideas and arguments in a given dialogue
first and foremost within the context of that dialogue. Plato’s dialogues
are not a contrived puzzle that must be decoded to reveal his unified
theory; instead, they show how Socrates (and other characters), when
speaking to specific people and asked specific questions, responds with
relevant questions, puzzles, arguments, and theories. Many difficult
interpretive questions that arise in a dialogue can be answered by
attending to its details and overall structure – how its conversation
develops, what arguments come earlier and later in the dialogue, and
how the different characters respond to the evolving discussion.
Moreover, Plato seems to portray Socrates differently in different dia-
logues; this raises difficult questions about how to understand the
relationship between the dialogues. Half of the articles in this collec-
tion focus on just one dialogue, thereby illustrating the fruitfulness of
examining a work on its own. At the same time, Plato puts clear cross-
references in some of the dialogues, and given the overlapping ideas,
arguments, and topics in them, it is natural and inevitable to ask how
they relate to one another. Our suggestion is that this should be done
after one has carefully thought through each dialogue on its own terms,
and that one should continue to keep the unity of each dialogue in
mind when thinking through how the ideas and arguments from one
dialogue relate to those in another.
 introduction to the study of plato 5

When beginning to study Plato, it is useful to have an overview

of his large corpus. Our first step is to divide the dialogues into three
groups.
The “Socratic dialogues,” as they are often called, correspond
more closely to Socrates’ account of himself in Plato’s Apology.
In this work, Socrates says that although his whole life has been
devoted to the discussion of virtue, he has not been able to
acquire knowledge of this – instead, his merely human wisdom
consists in realizing that he has no knowledge of such things. In
this group of dialogues, Socrates typically converses with people
who claim to have such knowledge but who, Socrates shows, do
not. At the end of these dialogues, Socrates reiterates his ignor-
ance, but insists that progress has been made by bringing his
interlocutor’s ignorance to light. These dialogues are generally
shorter than the others.
Let us for now skip over the second group of dialogues to the third,
which are widely viewed as having been written late in Plato’s life. The
main reason they are viewed as a single group are the studies of Plato’s
style of composition, called “stylometry,” that have been undertaken
since the nineteenth century (described by Brandwood in chapter 3 of
this volume).9 This is the only group to include dialogues that do not
feature Socrates as a main speaker.10 In fact, only in one of the works that
stylometry indicates is late – the Philebus – is Socrates a main speaker,
and this dialogue does not thematize his profession of ignorance. The late
dialogues cover a wide variety of topics, some that fit with the historical
Socrates’ interests in ethics and politics, but others that do not.
Finally, there is a group of dialogues that are more or less the
remainder: not Socratic dialogues and not stylometrically categorized
as late. The discussions here cover ethical and political matters, but
also a wide range of other subjects, including psychology, epistemol-
ogy, methodology, natural philosophy, and metaphysics. In them,
Socrates typically argues that examining his ethical interests requires
discussing these other, non-ethical topics. The Republic is a classic
example of such a work. As in the Socratic dialogues, here too
6 david ebrey and richard kraut

Socrates denies that he has knowledge, but he devotes much more

time to developing his own theories than to showing others that they
lack knowledge. Many scholars think that Socrates presents views in
these dialogues that are incompatible with those in the Socratic
dialogues, although this is a controversial issue.
These works are typically called “middle period dialogues,”
although that terminology itself is contentious. This name comes
from the hypothesis, accepted perhaps by most but certainly not by
all scholars, that Plato wrote these dialogues in the middle of his
career, after the Socratic dialogues (sometimes called “early dia-
logues”) and before the late dialogues. Those who accept this hypoth-
esis typically think that Plato began by writing dialogues whose
protagonist, Socrates, was closely modeled on the historical
Socrates. However, having written such dialogues for several years,
Plato wanted to present more of his own positive ideas; because he
viewed these as continuous with the questions and interests of the
historical Socrates, he presented Socrates as holding these views. It is
important to note that stylometry does not provide any significant
evidence in favor of (or against) seeing the middle dialogues as coming
after the Socratic dialogues. However, some important evidence in
favor of this developmental hypothesis is that Aristotle, who spent
twenty years in Plato’s academy, regularly refers to views found in the
Socratic dialogues as belonging to Socrates, whereas those in the
middle period dialogues – although expressed by the character
“Socrates” – he attributes to Plato or to “Socrates in” a specified
dialogue, for example “Socrates in the Phaedo.”11 So as not to take
a stand on chronology, we will refer to these as “middle dialogues.”
Before the development in the nineteenth century of the prac-
tice of dividing Plato’s dialogues into early, middle, and late, they
were often organized by their pedagogical function, rather than by
a perceived shift in their author’s views. According to this way of
grouping them, their differences are explained by whether they are
more appropriate for beginners or advanced readers and what one can
learn by working through specific dialogues. Perhaps Plato wanted his
 introduction to the study of plato 7

audience to work through the Socratic dialogues first, as a necessary

preliminary step toward understanding certain issues. Differences
between early and middle dialogues can, on this hypothesis, be under-
stood as reflecting what Plato thought should be taught to a beginning
student as opposed to a more advanced one.12
A third option is to understand the differences between dialogues
in terms internal to the composition of the dialogues themselves. In
the Socratic dialogues, Socrates rarely speaks to close companions or
sympathetic intellectuals; instead, he generally speaks to a young
member of the educated elite, or someone with a claim to expertise
(a military general or a sophist, for example). By contrast, in the
middle dialogues, he typically speaks to sympathetic intellectuals
who already acknowledge their ignorance and are eager to learn from
him. Speaking to a rhapsode like Ion or a general like Laches would
not have led to a conversation like the one in the Republic. In fact,
the Republic nicely illustrates how Socrates’ interlocutors influence
the conversation. Most of the first book of the Republic is
a conversation between Socrates and the sophist Thrasymachus.
This heated discussion ends with Thrasymachus deeply disagreeing
with Socrates but refusing to discuss the topic any further; however,
once Plato’s two brothers take over the conversation, it continues
for another nine books, leading Socrates to develop many positive
theories.
Note that these three explanations are compatible with one
another. Plato could have started writing the Socratic dialogues,
thinking they would be a good way to introduce someone to philoso-
phy, and then as his ideas developed he wrote dialogues for advanced
readers that explore new ideas. He may have thought it appropriate in
these dialogues for Socrates to speak to different sorts of interlocutors,
given the topics discussed. Of course, one can also accept some of
these explanations without others. Some scholars think that the
dialogues do not show any development in Plato’s views, but they
can still group them according to their pedagogical function, or
according to the sort of interlocutors involved in the conversation.
8 david ebrey and richard kraut

While the most significant differences are between dialogues

from one group and those from another, it would be a mistake to
assume that the views within each group are clearly consistent with
one another. Here it is especially worth considering the possibility
that Plato himself was not firmly committed to the views that he
presents Socrates (and the other main speakers) as defending. As we
will argue at the end of this chapter, it is likely that Plato shared the
same basic commitments that he ascribes to Socrates. For example,
throughout the dialogues Socrates is committed to the value of dis-
covering the truth; surely Plato is too. But such broad commitments
are compatible with Plato thinking that some ideas are worth think-
ing through and considering – they may well be right – without being
firmly committed to them. For example, in the Phaedo Socrates says
that so long as he is embodied he cannot acquire the wisdom that he
seeks, but that a philosopher, suitably prepared, has reason to hope
that he can acquire such wisdom in the afterlife. In the Republic he
says that in a truly just city – which currently does not exist and may
never exist, but is at least in some sense possible – a properly trained
philosopher could acquire the greatest wisdom. These two views are
incompatible: either it is possible to acquire the greatest wisdom
while embodied or not. But note that these views share the same
broad commitments that genuine wisdom is extraordinarily difficult
to achieve and requires rigorous philosophical preparation. One pos-
sibility is that Plato changed his mind. Another is that he thought
each account deserves serious consideration, and so explored each in
separate dialogues.
These complications about how to understand the relationship
between dialogues provide further reasons to study Plato’s works first as
individual whole compositions, aiming to understand the ideas in
a given dialogue, at least initially, on their own terms. A further advan-
tage to doing so is that it allows one to appreciate the literary unity of the
work, and the way that its literary aspects are carefully connected to its
philosophical discussion. In the last twenty-five years, there has been
a growing reluctance among scholars to use the developmental
 introduction to the study of plato 9

hypothesis to explain apparent discrepancies between the dialogues.

Some scholars hold that there are no major developments in Plato’s
thinking, but more often the idea seems to be that a fuller, subtler, and
more satisfying account of the differences is available using the
resources internal to each dialogue. Once internal considerations are
taken into account, the different views in different dialogues become
more nuanced and frequently turn out to be compatible with each
other.13
Part of what makes it difficult to decide when to read one
dialogue in the light of another is that although there are hazards in
doing so, they do present a broadly consistent and mutually reinfor-
cing set of views. In thinking through a view one finds in a dialogue, it
is often productive to ask how well it fits with what is said in other
dialogues – not in the first instance to see if Plato changed his mind or
was inconsistent, but to explore the consequences and details of the
views themselves. Questions that are set aside in one dialogue are
sometimes taken up in another; bringing these together carefully can
reveal a larger, interconnected set of ideas and arguments. And, of
course, drawing on other works may help settle interpretive ques-
tions, once the resources of a given dialogue are exhausted. So, while
it is good to begin by approaching each dialogue on its own terms, it
would be a mistake, when thinking through a dialogue, never to draw
on others. Furthermore, it is natural to wonder what views emerge
from considering a number of Plato’s works taken together. Does he
have basic commitments that underlie many dialogues? Do these
commitments change in different groups of dialogues?
Most of the remainder of this chapter provides an overview of
Plato’s corpus, focusing on those dialogues that are normally read first.
This introduces some of the main ideas in Plato’s dialogues, situates the
individual dialogues within the overall corpus, and hopefully will help
those beginning to read Plato to decide which dialogues they would like
to read. The next three sections discuss the three groups of dialogues we
have identified (Socratic, middle, late) in turn. After this, we consider
evidence about Plato’s views that come from outside his dialogues and
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