DIVISION OF PLATO'S DIALOGUES

STUDENT

PHILOSOPHY

CARLOS
TEACHER

SAN LORENZO GIUSTINIANI SCHOOL

IBAGUÉ
2014
 Platonic Dialogues

Introduction

The following essay is part of the Plato's dialogues who chooses dialogue as a
form of expression of his thoughts; perhaps as a tribute to his teacher Socrates,
whom, moreover, he makes the interlocutor of practically all of them; or perhaps
due to the influence of his time. His work can be divided into several periods,
according to different criteria, one of the most accepted classifications being
chronological.

Youth Dialogues

From 28 to 38 years old (399-389)

The dialogues of his youth are dominated by themes of a Socratic nature, and in
them Plato remains faithful to what Socrates taught. The trips to Megara, Cyrene,
Egypt and Italy date back to this time.

- Apology of Socrates (The well-known Socratic portrait of the young Plato) is not
strictly a dialogue but a speech in his defense before the court that would
condemn him to death

He was accused of impiety and a series of falsehoods more or less

founded in order to get Socrates out of the way.

The oracle of Delphi reveals to Socrates and discovers that no difference is made
between the wise and believing themselves wise, that the ignorant believe they
know and the wise know that they do not know.

- Crito (Socrates in prison on civic problems)

- Laches (Value)

- Lysis (Friendship)

- Charmides (Temperance)

- Euthyphro (The Pietà)

- Ión (Poetry as a divine gift)

- Protagoras (Is virtue teachable?)

They raise a problem, they comment on it, but they don't come up with an answer.

Transition dialogues

From 38 to 41 years (389-385)

In this period Plato pours into his dialogues some opinions that we cannot consider
strictly Socratic, beginning to introduce elements of his own, some of which already
point towards the theory of Ideas. At this time the first trip to Syracuse (Sicily) to
the court of Dionysius the first and the friendship with Dion took place. The purpose
of the trip fails, being sold by Dionysus as a slave in Aegina and rescued by a
fellow citizen.

- Gorgias (On Rhetoric and Politics) It deals with rhetoric and justice and contains
an implicit criticism of Athenian democracy and includes a myth about immortality.

- Cratylus (On the meaning of words) An examination of the relationship between

language and reality, both a naturalistic theory of language and a convincingly
ionalist one.

- Hippias major and Minor (On beauty the first, and on truth the second)

- Euthydemus (On sophist eristics)

- Menón (Is virtue teachable?) Research on virtue as knowledge and its possibility
of being taught, ontologically founded through a test and exposition of the theory of
reminiscence.

- Meneceno (parody on funeral prayers)

Maturity dialogues

From 41 to 56 years (386-370)

In these works we already find Plato's thought in all its dimension. The influence of
Socrates is minimal, and the thought he expresses in the dialogues responds
strictly to Plato's thought. Its activity is mainly focused on the Academy in Athens.

- Phaedo (On the immortality of the soul, Socrates' last day in prison) It is about
proving that the soul does not disappear when it is freed or separated from the
body. Socrates shows it through four arguments.

- Banquet (About love) Explain and qualify all the species of human love. The
conclusions drawn from this double point of view are deeply marked by the
character of Greek customs in Plato's time.

- Republic (On politics and other matters: metaphysical, epistemological, etc.) It

develops, among other things, a political philosophy about the ideal state, a
psychology or theory of the soul, a social psychology, a theory of education.
Philosophers, representatives of reason, must guide the nobles, whose attribute is
courage and their mission is the defense of the city, and the people who must
ensure the existence of the community with their work, and whose specific virtue is
Temperance.
Plato imagines a state constructed in exactly the same way as a human being.
Body Soul Virtues State
head reason wisdom rulers
chest willpowe courage (courage) soldiers
r
belly desire moderation (temperance) producers

- Phaedrus (On love, beauty and the destiny of the soul)

Plato exposes his thoughts regarding the problem, his theory of political ideas and
principles. Example: Republic VII, Phaedo and Symposium.

Critical and old age dialogues

From 56 to 80 years (370-347)

(369-362, from 56 to 63 years): Critical review of the theory of Ideas and some of
its consequences, although this does not mean that they are abandoned. Second
(369) and third (361) trip to Italy to the court of Dionysius II, who soon rejected his
education.

- Parmenides (Critique of the Theory of Ideas) Socrates refuses to admit that there
are "ideas" of these things. Since they have no function, they are absurd and
incomprehensible, they are not part of the order of the Universe nor do they fit into
the world of models.

- Theaetetus (On knowledge)

- Sophist (Language, rhetoric and knowledge) It seems that Plato begins to doubt
the identification between the politician and the philosopher and intends to unlink
the concepts. In these two dialogues the main interlocutor is a "stranger from Elea"
and uses the method of diairesis (dichotomous divisions) in the search for
definition.

- Political (About politics and philosophy)

Plato offers us a society, both hierarchical and unified. And ultimately this explains
the Platonic construction. It is about forming a City that forms a political and moral
unity.

(361-347, from 64 to 78 years): Plato's growing pessimism, if we stick to the

content of his later works, which already in the critical phase seemed to lean
towards the predominance of the mystical-religious and Pythagorean elements of
his thought.

- Philebus (Pleasure and good)

- Timaeus (Cosmology)

- Critias (Description of ancient Athens, Atlantis myth...) The dialogue is unfinished

but it can be assumed that it ends with the fight between Athens and Atlantis and
its sinking under the ocean. The myth of Atlantis was probably invented by Plato
himself since no antecedents are recorded in the literature of the time.

- The Laws (The ideal city, pessimistic review of the Republic)

- Letter VII (in this letter Plato presents his well-known and brief autobiography)

Let other protagonists participate, while he analyzes his ideas to make a self-
criticism. Example: Laws.

Regarding the relationship of Ideas with things and the kinds of Ideas, as well as
the relationships that may exist between them.

Plato was born in Athens, (or in Aegina, according to others, following Favorinus),
probably in the year 428 or 427 BC. c. from a family belonging to the Athenian
aristocracy, who claimed direct descent from Solon. His real name was Aristocles,
although apparently he was called Plato because of the width of his shoulders,
according to Diogenes Laertius in his "Lives of the Illustrious Philosophers" , an
anecdote that has been questioned.

Plato's parents were Ariston and Perictione, who had two other sons, Adeimantus
and Glaucon, who both appear as Socrates' interlocutors in the Republic, and a
daughter, Potone.

Conclusion
In conclusion, these philosophical dialogues are written more to educate than to
inform. They clarify the basic questions through questions and answers, using the
method of dialectic and always starting from the doctrine of ideas.
From there these dialogues teach us to think dialogically, to argue and question. In
the end everyone agreed that courage is only a part of virtue, like temperance and
justice, and that science, whatever it may be, is always the same for present, past
and future.

Courage is the science of things that are feared and not feared, because it knows
all the goods and evils of the future as well as those of the present and past.

Philosophical works ( http://www.webdianoia.com/platon/platon_obras.htm )

Lessons on Plato. ( http://www.filosofia.net/materiales/tem/platon.htm )