Plato

The traditional view on the chronology of the Corpus Platonicum (CP) texts turns out to be anachronistic from several, especially formal and historical, points of view. From the formal point of view all the CP texts can be divided into speeches, framed dialogues and dialogues in dramatic form; there are serious reasons for correlating these groups of dialogues with different chronological periods. Historically, to view Plato’s works as modern philosophical and scholarly literature is incorrect; instead, it would seem expedient to correlate the three groups of dialogues mentioned with their changing audiences for which Plato wrote before the establishment of the Academy, during the first stage of its existence (before the second trip to Sicily) and in the later period. The evolution of Plato’s philosophy is to be correlated with the evolution of the school created by him. Lack of attention to these methods can lead to incorrect assumptions concerning Plato’s evolution which found their way, among others, into the book “Plato and the Post-Socratic Dialogue” by Prof. Ch. Kahn where he speaks of a transition from Socratic to Pre-Socratic problems in Plato’s works; the book is critically examined by the author of the present article

Epistemology · SOCRATES · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Classical Studies and Philology · Philosophy

• Plato's earlier dialectic

  Richard Robinson•Plato's earlier dialectic•1980

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