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Plato and his dialogues : Home
- Biography - Works and
links to them - History
of interpretation - New hypotheses - Map
of dialogues : table versionornon
tabular version. Tools : Index of persons
and locations - Detailed and synoptic
chronologies - Maps of Ancient Greek World.
Site information : About the author - Map
of the site |
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Plato and his dialoguesbyBernard SUZANNE |
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| "The safest general characterization
of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato" A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 1929 |
But
these pages don't intend to make you a Plato scholar, a specialist of his thoughts
and "theories", for the simple reason that one the most ingrained
convictions of the author of these pages is that, if Plato wrote dialogues
rather than philosophy treatises, and, what's more, dialogues in which he never
stages himself as a participant, it is because his purpose was not to tell his
readers what he himself thought, what were the answers he himself
had given to the most fundamental questions in life about what it means to
be a (wo)man, but to teach them to think by themselves so that they
could find their own answers to those questions, because he knew that,
in such matters, neither he nor we would ever get ultimate, "scientifically"
demonstrable, answers, and that each one of us has to build one's own life
and live it (and that, no one can do for someone else) based upon
hypotheses that had to be the most "reasonable" that
was possible, as what defines man is his being an animal endowed with logos
(a Greek word meaning both "speech" and "reason", among
many other meanings), but that would nonetheless remain till the end "indemonstrable"
assumptions. In short, he only wanted to help his readers practice for themselves
the motto that was engraved above the main entrance of the temple at Delphi,
and which his "master", Socrates, had made his own:
| "Know thyself " |
Latest additions to the site : Plato :
(March 29th, 2013) in the French section of this site, new completely revised annotated translation in French of Republic, VI, 509c5-511e5 (the analogy of the line) and Republic VII, 514a1-517a7 (the allegory of the cave) (the later available since October 23rd, 2012) leading to a completely new understanding of those two famous texts which deciphers all the details of those images ; (July 25th, 2012) in the French section of this site, annotated translation in French of Republic, X, 595c7-598d6 under the title « les trois couches (lits) », leading to a new understanding of the word eidos and idea in Plato ; (October 16, 2010) in the French section of the site, completion of the annotated translation in French of books V, VI and VII of the Republic, with an introduction, under the title « Les trois vagues »; (June 7, 2009) correction to the map of Plato's dialogues to exchange places between the Gorgias and the Hippias Major (see introductoty note to the presentation of the second tetralogy for some explanations on this change); (June 5, 2009) in the French section of the site, a pdf file (2 Mo) including the Greek text of the Meno along with an introduction and my annotated translation of it in French (each page is divided in three: a portion of the Greek text, my translation in French of that portion, and notes on that portion) ; (earlier) a page with pictures dedicated to the Stephanus edition
of Plato's complete works published in 1578 which still serves as a reference to quote Plato and
a page that shows what
a "book" might
have looked like in Plato's time. Also, for those who read French :
a
"vocabulary" section with studies
of words of significant importance for the understanding of Plato; a commented
translation in French of the
first part of the Parmenides (Parmenides, 126a1-137c3: Prologue,
dialogue between Socrates and Zeno, dialogue between Socrates and Parmenides);
of the Meno;
of large sections of the Republic:
the ring of Gyges; the philosopher
king: end of book
V starting
at 471c4; all of book
VI (including the comparison between
sun and good and the analogy of
the line); all of book
VII (including the allegory of
the cave); the myth of Er at the
end of book X; see also history of updates -- Tools : new
and updated entries on Ionia, Doris,
Æolis, Phocis,
Libya, Phoenicia
and more, and also on Atlas and Atlantis,
Prometheus and Epimetheus, plus a new
map of Athens intra-muros in the time
of Socrates and Plato. Also an entry on Athens
enriched with a more fully developed section on mythological traditions on
its legendarty kings, plus detailed maps of the
Agora
and the Acropolis, and a comparative
chronology of Greek and modern thinkers and politicians to give you a
more
"concrete" feel for the scale of time involved with Plato and Socrates.
A "map" of Plato's dialogues provinding
links to comments on specific tetralogies and dialogues (the "heart" of this
site)
ATools section providing context and perspective for the dialogues :
synoptic and detailed
chronologies of Vth and IVth centuries
B. C. (in the making) ; mapsofGreek
world from Sicily to Asia Minor, Eastern
Mediterranean
from Egypt to the Black Sea, Greece, Central
Greece and Peloponnese, Attica and Athens ;
biographical and geographical entriesonpersons and locations of interest in studying
Plato and his dialogues (in the making); and also a
page dedicated to the Stephanus edition of Plato's complete works (with pictures), which, though
dating back to 1578, still serves as the reference today for quoting Plato
(see question 7 of the frequently asked questions)
Links to dialogues on the Web
A
list of Plato's works with links to relevant pages of the amazon
site for ordering online available editions and translations of them, along
with a bibliography on and around Plato,
also including links to appropriate pages of the amazon site for online ordering (I have set those links as a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com).
French reading visitors will also find on the site of the online philosophical
journal Klèsis (this journal changes often of host and of layout, which result in frequent changes of URL for individual pages; if the links below to the journal don't work, used the links to the local copies which, being on my site, don't change):
●a
two-part article I wrote for the first issue of that journal ("De
la philosophie grecque", published in two parts, the first part, "De
la philosophie grecque (1)", in February 2006 and the second
part, "De
la philosophie grecque (2)", in April 2006) titled "La
fortune détournée de Platon, une étude sur le mot ousia dans
les dialogues" ("The diverted wealth of Plato, a study on
the word ousia in the dialogues"). The first
part of this article (acopy of it is available on this site by clicking
here, and a revised version of it taking into account the permutation between the Gorgias and the Lesser Hippias that I introduced in June, 2009 (for the reasons of this permutation, see the opening note to the introduction of the second tetralogy), is available by clicking here), subtitled "Pour
en finir avec Darwin chez Platon" ("To rid Plato of Darwin"),
is a synthetic presentation of my reading assumptions on the dialogues, as
a prelude to the second
part (acopy of it is available on this site by clicking
here), which constitutes the body of the article and where I show how the
dual meaning of the word ousia in greek ("wealth, fortune",
or else "estate"), in the original meaning, prior to the metaphysical
meaning usually rendered by "essence" or "substance") may
help us understand in which "metaphysical" meaning Plato used this
word and what he means when, at the end of book VI of the Republic,
he has Socrates say the the good is "beyond ousias" (Republic,
VI, 509b9);
●an article written by me and published in issue number 14, Varia, dated February 2010, titled "De la couleur avant toutes choses, les schèmas invisibles du Ménon", and commenting on the examples of "definitions" given by Socrates to Meno in that part of the dialogue bearing his name that I have translated in French under the title "Formes et couleurs" (a local copy of this article is available on this site by clicking here).
And also :
Answers
to some Frequently Asked Questions about Plato
(including a question on Plato and Atlantis)
E-mail
Archives (some of my messages about Plato's dialogues to various lists)
For first time visitors, as a prelude :
About the author
How
to use these pages
A
short biography of Plato
A list of Plato's works
A brief history of the interpretation
of Plato's dialogues
A new set of hypotheses about Plato's dialogues
An introductory essay on Plato and his dialogues
by the author of these pages at the 
(EAWC) site at the University of Evansville, Indiana, which has hosted this
Plato site for the first five years of its existence.
