Books in the Cambridge Studies in the Dialogues of Plato series

This book presents a global reinterpretation of Cratylus, Plato's only dialogue devoted to the subject of language. It is designed to be accessible to anyone interested either in Plato or in the history of linguistic thought. The main text does not presuppose prior expertise in Plato or knowledge of Greek.

The Lysis is one of Plato's most engaging but also puzzling dialogues; it has often been regarded, in the modern period, as a philosophical failure. The full philosophical and literary exploration of the dialogue illustrates how it in fact provides a systematic and coherent, if incomplete, account of a special theory about, and special explanation of, human desire and action. Furthermore, it shows how that theory and explanation are fundamental to a whole range of other Platonic dialogues and indeed to the understanding of the corpus as a whole. Part One offers an analysis of, or running commentary on, the dialogue. In Part Two Professors Penner and Rowe examine the philosophical and methodological implications of the argument uncovered by the analysis. The whole is rounded off by an epilogue of the relation between the Lysis and some other Platonic (and Aristotelian) texts.

In a new departure, this book's exploration of Plato's Meno focuses primarily on the content and coherence of the dialogue in its own right and not merely in the context of other dialogues, making it required reading for all students of Plato, be they from the world of classics or philosophy.