“However many times you’ve read one of Plato’s texts, you always notice things you didn’t spot before”

Plato’s ingenious ability as a writer is the focus of a new book by a world-renowned academic of ancient philosophy.

Known as the father of Western philosophy, Plato (427-347 BCE) was a student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle in Athens, Ancient Greece. There he founded the Academy, the first ‘school’ of philosophy, where vigorous discussion of all manner of topics took place.

Plato’s most famous work is the Republic, in which he details the essential elements of a harmonious society. “Plato mostly writes dialogues between real historical figures. The fictional conversations often start with somebody’s view or prejudice and Plato’s character Socrates usually tears them apart before something more constructive starts to emerge,” said Professor Malcolm Schofield, Emeritus Professor of Ancient Philosophy, Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, and author of the newly published, How Plato Writes: Perspectives and Problems.

“In every setting, Plato is always writing something different – whether it’s the subject matter or the style or mode of debate – and this makes him great fun to read. There are lots of jokes as well as deadly serious exchanges, lots of things going on all the time, and he’s a great one for springing surprises at you.

“I enjoy reading Plato the most out of all the philosophers because however many times you’ve read one of his texts, you always notice things that you didn’t spot before.”

How Plato Writes is based on a varied collection of essays and special lectures penned over the past 15-20 years by Professor Schofield, ‘very much in the spirit of Plato’. In his literary texts, there are arguments such as the infinite regress of the Third Man, myths (the Republic’s Noble Lie), allegories (the famous Cave episode of the Republic), images (humans imagined as marionettes) and paradoxes (nobody is willingly evil) mixed up in a single work.

 “One of the dialogues is actually called ‘The Symposium’, which is a drinking party in which all the participants have to take turns to speak. You can really see Plato’s incredible breadth in this one literary work,” said Professor Schofield.

Each of the essays in How Plato Writes deals with a passage of Plato or an approach to his entire body of work, and considers different ways of looking at the texts and solving problems in them – part of a larger mission, said Professor Schofield, for readers and researchers to widen their focus when it comes to the great philosopher.

One chapter examines Plato’s writing about children. “Many ancient Greek and later writers just treated children as early stage grown-ups, with not much more to say about them, whereas Plato like the philosopher Heraclitus before him thought that we had a lot to learn from children in their play. So that is a favourite of mine, and fun to write about,” said Professor Schofield.

His book contains a few surprises of its own and grows understanding of how Plato’s literary qualities are vital to understanding his philosophy, and brings his ideas to new audiences.

“Scholarship in this area, both in philosophy in general and in the study of ancient Greek philosophy, is narrowly focused these days,” said Professor Schofield. “People become experts in one particular work or one particular theme in Plato, and they focus on that for years and years, when in reality it is all connected. If you restrict yourself to one topic or one of his writings because you think he's rewarding in that way, you miss the other things that he writes about in different ways as time goes on. For me that exploratory variety is why he’s a great thinker.”

How Plato Writes: Perspectives and Problems is published by Cambridge University Press

Published 1/9/2023

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