Preface

Charles L. Griswold Jr.

This volume seeks to explore two questions: "Why did Plato write dia­
logues?" and "How ought we to read Plato's dialogues?" When this volume
was first published, some thirteen years ago, it was possible for me to write
in the Introduction (reprinted below) that "in modern times the problem of
interpreting Plato-and with it, the problem as to why Plato wrote dia­
logues-has not received the attention it deserves. . . . The time has now
come for a full-fledged debate about the reading of Plato, and so also about
the reasons for which Plato wrote dialogues."
Since those words were composed, a remarkable sea change has
occurred in Platonic studies (especially on the Anglo-American side), and a
significant number of writings devoted to the themes of Platonic writing and
interpretation has appeared.1 Scarcely any interpreter of significance is igno­
rant of these topics or fails to take a position concerning them. As a telling
example of the emerging consensus about the importance of our two leading
questions, as well as about likely answers to them, consider John Cooper's
remarks in his Introduction (in sections entitled "Plato and the Dialogue
Form" and "Reading Plato") to the recent Hackett edition of Plato's corpus.2
Cooper repeatedly insists on the principle of Platonic anonymity, that is,
on the fact that "whatever is stated in his works is stated by one or another of
his characters, not directly by Plato the author" (xix); hence no assumption to
the effect that one or another of the dramatis personae is Plato's mouthpiece
ought be accepted.3 Myriad articles and books have been written on the dia­
logues in which just such an assumption-often supported by speculations
about the chronology of the composition of the dialogues-is accepted as self­
evident. If Cooper is right, though, they are built on quicksand. We do not
know, at least at the start, and perhaps even at the end, what Plato's views are.
The reader is required by the very nature of Plato's use of the dialogue form to
work through "what each speaker says to the others (and also, sometimes, what
he does not say), notice what may need further defense than is actually given
it, and attend to the author's manner in presenting each character, and the
separate speeches, for indications of points on which the author thinks some