1

A Book Proposal
Reading Order and Authenticity: Restoring Plato’s Doubtful Dialogues

William H. F. Altman

Overview: As the first comprehensive defense of the entire Thrasyllan canon since
George Grote, my approach depends on reviving the ancient question of “the Reading
Order of Plato’s Dialogues.” As Harold Tarrant has shown,1 Thrasyllus’ tetralogical
arrangement of the dialogues (and epistles) embodied his conception of “Reading Order”;
he was neither the first nor the last to be concerned with the ideal order in which the
dialogues should, and were intended to be read. Since the time of Schleiermacher, the
question of “Reading Order” has been eclipsed, and replaced by the overriding concern of
nineteenth and twentieth-century Plato scholarship: the order in which Plato wrote his
dialogues. Buttressed by stylometry, predicated on the view that Plato was working on
Laws at the time of his death at eighty-one, and giving rise to various versions of “Plato’s
development,” the approach I will call “developmentalism” has coalesced around a
tripartite division of dialogues into early, middle, and late. This orthodoxy was
challenged in 2001 when Nicholas Denyer published a commentary on Plato’s
Alcibiades, and he sounded an important note in his Introduction: “So if the standard
chronology is correct, then the Alcibiades is, in part or in whole, bogus. If the standard
chronology is correct … But is it?”2 Although Denyer “got the ball rolling,” my approach
is different: my goal is to restore nine Platonic dubia—Alcibiades, Second Alcibiades,
Erastai, Theages, Clitophon, Hipparchus, Minos, Epinomis, and Plato’s Letters3—not to
revise current notions about chronology of composition. But one element of Denyer’s
project is crucial to mine: the role of Plato’s Alcibiades. While Denyer suggests that if
Alcibiades were to be considered genuine, our conceptions of chronology would need to
be revised, my claim is that it was only because the question of “Reading Order” had
already been forgotten that Schleiermacher could reject Alcibiades as spurious, and, more
importantly, that as long as it continues to be considered spurious, the question of
“Reading Order” cannot be revived, and along with it, the other dubia restored. As
Denyer pointed out, its authenticity was never questioned in antiquity, and “some thought
indeed that the Alcibiades deserved to be the first dialogue read by someone starting to
read Plato.”4 They were basically right.
As important as Denyer’s contribution undoubtedly is, the publication of the
complete dialogues of Plato in serviceable English translations in 1997 was an even more
important turning point. Broaching the subject of “reading order” in the Introduction, this
volume preserved the ordering of Thrasyllus, a step that was particularly important for

1
Harold Tarrant, Thrasyllan Platonism (Ithaca, NY: 1993).
2
Nicholas Denyer (ed.), Plato, Alcibiades (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
2001), 22-23.
3
For such I will claim it is: not a series of discrete quasi-historical documents of variable
authenticity, but an integrated work I will call: “Plato’s Letters.”
4
Denyer, Alcibiades, 14; see n. 6 on Proclus and Olympiodorus.
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assessing the authenticity of Clitophon.5 The eighth tetralogy of Thrasyllus places

Clitophon immediately before Republic, and I will argue that the only compelling basis
for proving it genuine is to read it as Thrasyllus evidently read it: as an introduction to
Republic. This points to the essential thrust of my book, and separates my approach from
that of many others: the Platonic dubia should not be evaluated in isolation, albeit with
arguments drawn from parallel passages in other dialogues, but in connection to the
dialogues that precede and follow them in “the Reading Order of Plato’s Dialogues.”
This, then, is the central concern of Reading Order and Authenticity: by showing the
connection between the nine dubia and the dialogues that flank each one of them, a
compelling or at least provocative argument can be made for their authenticity. This
approach is original, but firmly rooted in antiquity. And in addition to the fact that
concern with the dubia is growing, a new generation of Plato scholars is becoming
increasingly uncomfortable with “developmentalism.” Both of these developments make
the time ripe for a new approach.
It is no accident that three of the dubia that have dropped out of the canon are
found very early in the “reading order”: written for beginners, Alcibiades, Second
Alcibiades, and Erastai seem un-Platonic to those who expect more sophistication from
Plato. Essential to the notion of “reading order” is that Plato was a teacher, and his
primary concern in writing the dialogues was pedagogical. In this context, the simplicity
of the “early” dialogues is perfectly understandable: they are intended to introduce
beginners to philosophy, and my purpose is to show exactly how they do so effectively,
creating in the process a progressive curriculum that moves by graded steps from simple
to complex. And just as developmentalists have called Republic “a middle dialogue,” so
too do I place it in the middle of “the reading order,” and connect Theages, Clitophon,
and Letters directly to it, showing in the process how these three admittedly minor
writings nevertheless illuminate crucial arguments in the infinitely greater Republic.
Finally, there are the more complicated “late” dialogues that follow the Republic,
climaxing with Plato’s Laws. Reading Minos as an introduction to Laws, and Epinomis as
a sequel to it—as Thrasyllus also did—my authenticity arguments for these dialogues
once again depend on illuminating their connections to a dialogue universally recognized
as genuine. But as befits their place “late” in “the reading order,” the purpose of these
dubia is more complicated, and depends once again on recognizing that Plato was a
teacher. More specifically, Platonic pedagogy introduced the student to difficult concepts
in a simple form (the “early” dialogues), then exposed them to the Idea of the Good and
its relation to justice in the “middle” Republic, and then tested their loyalty to justice and
the Good in the “late” dialogues. While the authenticity argument for the “early”
dialogues sheds light on Platonic pedagogy, and the restoration of Theages, Clitophon,
and Letters enhances the reader’s response to Republic, a genuine Epinomis demands a
re-evaluation of Plato’s Laws, and—in tandem with the Hipparchus-Minos dyad—calls
into question the generally accepted view that either the Athenian or Eleatic Stranger
speaks for Plato.

5
John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson, Plato, Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett,
1997), x and xxiv. See also Charles H. Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The
Philosophical Use of a Literary Form (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), 48.
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Relevant Prior Studies on Plato by the Author

Plato the Teacher: The Crisis of the Republic. Lexington Books, 2012; xxii + 489;
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739171387; Reviews: Bryn Mawr Classical Review
2012.07.12; Choice, “Highly Recommended,” September 2012; and Polis 30, no. 1
(2013), 145-149.

“Why Plato wrote Epinomis; Leonardo Tarán and the Thirteenth Book of the Laws,”
Polis 29 (2012), 83-107.

“Reading Order and Authenticity: The Place of Theages and Cleitophon in Platonic
Pedagogy.” Plato: The electronic Journal of the International Plato Society 11
(2011), 1-50.

“A Tale of Two Drinking Parties: Plato’s Laws in Context.” Polis 27 (2010), 240-264.

“Laches before Charmides: Fictive Chronology and Platonic Pedagogy.” Plato: The
electronic Journal of the International Plato Society 10 (2010), 1-28.

“The Reading Order of Plato’s Dialogues.” Phoenix 64 (2010), 18-51.

Annotated Outline

Preface: The Reading Order of Plato’s Dialogues: Early, Middle, and Late.

After introducing the pedagogical approach outlined in the Overview above, and with
particular attention to ancient concern with the Platonic “reading order,” the Preface will
introduce the following scheme:

1. Protagoras 19. Timaeus

2. Alcibiades 20. Critias
3. Second Alcibiades 21. Parmenides
4. Erastai 22. Phaedrus
5. Hippias Major 23. Philebus
6. Hippias Minor 24. Cratylus
7. Ion 25. Theaetetus
8. Menexenus 18. Republic 1-5 26. Euthyphro
9. Symposium Letters 27. Sophist
10. Lysis 18. Republic 6-10 28. Statesman
11. Euthydemus 29. Apology
12. Laches 30. Hipparchus
13. Charmides 31. Minos
14. Gorgias 32. Crito
15. Theages 33. Laws
16. Meno 34. Epinomis
17. Clitophon 35. Phaedo
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Naturally this scheme as a whole cannot be defended in a Preface, but the emphasis will
fall heavily on the reasons for locating the First Tetralogy of Thrasyllus—Euthyphro,
Apology, Crito, and Phaedo—at the end of the “reading order,” i.e., that it gives the
dialogues a compelling “story line” with a dramatic conclusion that vastly increases their
pedagogical impact. Particularly important is the place and significance of Phaedo when
no longer considered as a “middle” dialogue but as the culmination of Plato’s curriculum;
this placement broaches the crucial question of Plato’s ongoing commitment to
Platonism, and the privileged status of Socrates—as opposed to Timaeus, the Eleatic, and
the Athenian Strangers6—as the hero of Plato’s dialogues when read as a coherent whole.
But the most important thing is to explain and justify the use of “early,” “middle,” and
“late” on which the book’s tripartite structure depends, emphasizing that it is not Plato’s
development, but the progress of the reader that is mirrored in the dialogues. I will here
cite my previously published work on this overall scheme, and draw attention to my
ongoing three-volume study Plato the Teacher, especially my reading of the central
Republic, the pivot around which my conception of “reading order” turns. 20 pages.

Introduction: Reading Order and Authenticity

The “new approach” as described in the Overview will be explained in general terms,
now with particular emphasis on the nine titles in bold. After showing how they fit into
the tripartite scheme, I will introduce “the hermeneutics of connection” as opposed to
“hermeneutic isolationism.” In other words: instead of considering the dialogues as fully
independent, it is their interconnections that are crucial for determining “reading order.”
These connections can be chronological, as in Zuckert’s scheme, but also more generally
pedagogical, and often indicated by dramatic details, both clearly marked and subtle.
Building on a description of interconnections between genuine dialogues like
Symposium-Lysis, Republic-Timaeus, and Sophist-Statesman, I will prepare the ground
for using similar connections in the case of the nine dubia under consideration. The basic
point is that I will argue that what makes them genuine is not what they are in
themselves, but how they fit into a larger structure. 20 pages.

Chapter 1: Early

§1. Beginning with Alcibiades

It is here that I will discuss the impact of Schleiermacher and the importance of Denyer.
Because the stakes are particularly high in this threshold case, my emphasis in the first
half of this section will be on the secondary literature—the arguments for excluding it—
rather than on the dialogue itself. The basic point is that the hypothesis of “reading order”
explains the deliberate simplicity of the work. With the general pedagogical purpose of
the dialogue having been explained against the backdrop of the authenticity debate, the
following textual matters will then be emphasized: (1) the dialogue’s relation to

6
Throughout the Preface I will be in dialogue with Catherine H. Zuckert: Plato’s
Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press, 2009).
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Protagoras, which begins with talk about Alcibiades, but in which Socrates and
Alcibiades never actually speak to each other, (2) the reference to Protagoras 327e1-
328a1 at Alcibiades 111a1, which proves that Alcibiades follows Protagoras in “the
reading order,” (3) the question of the number of virtues in the two dialogues—five in
Protagoras, four in Alcibiades—and how that difference is characteristic of Platonic
pedagogy and prepares the reader for Republic, (4) the description of the soul as unitary,
i.e., that which uses the body as a tool; likewise important preparation for Republic, (5)
the determinative role of the Sign in the dialogue, (6) the enticing role of divinity and
becoming divine in the dialogue, (7) the countervailing role of the Delphic inscription in
the dialogue, and most importantly (8) the fact that Socrates presents himself to
Alcibiades as one who can help him achieve his goals, but does not yet call those goals
into question. This last point prepares for §2. 20 pages.

§2. Pedagogical Progress in Second Alcibiades

Socrates functions as the Sign to Alcibiades in this dialogue: he stops him from doing
what he is about to do, and calls into question the things Alcibiades wants—i.e., what he
would pray for—thereby marking a clear point of progress over the first Alcibiades. But
corresponding to the structure of the §1, the first half of this section will take its start
from the claim of some ancients, preserved in Athenaeus, that Xenophon wrote Second
Alcibiades. I will show that although there are parallels between Plato’s two Alcibiades
dialogues and the way Socrates treats Euthydemus in Memorabilia 4, that there are clear
differences between Plato’s and Xenophon’s Socratic writings that relate to “reading
order”: (1) Xenophon never wrote a direct dialogue like Second Alcibiades, always
explaining his own apologetic purpose before depicting his Socrates in dialogue, (2) that
same apologetic purpose would have prevented Xenophon from depicting Socrates
turning Alcibiades away from prayer, and (3) he did not write discrete dialogues, but
collected and arranged them in an order guided by his overall purpose. I will use this
comparison with Xenophon to emphasize that the purpose that guides Plato in collecting
and arranging his dialogues in “the reading order” is not apologetic, but pedagogical.
Turning next to the textual theme already mentioned, the section will conclude with a
detailed discussion of 143a6-c6: no sooner does Alcibiades recognize the dangers of
ignorance than Socrates calls him up short with respect to the question of whether
knowledge is always good. This critique of knowledge looks back on Protagoras and
prepares for the Hippias dialogues. 20 pages.

§3. Between Alcibiades and Hippias: Plato’s Erastai

Building on the portrait of Hippias as a polymath in Hippias Major, and the critique of
πολυµαθία in the Erastai, I will argue that the dialogue’s two rival lovers—one an
athlete, the other a musician—represent the difference between Alcibiades and Hippias,
and thus create a natural transition between the two pairs of dialogues that bear their
names. In this section, the textual considerations of this slender dialogue will come first,
emphasizing its textual connections to Second Alcibiades and Hippias Minor. But for the
first time, a section will be divided into three parts, with the second consisting of an
overview of the first stage of the Platonic reading order, and showing that it is no
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accident that so many “early” dialogues should have been expunged because they are too
simple or juvenile to be considered “Platonic.” The section’s third part will examine
arguments against the authenticity of Hippias Major—particularly those of Charles
Kahn—and show why it need not have been, and almost certainly was not, a young Plato
who wrote the “early” dialogues, but rather an experienced teacher, capable of teaching
both music and gymnastic, who knew where he wanted to take his young scholars from
the start, and skillfully designed his curriculum to do so. 20 pages.

Chapter 2: Middle

§4. The Central Republic and Plato’s Letters

My claim is that Plato’s Letters was designed to give the ten books of his Republic a
center, and that he located that center in “the Seventh Letter.” Working out from the
central seventh, I will show that the location of all thirteen is determined by ring-
composition, and hence that Letters needs to be read as a coherent work of art, not a
series of historical documents. As a whole, the purpose of Letters is to show the
inadequacy of the shorter way to put the Third Wave of Paradox in Republic 5 into
practice: Plato depicts, with considerable harshness to himself, the folly of trying to get
kings to become philosophers. It is rather the harder and longer way—where
philosophers must become rulers—to which the Academy was dedicated, and the central
point of this section is that justice does not emerge in book 4 but only in relation to the
Cave in book 7. What makes the Republic central is that it teaches the student what to do:
return to the Cave of politics. The purpose of Letters, in addition to cutting off “the
Syracusan shortcut,” is to point the student toward the most important passage in
Republic 1-5: the suggestion, made just before the first mention of “the longer way” at
435d2-3, that if justice in the man proves to be different from justice in the city—as it
conspicuously does not along “the shorter way”—we will need to return to the city and,
by rubbing the two together as if they were firesticks (435a2), cause the real nature of
justice to flash forth. When students encounter the parallel passage in Letters—the
famous passage where Plato says he will never entrust his most important views to
writing (341c4-d2)—they are in a good position to doubt it: he has already suggested to
them how Republic can become just such a book if we look beyond the definition of
justice in book 4, where the just man tends his own tripartite soul, and the just city of
book 5 that requires a philosopher to tend to it. I will briefly indicate that Alcibiades has
already prepared the student to detect the methodological inadequacy of “the shorter
way” with respect to both the soul and the number of virtues. Although I can point the
reader to the argument as developed in Plato the Teacher, this account of Plato’s
masterpiece will be written fresh, and oriented throughout to Letters, as it is not in my
book. 25 pages.

§5. Socrates’ Sign and “the Bridle of Theages”

Having shown that Letters is connected to passages in Republic books 4 and 5, the next
section connects Theages to the passage in book 6 where Theages is named as a
philosophically inclined youth who was prevented from being corrupted by political life
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by his sickly body, the so-called “bridle of Theages” at 496b7. To begin with, there is no
indication that Theages has a sickly body in Theages, although Socrates’ reticence to take
him on as a student becomes more intelligible if we imagine him, as it were, in a
wheelchair. But the dialogue does throw considerable light on the passage in Republic 6
that mentions him, and the first part of this section will juxtapose Theages with Socrates’
reference to his Sign at 496c4. Although the Sign first appears in Alcibiades, it is only in
Theages that its apotreptic nature is explained: it blocks Socrates from doing something
he intends to do. When encountered in a reading order that postpones Apology of
Socrates until the end, this is the first time the nature of the Sign has been explained.
Whereas in Apology the apotreptic Sign is explicitly linked to Socrates’ abstention from
political life, nothing is said of political life in Theages, and furthermore the Sign is not
said to be apotreptic in Republic 6. Only by combining the evidence of the two does the
student learn that Socrates intended to enter political life, just as Plato’s Republic is now
preparing the student to do. The second part of the section will juxtapose Theages with
Ion—especially with respect to the role of θείᾳ μοίρᾳ—and discuss the passages that
connect it to Gorgias and Meno, between which it stands in “the reading order.”
Although the order of presentation in the first two parts of this section will be new, all of
the important points I will make in them have been previously published. But in the third
part of the section, I will break new ground by examining the words θείᾳ μοίρᾳ in
connection with Alcibiades, and address some of the challenges to a purely rational
Socrates posed by the dubia, especially Theages and the two Alcibiades dialogues. I will
show that these challenges may explain their present status, and suggest that they are
likely to impede their restoration, a theme to which I will return in the Conclusion. 25
pages.

§6. Socrates’ Answer to Clitophon’s Question

The argument of the first two parts of this section has appeared in print in several places,
although the order of its presentation will be different, in accordance with the book’s
overall structure. Having linked Theages to a passage in Republic 6, I will first link
Clitophon to the passage in book 7 where Socrates, speaking as the founder of the
hypothetical City, tells the imaginary Guardians that they must return to the Cave
(520c1). The verbal adjective καταβατέον answers the question Clitophon poses at
408d7-e2: τί τοὐντεῦθεν; (roughly: “Where do I go from here?”). The second part will
explain why Thrasyllus was correct to place Clitophon directly in front of Republic: it
introduces the problem that Republic will solve, and it is incomplete because Socrates
responds to “Clitophon’s Question” in Republic as a whole, which is the lengthy reply
Socrates makes to the challenge Clitophon poses for him in Clitophon. I will review, as I
have previously done in print, the scholarly debate on its relation to Republic, but do so
more briefly, moving on to a new third section that will address in general terms—
although emerging from the specific case of Clitophon—the question of “hermeneutic
isolation” as opposed to “the hermeneutics of connection” as described in the
Introduction. I will present the relationship between Clitophon and Republic as the
paradigm for the relationship between the dubia and the greater dialogues acknowledged
to be genuine: they effectively introduce themes already present and developed at greater
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length in their more important sisters, but are no less genuine as a result, often revealing
things that the student might not have noticed without them. 25 pages.

Chapter 3: Late

§7. In the Interstices of the First Tetralogy

The principal problem with the First Tetralogy of Thrasyllus—i.e., with his decision to
place Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo first in his version of “the reading order of
Plato’s dialogues”—is revealed by his Second Tetralogy: Cratylus, Theaetetus, Sophist,
and Statesman. In the most easily identifiable sequence in the dialogues, Theaetetus
immediately precedes Euthyphro, just as Sophist and Statesman directly follow it. The
problem with Thrasyllus’ order, then, is that if it were followed in a consistent manner, it
would force the student to read difficult dialogues like Sophist and Statesman at the
beginning, something no competent teacher would make them do.7 But when the
dialogues of Thrasyllus’ First Tetralogy are placed at the end of “the reading order,” the
interpellation of Sophist and Statesman between Euthyphro and Apology makes sense: the
advanced student is now prepared for the most difficult challenges Plato has to offer. I
will show that these challenges are designed to prevent the backsliding to which the
Theages passage in Republic 6 has called attention, even as the student, having correctly
answered “Clitophon’s Question,” prepares to return to the Cave of political life. When
Apology is read after Sophist, it becomes considerably less clear that the Eleatic
Stranger—who depicts Socrates as a noble kind of sophist—represents any kind of
improvement on our hero, especially since the Apology of Socrates stands in “the reading
order” precisely where the missing Philosopher would be, and in fact depicts Plato’s
ideal philosopher, i.e., Socrates. And just as Sophist and Statesman are interpolated
between the first pair in the First Tetralogy, so also should the Laws-Epinomis dyad be
placed between Crito and Phaedo. My arguments for this placement—which is based on
Leo Strauss’s observation that the Athenian Stranger is the “Socrates” who follows
Crito’s advice to escape from prison in Crito—have already appeared in print, and I will
merely refer to them here. But I will break new ground by challenging the ancient
division of the dialogues into trilogies or tetralogies on the basis of the ubiquity of dyads
in the Platonic corpus. Beginning with the Alcibiades and Hippias dialogues, the student
is well prepared to recognize a pattern that continues through Laches-Charmides and
Gorgias-Meno to Timaeus-Critias, Sophist-Statesman, Laws-Epinomis, and finally
Hipparchus-Minos, subject of the next section, and another dyad placed in the interstices
of the First Tetralogy, this time between Apology and Crito. 20 pages.

§8. Socrates and the Weeping Jailor: Hipparchus and Minos

7
This is also true of Plato’s Parmenides, which Zuckert’s Plato’s Philosophers places
first because it depicts a young Socrates. This point will be discussed in the Preface.
 9

The first step is to show why Hipparchus and Minos constitute a pair, a fact many have
recognized before me.8 The next step is to show why Minos stands to Laws in much the
same relation that Clitophon does to Republic—i.e., it introduces it—and here too I can
point to a venerable precedent.9 The third step, which has not been taken before, is to
show the structural parallels—Hipparchus is a sophist, and the Stranger argues against
the rule of law in Statesman—between Sophist and Hipparchus, on the one hand, and
Statesman and Minos, the subject of which is law, on the other. The fourth step is to
identify the unnamed “comrade,” with whom Socrates speaks in both dialogues, with the
amiable jailor who bursts into tears in Phaedo. He is greedy enough to have been bribed
by Crito, but Socrates shows that his heart is in the right place by testing him in
Hipparchus. Next I will consider the implications of the fact that both dialogues are
named for enemies of Athens: with the city he served having condemned him to death,
the dialogues explore, with considerable artistry,10 Socrates’ response, a response for
which the Apology has prepared us: he continues to examine through dialectic everyone
he meets. Since the comrade is unnamed, and since no clues as to setting are provided, it
seems reasonable that Plato expected his students to discover for themselves where these
two dialogues “fit.” With these five steps having been taken, I will conclude this section
with a general discussion that will compare and contrast the pedagogical value of reading
the dialogues in accordance with “the reading order” and the pedagogical value of
discovering that order for oneself, as at least every modern reader must do. Whether as a
pattern for instruction in the Academy, or as an ongoing object of open-ended
investigation, not the least important consequence of reconstituting “the reading order of
Plato’s dialogues” is that it can be used to justify the restoration of fully one-quarter—
nine out of thirty-six—of Plato’s immortal works of art. 20 pages.

§9. Plato’s Epinomis: the thirteenth book of the Laws

My argument for reading Epinomis as the sequel to Laws has been published as a highly
technical response to Leonardo Tarán, and I will not be repeating that argument here,
although, of course, I will refer the interested reader to it. The important point I need to
make is that the Athenian Stranger does not speak for Plato, and this will lead to a general
discussion of the “late” dialogues, which I will argue combine the conclusion of Socrates’
heroic drama with a series of tests to determine the student’s loyalty to him, i.e., to
Socrates. Epinomis has dropped from the canon because in it the Athenian Stranger is
blatantly anti-Socratic, especially with respect to astronomy. I will show that it is
precisely the anti-Platonic elements in Epinomis—customarily used to athetize the
dialogue—that prove its authenticity once we grasp that Laws too is anti-Platonic, albeit
less blatantly so. This case I have also made in print, but I’m going to devote more
attention to the implications of a thirteen book dialogue whose center now becomes Laws

8
Beginning with Josef Pavlu, Die pseudoplatonischen Zwillingsdialoge Minos und
Hipparch (Vienna: Verlag de k. k. Staatsgymnasiums im III. Bezirke, 1910).
9
Glenn R. Morrow, Plato’s Cretan City: A Historical Commentary on the Laws
(Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960).
10
David Mulroy, “The Subtle Artistry of the Minos and the Hipparchus.” Transactions of
the American Philological Association 137 (2009), 115-131.
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7; this will allow me to revisit the division of Letters into thirteen, of which the seventh
has already proved crucial. Since wine is the specific antidote to hemlock, and since
Socrates’ “geology” in Phaedo precludes untrammeled access to the divinized astronomy
hymned by the Stranger in Epinomis, my central point—to be presented with more power
and simplicity than I have presented it elsewhere—will be the difference between Crito
and Phaedo, on the one hand, and Laws-Epinomis on the other, i.e., the difference
between Socrates and the Athenian Stranger, and the contrasting role of both in “the
reading order of Plato’s dialogues.” 20 pages.

Conclusion: Pedagogy, Testing, and the Limits of ἐπιστήµη

The Conclusion will review the nine dubia under consideration in the context of the
tripartite division into “early,” “middle,” and “late.” The three dialogues most recently
considered in chapter 3 are designed to test the extent of the reader’s loyalty to Socrates,
especially in comparison with the Eleatic and Athenian Strangers. Clustered around
Republic, the three “middle” dubia are designed to introduce and accentuate Plato’s
principal objective as a teacher: to persuade his students that justice requires them to
return—after soaring to the bright philosophical heights of the Good—to the darkest
shadows of the Cave, where, in Kipling’s words, they will hear the truths he’s spoken
“twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.” But the truly amazing thing revealed to the
student of “reading order” is how young and inexperienced Plato’s readers must have
been when they started out. With the “early” dubia restored to the canon, it becomes clear
that Plato was not—as he so often seems to be in the secondary literature—the ancient
equivalent of a university professor, sharing his latest discoveries with the scholarly
community, but rather a teacher of the youth, meeting them on their level, and gradually
moving them upwards with consummate pedagogical skill. Despite the evident genius of
the Plato I am describing—the Plato who wrote the dubia—there will be resistance to the
restoration proposed here not only because it undermines the conventional view that
Plato’s introduction of the two Strangers demonstrated that he had somehow “gone
beyond” Socrates, but because it restores the Platonism of “the middle dialogues”—now
in the conventional sense of that phrase—and, as if that were not sufficient cause for
resistance in itself, does so in a way that tends to emphasize the effective teacher’s
reliance on θείᾳ μοίρᾳ, an emphasis out of step with modern prejudices, as Platonism
itself is, and always will be. 20 pages.

Bibliography
Index Locorum
General Index