Reflections on Plato’s dialogues — or, if I break it out as a separate post, links to reflections — to follow below. The order is that of the Ukemi Audiobooks series The Socratic Dialogues, which dramatizes Benjamin Jowett’s translation with a full cast of great British actors (headlined by David Rintoul as Socrates). Jowett’s translation may be “out of date” from a scholarly perspective (which I am unqualified to judge) but in Rintoul’s hands (vocal chords?) is enduringly lucid. Ukemi also organizes the dialogues loosely according to a traditional early-middle-late periodization, which I gather is a contested approach, but it doesn’t seem to harm the understanding for a first pass. (I’m already suspecting that the “dramatic ordering,” following the chronology of Socrates' life as best that may be reconstructed, might be more fruitful… but that’s for a second round, and I’m just beginning the first!)

Early Period

1. Apology. A barnstormer to start in medias res — better, near the end of things. We meet Socrates for the first time as he defends himself, before the assembly, against the charges laid at his door: of being an evildoer and “making the better appear the worse,” of being an atheist and introducing new deities, and of corrupting the youth. He does not succeed, though he is condemned by only a small margin. Socrates here introduces a number of key motives in the corpus: his claim to “know nothing at all” and thus to only be the “wisest” by exposing everyone else’s ignorance (which makes him quite unpopular); the deceptiveness of rhetoricians, who know how to speak elegantly and persuasively, but know really nothing of the Good and therefore of how to make men better; his own role as a sort of “gadfly,” provoking the polis into active self-reflection which it might otherwise neglect, and seeking thus to improve it; the absolute priority of caring for the soul over against all other cares (of property, wealth, body, etc.), and the absolute refusal to employ any tactics unworthy of the soul; the “daemon” or voice of God — or Conscience — speaking to him and infallibly guiding him toward the right course of action, though all public opinion be against him; his real indifference — perhaps, even here, optimism! — in the face of death, but absolute service to the truth. We also get a taste of the dialectic style as he cross-examines his accuser Meletus. It is an extraordinary bit of writing by Plato, moving and sweeping and incisive. Apology thus introduces and crystallizes the brilliant literary paradox of the Socratic corpus: Socrates disclaims all “rhetoric” and “elaborate defence,” portraying himself as a humble and artless seeker of wisdom — using brilliant rhetoric and elaborate defensive strategies to demolish his opponents' arguments. I loved Apology, and expect to revisit it with great enjoyment, but there is undoubtedly something inhuman and irritating (gadfly-like!) about Socrates. One understands instantly why Socrates had so many admirers in his own day (including Plato), and why Plato’s Socrates has been such a titanic figure in the history of thought and culture; and, equally, just why Socrates made so many enemies. Most of all I chafe at his claim that “the life which is unexamined is not worth living.” Is it not the other way round: no life which is lived is worth leaving unexamined?
2. Crito. A simple but moving dialogue, set in prison on the night before Socrates' execution, on the question: “Is it right to disobey an unjust law?” Socrates' answer in this case, of course, is No. The titular Crito (also mentioned in Apology) comes to him in prison and makes one last effort to persuade Socrates to escape his condemnation. But — despite his complaint in Apology that his trial was not conducted with full propriety — Socrates is determined to accept the death penalty meted out by the state. The most curious, and seemingly central, feature of the dialogue is the lengthy portion spoken by Socrates in the voice of the personified Laws of Athens. How, the Laws ask Socrates (and thus Socrates asks Crito), can one who is so personally committed to justice defy the demands and decisions of justice?
3. Charmides. Now we flash back several decades, and get going with our first, though assuredly not last, “What is X?” The X in question is the virtue of temperance.
4. Laches.
5. Lysis.
6. Euthyphro.
7. Menexenus.
8. Ion.
9. Gorgias. Is it okay to really rather dislike this dialogue? The subject matter is of great importance, of course: moving from the more specific question “what, if anything, does a teacher of rhetoric need to know about goodness?” to the general question “what is the best way of life?”. In these early dialogues Plato does not often set up Socrates' interlocutors as particularly compelling or thoughtful — see Euthyphro or Ion and their namesakes — but in Gorgias he seems to regard, and Socrates seems to treat, all three of Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles with barely-disguised contempt. And they are, in differing ways, worthy of contempt (less so, perhaps, Gorgias).
10. Protagoras.
11. Meno.
12. Euthydemus.
13. Lesser Hippias.
14. Greater Hippias.

Middle Period

15. Symposium.
16. Theætetus. Fantastic. Far and away the most enjoyable, dare I say riveting, of the dialogues so far. “What is knowledge?”
17. Phædo.
18. Phædrus.
19. Cratylus. Some people, apparently, say this dialogue is “tedious.” I had the exact opposite reaction! (Perhaps I am a tedious person…)
20. Parmenides.
21. Republic.

Late Period

22. Timæus.
23. Critias.
24. Sophist.
25. Statesman.
26. Philebus.
27. Laws.