The Guardians on Trial

The Reading Order of Plato's Dialogues from Euthyphro to Phaedo

William H. F. Altman

Based on a conception of Reading Order introduced and developed in his Plato the Teacher: The Crisis of the Republic (Lexington; 2012) and The Guardians in Action: Plato the Teacher and the Post-Republic Dialogues from Timaeus to Theaetetus (Lexington; 2016), William H. F. Altman now completes his study of Plato’s so-called “late dialogues” by showing that they include those that depict the trial and death of Socrates. According to Altman, it is not Order of Composition but Reading Order that makes Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, Crito, and Phaedo “late dialogues,” and he shows why Plato’s decision to interpolate the notoriously “late” Sophist and Statesman between Euthyphro and Apology deserves more respect from interpreters. Altman explains this interpolation—and another, that places Laws between Crito and Phaedo—as part of an ongoing test Plato has created for his readers that puts “the Guardians on Trial.” If we don’t recognize that Socrates himself is the missing Philosopher that the Eleatic Stranger never actually describes—and also the antithesis of the Athenian Stranger, who leaves Athens in order to create laws for Crete—we pronounce ourselves too sophisticated to be Plato’s Guardians, and unworthy of the Socratic inheritance.

Lexington Books

Pages: 638 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-1-4985-2951-8 • Hardback • July 2016 • $194.00 • (£150.00)

978-1-4985-2952-5 • eBook • July 2016 • $184.00 • (£142.00)

Subjects: Philosophy / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical

The Guardians on Trial

The Reading Order of Plato's Dialogues from Euthyphro to Phaedo

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Based on a conception of Reading Order introduced and developed in his Plato the Teacher: The Crisis of the Republic (Lexington; 2012) and The Guardians in Action: Plato the Teacher and the Post-Republic Dialogues from Timaeus to Theaetetus (Lexington; 2016), William H. F. Altman now completes his study of Plato’s so-called “late dialogues” by showing that they include those that depict the trial and death of Socrates. According to Altman, it is not Order of Composition but Reading Order that makes Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, Crito, and Phaedo “late dialogues,” and he shows why Plato’s decision to interpolate the notoriously “late” Sophist and Statesman between Euthyphro and Apology deserves more respect from interpreters. Altman explains this interpolation—and another, that places Laws between Crito and Phaedo—as part of an ongoing test Plato has created for his readers that puts “the Guardians on Trial.” If we don’t recognize that Socrates himself is the missing Philosopher that the Eleatic Stranger never actually describes—and also the antithesis of the Athenian Stranger, who leaves Athens in order to create laws for Crete—we pronounce ourselves too sophisticated to be Plato’s Guardians, and unworthy of the Socratic inheritance.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 638 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-1-4985-2951-8 • Hardback • July 2016 • $194.00 • (£150.00)

978-1-4985-2952-5 • eBook • July 2016 • $184.00 • (£142.00)

Subjects: Philosophy / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical

Author

William H. F. Altman, an independent scholar now living in Brazil, is a retired public high school teacher with more than thirty years experience teaching history, Latin, and the humanities.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface: The Reading Order of Plato’s Dialogues from Euthyphro to Phaedo

Introduction: The Guardians on Trial

1Beginning the End with Euthyphro

1. “The Great Parmenides”
2. Piety and Parricide

2Plato’s Trilogy: Sophist, Statesman, and Apology of Socrates

3. The Image of the Philosopher in Sophist
4. The Sophist in Plato’s Statesman
5. Apology of Socrates as Plato’s Philosopher

3Hipparchus-Minos: Conversing with the Weeping Jailor

6. Reading Order and Authenticity
7. Basanistic Pedagogy in Plato’s Hipparchus
8. Plato’s Minos: The Snuggest Fit of All

4Crito-Laws-Epinomis: Socrates vs. the Athenian Stranger

9. Achilles in Athens
10. The Athenian Stranger as “Socrates” in Flight
11. The Theological-Political coup d’etat of Laws 13
12. Halfway Toward Epinomis: Reading Laws 7
13. A Tale of Two Drinking Parties

5The Immortal Phaedo

14. Putting Cosmology in its Place
15. Cratylus Revisited: αἰθήρ, Hades, and Apollo
16. Immortality and the Intermediates: Purification vs. Proof
17. Justice as Cause: The Argument of the Action
18. Before Protagoras

Bibliography

Index

Index verborum
Index locorum

Reviews

With his characteristic insight, Altman turns to the dialogues ranging from Euthyphro to Phaedo in his reconstructed reading order. The Guardians on Trial is a superb addition to Altman’s trailblazing work on Platonic pedagogy. Altman’s originality is on full display. He not only offers innovative readings of individual dialogues, but he also further demonstrates the immense value of approaching the Platonic corpus through the lens of the reading order. I highly recommend this book!
— Avi Mintz, University of Tulsa

Altman’s The Guardians on Trial is a masterful work that will change the landscape of how we read and interpret the Platonic dialogues for generations to come. Altman’s detailed and compelling arguments about how we should best read Plato’s dialogues in light of the centrality of the Republic encourage us to rethink our past assumptions about reading order and Plato’s ultimate pedagogical aims. In this way, the book leads us to reconsider the shadows on our own cave walls that we have regarded as doctrinal truths. As we read the dialogues again in light of Altman’s erudition and insight, we must grapple anew with the terrain explored in dialogues that centrally concern the death of Socrates, the Euthyphro to the Phaedo.
— Anne-Marie Schultz, Baylor University

Immensely erudite, while startlingly original—William H. F. Altman’s claim that Plato intended a univocal reading order for his dialogues opens interpretive vistas on every aspect of Plato’s thinking. Altman takes Plato’s own theories of pedagogy as exegetically foundational, thereby transforming these dialogues into complex tests designed to reinforce the reader’s mastery of Platonism through the negotiation of an impressive regimen of challenge and misdirection. In The Guardians on Trial, we rediscover what philosophy is for Plato, and how instilling Platonism itself constituted Plato’s deepest commitment.
— Richard Foley, University of Missouri