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Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues
Faced with the difficult task of discerning Plato’s true ideas from the contradictory voices he used to express them, scholars have never fully made sense of the many incompatibilities within and between the dialogues. In the magisterial Plato’s Philosophers, Catherine Zuckert explains for the first time how these prose dramas cohere to reveal a comprehensive Platonic understanding of philosophy.
To expose this coherence, Zuckert examines the dialogues not in their supposed order of composition but according to the dramatic order in which Plato indicates they took place. This unconventional arrangement lays bare a narrative of the rise, development, and limitations of Socratic philosophy. In the drama’s earliest dialogues, for example, non-Socratic philosophers introduce the political and philosophical problems to which Socrates tries to respond. A second dramatic group shows how Socrates develops his distinctive philosophical style. And, finally, the later dialogues feature interlocutors who reveal his philosophy’s limitations. Despite these limitations, Zuckert concludes, Plato made Socrates the dialogues’ central figure because Socrates raises the fundamental human what is the best way to live?
Plato’s dramatization of Socratic imperfections suggests, moreover, that he recognized the apparently unbridgeable gap between our understandings of human life and the nonhuman world. At a time when this gap continues to raise questions—about the division between sciences and the humanities and the potentially dehumanizing effects of scientific progress—Zuckert’s brilliant interpretation of the entire Platonic corpus offers genuinely new insights into worlds past and present.
To expose this coherence, Zuckert examines the dialogues not in their supposed order of composition but according to the dramatic order in which Plato indicates they took place. This unconventional arrangement lays bare a narrative of the rise, development, and limitations of Socratic philosophy. In the drama’s earliest dialogues, for example, non-Socratic philosophers introduce the political and philosophical problems to which Socrates tries to respond. A second dramatic group shows how Socrates develops his distinctive philosophical style. And, finally, the later dialogues feature interlocutors who reveal his philosophy’s limitations. Despite these limitations, Zuckert concludes, Plato made Socrates the dialogues’ central figure because Socrates raises the fundamental human what is the best way to live?
Plato’s dramatization of Socratic imperfections suggests, moreover, that he recognized the apparently unbridgeable gap between our understandings of human life and the nonhuman world. At a time when this gap continues to raise questions—about the division between sciences and the humanities and the potentially dehumanizing effects of scientific progress—Zuckert’s brilliant interpretation of the entire Platonic corpus offers genuinely new insights into worlds past and present.
- GenresPhilosophy
896 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2009
5 people are currently reading
121 people want to read
About the author
Catherine H. Zuckert
22 books17 followersCatherine H. Zuckert is the Nancy R. Dreux Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame. She was Editor-in-Chief of The Review of Politics from 2004-2018, and Visiting Professor, ASU’s School of Civic & Economic Thought and Leadership in 2019.
Zuckert’s book, Natural Right and the American Imagination: Political Philosophy in Novel Form, won the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Award for the best book written in philosophy and religion by the American Association of Publishers in 1990. Understanding the Political Spirit: From Socrates to Nietzsche, edited by Zuckert, received a Choice award as one of the best books published in political theory in 1989. Her book on Plato’s Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues (University of Chicago Press, 2009) won the R.R. Hawkins award from the Association of American Publishers for the best scholarly book published that year. She co-authored The Truth about Leo Strauss (2006) and Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy (2014) with Michael P. Zuckert (both published by the University of Chicago Press), and edited Political Philosophy in the 20th Century: Authors and Arguments (Cambridge University Press, 2011) as well as Leo Strauss on Political Philosophy (University of Chicago Press, 2018). Her most recent monograph, Machiavelli’s Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2017), was selected by the Washington Examiner as a book of the decade.
Zuckert has received several grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as the Bradley and Earhart Foundations.
She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, has been listed in several editions of Who’s Who in America, and was selected as a member of the Templeton Honor Role in 1998.
Zuckert’s book, Natural Right and the American Imagination: Political Philosophy in Novel Form, won the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Award for the best book written in philosophy and religion by the American Association of Publishers in 1990. Understanding the Political Spirit: From Socrates to Nietzsche, edited by Zuckert, received a Choice award as one of the best books published in political theory in 1989. Her book on Plato’s Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues (University of Chicago Press, 2009) won the R.R. Hawkins award from the Association of American Publishers for the best scholarly book published that year. She co-authored The Truth about Leo Strauss (2006) and Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy (2014) with Michael P. Zuckert (both published by the University of Chicago Press), and edited Political Philosophy in the 20th Century: Authors and Arguments (Cambridge University Press, 2011) as well as Leo Strauss on Political Philosophy (University of Chicago Press, 2018). Her most recent monograph, Machiavelli’s Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2017), was selected by the Washington Examiner as a book of the decade.
Zuckert has received several grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as the Bradley and Earhart Foundations.
She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, has been listed in several editions of Who’s Who in America, and was selected as a member of the Templeton Honor Role in 1998.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 29, 2023
Amazon Review
This is basically an expression by Ms. Zuckert of previous scholar's translation and comments on Plato's philosophy, where she picks and choses from these other scholars what she feels makes more sense to her, and she makes a tapestry of all them.
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Essential Keys to Plato
You'd think that after 24 centuries there might not be a whole lot of new things to say about Plato, but Zuckert makes startling discoveries about the Platonic corpus that everyone else seems to have overlooked. The first bombshell is that chronologically (in terms of when it was supposed to take place) Laws is the very first dialogue, not the last as many scholars have assumed. Since there's no mention of the Peloponnesian War, it must take place before 431, and in fact a close look shows that the Athenian Stranger's views are all rooted in pre-Socratic philosophy. Zuckert's clear, detailed, well substantiated argument about Laws got me hooked, and I ended up reading the entire 862 pages with interest and enjoyment, at the same time going over many of Plato's dialogues again.
Having read several essays on Plato by Leo Strauss, Zuckert's teacher, and his other followers, I was familiar with the idea that the argument of each dialogue emerges in tandem with the unfolding of the action, as well as the idea that the narrative structure (narrated by Socrates, told by a third person, not narrated, etc.) is related to the theme. Zuckert's approach, encompassing as it does the entire corpus, also makes clear the significance of the dramatic dates. For example, when we see that Lysis takes place years after Symposium and Phaedrus, we find that it "contains a critique of both the definitions of love presented in the two earlier dialogues" (p. 511). So what has sometimes been pigeonholed as a "minor" dialogue comes alive in the discussion of an important topic.
By looking at the dialogues in sequence we get a better sense of who Socrates is and how his thought developed (according to Plato, of course): the stripling struggling with Parmenides; the brash young man taking Protagoras down a couple notches with his hard questions; the confident thinker expounding a positive teaching in Symposium and Republic; the father figure seeking to benefit Theages and Meno; and finally the wise man facing his biological and intellectual limits in the dialogues around the time of the trial. The dialogues featuring Timaeus and the Eleatic philosopher offer contrasts that help us understand more deeply what Socrates is all about.
Although Zuckert follows in the footsteps of Strauss, who wrote that each of Plato's dialogues had to be understood in the context of the whole, she has a good grasp of the full gamut of research literature on Plato, not just Straussian, and a fine bibliography.
Also unlike Strauss, she states what she thinks very clearly, and, moreover, in prose generally free of technical and academic terms. She is the worthy student of a great teacher, and this work marks an important new beginning in Platonic studies.
Asia Khuf
---
Embracing the challenge of the Platonic corpus as a whole, Catherine Zuckert uncovers its overarching narrative: by tracing a path through the dialogues in a sequence of dramatic dating, while contrasting Socrates with Plato’s other philosophical spokesmen, Zuckert’s comprehensive and thought-provoking study brings to light the Platonic understanding of the problems bequeathed to Socrates by his predecessors, the development of his response and its limits, and finally the superiority of Socratic philosophy to its alternatives.
Ronna Burger, Tulane
In Platonic studies there is little agreement on how the dialogues are to be read as a whole. Dislocating our sense of the chronology of the dialogues, Catherine Zuckert’s Plato’s Philosophers presents both a dramatic challenge to the reader of Plato’s dialogues as a whole and a clear and penetrating analysis of the dialogues and their interconnections.
Diskin Clay, Duke
Very few scholars have attempted to discuss all thirty-five dialogues, and no one before Catherine Zuckert had to my knowledge followed their dramatic order in doing so. This order informs her reading, but does not govern it; she considers each dialogue individually, allowing the thought of each character to stand out on its own. Her approach unquestionably brings out features of the dialogues that would otherwise remain unnoticed. The exercise of trying to get a handle on Plato as a whole is one that anyone who is serious about understanding the dialogues should undertake, and Zuckert’s labors have made it easier for us to do so.
Jacob Howland, University of Tulsa
No serious student of Plato could fail to benefit from [Zuckert's] careful, intelligent, probing, and illuminating discussions... An important, impressive, and, one hopes, lasting book.
Mark Blitz . Claremont Review of Books
This is basically an expression by Ms. Zuckert of previous scholar's translation and comments on Plato's philosophy, where she picks and choses from these other scholars what she feels makes more sense to her, and she makes a tapestry of all them.
---
Essential Keys to Plato
You'd think that after 24 centuries there might not be a whole lot of new things to say about Plato, but Zuckert makes startling discoveries about the Platonic corpus that everyone else seems to have overlooked. The first bombshell is that chronologically (in terms of when it was supposed to take place) Laws is the very first dialogue, not the last as many scholars have assumed. Since there's no mention of the Peloponnesian War, it must take place before 431, and in fact a close look shows that the Athenian Stranger's views are all rooted in pre-Socratic philosophy. Zuckert's clear, detailed, well substantiated argument about Laws got me hooked, and I ended up reading the entire 862 pages with interest and enjoyment, at the same time going over many of Plato's dialogues again.
Having read several essays on Plato by Leo Strauss, Zuckert's teacher, and his other followers, I was familiar with the idea that the argument of each dialogue emerges in tandem with the unfolding of the action, as well as the idea that the narrative structure (narrated by Socrates, told by a third person, not narrated, etc.) is related to the theme. Zuckert's approach, encompassing as it does the entire corpus, also makes clear the significance of the dramatic dates. For example, when we see that Lysis takes place years after Symposium and Phaedrus, we find that it "contains a critique of both the definitions of love presented in the two earlier dialogues" (p. 511). So what has sometimes been pigeonholed as a "minor" dialogue comes alive in the discussion of an important topic.
By looking at the dialogues in sequence we get a better sense of who Socrates is and how his thought developed (according to Plato, of course): the stripling struggling with Parmenides; the brash young man taking Protagoras down a couple notches with his hard questions; the confident thinker expounding a positive teaching in Symposium and Republic; the father figure seeking to benefit Theages and Meno; and finally the wise man facing his biological and intellectual limits in the dialogues around the time of the trial. The dialogues featuring Timaeus and the Eleatic philosopher offer contrasts that help us understand more deeply what Socrates is all about.
Although Zuckert follows in the footsteps of Strauss, who wrote that each of Plato's dialogues had to be understood in the context of the whole, she has a good grasp of the full gamut of research literature on Plato, not just Straussian, and a fine bibliography.
Also unlike Strauss, she states what she thinks very clearly, and, moreover, in prose generally free of technical and academic terms. She is the worthy student of a great teacher, and this work marks an important new beginning in Platonic studies.
Asia Khuf
---
Embracing the challenge of the Platonic corpus as a whole, Catherine Zuckert uncovers its overarching narrative: by tracing a path through the dialogues in a sequence of dramatic dating, while contrasting Socrates with Plato’s other philosophical spokesmen, Zuckert’s comprehensive and thought-provoking study brings to light the Platonic understanding of the problems bequeathed to Socrates by his predecessors, the development of his response and its limits, and finally the superiority of Socratic philosophy to its alternatives.
Ronna Burger, Tulane
In Platonic studies there is little agreement on how the dialogues are to be read as a whole. Dislocating our sense of the chronology of the dialogues, Catherine Zuckert’s Plato’s Philosophers presents both a dramatic challenge to the reader of Plato’s dialogues as a whole and a clear and penetrating analysis of the dialogues and their interconnections.
Diskin Clay, Duke
Very few scholars have attempted to discuss all thirty-five dialogues, and no one before Catherine Zuckert had to my knowledge followed their dramatic order in doing so. This order informs her reading, but does not govern it; she considers each dialogue individually, allowing the thought of each character to stand out on its own. Her approach unquestionably brings out features of the dialogues that would otherwise remain unnoticed. The exercise of trying to get a handle on Plato as a whole is one that anyone who is serious about understanding the dialogues should undertake, and Zuckert’s labors have made it easier for us to do so.
Jacob Howland, University of Tulsa
No serious student of Plato could fail to benefit from [Zuckert's] careful, intelligent, probing, and illuminating discussions... An important, impressive, and, one hopes, lasting book.
Mark Blitz . Claremont Review of Books
Displaying 1 of 1 review