Timaeus

Author: Plato

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Laches

Plato

Laches is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato. The participants in the discourse present opposing definitions of the concept of courage.

Lysimachus, son of Aristides, and Melesias, son of Thucydides (not the historian Thucydides), ask Laches and Nicias for advice on whether or not to have their sons train to fight in armor. After each gives his opinion, Nicias in favor and Laches against, they ask Socrates for advice.

Socrates wonders what the initial purpose of the training they want to instill in their sons is. Once they determine that the purpose is to instill virtue, and more specifically courage, Socrates discusses with Laches and Nicias what exactly courage is. The bulk of the dialogue consists of the three men (Laches, Nicias, and Socrates) debating various definitions of courage.

Critias

Plato

Critias, one of Plato’s last dialogues, tells the story of the powerful kingdom of the island Atlantis and its attempt to conquer Athens, which failed due to the orderly society of the Athenians.

Critias is the second of a projected trilogy of dialogues, preceded by Timaeus and followed by Hermocrates. The latter was possibly never written and Critias was left incomplete. Because of their resemblance (e.g., in terms of the persons who appear), modern classicists occasionally combine both Timaeus and Critias as Timaeus-Critias.

Cratylus

Plato

Cratylus is the name of a dialogue by Plato. Most modern scholars agree that it was written mainly during Plato’s so-called middle period. In the dialogue, two men, Cratylus and Hermogenes, ask Socrates to tell them whether names are «conventional» or «natural», that is, whether language is a system of arbitrary signs or whether words have an intrinsic relation to the things they signify.

The individual Cratylus was the first intellectual influence on Plato. Aristotle claims that Cratylus influenced Plato by introducing him to the teachings of Heraclitus.

Philebus

Plato

It is a Socratic dialogue written in the 4th century B.C. that appears to be one of Plato’s last writings and is believed to have been written at the same time as the Timaeus. In this dialogue, Plato again uses Socrates as the main character and speaker and, in addition to him, the other interlocutors are Philebus and Protarchus.

Philebus contains some of Plato’s most sophisticated discussions of moral psychology. The central question of the dialogue concerns the relative value of pleasure and knowledge.

For most of it Philebus refuses to argue and remains silent, leaving it to Protagoras to defend hedonism against the attacks of the intellectualism advocated by Socrates. The final conclusion is that the good of life is the proportion with which these components are mixed.

Sophist

Plato

This is a Platonic dialogue from Plato’s late period, probably written in 360 B.C. Its main theme is to identify what a sophist is and how he differs from a philosopher and a statesman.

The participants of the Sophist are Socrates, who plays a supporting role, the elderly mathematician Theodorus, the young mathematician Theaetetus, and a visitor from Elea, often referred to in English translations as the Eleatic Stranger who is also described as a pupil of Parmenides and Zeno.

The dialogue begins when Socrates arrives and asks the Eleatic Stranger whether in his homeland the sophist, the statesman, and the philosopher are considered one class or three. The Eleatic Stranger replies that there are three and sets out to initiate a dialectical exchange.