I’ve read Euthyphro, Apologia, Crito from Plato’s works and now I’d like to continue with other Plato’s texts. Could you recommend the next text to continue with? Which dialogue is the best (appropriate difficulty level) after the dialogues that I read?
I am just finishing Meno after reading the dialogues you mentioned (and Ion). A half step up, maybe a whole step in the fairly limited geometry parts. I’m next reading Symposium and starting English-to-Greek prose comp.
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Hi, if you have read the first three dialogues in the first tetralogy, you might want to explore reading the Phaedo. It is the fourth and final dialogue in that tetralogy (i.e. the four dialogues covering the final days of the life of Socrates).
It is different in style from the other three, but I wouldn’t say the Greek itself is ‘harder’. The ideas are certainly deeper. Some of the passages in the Phaedo are among my favourites in all of literature (e.g. Socrates’ ‘defence speech’ to his friends).
I haven’t reviewed it myself, but Geoffrey Steadman has guidance for this dialogue here: Plato’s Phaedo – Greek and Latin Texts with Facing Vocabulary and Commentary
Otherwise, if you would prefer another dialogue similar in difficulty and style to those three dialogues (especially Euthyphro and Crito, since the Apology is somewhat different), you may wish to continue with the other ‘Socratic dialogues’. This is a subset of the Platonic dialogues that scholars believe may have been written in the earlier phase of Plato’s career and (some argue) more accurately represent the ideas of Socrates himself (with other dialogues having more of Plato’s own ideas).
I wouldn’t say these Socratic dialogues are necessarily ‘harder’ or ‘easier’ than the other dialogues of Plato, but they may feel slightly more familiar based on the works you have read to date.
Cheers, Chad
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I found my way into Plato through Steadman’s edition of Republic One. Working my way through this was very rewarding. Since then, I’ve worked through Crito, Meno, Euthyphro, Apology, and parts of Symposium and Phaedo. The availability of Steadman commentaries has been very important in guiding my choices.
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If you should pick the Symposium, there is a book called Eros at the Banquet which can be of good use next to Steadman (but not quite as a replacement, because it simplifies or excludes a couple of shorter passages). It walks you through the dialogue both grammatically and philosophically and picks up on difficulties that Steadman, as per his usual habit, doesn’t see (or worse, misunderstands). There may be even better aids commentaries out there, of course (I’d love to hear more about them myself!).
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Thank you everyone for the help. I may continue with Phaedo so as to finish the tetralogy. But I’ m afraid a little bit to read these text, because I heard it is harder than the other that. I’ve read.
What would you suggest to read from other Socratic dialogues?
Hi, I would recommend any other Socratic dialogue for which you have sufficient guidance (teacher support, good commentaries, etc.). You do not need to start with a particular dialogue.
I had to analyse all of them to produce my manual of Socratic method, but it is by no means necessary to read all of them to enjoy them as literature.
My only practical suggestion would be to start with the shorter ones. It is, in my view, always better to complete a shorter work than to abandon a larger work mid-way, even if you read the same number of pages in either scenario.
(The same policy applies to reading textbooks and reference works, incidentally: far better for an intermediate learner to read, say, all of Morwood’s short but excellent Oxford Greek grammar, than to read the same number of pages in a much larger Greek grammar, which could leave you stranded in the nouns section, without even getting to the all-important verb.)
Each dialogue of Plato is an artistic whole, and you don’t want to (by way of analogy) walk out of the concert hall partway through the performance. The shorter ones are excellent literature in themselves and good preparation for approaching the grander pieces such as the Gorgias.
Cheers, Chad
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I’m going to use Eros at the Banquet, with Steadman as backup. What I like about this version is that its grammatical glosses cross-reference to the author’s fine and straightforward grammar book, so you can see the Symposium grammar point in the context of Greek grammar as a whole. Like Barbour’s version of Herodotus.
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Many many thanks. You are vers kind to deal with my quiestions.
i’d recommend Dr. Michael Sugrue’s lectures on Plato on YouTube. They are pretty enlightening.
Regarding texts, i’d suggest Gorgias n Protagoras
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