Ebooks for the Classroom+Faculty

Dialectic in Action : An Examination of Plato's Crito
ISBN: 9781914535048
Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / Classical Press of Wales, The
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time
Subjects: Philosophy;

Plato's Crito examines a single moral decision, whether Socrates ought to escape from his death-cell. Stokes' book discusses Socrates' arguments against Crito's offer of escape. It construes Socrates' questions as genuine questions, which clarify and undermine Crito's positions. Stokes's approach avoids the 'documentary fallacy'; it shows how Plato catered for both the novice and the experienced reader of his published works. This book offers a fresh account of Socrates' whole strategy. It demonstrates both the shakiness of Socrates' persuasion of the un-philosophical Crito to engage in dialectic, and the coherence of his substantive confutation. Plato's reasoning emerges from Stokes' study with more credit than many have given it.