1. Editors’ Introduction: Why Clarifying Socrates’ Motives Matters for Platonic Philosophy

See Rowe’s recent methodological reflections for a critical appraisal of developmentalism and related reading practices. “Methodologies for Reading Plato” (Oxford Handbooks Online). Influential works in the school of developmentalism, particularly in Plato’s ethics and political philosophy, include Irwin (Plato’s Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), Klosko (The Development of Plato’s Political Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), Kraut (The Cambridge Companion to Plato. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), and Vlastos (Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher, 1991). For examples of more nuanced instances of the developmentalist hypothesis, see Kahn (Plato and the Socratic Dialogue. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Reshotko (Socratic Virtue. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), and Rowe (Plato and the Art of Philosophical Writing. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007). For additional various critiques of developmentalism, see especially Bloom (The Republic of Plato. New York: Basic Books, 1991), Craig (The War Lover. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), Denyer (Plato, Alcibiades. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), Howland (“Re-reading Plato: The Problem of Platonic Chronology.” Phoenix 45 [1991]: 189–214, Pangle (The Roots of Political Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), Peterson (Socrates and Philosophy in the Dialogues of Plato. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), Press (Who Speaks for Plato? Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), Reshotko (Socratic Virtue), Tigerstedt (Interpreting Plato. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1977), Weiss (Socrates Dissatisfied. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), and Zuckert (Plato’s Philosophers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). For useful reflections on reading Plato through his art of writing, see Strauss (“On a New Interpretation of Plato’s Political Philosophy.” Social Research 13 [1946]: 326–357; City and Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964, 50–62), Craig (The War Lover, xiii–xxxviii), Klein (A Commentary on Plato’s Meno. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965, 3–31), and Bolotin (“The Life of Philosophy and the Immortality of the Soul.” Ancient Philosophy 7 [1987]: 39–56). For critical responses to the “Straussian” approach to reading Plato, see Klosko (“The ‘Straussian’ Interpretation of Plato’s Republic.” History of Political Thought 7 [1986]: 275–293), Roochnik (“Irony and Accessibility.” Political Theory 25 [1997]: 869–885), and Ferrari (“Strauss’ Plato.” Arion 5 [1997]).

Important studies of Plato that focus on Socrates’ total activity, including his own philosophic or intellectual development (Socratic developmentalism), include Bruell (On the Socratic Education. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), Cropsey (Plato’s World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), Lampert (How Philosophy Became Socratic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), Leibowitz (The Ironic Defense of Socrates. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), Levy (Eros and Socratic Philosophy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), Lutz (Socrates’ Education to Virtue. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), Nichols (Socrates on Friendship and Community. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), Sebell (The Socratic Turn. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), Smith Pangle (Virtue is Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), and Zuckert (Plato’s Philosophers). See also Pangle and Burns (The Key Texts of Political Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Linck (The Ideas of Socrates. London: Continuum, 2007).

Historically, some conception of the moral Socrates has dominated the major schools of Platonism, from the early Academics to Middle-Platonism, Stoicism, and Neo-Platonism. This is also true of later European revivals of Platonism, as with, say, Marsilio Ficino, the Cambridge Platonists, and Friedrich Schleiermacher. Plato has not been without his moral critics, however. Karl Popper comes to mind as a noted critic, blaming Plato for casting a totalitarian spell on political thought (The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013). In the realm of ethics, Gregory Vlastos famously criticized Plato for his inadequate understanding of love (Platonic Studies. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973). Recent scholars in political theory who make their own well-developed and compelling cases for a morally concerned Socrates include Leon Craig (The War Lover), Mary Nichols (Socrates and the Political Community. Albany: State University of New York Pres, 1987. See also Socrates on Friendship and Political Community), James Rhodes (Eros, Wisdom and Silence. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003), Roslyn Weiss (Socrates Dissatisfied. See also: The Socratic Paradox and Its Enemies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006, and Philosophers in the Republic. Ithaca: Cornell, 2012), and Catherine Zuckert (Plato’s Philosophers).

Excellent examples of this include Euthyphro, Meno, and Republic.

Consider Stauffer (Plato’s Introduction to the Question of Justice. Albany: Statue University of New York Press, 2001, 130–131). See also Leibowitz, The Ironic Defense of Socrates, 156.

See Sebell, The Socratic Turn, 53 and Smith Pangle, Virtue is Knowledge, 103.

See especially the work of Ahrensdorf (The Death of Socrates and the Life of Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), Bartlett (Plato, Protagoras and Meno. Ithaca: Cornell, 2004), Bolotin (Plato’s Dialogue on Friendship. Ithaca: Cornell, 1979), Bruell (On the Socratic Education), Burns and Pangle (Key Texts in Political Philosophy), Leibowitz (The Ironic Defense of Socrates), Levy (Eros and Socratic Philosophy), Lutz (Socrates’ Education to Virtue), Pangle (The Roots of Political Philosophy and Political Philosophy and the God of Abraham. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), Sebell (The Socratic Turn), Smith Pangle (Virtue is Knowledge), and Stauffer (Plato’s Introduction to the Question of Justice). See also Carey (“Education and the Art of Writing.” The St. John’s Review 57 (2015): 120–148). We mention here also Seth Benardete, whose work on Plato, though difficult to interpret, suggests that Socrates was principally concerned with problems of eidetic analysis (Socrates’ Second Sailing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).

If Strauss is right, and Socrates’ core theoretical insight is the discovery of noetic heterogeneity, then one has to wonder if noetic heterogeneity precludes intelligible reductive causality, and, if so, what sort of intelligible necessity is compatible with or entailed by said discovery (What is Political Philosophy? Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989, 132, 142–143).

One might also consider in this vein Plato’s motives to found a school, write dialogues, or his efforts to help Dion of Syracuse.