Complete Works of Plato

Complete Works of Plato. Here is another addition to our complete works section: The Complete Works of Plato. 3.490 pages. Plato was born in 428/427 or 424/423 BC in Athens, Greece. He was a student of Socrates and he is regarded as a founding figure in western philosophy.

The aim of this collection was to build the most complete and precise compilation of the corpus platonicum available in the ebook format. The dialogues are arranged in chronological order, Benjamin Jowett’s prefaces and introductions are included as well, for most of the dialogues. From the books:

In what relation the Apology of Plato stands to the real defence of Socrates, there are no
means of determining. It certainly agrees in tone and character with the description of
Xenophon, who says in the Memorabilia that Socrates might have been acquitted ‘if in
any moderate degree he would have conciliated the favour of the dicasts;’ and who
informs us in another passage, on the testimony of Hermogenes, the friend of Socrates,
that he had no wish to live; and that the divine sign refused to allow him to prepare a
defence, and also that Socrates himself declared this to be unnecessary, on the ground
that all his life long he had been preparing against that hour. For the speech breathes
throughout a spirit of defiance, (ut non supplex aut reus sed magister aut dominus
videretur esse judicum’ (Cic. de Orat.); and the loose and desultory style is an imitation
of the ‘accustomed manner’ in which Socrates spoke in ‘the agora and among the tables
of the money-changers.’ The allusion in the Crito may, perhaps, be adduced as a further
evidence of the literal accuracy of some parts. But in the main it must be regarded as the
ideal of Socrates, according to Plato’s conception of him, appearing in the greatest and
most public scene of his life, and in the height of his triumph, when he is weakest, and
yet his mastery over mankind is greatest, and his habitual irony acquires a new meaning
and a sort of tragic pathos in the face of death. The facts of his life are summed up, and
the features of his character are brought out as if by accident in the course of the
defence. The conversational manner, the seeming want of arrangement, the ironical
simplicity, are found to result in a perfect work of art, which is the portrait of Socrates.

 

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The Complete Works of Plato

You might also be interested in The Complete Pythagoras.