xii
INTRODUCTION
logues by asking what was exhibited or enacted through the course of
the dialogue’s dramatic action. Is there something about a particular
character’s motivation or way of life that is expressed (or contravened)
in what he says? Is there anything in a character’s particular psychology
that might suggest a certain logical tack in dealing with him? What can
Plato’s audience learn by comparing the logoi of the dialogue with the
ergon of the dialogue? Where is the dialogue set? How does it end? How
does the philosophical questioning arise? How do the issues discussed
bear on the existential occasion that gives rise to them?
The “reported” dialogues utilize a narrator (and at least in one
case—the Symposium—more than one). This is another way in which
the dialogues can express something, even if this saying is not done by
one of the characters in real time, but rather through narrators of the
real-time events. In many cases, the narration functions partly to sup-
ply information directly to Plato’s audience. In the fi ve dialogues that
Socrates narrates (Republic, Lysis, Protagoras, Euthydemus, and Charmides),
the narrative frame is employed to supply information about his emo-
tional state or his inner thoughts, or to announce something he was
about to do but decided against doing, as Anne-Marie Bowery shows in
chapter 4 of the present volume.^8 In other instances, the narrators func-
tion to provide commentary on the dramatic action, and even on the
mood of those gathered, as Phaedo does in the middle of the Phaedo.
Some of this information would not have been available to the char-
acters in the dialogues, since it is given at the level of the narrative.
Those gathered at Agathon’s house during that infamous night when
Socrates debated the poets, for example, would not have been privy to
Apollodorus’ comment at Symposium 222c: “Alcibiades’ frankness pro-
voked a lot of laughter, especially since it was obvious that he was still in
love with Socrates.”
We noted earlier that dialogues such as the Apology are “direct” or
entirely “enacted,” and so no narrator is used. This is why we could call
Socrates’ voice in the Apology “fi rst person.” Socrates speaks directly to
his jury and Plato’s audience is able, as it were, to “listen in” on his un-
mediated (if frequently interrupted) defense speech.
An author may choose to create a character who is clearly identifi -
able as propounding the author’s viewpoint; for example, the character
called “Dante” in Dante’s Divine Comedy or the character of Philonous in
Berkeley’s Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous. Some foil, some
hero or heroine, or some character who dominates all comers within
the drama would clearly indicate that the author wishes his audience to
regard this superlative character as representing him. (This is no less
true in cases where authors clearly champion “antiheroes” rather than