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INTRODUCTION
Socrates as the philosophical exemplar, perhaps also advanced as the
paradigmatic philosopher, or the philosopher par excellence. Still other
essays in this collection reread and reconsider Plato’s use of Homer;
his notion of dialectic; the employment of medical imagery; the fi gure
of the midwife; the “pairing” of speeches, characters, or dialogues; the
role of laughter, divine madness, and play; and many other devices that
enrich the meaning of methodos. We believe that the result is an engag-
ing, provocative, and highly readable volume on some of the most im-
portant issues in Plato interpretation today.
The fi rst chapter in the collection, “Plato’s Book of Images,” is
devoted to what is arguably Plato’s greatest work, the Republic. In this
chapter, Nicholas Smith endeavors to reconcile the powerful critique
of images and imitation (mimesis) that Socrates levies in book 10 of
the Republic with the poignant and beautiful images that Plato himself
provides in the same dialogue. From the image of the ship of state to
the three central images that Plato has Socrates use to fl esh out what
Socrates refers to as the “offspring” of the Good (the sun/good analog y,
the Divided Line, and the simile of the Cave), Smith argues that Plato’s
work is intended neither as humor nor as a straightforward blueprint for
political reform, but as an educational work whose educational method-
ology is best understood in the light of the discussion of mathematical
methodology that we fi nd in the work itself. In brief, the essay argues
that the Republic presents the reader with a series of images that are not
at all intended in the imitative way Plato has Socrates disparage in book
10, but are rather to be used as images that provoke thought. “Plato’s
Book of Images” concludes by distinguishing this more philosophical
use of images from the kind of images that comes in for criticism in the
Republic itself.
In chapter 2, “ ‘To Say What Is Most Necessary’: Expositional and
Philosophical Practice in Thucydides and Plato,” Phil Hopkins argues
that the intransigent, even careworn questions often asked about the
range of rhetorical and discursive practices depicted in Plato’s dialogues
almost perfectly mirror the questions that historians and classicists ask
about the role of the speeches in Thucydides’ History. This fact suggests
that a comparative reading of these two authors may have a great deal
to teach us about both of them. The essay argues that both Plato and
Thucydides exploit “expositional strategies” that are intended to “draw
readers into a process of carefully balancing opposing accounts, which
makes of the reader a peculiar kind of witness.” These practices and
their goals, Hopkins argues, exhibit interesting epistemological and
ethical commitments.