This book locates the founder of philosophy in the context of his culture, a focus often missing in Platonic scholarship. It should be of great interest both to classicists and to philosophers. Crotty's earlier work on archaic literature enables him to demonstrate the radical divide between Plato's work and a poetic tradition that depicted the tragic failure of human efforts to create a stable and dependable world. Crotty shows the contrasting currents of tragedy and philosophy that intermingle in the narrative of Socrates' death in Phaedo, while his analysis of Sophist and Politicus shows how these dialogues subtly modify the doctrinaire stance of that dialogue and of Republic.
