Plato: A Guide for the Perplexed

Gerald A. Press is Professor of Philosophy at CUNY, USA and has published widely on Plato.

• Introduction; Part I. Backgrounds; 1. Plato's Life and Works; 2. The Contexts for Interpreting Plato's Dialogues; Part II. Sources of Perplexity: Change; 3. A Brief History of Platonism and Plato Interpretation; 4. Dialogue Form; 5. Arguments and Ideas, Vision and Doctrines; 6. Fables, Myths, and Stories; 7. Irony and other forms of humor; 8. Play and seriousness; 9. Paradox; Part III. Plato's Philosophy: Permanence; 10. Platonic Anonymity and the Nature of Plato's Philosophy; 11. Persistent Themes and Plato's Vision; 12. The Platonic Path to Wisdom; Part IV: Help in Reading and Understanding Plato's Dialogues and His Philosophy; 13. How to Read a Platonic Dialogue; 14. Summaries of the Dialogues; Glossary of Greek Terms; Bibliography.

"[The book] is comprehensive, full of useful advice for anyone teaching Plato at any level. Press gives us the information we need to have at our fingertips, but his suggestions only increase the excitement of reading the dialogues themselves." - Debra Nails, Professor of Philosophy, Michigan State University, USA