This book is a rereading of Plato's early dialogues from the point of view of the characters with whom Socrates engages in debate. Socrates' interlocutors are generally acknowledged to play important dialectical and dramatic roles, but no previous book has focused mainly on them. Existing studies are thoroughly dismissive of the interlocutors and reduce them to the status of mere mouthpieces for views which are hopelessly confused or demonstrably false. This book takes interlocutors seriously and treats them as genuine intellectual opponents whose views are often more defensible than commentators have standardly thought. The author's purpose is not to summarise their positions or the arguments of the dialogues in which they appear, much less to produce a series of biographical sketches, but to investigate the phenomenology of philosophical disputation as it manifests itself in the early dialogues.

There is no better way to understand our present world than by exploring the Great Books written by the great minds that have made it. There is no better way to study the beginning of modern political philosophy than by studying its foundations in Machiavelli's The Prince. There is no better way to study the Great Books than with the aid of Socrates, the philosopher par excellence. What if we could overhear a conversation in the afterlife between Socrates and Machiavelli, in which Machiavelli has to submit to an Oxford tutorial style examination of his book conducted by Socrates using his famous "Socratic method" of cross-examination? How might the conversation go? This imaginative thought-experiment makes for both drama and a good lesson in logic, in moral and political philosophy, in "how to read a book," and in the history of early modern thought. Thus this book is for readers looking for a thought-stretching "good read" and for use in college classes in logic, philosophy, ethics, political science, literature, communication, rhetoric, anthropology, and history.

Utilizing the dialogue format that the Greek philosopher made famous, Kreeft presents the latest in his series of small books on philosophy. In a unique and compelling take on the philosophies of the modern world, Kreeft pits the ancient Greek philosopher against the founder of Communism. Humorous, frank, and insightful, this book challenges the reader to step in and take hold of what is right and to cast away what is wrong. Topics covered include such varied subjects as private property, the individual, the "Three Philosophies of Man," women, individualism, and more. A wonderful introduction to philosophy for the neophyte, and a joy for the experienced student.

Philosopher Luis E. Navia presents a compelling portrayal of Socrates in this very readable and well-researched book, which is both a biography of the man and an exploration of his ideas.

Although "the Socratic method" is commonly understood as a style of pedagogy involving cross-questioning between teacher and student, there has long been debate among scholars of ancient philosophy about how this method as attributed to Socrates should be defined or, indeed, whether Socrates can be said to have used any single, uniform method at all distinctive to his way of philosophizing. This volume brings together essays by classicists and philosophers examining this controversy anew. The point of departure for many of those engaged in the debate has been the identification of Socratic method with "the elenchus" as a technique of logical argumentation aimed at refuting an interlocutor, which Gregory Vlastos highlighted in an influential article in 1983. The essays in this volume look again at many of the issues to which Vlastos drew attention but also seek to broaden the discussion well beyond the limits of his formulation. Some contributors question the suitability of the elenchus as a general description of how Socrates engages his interlocutors; others trace the historical origins of the kinds of argumentation Socrates employs; others explore methods in addition to the elenchus that Socrates uses; several propose new ways of thinking about Socratic practices. Eight essays focus on specific dialogues, each examining why Plato has Socrates use the particular methods he does in the context defined by the dialogue. Overall, representing a wide range of approaches in Platonic scholarship, the volume aims to enliven and reorient the debate over Socratic method so as to set a new agenda for future research. Contributors are Hayden W. Ausland, Hugh H. Benson, Thomas C. Brickhouse, Michelle Carpenter, John M. Carvalho, Lloyd P. Gerson, Francisco J. Gonzalez, James H. Lesher, Mark McPherran, Ronald M. Polansky, Gerald A. Press, François Renaud, and W. Thomas Schmid, Nicholas D. Smith, P. Christopher Smith, Harold Tarrant, Joanne B. Waugh, and Charles M. Young.

Christian philosopher Kreeft (philosophy, Boston College) uses an imaginary dialogue between Socrates and Sartre to challenge the fundamental concepts of existentialist philosophy. The conversational style and non-technical language he employs serves to make the concepts discussed accessible to both students and general readers. Kreeft is also the

Gail Fine presents the first full-length study of Meno's Paradox, a challenge to the possibility of inquiry that was first formulated in Plato's Meno. She compares the responses of Plato, Aristotle, the Epicureans, the Stoics, and Sextus to the paradox, and considers a series of key questions concerning the nature of knowledge and inquiry.

"The author shows us a Socrates who, though he has been long overshadowed by his successors Plato and Aristotle, represented the true turning point in Greek philosophy, religion and ethics. In his quest for the historical Socrates, the author focuses on Plato's earlier dialogues, setting the Socrates we find there in sharp contrast to the Socrates of later dialogues, in which he is used as a mouthpiece for Plato's own doctrines, many of them anti-Socratic in nature." [Back cover].

This is the 5th volume in the series of popular volumes by Peter Kreeft, in which the "Father of Philosophy", Socrates, cross-examines various other important philosophers and thinkers (in previous books he examined Marx, Sarte, Machiavelli, and Socrates himself.) Kreeft states that Socrates and Descartes are perhaps the two most important philosophers who have ever lived, because they are the two who made the most difference to all philosophy after them. These two fathers of philosophy stand at the beginning of the two basic philosophical options: the classical and the modern. Kreeft focuses on seven features that unite these two major philosophers and distinguish them from all others. So this dialog between Socrates and Descartes is a dialog between the fundamental stages in the history of philosophy, the history of consciousness, and the history of Western culture. Like his other works in this popular series, this book is profound and witty reading that makes for an entertaining and insightful exploration of modern philosophy. It will appeal to both the common reader as well as to those more philosophically inclined.