Plato's Statesman

<p><b>Explores the interplay between the dramatic form of the dialogue and the basic themes it addresses.</b></p><p>The <i>Statesman</i> is among the most widely ranging of Plato's dialogues, bringing together in a single discourse disparate subjects such as politics, mathematics, ontology, dialectic, and myth. The essays in this collection consider these subjects and others, focusing in particular on the dramatic form of the dialogue. They take into account not only <i>what</i> is said but also <i>how</i> it is said, by whom and to whom it is said, and when and where it is said. In this way, the contributors approach the text in a manner that responds to the dialogue itself rather than bringing preconceived questions and scholarly debates to bear on it. The essays are especially attuned to the comedic elements that run through much of the dialogue and that are played out in a way that reveals the subject of the comedy. In the <i>Statesman</i>, these comedies reach their climax when the statesman becomes a participant in a comedy of animals and thereby is revealed in his true nature.</p>