The Phædon is affirmative and expository

The Phædon is characterised by Proklus as a dialogue wherein Sokrates unfolds fully his own mental history, and communicates to his admirers the complete range of philosophical cognition. This criticism is partly well founded. The dialogue generally is among the most affirmative and expository in the Platonic list. Sokrates undertakes to prove the immortality of the soul, delivers the various reasons which establish the doctrine to his satisfaetion, and confutes some dissentient opinions entertained by others. In regard to the exposition, however, we must consider ourselves as listening to Plato under the name of Sokrates: and we find it so conducted as to specify both certain stages through which the mind of Plato had passed, and the logical process which (at that time) appeared to him to carry conviction.

Situation and circumstances assumed in the Phædon. Pathetic interest which they inspire

The interest felt by most readers in the Phædon, however, depends, not so much on the argumentative exposition, (which Wyttenbach justly pronounces to be obscure and difficult as well as unsatisfactory) as on the personality of the expounding speaker, and the irresistible pathos of the situation. Sokrates had been condemned to death by the Dikastery on the day after the sacred ship, memorable in connection with the legendary voyage of Theseus to Krete, had been dispatched on her annual mission of religious sacrifice at the island of Delos. The Athenian magistrates considered themselves as precluded from putting any one to death by public authority, during the absence of the ship on this mission.

Dramatic and comic exuberance of the Euthydêmus. Judgments of various critics

Dramatic vivacity, and comic force, holding up various persons to ridicule or contempt, are attributes which Plato manifests often and abundantly. But the dialogue in which these qualities reach their maximum, is, the Euthydêmus. Some portions of it approach to the Nubes of Aristophanes: so that Schleiermacher, Stallbaum, and other admiring critics have some difficulty in explaining, to their own satisfaction, how Plato, the sublime moralist and lawgiver, can here have admitted so much trifling and buffoonery. Ast even rejects the dialogue as spurious; declaring it to be unworthy of Plato and insisting on various peculiarities, defects, and even absurdities, which offend his critical taste. His conclusion in this case has found no favour: yet I think it is based on reasons quite as forcible as those upon which other dialogues have been condemned: upon reasons, which, even if admitted, might prove that the dialogue was an inferior performance, but would not prove that Plato was not the author.

Scenery and personages

Sokrates recounts (to Kriton) a conversation in which he has just been engaged with two Sophists, Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus, in the undressing-room belonging to the gymnasium of the Lykeium. There were present, besides, Kleinias, a youth of remarkable beauty and intelligence, cousin of the great Alkibiades—Ktesippus, an adult man, yet still young, friend of Sokrates and devotedly attached to Kleinias—and a crowd of unnamed persons, partly friends of Kleinias, partly admirers and supporters of the two Sophists.

The present work is intended as a sequel and supplement to my History of Greece. It describes a portion of Hellenic philosophy: it dwells upon eminent individuals, enquiring, theorising, reasoning, confuting, &c., as contrasted with those collective political and social manifestations which form the matter of history, and which the modern writer gathers from Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon.

Both Sokrates and Plato, indeed, are interesting characters in history as well as in philosophy. Under the former aspect, they were described by me in my former work as copiously as its general purpose would allow. But it is impossible to do justice to either of them—above all, to Plato, with his extreme variety and abundance—except in a book of which philosophy is the principal subject, and history only the accessory.

The names of Plato and Aristotle tower above all others in Grecian philosophy. Many compositions from both have been preserved, though only a small proportion of the total number left by Aristotle. Such preservation must be accounted highly fortunate, when we read in Diogenes Laertius and others, the long list of works on various topics of philosophy, now irrecoverably lost, and known by little except their titles. Respecting a few of them, indeed, we obtain some partial indications from fragmentary extracts and comments of later critics. But none of these once celebrated philosophers, except Plato and Aristotle, can be fairly appreciated upon evidence furnished by themselves.