Plato: Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo

I got the very good conversation and it has makings all in it!

The book is WORN OUT and the print microscopic and faded. It was classified as “Very good condition.” The front cover page is paper, worn out and almost falling off the bind along with a few pages. The book is marked throughout by ball pen markings; cover to cover, underlining, obliquely across the pages as if to say they shouldn’t be in the book, written on, on several pages. No comment about the content, as it is an acknowledged classic. I bought it to reread and add to my “Classics” collection!!! as I had lost my hardbound copy that I had in my collection and read several times about 2 1/2 decades ago. Suggestion:- Better classification needed for “condition” and should be placed in a lower cost group. I use a magnifying lens to read the book and my vision is better than 20/20!!!. Please make sure that the assessor for condition is supervised and parameters for classification of condition memorised and kept up with revisions when made. This is the 2nd book that has disappointed me from this Website and I’ve only just begun with a used book station. I am thinking strongly about returning to buying new books, as I’ve always done before and was never disappointed.

I only needed this book for one college course and it fulfilled its purpose. It’s more convenient here than in the college bookstore.

If you are entering college as a freshman and especially if you are entering the field of Philosophy, I urge you to buy this book! Read it, study it, and learn its' tools of wisdom! In fact, no matter what field of study you are going into, you will appreciate the use of logic presented in this fantastic "story" format. In sum, I highly recommend this booklet as a prerequisite to beinning any study of philosophy, hence, logic. Gary L. Foley, MBA

I am not going to give you a synopsis of each dialogue. What I will say is that this is easily one of the most important reads of modern times. Most people would say that if you are interested in the art of philosophy then this is a must. I am willing to go a step further. If you are interested in life and the social aspects of life then this is a must read. Therefore almost everyone capable should read this. If you read these dialogues, and I mean really read them, it will have a profound effect on how you view life and interaction. I am by no means a philosopher, but a political scientist. The only problem is that you really have to want to read it to get. When you are ready to commit, buy this book, read it, and watch your outlook on how you view life change before your very eyes. What makes this very book so great, is that you get all 5 dialogues for such a small price.

Many are the college students who have read the Platonic discourses collected in this volume. Along with The Republic, these dialogues form the most basic core of Platonic philosophy and are required reading for anyone interested in the art of philosophy.In the Euthyphro dialogue, Socrates is on his way to court to answer the charges of Meletus that he creates his own gods and does not believe in the gods of society. On his way, he meets Euthyphro, a lawyer-priest of some sort who tells Socrates that he is prosecuting his own father for the murder of a slave (a slave who had himself committed murder). Socrates compels the learned Euthyphro to explain to him the truth about what is pious and what impious; if he can tell the court what he has learned from the knowledgeable Euthyphro, he will have no trouble countering Meletus' charges. Euthyphro tries to define what is pious as that which is pleasing to the gods, but Socrates shows him that his definition is really just an effect of piety, and Euthyphro bows out of the circular conversation without ever giving Socrates a satisfactory definition of true piety.In The Apology, Socrates defends himself from both the recent charges of Meletus for impiety as well as the host of charges long leveled at him as being a corrupter of the youth. He cites a pronouncement of the Delphic oracle that he is the wisest of all men and explains how he has spent his life trying to vindicate the god's pronouncement by seeking out the wisest men in society and testing them. The wisest men, he says, turn out to be not wise at all. He himself knows he is not wise, while the supposedly wise think they are wise when they are not, and he has concluded that the gods believe that the wisest man is the man who knows how much he does not know. The fact that he shows men that they are not in fact wise has admittedly made Socrates unpopular and turned the minds of many citizens against him. He bravely says he will continue philosophizing if he is acquitted because the god himself compels him to do so. In fact, he says society benefits from what he is doing (namely, trying to make men more virtuous), and he defends himself by saying that society itself will be harmed by his execution. Of course, claiming that he is actually a gift of the god for Athens is a hard way to win over a jury already biased against him. Upon his conviction, he willingly accepts the death sentence imposed upon him, but he, somewhat oddly, warns his fellow citizens that there are younger men ready to come out and question individuals in the same manner as he has done.In the Crito, Socrates convinces his friend Crito that it is just and right for him to accede to the punishment of death returned by the Athenian jury. He feels that he has been wronged by men but not the laws or society, and to escape from prison and run away would make of him the very type of man the jury wrongly concluded him to be. It is an exceedingly elegant and brave discourse

it is a really great book. i enjoyed reading it so much.

Since it is certainly not my place to review Plato's philososphy, I shall here simply comment on Grube's translation. With the possible exception of the Euthyphro, these are all very, very important dialogues, and, as such, it is important that the translation be accurate, yet readable. Having translated part of the Meno myself, I can attest to Grube's wonderful job at rendering into clear and comprehensible English all that he could from Plato's beautiful Attic Greek. These are wonderful dialogues, and Grube does a wonderful job at making them accessible to the modern reader.