Nicholas Denyer

The Alcibiades was widely read in antiquity as the very best introduction to Plato. Alcibiades in his youth associated with Socrates, and went on to a spectacularly disgraceful career in politics. When Socrates was executed for 'corrupting the young men', Alcibiades was cited as a prime example. This dialogue represents Socrates meeting the charming but intellectually lazy Alcibiades as he is about to enter adult life, and using all his wiles in an attempt to win him for philosophy. In spite of its ancient reputation, many modern scholars have thought that the Alcibiades is not by Plato and it has therefore lacked a decent commentary. This edition remedies that lack. The notes explain difficulties of linguistic, literary and philosophical detail. The introduction includes a discussion of the dialogue's authenticity, and of the consequences that acknowledging its authenticity has for our conception of Plato's intellectual development.

The innocent are immune. We must never, that is, make the object of any violent attack those who bear no responsibility for doing wrong to others; and only with grave reason and in extreme circumstances should we be prepared to cause them any incidental harm as we press home a violent attack against those who are its legitimate objects. This principle of the immunity of the innocent seems almost self-evidently true. This is not to say that the principle is incapable of further development and articulation, unsusceptible of marginal qualification, or underivable from deeper principles. It does however mean that any moral theory which denies this principle altogether will be something that only a fool or a knave could accept.

There are enormous differences between quantifying name-variables only, quantifying verb-variables only, and quantifying both. These differences are found only in the logic of polyadic predication; and this presumably is why Richard Gaskin thinks that they distinguish names from transitive verbs only, and not from verbs generally. But that thought is mistaken: these differences also distinguish names from intransitive verbs. They thus vindicate the common idea that on the difference between names and verbs we may base grandiose metaphysical distinctions, and undermine Gaskin's idea that both names and verbs may be said to designate objects.

The definition here ascribed to Philo is entirely in line with what we know of Philo from else where: Alex. Aphr. in APr. 184.6–10; Simp, in Cat. 195.33–196.5; Boethius, in de Int. 234.10–15. The same is not true of the definition here ascribed to Diodorus. For Diodorus, we are told elsewhere, defined the possible as that which either is or will be so: Cic. Fat. 13, 17; Plu. de Stoic rep. 1055d-e; Alex. Aphr. in APr. 183.42–184.5; Boethius, in de Int. 234.22–4,412.16–7. Something has therefore got garbled.

The Protagoras is one of Plato's most entertaining dialogues. It represents Socrates at a gathering of the most celebrated and highest-earning intellectuals of the day, among them the sophist Protagoras. In flamboyant displays of both rhetoric and dialectic, Socrates and Protagoras try to out-argue one another. Their arguments range widely, from political theory to literary criticism, from education to the nature of cowardice; but in view throughout this literary and philosophical masterpiece are the questions of what part knowledge plays in a successful life, and how we may acquire the knowledge that makes for success. This edition contains the first commentary in English on the Greek text for almost a hundred years. The commentary provides the assistance with linguistic, literary and philosophical detail that will enable students and scholars to savour to the full the pleasures of the Protagoras.

Philosophers have met with many problems in discussing the interconnected concepts being, identity, and truth, and have advanced many theories to deal with them. Professor Williams argues that most of these problems and theories result from an inadequate appreciation of the ways in which the words `be', `same', and `true' work. By means of linguistic analysis he shows that being and truth are not properties, and identity is not a relation. He is thus able to demystify a number of metaphysical issues concerning the meaning of the word `I', the relation between the mental and the physical, objects of thought, times and places, and the nature of reality. Williams presents his views clearly, with a minimum of technicality, and with rich and apt examples, so that they will be accessible to readers not versed in symbolic logic.