Great Dialogues of Plato Mass Market Paperback – 4 Mar. 2008

This is a really compact volume, the print is small accordingly and there is little of a margin around the pages but for most readers I would not anticipate this being a major problem. It is pretty complete including the full texts of The Republic, The Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Ion, Meno, Symposium.So all of Plato's "big ideas" or central themes are present, the importance of friendship/platonic love, enlightened despotism or "philosopher kings" as an alternative to both democracy and oligarchy, the attacks upon sophistry in philosophy vs. the pursuit of truth, the allegory of the cave (a person in a cave watching shadows on the wall perceives that as reality until they leave the cave, ie what we see is a pale sembalence of the true thing in essence) the two halves creating a single whole ("soul mates") etc. The dialogues can be found elsewhere, what this book has to recommend itself is the arrangment as it appears here and compact nature, you can take the complete arrangment out in a bag or jacket pocket for convenience.The introduction by Matthew S. Santirocco is highly readable, with a great style and pace which will make the context clear for the general reader or academic reader alike. Recommended.

Important works to a fantastic price.

Plato made simple!

I thought there was going to be more information About Plato. I did what I was looking for, but not till the last chapter

Not really what I expected.

If your interested in philosophy this is the right book for you. Socrates was a very wise man. I particularly like that part with the picture of the image holders.

In a Philosophy course I took around 4 years ago, we’d discussed Plato’s Republic and I had read certain passages of it. I wanted to gain a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of it, so I ordered this book. Needless to say that this work is truly a masterpiece and the translation has done justice to it and is very clear. The summary of each book at the very beginning of The Republic has also been very useful to me.Some of the works (like Ion, Apology and Crito) are only about 20 pages on average while The Republic is 370 pages.I wouldn’t say that anyone interested in Philosophy should read these works as I believe since everyone has the capacity to think and to follow logical arguments, they would be able to understand these material. Therefore in essence, I suggest everyone to read these works as it’ll make the thinking process orderly and it’ll also help in establishing a clear direction to one’s thoughts.

the pages are literally coming off!!! what the hell

I bought the mass market paperback in July 2023. The paper is shiny. It's an American copy. This translation by Rouse is better than Jowett. The style differs. You see, Rouse died in 1950 whereas Jowett died in 1893. The style, as I have found out, differs.Another thing, I must point out, this book is little, tini. I mean, of course I didn't expect a large tome out of a mass market paperback, but, you see, give the sheer number of pages, in this case, about six hundred, I was rather expecting it to be a little heavier, which, I must admit, is, quite fortunately, not the case. Really, this book is a good one. And, also, had it been of Indian manufacturing, I would have sent it back immediately, for the sheer deplorable and disgusting page and print quality of those that are manufactured in India are quite intolerable. Fortunate I was. It isn't of Indian manufacturing. It was, as I had already point out, manufactured in the US. And so, the pages are, to my surprise, quite shiny as well. I am not quite acquainted with the debate around the very many translators of Greek works, but this, in my perception, is more down to earth than Jowett, somehow.Buy it! It's a fine one.

Two pages in and I can already tell this is the perfect translation, since so many miss the nuance in references to the divine in Plato, which are necessary for understanding the text.My only complaint, and it's so minor I won't even mark it down, is that the ink smears if you touch it for too long. Turn the pages by the corners.