The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, edited by Thomas Pangle

The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic  Dialogues has some hyperbole about its in the title.  I don't really think these dialogues have been forgotten, per se. They have been contested, and the point of introductory essay by Thomas Pangle. In it, he describes all the form criticism that has gone to trying to figure out if these minor dialogues really are Plato's.  He makes the sensible conclusion that ancient compilers included them in Plato's corpus, and that probably should be good enough for us.  The other bit of over-reach in the title concerns the idea that these somehow are the root of political philosophy. That's not the over-arching theme of the book; only one of the essays--the one by Christopher Bruell on The Lovers, really tries to make the connection between political philosophy as a practice and the Socratic dialogue here.  But, it's Socrates, and he's root enough for political philosophy for me.  The Table of Contents is always useful:


HIPPARCHUS translated by Steven Forde
The Political Philospher in Democratic Society: the Socratic View by Allan Bloom

MINOS translated by Thomas L Pangle
On the Minos by Leo Strauss

LOVERS translated by James Leake
On the original meaning of Political Philosophy: An interpretation of Plato's Lovers by Christopher Bruell

CLEITOPHON translated by Clifford Orwin
On the Cleitophon by Clifford Orwin

THEAGES translated by Thomas L Pangle
On the Theages by Thomas L. Pangle

LACHES translated by James H Nichols Jr
Introduction to the Laches by James H Nichols Jr

ALCIBIADES, translated by Carnes Lord
On the Alcibiades I by Steven Forde

LESSER HIPPIAS translated by James Leake
Introduction to the Lesser Hippias by James Leake

GREATER HIPPIAS translated by David R Sweet
Introduction to the Greater Hippias by David R Sweet

ION translated by Allan Bloom
An Interpretation of Platos Ion by Allan Bloom

I'm not a very well-disciplined reader of Plato; Aristotle is a huge struggle for me and I always carefully plod through, but I generally find Plato to be playful and often very funny in the way that he depicts all these characters in the dialogue, and while you are probably meant to browse and pick and choose in a book like this, I honestly couldn't tell you what to skip. I read straight through.  I found a great deal of interesting things in the Cleitophon and Clifford Orwin's discussion of it, as well as the commentaries from Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom. In fact, I found Bloom's essays so useful I'm rather tempted to read his polemic The Closing of the American Mind to see if it's more than just a standard polemic about the cannon and the various threats to it.