Abstract

Developing ideas introduced in chapter 1, this chapter explores the experience an interlocutor goes through in learning, with particular reference to Republic’s Cave image. It then considers what this means for the reader, exploring the importance of attending to our experience of a text as we move through it and examining the sense in which interlocutors act as parallels or models for the reader. The response invited in the reader by Plato’s dialogues is distinctive, it is suggested; and this, together with their distinctive handling of literary techniques, explored in later chapters, serves to differentiate Plato’s works from those of his rivals and forge for them a generic identity. Finally, it is argued that developments in style within the corpus as a whole are best interpreted with reference not to Plato’s development as a writer, as on the prevailing developmentalist paradigm, but to the reader’s stage of philosophical development.