Socrates and the Sophists: Plato's Protagoras, Euthydemus, Hippias Major and Cratylus

Table of Contents

Sample Pages (includes 7 pages from the Introductory Essay)

Description

Translation of Plato’s four dialogues:  Protagoras, Euthydemus, Hippias Major, and Cratylus. With notes and an introductory essay.

Features

A 39 page Introduction.  

Market

For courses in philosophy, using source materials for classical philosophy, and especially courses in the philosophy of rhetoric, or for courses in rhetoric, Socrates, Plato and Classical Philosophy.

About the Author

Joe Sachs taught for thirty years at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland.  He has translated Aristotle's Physics, Metaphysics and On the Soul and, for the Focus Philosophical Library, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Rhetoric and Poetics as well as Plato's Theaetetus, Republic, and the Gorgias.

Reviews

Perhaps more than any other dialogue, the Cratylus has been in need of retranslation. Yet because it is a dialogue about words that is also replete with plays on words, with pretended etymologies, and perhaps with more comedy than any other dialogue, translating it is a daunting task. There is no one better suited for this task than Joe Sachs. His translations of Greek philosophical classics are widely acclaimed both for their truthfulness to the original Greek text and for their sensitivity to every nuance of the text. Sachs’s translation of the Cratylus is a rare achievement and no doubt will do much to restore to this dialogue its rightful status as one of the major Platonic dialogues.

~ John Sallis, Boston College

Sach's introductory discussion of sophistry and philosophy in Plato is the best I know of and highly recommended for the serious student of philosophy.

~Burt Hopkins, Seattle University