This important book focuses on the arguments of Plato's early and middle dialogues and defends a developmental picture of them.

R. M. Dancy is Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University. He is the author of Sense and Contradiction: A Study in Aristotle (1977) and Two Studies in the Early Academy (1991) and editor of Kant and Critique (1993).

Preface; Note on the text; Abbreviations; 1. Introduction; Part I. A Socratic Theory of Definition: 2. Socrates' demand for definitions; 3. Fixing the topic; 4. Socrates' requirements: substitutivity; 5. Socrates' requirements: paradigms; 6. Socrates' requirements: explanations; 7. Socrates' requirements: explaining by paradigms; 8. Explaining: presence, participation; the Lysis; Part II. Between Definitions and Forms: 9. The Meno; Part III. Platonic Forms: 10. Phaedo 64-66: enter the forms; 11. Phaedo 72-78: the forms and recollection; 12. The beautiful in the Symposium; 13. Phaedo 95a-107b: forms and causes; 14. Conclusion; References; Index of passages cited; General index.