Plato is the best known, and continues to be the most widely studied, of all the ancient Greek philosophers. The updated and original essays in the second edition of
The Oxford Handbook of Plato
provide in-depth discussions of a variety of topics and dialogues, all serving several functions at once: they survey the current academic landscape; express and develop the authors' own views; and situate those views within a range of alternatives. The result is a useful state-of-the-art reference to the person many consider the most important philosophical thinker in history.
This second edition of he Oxford Handbook of Plato differs in two main ways from the first edition. First, six leading scholars of ancient philosophy have contributed entirely new chapters: Hugh Benson on the
Apology
,
Crito
, and
Euthyphro
; James Warren on the
Protagoras
and
Gorgias
; Lindsay Judson on the
Meno
; Luca Castagnoli on the
Phaedo
; Susan Sauvé Meyer on the
Laws
; and David Sedley on Plato's theology. This new edition therefore covers both dialogues and topics in more depth than the first edition did. Secondly, most of the original chapters have been revised and updated, some in small, others in large, ways.