The latest book by Malcolm Schofield brings together fourteen studies united by a shared methodological commitment to treating the literary and dramatic aspect of Plato’s writing as integral to his philosophical arguments. As the author explains in the Preface, these essays, originally written as ‘occasional offerings’, were chosen ‘because they raise problems of interpretation, problems which either have an immediate literary dimension or turn out upon analysis to illustrate Plato’s use for philosophical purposes of specific literary forms or devices’ (p. vii). The volume thus aims to show ‘how Plato writes’ through a diverse set of examples spanning Plato’s corpus, from the Gorgias to the Laws.

After an introduction, the book is divided into four parts. The first part, titled ‘Approaches to the Corpus’, offers an accessible overview of Plato’s intellectual and historical background (Ch. 1: ‘Plato in His Time and Place’), a concise typology of the dialogues (Ch. 2: ‘When and Why Did Plato Write Narrated Dialogues?’), and a discussion of the anti-systematic approaches of the two foremost Plato scholars in Victorian England, George Grote and Benjamin Jowett (Ch. 3: ‘Against System: The Historical Plato in the Mid-Victorian Era’).

Part II, titled ‘Argument and Dialogue Architecture’, presents three case studies on how dialogic structure shapes philosophical argument in Plato’s writings. Chapter 4 (‘Callicles’ Return: Gorgias 509–22 Reconsidered’) argues that what Plato portrays at the end of the Gorgias is not, as is often assumed, a ‘radical failure of mutual comprehension’ between Socrates and Callicles, but rather ‘a matter of […] different fundamental commitments’ (pp. 94–95). Chapter 5 (‘Likeness and Likenesses in the Parmenides’) examines the second regress argument in the Parmenides, which Schofield interprets as positing an infinite regress not of Forms of F-ness but of Forms of Likeness itself. The argument, he suggests, relies on the mistaken assumption that the model–copy relationship that exists between ‘paradigmatic Forms’ and particulars also applies to Likeness and like things; by leaving this ambiguity unresolved, Plato invites readers to move beyond what is explicitly stated in the dialogue and actively engage with the argument. Beyond its interpretative contribution, the chapter underscores a methodological point that should guide all readers of Plato’s dialogues: namely, that ‘unresolved disagreements or puzzles cannot necessarily be assumed to reflect unresolved tensions in Plato’s own mind’ (p. 98). Chapter 6 (‘The Elusiveness of Cratylus in the Cratylus’) offers a character study of Cratylus in the eponymous dialogue, showing how Plato uses him to explore a naturalist theory of language in a non-committal way, while also exposing the dangers of pursuing such a theory to extremes.

Chapters 7 and 8, comprising the third part of the book (‘Myth and Allegory in the Republic’), deal with two of the most famous passages in the Republic and arguably in the entire Platonic corpus: ‘The Noble Lie’ and ‘The Cave’. Together, they argue that Plato’s myths should be evaluated on their own merits and not treated as defective substitutes for philosophical arguments.

The final and longest part of the book, ‘Projects, Paradoxes, and Literary Registers in the Laws’, is fittingly devoted to Plato’s last and longest dialogue. Chapter 9 (‘Religion and Philosophy in the Laws’) examines ‘the relation of “how?” and “what?” as it bears on the status and intention of the work as a whole’, arguing that the Laws is written for the ‘practised reader of Plato’, who is expected to draw connections with the Republic and Statesman (pp. 184–185). Plato’s choice of interlocutors and sustained emphasis on religion and theology deliberately constrain the inquiry, making it less overtly ‘philosophical’ than earlier dialogues – a strategic decision rather than a symptom of the author’s intellectual decline. Chapter 10 (‘The Laws’ Two Projects’) appeals to Aristotle to resolve an apparent tension between two constitutional projects in the Laws: one broadly applicable and the other closer to the ideal city of the Republic. Chapter 11 (‘Plato, Xenophon, and the Laws of Lycurgus’) argues that the dialogue’s political model is not the historical Sparta but an idealised Lycurgan legislation, mediated by Xenophon. Chapter 12 (‘Injury, Injustice, and the Involuntary in the Laws’) addresses the apparent conflict between the Laws’ penal code and the Socratic claim that all injustice is involuntary, suggesting that Plato’s concern lies not in a unified theory of culpability but in ‘differentiating between treating crime as injury and dealing with it as the product of psychic disease’ (p. 248). The final two chapters address two striking features of the Laws: the comparison of human beings to marionettes and ‘playthings for the gods’ (Ch. 13: ‘Plato’s Marionette’), and the paradoxical claim that to live seriously is to participate in play, specifically the gods’ play (Ch. 14: ‘Paradoxes of Childhood and Play in Heraclitus and Plato’).

As this brief survey suggests, the thematic breadth of Schofield’s book makes it attractive to a wide readership, successfully balancing accessibility with scholarly depth. Parts I and III will be particularly valuable to the novice student of Plato, while the experienced reader will find much to engage with in the more specialised discussions of Parts II and IV. Teachers of Classics and philosophy will find Chapters 1 and 2 a clear and accessible introduction to Plato’s background and writing style that could usefully frame lessons at upper-secondary level and serve equally well as an entry point for undergraduate students encountering Plato for the first time. Chapters 7 and 8 would be valuable additions to reading lists for undergraduate courses on Plato or the Republic, while others (notably 4 and 5) will interest more advanced students. The final chapters (9–14) may help teachers broaden discussion beyond the usual Platonic topics, for example through comparison with modern theories of play (Ch. 14). If one criticism is to be made, it is that occasionally controversial claims are presented without sufficient qualification. Chapter 1, for example, states that Plato ‘converted to Pythagoreanism’ following his visit to Magna Graecia (p. 24), while the Introduction presupposes that ‘whatever and however he writes, Plato means primarily to be doing philosophy’ (p. 1) – an assumption that many scholars will find problematic in the light of passages such as Phdr. 277e–8e and Ep. 7.341b–4d, but whose controversial nature will likely be underestimated by non-experts. Nonetheless, these reservations do little to detract from the value of the book, which stands as a rich and authoritative contribution to the fields of Classics and ancient philosophy.