“Read it. Repeatedly read it! Read and think about at least a couple of pages every single day. Write down the thoughts that emerge as you read, whether they are extensions of the ideas on the page, clarifications, or objections. Take the arguments seriously and wonder about why such arguments take place with this particular interlocutor. What is [author] hoping to accomplish? What does the interlocutor want out of the conversation?”
Yes! This is a bit impious to say, but one of the best interpreters of Plato that I know famously said: “Read Plato’s dialogues as carefully as if God wrote them.” Later, when she turned to the study of the Bible, with her students accustomed to hearing the earlier utterance then said: “Read the Bible as if Plato wrote it.”
Its breadth, depth, and cosmic scope. To me, it not only spans the entirety of the forest, but also touches every single leaf. “First, I must distinguish between that which always is and never becomes and which is apprehended by reason and reflection, and that which always becomes and never is and is conceived by opinion with the help of sense.”
“Read it. Repeatedly read it! Read and think about at least a couple of pages every single day. Write down the thoughts that emerge as you read, whether they are extensions of the ideas on the page, clarifications, or objections. Take the arguments seriously and wonder about why such arguments take place with this particular interlocutor. What is [author] hoping to accomplish? What does the interlocutor want out of the conversation?”
Do this with the Bible too!
Yes! This is a bit impious to say, but one of the best interpreters of Plato that I know famously said: “Read Plato’s dialogues as carefully as if God wrote them.” Later, when she turned to the study of the Bible, with her students accustomed to hearing the earlier utterance then said: “Read the Bible as if Plato wrote it.”
This is excellent advice. Reading it gives me a renewed sense for what reading philosophy is, at its best.
Looking forward to your commentary on the Euthyphro.
Thanks, Niko! I appreciate that. The new-ish volume that published Strauss's notebook on the Euthyphro has been a really helpful companion.
The Timaeus is the best. https://amzn.to/4lDD2Mc
The Timaeus is an incredible dialogue. What makes you say that it surpasses all of the other dialogues?
Its breadth, depth, and cosmic scope. To me, it not only spans the entirety of the forest, but also touches every single leaf. “First, I must distinguish between that which always is and never becomes and which is apprehended by reason and reflection, and that which always becomes and never is and is conceived by opinion with the help of sense.”