Product Description

In this new edition, two of Plato’s most accessible dialogues explore the question of what exactly makes good people good.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #269643 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-25
• Original language: Greek
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

About the Author
Plato (c. 427–347 BC) founded the Academy in Athens, the prototype of all Western universities.

Adam Beresford teaches philosophy and classics at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

Lesley Brown is Centenary Fellow in Philosophy at Somerville College, Oxford.

Customer Reviews

A stellar translation
I am not a philosopher but who says only philosophers can read Plato's texts and come out with an understanding of what he is up to? Thanks to Adam Beresford's translation of the Protagoras and Meno, I can ask this question now. I've tried reading stilted translations of Plato's texts and they have felt like breaking rocks. I've wondered of those translations if they are in English at all. Reading Beresford's translation was a joy to my imagination and mind. I can now ask myself what being good is and find a way to engage this concept in my own life in a way that I couldn't when being good is translated in many texts as a virtue. In a way Beresford has taken philosophy back to where it belongs, to the butcher, farmer, storekeeper, beekeeper, taxi driver and to an African woman like me. I do not want to sound like his translation is only aimed at the common person. His translation is layered and is apt to be read both by experts in the academy and people like me. This is a new vision, a new way to translate Plato and to bring it back to where Socrates would recognize, to the common person. L.T.

Excellent New Translation
Adam Beresford's wonderful new translation of these two Platonic dialogues from the middle period, Protagoras and Meno, struck me, because they captured better than any other translations I've ever read of any other dialogues, the campiness that is so essential to Plato's witty irony, and so often overlooked. I never realized how essential these asides were to his philosophy until I read Beresford's translation. Furthermore, the modern translation, colloquial and clear (and accurate!) makes difficult philosophical arguments - as for example, what makes a man good - easier to follow than translations past. Past translations have obfuscated some of these arguments and even at times rendered them unintelligible. Beresford's work clears up many of these problems.

Read It and Loved It
I read this while taking Plato, though it also came up in Aristotle. (For obvious reasons...)

I liked it, mostly because it was clear, where other translations use old-fashioned or out-of-date language to try and pretend Plato is more complex than he really is. Don't get me wrong, Plato is certainly interesting to read, as is this book, but sometimes people get caught up in the history and ignore the philosophy.

As a side note, I wanted to learn more about the translator, and found out he actually wrote about translating Greek, and why he chose what he did. You can check it out on his website, just do a Google search for Adam Beresford. He has various articles on there, but I've only read a few of them. (I was there for the translation stuff...)