New Books Network William H. F. Altman, "Ascent to the Good: The Reading Order of Plato’s Dialogues from Symposium to Republic" (Lexington, 2018)
Mar 14, 2026
William H. F. Altman, a scholar of Plato and ancient philosophy, explains a pedagogical reading order from Symposium to Republic. He describes Plato’s dialogues as teaching tools for academy students. He traces a curriculum that trains readers to recognize the transcendent Idea of the Good and tests the move beyond self-interested goods.
01:23:12
Dialogues Are Prose Plays For Young Students
- Plato wrote dialogues as lively prose 'plays' aimed at younger students, not dry treatises for professional philosophers.
- Altman argues the dramatic 'play of character' is central to Plato's pedagogical design and accessibility.
Teaching Plato To Ninth Graders Worked
- Altman recounts teaching Plato to ninth graders and finds certain dialogues like Alcibiades Major accessible to teenagers.
- He cites ancient commentators who recommended starting with Alcibiades, and uses that as pedagogical evidence.
Plato's Multiple Choice Pedagogy
- Plato uses dialogues to present plausible-but-flawed positions so students must evaluate and reject them, like a multiple choice test.
- Altman calls this pedagogical method proleptic and basinistic: prepare with confusing options, give a vision, then test commitment.
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Intro
00:00 • 2min
Why Plato’s Dialogues Are Playful Teaching Tools
01:34 • 1min
Why Plato Wrote Dialogues, Not Treatises
02:56 • 2min
Plato’s Intended Audience and the Academy Student
04:47 • 7min
Choosing Where to Begin Reading Plato
12:01 • 3min
Curriculum: Integrated Reading Order for Learning
14:35 • 35sec
Plato’s Teaching Aim: Defining and Testing Justice
15:10 • 5min
Ascent to the Good Versus Ascent to the Beautiful
20:23 • 3min
Plato’s Pedagogy: Multiple-Choice Strategy
23:20 • 3min
Reading Order Principles: Proleptic, Visionary, Bassinistic
26:49 • 2min
Ad break
29:12 • 28sec
From Symposium to Republic: The Ascent Begins
29:40 • 54sec
Why the Good Is the Republic’s Central Idea
30:34 • 2min
Early Dialogues: Lysis to Gorgias Mapping
32:54 • 3min
Euthydemus and the Eudaimonia Ambiguity
35:42 • 4min
Sliding from Doing Well to Faring Well
39:15 • 4min
Why Plato Says Little About the Good
43:11 • 5min
Teaching Aim: Can Students Grasp the Good?
48:39 • 2min
The Crisis of the Republic: Philosophers Return
50:16 • 5min
The Gorgias as a Bassanos Test
55:14 • 54sec
Callicles: Plato’s Provocative Touchstone
56:08 • 5min
Plato Is Not a Eudaimonist, Altman’s Claim
01:01:09 • 5min
Two Futures for Callicles: Nietzsche or Plato
01:06:28 • 5min
Plato’s Curriculum: Character, Rhetoric, and Civic Training
01:11:17 • 6min
Altman’s Recent Work and Ongoing Projects
01:16:48 • 6min
Outro
01:22:36 • 47sec
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Protagoras (as part of Plato's dialogues referenced via Protagoras the sophist)
Plato
Plato's 'Protagoras' centers on a debate over whether virtue can be taught, with Socrates engaging the sophist Protagoras and others in philosophical examination.
Altman references the dialogue as part of the pedagogical progression that complicates claims about the teachability of virtue and the relation between the good, the pleasant, and the beautiful.
The dialogue exemplifies Plato's dialectical method and the pedagogical use of contrasting positions.
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Cleitophon
Plato
Plato's 'Cleitophon' presents a brief critique of Socratic method and raises questions about practical political action versus philosophical inquiry.
Altman includes it as an introductory 'hors d'oeuvre' that directly precedes the Republic in his proposed reading order, prompting readers to consider the next practical steps after philosophical persuasion.
The dialogue helps prepare students for the Republic's ethical and political challenges.
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Charmides
Plató
string
#8045
• Mentioned in 6 episodes
Meno
Plato
Plato's "Meno" is a philosophical dialogue exploring the nature of knowledge and virtue.
The dialogue features Socrates' discussion with Meno, a young man who questions whether virtue can be taught.
Socrates employs his famous method of questioning to challenge Meno's assumptions and to explore the possibility of innate knowledge.
The dialogue introduces the theory of anamnesis, suggesting that learning is a process of recollecting pre-existing knowledge.
"Meno" is a significant work in the history of philosophy, raising fundamental questions about epistemology and ethics.
It continues to be studied and debated for its insights into the nature of knowledge and the human condition.
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Plato the Teacher
The Crisis of the Republic
William Altman
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Alcibiades Major
Plato
"Alcibiades Major" is a Socratic dialogue attributed to Plato, exploring the nature of self-knowledge and the importance of understanding oneself before engaging in politics.
The dialogue features a conversation between Socrates and Alcibiades, a young and ambitious Athenian politician.
Socrates guides Alcibiades towards the realization that true political success requires virtue and wisdom, which can only be attained through self-examination.
By questioning Alcibiades' assumptions and beliefs, Socrates challenges him to prioritize self-improvement over worldly ambition.
The dialogue emphasizes the essential role of self-knowledge in achieving personal and political excellence.
#40222
Lysis
Plato
The dialogue takes place in Athens and involves a conversation between Socrates, the boys Lysis and Menexenus, and Hippothales, who is in unrequited love with Lysis.
Socrates engages in a dialectical examination of the concept of friendship, proposing and critiquing various definitions.
The dialogue considers whether the lover or the beloved is the friend, whether like is the friend of like or unlike, and other hypotheses, ultimately concluding without a definitive answer to what constitutes a friend.
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Euthydemus
Plato
In 'Euthydemus', Plato presents a dialogue that satirizes the logical fallacies of Sophism.
The dialogue features Socrates engaging with the Sophist brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, highlighting the inadequacies of their rhetorical methods and contrasting them with Socratic dialectic.
Through this exchange, Plato critiques the pretenses of Sophism and advocates for genuine philosophical inquiry.
#140
• Mentioned in 144 episodes
The Republic
Plato
#1449
• Mentioned in 28 episodes
Timaeus
Plato
In 'Timaeus,' Plato presents a detailed account of the formation of the universe.
The dialogue is primarily delivered through long monologues by Timaeus and Critias.
It describes the universe as the product of a rational, purposive, and beneficent agency, created by a divine Craftsman (Demiurge) who imitates an eternal and unchanging model.
The work discusses the distinction between the eternal and the physical worlds, the composition of the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water) linked to Platonic solids, and the creation of the cosmic soul and its role in governing the universe.
The dialogue also touches on various philosophical themes, including the nature of God, the distinction between the sensible and intellectual, and the concepts of time and space.
#2151
• Mentioned in 21 episodes
Symposium
Plato
The Symposium is a philosophical dialogue written by Plato around 370 BCE. It depicts a friendly contest of extemporaneous speeches given by a group of notable Athenian men, including Socrates, Alcibiades, and Aristophanes, in praise of Eros, the god of love.
The dialogue is structured as a series of speeches, each developing the ideas of the previous one, and culminates in Socrates' speech, which recounts his conversation with the wise woman Diotima.
The work explores various aspects of love, including its benefits, its connection to philosophy, and its role in human happiness.
The setting is a banquet at the house of the tragedian Agathon, where the men engage in drinking and conversation, leading to heartfelt and noble speeches about love.
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Ascent to the Good
William H. F. Altman
William H. F. Altman's 'Ascent to the Good' argues that Plato composed his dialogues as a coordinated curriculum guiding students from the Symposium to the Republic.
Altman situates the Republic as the central, visionary work and reads surrounding dialogues as preparatory (proleptic) and testing (basanistic) stages in a pedagogical ascent toward the Idea of the Good.
The book challenges chronological developmental readings and emphasizes Plato's intent to form virtuous citizens through staged intellectual and ethical training.
Altman also argues that Plato (and Socrates) are not eudaimonists, and that the dialogues train students to see the Good as transcendent rather than merely advantageous.
The work is part of Altman's larger 'Plato the Teacher' series on Platonic pedagogy.
#2853
• Mentioned in 16 episodes
Phaedo
Benjamin Jowett
Plató
In this dialogue, Plato presents his metaphysical, psychological, and epistemological views through the conversations of Socrates and his friends on the day of his execution.
The dialogue includes four arguments for the immortality of the soul, discussions on the theory of Forms, and Socrates' account of his final hours.
It is a key work in Plato's middle period, combining profound philosophy with a vivid narrative of Socrates' last day.
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Ascent to the Beautiful
William H. F. Altman
William Altman's 'Ascent to the Beautiful' examines the earlier stage of his proposed Platonic curriculum, arguing that certain dialogues prepare students to apprehend the Idea of the Beautiful.
The book situates the Symposium and related dialogues as formative for experiencing beauty as a philosophical object that precedes the Republic's focus on the Good.
Altman interprets Plato's dialogues pedagogically, showing how they cultivate an orientation to higher ideals.
This volume functions as the precursor to 'Ascent to the Good' within Altman's 'Plato the Teacher' project.
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Laches
Plató
#3992
• Mentioned in 12 episodes
Gorgias
Plató
Gorgias es un diálogo de Platón que explora la naturaleza de la retórica, la justicia y el bien.
El diálogo presenta una discusión entre Sócrates y Gorgias, un sofista conocido por su habilidad retórica.
Platón critica la retórica vacía y argumenta que la verdadera justicia se basa en el conocimiento del bien.
Gorgias es un ejemplo de la crítica de Platón a la sofística y su búsqueda de la verdad.
Su impacto radica en su exploración de la retórica y su relación con la justicia.
#26137
• Mentioned in 2 episodes
Protagoras
Benjamin Jowett
Plato
At the crisis of his Republic, Plato asks us to imagine what could possibly motivate a philosopher to return to the Cave voluntarily for the benefit of others and at the expense of her own personal happiness. This book shows how Plato has prepared us, his students, to recognize that the sun-like Idea of the Good is an infinitely greater object of serious philosophical concern than what is merely good for me, and thus why neither Plato nor his Socrates are eudaemonists, as Aristotle unquestionably was. With the transcendent Idea of Beauty having been made manifest through Socrates and Diotima, the dialogues between Symposium and Republic—Lysis, Euthydemus, Laches, Charmides, Gorgias, Theages, Meno, and Cleitophon— prepare the reader to make the final leap into Platonism, a soul-stirring idealism that presupposes the student’s inborn awareness that there is nothing just, noble, or beautiful about maximizing one’s own good. While perfectly capable of making the majority of his readers believe that he endorses the harmless claim that it is advantageous to be just and thus that we will always fare well by doing well, Plato trains his best students to recognize the deliberate fallacies and shortcuts that underwrite these claims, and thus to look beyond their own happiness by the time they reach the Allegory of the Cave, the culmination of a carefully prepared Ascent to the Good.
William H. F. Altman, having been persuaded by Plato's Republic that Justice requires the philosopher to go back down into the Cave, has devoted his professional life to the cause of public education. Since retiring in 2013, he has been working as an independent scholar on the continuation of Plato the Teacher (2012).
Joseph Liss is an independent scholar based in the Puget Sound region of Washington State. He can be reached at Joseph.Nathaniel.Liss@gmail.com.
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