I. The Dramatic Context.- 1. Dramatic situation: the trial of Socrates.- 2. Dramatis personae: antipathy, eagerness, silence.- a. Theodorus: geometry and philosophy.- b. Young Socrates: the ‘test to discover kinship’.- c. The elder Socrates: silence and unheardness.- 3. The stranger from Elea.- a. Judge and mediator.- b. Alienation and mediation, some clues.- (i) The mean.- (ii) The Homeric allusions: homecoming and disguise.- (iii) The stranger’s Parmenidean heritage: education and irony.- 4. The agreement to begin.- II. The Initial Diairesis (258b–267c).- 1. Formal structure of the method; the apparent accord (258b–261e).- 2. Young Socrates’ error; the value of bifurcatory diairesis (261e–264b).- a. The refutation: halving and forms (261e–263b).- Note: panhellenist partisanship.- b. The correction; the status of diairesis (263c–264b).- 3. The closing bifurcations; jokes and problems (264b–267c).- III. The Digressions on Substance and Method (267c–287b).- A. The first digression: the myth of the divine shepherd (267c–277a).- 1. The stranger’s objection (267c–268d).- 2. The manifold function of the myth (268d–274e).- a. The logos of cosmic history.- b. The critique of traditions.- (1) Traditional images.- (i) The Homeric ‘shepherd of the people’ and the Hesiodic ‘age of Cronus’.- (ii) Tyranny, democracy, and sophistic humanism.- (iii) Re-emergence of the ‘shepherd’.- (2) The stranger’s critique.- (i) The initial ‘remembrance’: the ancient despot.- (ii) ‘Forgetfulness’: homo mensura and the new despotism.- (iii) Philosophical recollection: deus mensura and the art of statesmanship.- 3. The revisions of the initial definition (274e–277a); young Socrates and the Academy.- B. The second digression: paradigm and the mean (277a–287b).- 1. The paradigm of paradigm (277a–279a).- 2. The paradigm of the weaver (279a–283a).- 3. The stranger’s preventative doctrine of essential measure (283b–287b).- a. The diairetic revelation of ‘essential measure’ (283b–285c).- b. The purposes of the dialogue; its value as a paradigm for young Socrates (285c–286b).- c. The application of essential measure (286b–287b).- IV. The Final Diairesis (287b–311c).- a. The change in the form of diairesis (287b ff.).- (i) The ‘difficulty’ and the new form.- (ii) The self-overcoming of bifurcation.- (iii) The stranger’s — and Plato’s — reticence.- b. The first phase: the indirectly responsible arts, makers of instruments (287b–289c).- c. The second phase, part one: the directly responsible arts, subaltern servants (289c–290e).- d. The digression: philosophy and ordinary opinion; statesmanship and actual political order (291a–303d).- (1) Thesole true criterion: the statesman’s episteme (291a–293e).- (2) The ways of mediation (293e–301a).- (i) Statesmanship and the law: the ‘best’ way and the ‘ridiculousness’ of the doctrine of the many (293e–297c).- (ii) The ‘imitative’ polities: the ‘second best’ way and the relative justification of the doctrine of the many (297c–301a).- (3) The return to the diaireses of polity: knowledge of ignorance and the political means (301a–303d).- e. Resumption of the diairesis (second phase, part two): the true aides (303d–305e).- f. The third phase: the statesman as weaver; the virtues and the mean (305e–311c).- (i) The application of the paradigm.- (ii) The statesman’s and the stranger’s realizations of the mean.- Notes.- Index of Historical Persons.- Index of References to Platonic Passages.
