ABSTRACT

Taken on its own, however, this experience still does not explain why the question of how one should read the text is debated with special passion and controversy precisely in the case of Plato. Even non-specialists have come to know that this is the case. With no other thinker does the question of the literary form in which the philosophical subjectmatter is cast and, as a consequence, the question of the manner in which the reader must approach this particular form, gain so much importance as with Plato. For with no other thinker is the form of the representation so directly relevant to the subject-matter as with him; the correct understanding of the dialogue-form and the correct understanding of the Platonic conception of philosophy are interdependent. It is a paradoxical situation: this author, who is unrivalled in his ability to facilitate the experience of entering philosophical inquiry, appears to need his own specific system of hermeneutics for being understood.