ABSTRACT
This chapter shows against developmental interpretations of Plato’s dialectic how a more unitarian account can be given without underestimating the variety of the dialogues. It concentrates both on the relation between dialectical methods and on their objects. The methods of refutation, of hypothesis, and of division and collection cannot be assigned exclusively to either early, middle or late dialogues, because they are very often employed in combination as the chapter explains for important passages from the Meno, the Phaedo, the Republic and the Sophist. In view of this combination it is neither necessary nor possible to assume for Plato’s dialectical methods a set of fundamentally different objects according to different stages of his development. Although we do not find clear and explicit examples of transcendent forms in the early dialogues, there are at least certain passages pointing towards them. In the middle dialogues, transcendent forms obviously must be considered the primary objects of dialectical enquiries aiming at definitions of virtues, but a cognitive grasp of perceptibles and an epistemic account of the soul is also required. And in the late dialogues, transcendent forms still play an important role. This is discussed for important passages from the Timaeus, the Sophist, the Philebus and the Laws against the background of the critique of forms in the Parmenides.
