The array below presents the suggested organization of the dialogues in seven tetralogy, one by line of the array. For each tetralogy, the first column lists the "introductory" dialogue, and the next three colums list the associated trilogy. From there, you can get to a general comment on the organization of the tetralogies (Overview of Tetralogies), or to comments on individual tetralogies or dialogues.

Note: in this array, only the tetralogies and dialoguess for which a comment is currently available, in full or in part, show up as links. As new comments are made available, all titles should eventually become links.

Note of June 6, 2009: in this updated version of what I assume to be the organisational scheme behind the dialogues of Plato, I have made one slight change with regard to the original version of it: in the second tetralogy, I have exchanged the places of the Gorgias and the Hippias Minor in order to make the Hippias Minor the central dialogue of the trilogy in place of the Gorgias and the Gorgias the final dialogue of the trilogy in place of the Hippias Minor. In my earlier proposal, the apparent symmetry resulting from placing the Gorgias between the two Hippias, as one would place a clock between two candlesticks, had obscured the obvious fact that the Gorgias is all about logos and I had not given enough thoughts to the less obvious fact that the Hippias Minor shares with the other central dialogues of trilogies the property of presenting us pairs of characters, namely Achilles and Odysseus on the one hand, as the two favorite heroes of the Greeks, between whom one should chose the hero that will become our role model, Socrates and Hippias on the other hand, the former as the model of "justice" understood along the lines of the Republic, the later as the antithesis of such justice implying that each one should limit oneself to the role is is meant to play in the city, as he is the ultimate example of one who pretends to do everything by himself and claims he knows everything, and also that the fact that the dialogue was taking place at the initiative of a man named Eudicos, whose name means "appropriately just, in one's good right", was a discrete call upon us to properly chose our model of justice in action coupled with a warning againt calling upon Homer and its commentators to orient that choice.

Plato and his dialogues : Home - Biography - Works and links to them - History of interpretation - New hypotheses - Map of dialogues : table version or non tabular version. Tools : Index of persons and locations - Detailed and synoptic chronologies - Maps of Ancient Greek World. Site information : About the author.
Tetralogies : 1st tetralogy : The start of the Quest - 2nd tetralogy : The Sophists - 3rd tetralogy : Socrates' Trial - 4th tetralogy : The Soul - 5th tetralogy : Speech (logos) - 6th tetralogy : Dialectic - 7th tetralogy : Man in the World

First published May 16, 1996 - Last updated June 6, 2009
© 1996, 2005, 2009 Bernard SUZANNE (click on name to send your comments via e-mail)
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