Offering a study of five Plato dialogues, this book takes students through a variety of creative questions and tasks, aiming to help them to develop their critical thinking and reading and writing skills. Annotation tasks in the margins invite students to underline key sentences, paraphrase main ideas, or supply original illustrative examples. A chapter gives advice on writing about Plato's works, and an appendix new to this edition provides a brief overview of epistemology, metaphysics and ethics.

This accessible supplement makes Plato’s texts come alive for students by showing them how to read, think critically, and write about these key classic works. Engaging interactive devices draw students into an intimate philosophical encounter that they can model in later work in philosophy.

With this introductory guidebook in hand, students will embark on the most interactive and engaging tour of Western philosophy available. As they journey across the landscape of wisdom, they'll develop an understanding of the key themes in the history of philosophy, a working knowledge of twenty major philosophers' central beliefs, and the critical reading and writing skills necessary to decode even the thorniest of philosophical texts.

Fourteen new essays discuss Plato's views about knowledge, reality, mathematics, politics, ethics, love, poetry, and religion in a convenient, accessible guide that analyzes the intellectual and social background of his thought as well.