The reality of the soul in Plato

Abstract

Plato's literary style was naturally adapted for the representation of divergent points of view; and the apparently contradictory statements which he puts in the mouth even of hismost important character, Socrates, cause endless difficulty to one who attempts to construct from the dialogues a unified Platonism. Nor is it easy to explain incompatible views by the theory that Plato's thought underwent some sort of evolution, since no doctrine seems to be confined to any one dialogue, or to any one group of dialogues.