Author Description

These sequels to the dialogues of Plato are the first display of pure dialectic as a method and style since antiquity, and the first original compositions of such in the English language. The "dialogues" that have been composed since antiquity, I claim, as those by Galileo, David Hume, and George Berkeley, verge more so on mere conversation, albeit about philosophical topics, by employing means of persuasion that don't strictly adhere to either syllogistic reasoning or the method of dialectic, or to eristic contention, or pure disputation. This mode of writing sequels should be viewed as congruent and proportional to the Attic tragedians' composition of sequels to the Homeric epic cycle, such as the Oresteia, the plot of which can be found as a kernel briefly outlined in summary by Homer, which the Attic tragedians developed and filled out with the dimension of depth, as they did with other briefly mentioned stories of the Trojan War heroes and their parents and children, which fall immediately outside the timeline of scope depicted by Homer. These four sequels to Plato's dialogues should be considered as the same kind of endeavor as that by which the Attic tragedians developed upon the Homeric epic cycle, and should, as such, be viewed as aligned with the classical tradition of ancient Greek literature. The entire content of these sequels was drawn from latent and unfinished ideas alluded to by Plato, which he covered only partially and secondarily in subservience to the primary purpose of whatever dialogue was immediately at hand, and which I develop and make explicit as primary topics of inquiry of their own. Given that context, the ambitious endeavor of the author of these present works surpasses even the Neoplatonists as well as the tradition of modern western philosophy, in style and method, as well as in scope and intended purpose, for attempting to duplicate Plato's style and method in original yet related content. For, there have not been, as of yet and unt