Abstract

The article criticises Reale's esoteric interpretation of Plato from a hermeneutical point of view. Reale speaks of doctrines, written and unwritten, where we only have two traditions: direct and indirect. Plato's own works build a corpus and a collection of testimonies from different authors cannot be considered as interpretatively superior. To be written down is essential to interpretation and the text cannot be fixed on a concrete reading, because textuality means openness to new understandings. In this way, the attempt to reread Plato's dialogs in the light of this indirect tradition is to reduce the Platonic corpus to a mere pretext.