The Development of Plato's Metaphysics

Plato is a much more experimental philosopher, this book argues, than most commentators acknowledge. Supporting this position, Henry Teloh combines exegesis of particular passages with a synoptic view of Plato's philosophical development through his early, middle, and late dialogues. The result is a study of Plato's ideas with a more ambitious scope than any since W. D. Ross's in 1951,The book chronicles Plato's changing interests through a focus on his ontological commitments—that is, on the types of entities he addresses. It also traces many of the assumptions in Plato's thought back to their sources in pre-Socratic philosophy.

By depicting the changes in Plato's thought from one period of dialogue composition to another, and by seeking to explain these changes from textual evidence, this book offers an appealing introduction to Plato for all humanists.

Henry Teloh has written on Plato and Aristotle for Apeiron, Phronesis, The Journal of the History of Philosophy, and The Canadian Journal of Philosophy. An honors graduate of the University of Illinois, he earned his PhD at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Teloh is a member of the philosophy faculty at Vanderbilt University, whose Research Council awarded him two grants for work on this book.