The Role of the Interlocutor in Plato’s DialoguesTheory and Practice

Abstract

Abstract When Socrates sets responsiveness to the interlocutor beside devotion to the truth as a distinctive feature of dialectic, he gives expression to the idea underlying the importance of characterization in Plato’s work. It is essential to dialectic as Plato portrays it that argument should not be unvarying, indifferent to the participants, but should rather be sensitive to the individual respondent in any dispute.