Plato's works - MultiMedia

In his long career, Plato published a very large number of dialogues, all preserved, whose chronology can be restored as follows: .

1° Dialogues immediately preceding or following the death of Socrates: Protagoras, Ion, Apology of Socrates, Crito, Euthyphron, Charmides, Lacosses, Lysis, TheRepublic, book I (or Thrasymachus), Hippias Major (whose authenticity is currently disputed) and Hippias Minor, First Alcibiades;
2° Dialogue preceding the founding of the academy: Gorgias;
3° Programmatic dialogues shortly following the founding of the school: Meno, Menexenus, Euthydemus, Republic, books II to X;
4° Dialogues containing the idealized portrait of Socrates: Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus;
5° Dialogues introducing a new conception of science and dialectics: Cratylus, Theaetetus, Parmenides, Sophist, Politics (The Sophist and the Politics were to be followed by the Philosopher, which remained in draft form);
6° Last dialogues: Timaeus, Critias (unfinished), which was to be followed by the Hermocrates, Laws (unfinished work published after Plato’s death, and which in many places has the appearance of a collection of notes), Epinomis.

We must add the names of the dialogues rejected by modern criticism: Second Alcibiades, The Rivals, Theages, Clitophon, Minos, Hipparchus.

Finally, the thirteen Letters preserved under the name of Plato, whose authenticity has been attacked, to the point that they were considered as pieces of exercise of Athenian rhetoricians, are today recognized as authentic for the most part, notably the long letter VII, addressed to the friends of Dion and filled with details on the relations between Dionysius and Plato.

It is also interesting, instead of seeking the chronology and evolution of Platonic thought, to try to classify the dialogues from the point of view of method, as V. Goldschmidt did, who distinguishes between aporetic dialogues and completed dialogues; this logical distribution does not at all agree with the chronological divisions.