Immediately after Euthyphron, Susemihl places Euthydêmus, which he treats as the commencement of a second series of dialogues: the first series, or ethical, being now followed by the dialectic, in which the principles, process, and certainty of cognition are discussed, though in an indirect and preparatory way. This second series consists of Euthydêmus, Kratylus, Theætêtus, Phædrus, Sophistês, Politikus, Parmenidês, Symposion, Phædon. Through all these dialogues Susemihl professes to trace a thread of connection, each successively unfolding and determining more of the general subject: but all in an indirect, negative, round-about manner. Allowing for this manner, Susemihl contends that the dialectical counter-demonstrations or Antinomies, occupying the last half of the Parmenidês, include the solution of those difficulties, which have come forward in various forms from the Euthydêmus up to the Sophistês, against Plato’s theory of Ideas.[20] The Phædon closes the series of dialectic compositions, and opens the way to the constructive dialogues following, partly ethical, partly physical — Philêbus, Republic, Timæus, Kritias.[21] The Leges come last of all.
[20] Susemihl, ib. p. 355, seq.
[21] Susemihl, pp. 466-470. The first volume of Susemihl’s work ends with the Phædon.
Edward Munk — adopts a different principle of arrangement, founded upon the different period which each dialogue exhibits of the life, philosophical growth, and old age, of Sokrates — his arrangement, founded on this principle. He distinguishes the chronological order of composition from the place allotted to each dialogue in the systematic plan.
A more recent critic, Dr. Edward Munk, has broached a new and very different theory as to the natural order of the Platonic dialogues. Upon his theory, they were intended by Plato[22] to depict the life and working of a philosopher, in successive dramatic exhibitions, from youth to old age. The different moments in the life of Sokrates, indicated in each dialogue, mark the the place which Plato intended it to occupy in the series. The Parmenidês is the first, wherein Sokrates is introduced as a young man, initiated into philosophy by the ancient Parmenidês: the Phædon is last, describing as it does the closing scene of Sokrates. Plato meant his dialogues to be looked at partly in artistic sequence, as a succession of historical dramas — partly in philosophical sequence, as a record of the progressive development of his own doctrine: the two principles are made to harmonize in the main, though sometimes the artistic sequence is obscured for the purpose of bringing out the philosophical, sometimes the latter is partially sacrificed to the former.[23] Taken in the aggregate, the dialogues from Parmenidês to Phædon form a Sokratic cycle, analogous to the historical plays of Shakespeare, from King John to Henry VIII.[24] But Munk at the same time contends that this natural order of the dialogues — or the order in which Plato intended them to be viewed — is not to be confounded with the chronological order of their composition.[25] The Parmenidês, though constituting the opening Prologue of the whole cycle, was not composed first: nor the Phædon last. All of them were probably composed after Plato had attained the full maturity of his philosophy: that is, probably after the opening of his school at the Academy in 386 B.C. But in composing each, he had always two objects jointly in view: he adapted the tone of each to the age and situation in which he wished to depict Sokrates:[26] he commemorated, in each, one of the past phases of his own philosophising mind.
[22] Dr. Edward Munk. Die natürliche Ordnung der Platonischen Schriften, Berlin, 1857. His scheme of arrangement is explained generally, pp. 25-48, &c.
[23] Munk, ib. p. 29.
[24] Munk, ib. p. 27.
[25] Munk, ibid. p. 27.
[26] Munk, ib. p. 54; Preface, p. viii.