There are lots of divisions among Plato scholars, but two of the biggest are these.

Some think that Plato's dialogues proceed from a single view throughout: that there is no question of a development in Plato's thought. Their opposite numbers think that there is development to be seen in the dialogues. The first view is sometimes referred to as “unitarian,” and the second could be labeled “developmental.”

Then again, some scholars see in the dialogues dramatic creations, and so the technique they favor in understanding them is literary analysis. Their opposite numbers see in the dialogues a lot of abstract argumentation, and so their favored technique is that of logical analysis. The first of these two approaches we may call “literary,” and the second “analytic.”

This latter opposition would be unreal if either position were understood as exclusive of the other: obviously the dialogues contain both drama and argument. The question of which approach to take is, then, one of emphasis. But there are extremes, and the extremes are in opposition.

This book is a defense of a developmental view with an analytic emphasis.

It is confined to the dialogues commonly regarded as early plus the Phaedo and Symposium, and to what in those latter dialogues pertains to a certain metaphysical theory, commonly referred to as the “Theory of Forms.”