Study of the Phaedo has, for English readers at least, been naturally associated for almost half a century with the name of John Burnet; and if in this book I have mentioned his name more often to disagree with his views than to accept them, this should not conceal the fact that my obligation to him, both on points of linguistic scholarship and of interpretation, is great. Other English scholars upon whose learning and wisdom I have freely drawn are F. M. Cornford, Sir David Ross and A. E. Taylor. Footnotes and commentary acknowledge my remaining debts to published work, so far as I am conscious of them.

English versions of the dialogue are numerous. Among the most recent are that by Dr R.S. Bluck (with introduction and commentary), which did not appear until after this book had gone to press, and that included in the new revised edition of Jowett's Plato. I have not consulted this, the preparation of which was unknown to me until my own translation was almost complete; an earlier revision of Jowett, by Sir Richard Livingstone (in Portrait of Socrates, 1938), I have consulted now and then; but the only version of which I have made any considerable use is that of Léon Robin in the French Budé series.