Introduction

In addition to presenting the overarching argument and laying out the structure of the book, the introduction offers an interpretation of the Socratic reorientation of philosophy through a brief reading of both autobiographic passages in the Phaedo and the Apology . This intertextual interpretation reveals two things. First, Socrates thinks philosophers should turn to logoi , that is, broadly to human speeches and human language in order to inquire into Being. Second, this turn to human speeches is at once a turn to what humans usually discuss when they disagree, namely, human affairs and in particular questions related to the “most important things” such as justice and other virtues, the kalon , and, ultimately, the good. This agathological or ethical-political crux of the Socratic reorientation provides a roadmap along which I structure my interpretation of the post-Heideggerian Platonism of Strauss, Gadamer, and Krüger. The milestones of the second sailing thus understood are: dialogical writing and thinking, the confrontation between poetry and philosophy, the tension between philosophy and politics, and, finally, the ascent to Forms.