Dialectic and Dialogue seeks to define the method and the aims of Plato's dialectic in both the "inconclusive" dialogues and the dialogues that describe and practice a method of hypothesis. Departing from most treatments of Plato, Gonzalez argues that the philosophical knowledge at which dialectic aims is nonpropositional, practical, and reflexive. The result is a reassessment of how Plato understood the nature of philosophy.

Francisco J. Gonzalez is associate professor of philosophy at Skidmore College. He is the editor of The Third Way: New Directions in Platonic Studies (Rowman & Littlefield, 1995).