Plato's Moral Realism: The Discovery of the Presuppositions of Ethics

Surveying many of Plato's dialogues from the early, middle, and late periods, prominent philosopher John M. Rist shows how Plato gradually came to realize the need for metaphysics to support his ethical position and that a rigorous ethics required a secure metaphysics grounded in universal values.

Plato came to realize that his earlier attempts to construct the relevant metaphysics, culminating in the Republic, were incomplete and his argumentation was insufficiently rigorous. Rist explains...