What if Plato’s Letters were not discrete, personal compositions intended only to be read by their designated addressees, but rather “a single work, written with a unity of purpose and coherent teaching, marked throughout by Plato’s subtlety, artfulness, and political philosophic insight, and intended to occupy an important place in the Platonic corpus” (4)? In Plato’s Letters: The Political Challenges of the Philosophic Life, Ariel Helfer offers a formidable, even if not entirely convincing, defense of this unconventional interpretation, which he calls the “literary unity thesis.” The book consists of three major parts: an introduction in which Helfer surveys scholarly debates regarding the authenticity and purpose of the Letters, offers initial justifications for the literary unity thesis, and provides an overview of the basic structure of the Letters and the people, places, and events it references; an original English translation of each of the thirteen letters, replete with insightful footnotes; and an interpretive essay aimed at revealing the unity of the Letters. The sum total is an indispensable resource for scholars of Plato, especially those seeking a deeper understanding of the relationship between philosophizing, writing, and political activity in the life and thought of Plato.

Beginning with Helfer’s translation of Plato’s Letters, one would not exaggerate by saying that this part of the book alone justifies its publication. Helfer’s approach as a translator involves reproducing as closely as possible the “precise and literal meaning of the text,” which he acknowledges “often requires a sacrifice of fluidity and gracefulness in the English” (xiii). Although the resulting translation may not be suitable for many undergraduate students due to the cumbersome—to modern, English readers—grammatical configurations of the ancient Greek language at times, those seeking a more faithful rendering of Plato’s own words will appreciate Helfer’s painstaking work to follow the original closely while maintaining general readability. Moreover, the translation includes copious footnotes, impressive both in quantity and in quality. There are few, if any, instances where readers might hope for additional information, so thoroughly do Helfer’s footnotes cover various aspects of the text. In addition to supplying critical information on the people, places, and concepts mentioned in the Letters, allowing readers to make better sense of the text, Helfer frequently makes note of the transliterated Greek word or phrase, explaining his translation of it and acknowledging possible alternative interpretations, as well as places where the manuscripts passed down to us contain inconsistencies. The footnotes also helpfully track singular and plural uses of the second-person, connections between the Letters and to other works in the Platonic corpus, and key scholarly debates relating to certain ideas and passages. Throughout, Helfer’s erudition is on keen display. Although at times some of the observations found in Helfer’s interpretive essay make their way into the footnotes, these insights are neither intrusively offered nor detrimental to Helfer’s stated goal of encouraging readers to “take up a careful, independent study of the Letters before turning to [his] interpretation” (x). In short, it is hard to imagine a version of Plato’s Letters that exhibits more scholarly excellence than Helfer’s translation.

Helfer’s interpretive essay further adds to the value of the book. The overall aim of the essay is to demonstrate the unity of the Letters as a literary work akin to Plato’s other writings, albeit in epistolary rather than dialogue form. Helfer is not forthcoming in the introductory part of the essay about what “lesson” Plato meant to convey in the Letters (124). Instead, he uncovers this message over the course of three readings of the text, with part 1 focused on Plato’s direct political counsel, part 2 on Plato’s presentation of philosophy, and part 3 on how Plato’s treatment of these two themes (the political and the philosophic) helps to explain why he wrote the Letters “in a way that can so easily be seen as spotlighting his failures in thought and action” with respect to his activities in Syracuse when he thrice traveled there presumably to transform the young ruler Dionysius into a philosopher-king (124). By the essay’s conclusion, Helfer reveals the Letters to be a work resembling, at least, other authentic writings of Plato insofar as it contains inconsistencies that, upon further contemplation, not only lead careful readers to a deeper theoretical understanding of the demands of the philosophic life (many of which prove incompatible with the exigencies of political life, as captured in the book’s subtitle), but also incite such readers to “follow the path of Platonic philosophy through to the end” by actually living the life of a philosopher (272). That life entails embracing philosophy as a “dynamic, questioning, seeking activity,” not as a “potential political panacea,” as Plato’s follower Dion, brother-in-law of Dionysius, conceives it (174). Though it is the philosopher who most attains a “‘kinship’ with the virtues” and in this sense proves best qualified to rule, Helfer’s reading of the Letters suggests that, paradoxically, the true philosopher eschews such pie-in-the-sky political ambitions out of a rare appreciation for the complex nature of things (210). Hence, we ought to regard Plato’s venture to Syracuse not as a genuine attempt to establish philosophic rule, but rather as an effort to “contribute to the blossoming of the philosophic life in Syracuse” through Plato’s continued stoking of the tyrant’s interest in philosophy (266). That is, Plato traveled to Syracuse to help carve out a space for his friends to continue their (often subversive) practice of ongoing questioning and to protect the reputation of philosophy as Dion attempted to put his (mis)understanding of philosophy into practice. On this account, the Letters serves the purpose of clarifying Plato’s activities in Syracuse while simultaneously furthering his “lifelong project” of making philosophy “ ‘honoured even among the multitude’ ” (273).

Even with additional space, it would be difficult to give a play-by-play of the major points of Helfer’s argument. Reading Helfer’s interpretive essay feels like exploring a labyrinth: the journey is unnecessarily long and convoluted, filled with numerous dead-ends and retraced steps, and one never quite knows where the endpoint can be found. Given Helfer’s Straussian training, this manner of writing may be purposeful. It may even be the point. Nonetheless, it detracts to some degree from the goal of demonstrating the unity of the Letters. Even more diligent readers may wonder at times if there is a coherent message to be found, or if Helfer is merely straining to give order to the chaos and to find consistency between the Letters and Plato’s dialogues. A more focused, methodical approach might have more convincingly illuminated how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together to reveal a cogent teaching—that the proof is, indeed, in the pudding, so to speak (15). Despite this critique, Helfer’s Plato’s Letters makes a noteworthy contribution through its superb translation alone, with the added bonus of an interpretive essay that certainly provides much food for thought. Ultimately, it succeeds in demonstrating the fruitfulness of seriously entertaining the idea that the Letters may be a carefully crafted work worthy of future study, and thereby provokes us to question again what we think we know about how and why Plato wrote.