Whereas in the early dialogues Socrates focused almost exclusively on ethical questions and was pessimistic about the extent to which an answer can be found to these ethical dilemmas, Plato, beginning with the Meno and continuing throughout the rest of his career, confidently asserted that we could answer Socratic questions if we pursue ethical and ethical inquiries together.
In these Middle dialogues Plato put forward positive ideas of his own rather than those of Socrates. His primary concern was twofold.
First, Plato was concerned with establishing the theory of the forms.
Second, Plato was concerned with elaborating on the doctrine that learning is a recollection of or a recovery of knowledge which the individual possessed before birth and which resides within the individuals mind.
Plato argued that we are born knowing things. Many contemporary thinkers represent this Platonic conclusion in modern fashion. This is a commonly held notion in the discipline of religion and Noam Chomsky even goes so far as to argue that we are born with a whole grammar in our mind.
These middle dialogues include:
• Cratylus
• Parmenides
• Phaedo
• Phaedrus
• Republic
• Symposium
• Theaetetus
