Reading Plato

It occurs to me that we can, and ought, read the dialogues on several distinct levels. We initially engage with the dramatic or dialogic presentation; we can enrich and deepen our understanding of it with historical or other contextual background; we can explore the lines of reasoning and ideas that so centrally inhabit the content; and finally we can attend to the sunousia between ourselves and the author, or amongst ourselves in the discussions that the dialogues stimulate.

I suspect that attendiing to these four dimensions of the dialogues, as well as how they interact, will be a fruitful method for working through Plato.