In this careful and well-researched book, W. offers a thorough analysis of the multifarious role of myth in Plato's Phaedrus. The bulk of the book addresses the four myths that arise within the text: the myth of Boreas and Oreithuia, the palinode (to which three chapters are devoted), the myth of the cicadas, and the myth of Theuth and the generation of writing. Throughout W. offers a reading of Plato's Phaedrus that is exceedingly attentive to dramatic detail and historical background, as well as the mythological and argumentative structure of Plato's text. This book is strongly recommended for anybody working on the Phaedrus, or on the role of myth in Plato's corpus.

W. begins with an inquiry into the cultural significance of myth for the Ancient Greeks in general, followed by an analysis of Plato's reception and transformation of the role of myth. While W.'s historical analysis of myth is rigorous and interesting, his definition of what precisely constitutes a ‘Platonic myth’ remains somewhat ambiguous, despite his various efforts to clarify it. W. nebulously defines Platonic myths as ‘those passages in the dialogues that consist of unbroken narrative or storytelling … that bear some sort of vital relation to the cultural past’ (p. 9). A definition so broad leaves it unclear what precisely differentiates a Platonic myth from the many other modes of writing that Plato employs. (For example, Alcibiades' narrative account of Socrates' role in the battle of Potidaea in Plato's Symposium is an ‘unbroken narrative’ that clearly bears a ‘vital relation’ to the cultural past. But, surely it is not a mythos in the same manner as the palinode.) None the less, despite his lack of a clear and distinct definition of Platonic myth, one gets a feel for W.'s (and Plato's) understanding of myth as one proceeds through the focused and fascinating analyses the book offers.

Despite the various other functions he shows to be at work in Plato's myths, W. argues that the primary function of Plato's use of myth is to move certain auditors towards philosophical dialectic by appealing to the spirited and passionate parts of their souls. Within the context of the Phaedrus, it is Phaedrus himself who is the target of this psychagogic gesture; beyond the borders of the text, it is we readers who are meant to be so moved by Plato's myths. It is along these lines that W. offers an excellent and extended analysis of the palinode that both usefully summarises extant scholarship and offers compelling insights of its own. For W., the palinode is the paradigmatic example of the way in which Plato appropriates traditional mythemes, innovates upon them and uses them to seduce certain souls into philosophical dialectic.

Throughout W. treats myth as a ‘lesser’ form of essentially flawed human discourse which Plato appropriates and places in the service of the ‘higher’ mode of dialectic, and much of W.'s argument depends upon this hierarchy. However, the hierarchy is problematised later where W. claims that dialectic itself, as an all-too-human mode of discourse, is also subject to the flaws and frailties of the human condition. Yet, given the strengths of W.'s own account of dialectic, the reader is forced to wonder: if both myth and dialectic are essentially flawed modes of human discourse, then W.'s privileging of dialectic throughout his analysis seems unjustified. At best, one could say that, despite the limitations of both, dialectic is less limited than myth, and therefore stands higher up the ladder of (albeit always flawed) human achievement. (Indeed, this is the path W. takes.) Yet, by what measure, and by what mode of human speaking, could one make this claim? It remains unclear precisely why W. sees dialectic as a superior mode of human activity, given the essential limitations that he insists belong to it. This problem is further compounded by the fact that the apparent privileging of dialectic over myth occurs within a myth – that is, within Socrates' palinode. Myth would thus appear to be that without which dialectic cannot justify itself as superior, the indispensable supplement, therefore, to philosophy itself.

To his credit, W. is aware of this problem, and it is in the wake of these difficulties that he offers a meditation on the playfulness at work in the Phaedrus and the apparent ascendency of dialectic over myth it presents. As W. notes, the palinode suggests (in mythological language) that the most serious pursuit the human soul can undertake is an unencumbered pursuit of the Forms. Such an uninterrupted gaze, according to W.'s reading, is only reserved for the discarnate soul in-between its reincarnations, and even the philosopher can only do her best to gain mere temporary remembrances of such Forms. Because such seriousness is only attainable by the discarnate soul, W. concludes that ‘all incarnate human activities have an ineliminable element of the nonserious in them, that is, an element of play’ (p. 221). Because human activity and, more importantly, human discourse is always limited by the frail and finite human condition, one can only take human achievement – and this includes philosophical achievement – so seriously. Human life, in all its forms, must always conduct itself somewhat playfully. This would of course be true for dialectic as well.

Although W.'s analysis of the role of play in the Phaedrus is interesting and compelling – indeed, it is the apex of an already excellent book – he fails fully to appreciate the consequences of his own conclusions. If indeed Plato's playfulness prevents us from taking his texts too seriously (as W. claims), then much of W.'s own analysis begins to buckle and bend. (The fact that W. is keenly aware of this keeps it from breaking.) As previously mentioned, W. presents dialectic again and again as a superior form of human activity, a position that has allowed him continually to submit myth to the rule of dialectic. Yet, given W.'s insistence of the playfulness of Plato's texts, this would mean that the description in the palinode of a purely noetic ‘discourse’ in which one would somehow overcome or transcend the limitations of one's human condition is itself made within a context of play. Why, then, take it seriously as a goal or ideal to be attained? And why use such a description, as W. does, as a pivot upon which to support a Platonic system in which dialectic stands as the highest expression of human intellectual achievement? The playfulness of Plato's text undermines the apparent seriousness of the celebration of dialectic that occurs therein: and although W. at one point insists upon the mythological character of the entirety of the Phaedrus (and therefore, it seems to follow, of the privileging of dialectic that occurs therein), he stops short of asking if the entirety of the Phaedrus – including its apparent privileging of dialectic – is playful. This is an avenue that must be explored given W.'s own otherwise excellent analysis of play.

W. concludes with an honest and admirable self-reflection upon the scope and uncertainty of his own interpretation, as well as a concise meditation on what it means to encounter a Platonic text. For W., the Phaedrus is not meant to provide us with pre-packaged and easily-digestible philosophical ‘truths’, but rather to prompt us into philosophical inquiry and debate: to draw us, as Socrates attempts to do to Phaedrus in the dialogue that bears his name, into philosophical conversation. W. hopes that his book will do the same. In this, and much more, it is certainly a success: for, in offering a careful and textually-based interpretation that clarifies and problematises the Phaedrus, it will doubtlessly invite the sort of scholarly consideration and criticism that all outstanding interpretations deserve.