This volume is an imaginative and adventurous study of protreptic strategies and what makes them fit for particular circumstances. Indeed, M. calls for imagining our ways into what is most promising and effective not only among Socratic strategies in the dialogues as we have them but also among hypothetical yet plausible alternatives to the narratives we know. M. takes great pains to justify the legitimacy and value of these approaches against the full weight of more conventional scholarship on Plato; in fact, nearly half of this book could stand alone as a far-ranging account of the difficulties of arbitrating among interpretations of the Platonic corpus (Chapter 3) and the limits of what conventional Plato scholarship offers, particularly when it comes to determining effective strategies of protreptic (Chapter 4). Although M. describes his more imaginative approaches as ‘small steps’ (p. 218) and their conclusions as ‘modest’ (p. 171), he also hopes that they will provide a foundation for improving others and ourselves, identifying counterfeits to real self-examination and ‘creating a more thoughtful culture’ (pp. 218–19).

In an introduction M. lays the groundwork for his two approaches to Socrates and Socratic protreptic that is at the same time limited and expansive. He supposes simply that Socrates (1) tries to improve other people, (2) is minimally interested in changing their beliefs, (3) aims to lead them to self-examination, which entails conscientiousness, judiciousness, responsiveness and thoroughness, and (4) ‘has the same aims, proclivities, and beliefs (if he has beliefs)’ throughout the dialogues (pp. 2–3, 28). These four suppositions deliberately bypass ideas about Plato's intentions and development as an author and thinker as well as other views of Socrates, for example that he was concerned primarily with self-improvement. Readers might also object that Plato never shows Socrates having improved anyone. In spite of this lack of success, M.'s Socrates is always busy with the same thing – trying to improve others by debating with them about how to live well –, and he can do this work so differently with different interlocutors across the dialogues because he must evidently have at his disposal an extraordinary array of protreptic tools.

M. calls the first of his two approaches the top-down model (Chapter 1), and with it we are meant to reimagine Socratic encounters in order to develop a range of protreptic strategies for a range of behaviours. The approach begins with the loose constraints of the four suppositions about Socrates, but is not expressly concerned with enumerating his actual strategies in the dialogues or in real life (p. 13). Instead, with a general understanding of his interlocutor's behaviour and motivations as Plato depicts them, we are meant to depart from the text and ‘imagine hypotheticals in detail’ (p. 17). In the case of the Euthyphro M. imagines a more reassuring or confessional Socrates and all the likely effects these tones and manoeuvres might have on someone like Euthyphro: ‘You would ask how the conversation between them would probably go, and in your imagination, you would play it out fully’ (pp. 17–18). You might even begin to play with the constraints that Plato places on interlocutors and, say, dial down Euthyphro's anger or vanity (pp. 24–5). M. argues here and at some length later in Chapter 3 that Platonic dialogues are well suited to these sorts of selective departures chiefly because they are all uniquely and fundamentally about protreptic conversations, they contain characters developed just enough to allow for experimentation, and there is very little that is certain about Plato and his intentions to disallow such invention.

The second of the two approaches is the bottom-up model (Chapter 2), and it requires a different kind of creativity. Instead of departing from the text, the bottom-up model is a close reading of the behaviours of characters as we have them. The focus here is more on Socrates, though the examination of his behaviour leads to questions about what he thinks motivates the behaviour of his interlocutors. Beginning, again, with the same loose suppositions about Socrates, we should break down his main goal of protreptic into ‘intermediate goals’ (p. 13) of dealing with others in particular ways. M. asks, for instance, why Socrates is obscure in the Euthyphro, concessive in the Charmides and calculating in the Laches. Why does he let Ion escape but not Philebus? We must imagine what Socrates wants to get from his interlocutors (or bystanders) with each of these actions.

It seems to me that, if the top-down model could be viewed as an experiment in Platonic playwriting, this bottom-up model is akin to Stanislavski's actors preparing a role by choosing clear and active objectives for units of a scene. In this kind of acting, the more objectives you try in a scene, the more you discover about what motivates behaviour and which objectives and strategies are plausible and effective in particular circumstances. This work is not reductive but expansive, both on the stage and in M.'s reading of behaviour: ‘Ultimately, your goal would be not to figure out what his strategies actually are (in other words, to find the correct interpretation of the fictive character Socrates) but just to think of tactics that are available to him … The more strategies you thought of, the better’ (p. 45). The point is to get as creative as possible about protreptic strategies for the richest and most robust theory of protreptic. While M. calls this second approach a ‘counterpart’ (p. 59) to the first, it is easy to imagine attending to the sprawling hypotheticals of the top-down model with the same close reading of the bottom-up in order to discover still more about Socratic protreptic (if, following standards of consistency and plausibility, the fourth supposition can include our inventions) or about protreptic in general (if we are willing to make more wild departures).

I will not run through the justifications in Chapter 3 and 4 for these approaches relative to conventional approaches and their limits and prejudices; as I say, they stand as a careful and compelling account of trends in scholarship on Plato. The final chapter provides a snapshot of these approaches in action across episodes in four dialogues; it should be obvious from the creative and iterative nature of both approaches that this chapter will amount to little more than a teaser. By M.'s own admission, it is merely something on which to build and improve (p. 207). His epilogue suggests participants and venues for this development of protreptic, far beyond traditional readers of Plato: ‘Protreptic, like all education, might take place not only between teachers and students in schools, but also between parents and children, or friends or strangers, at home or at work, in pubs or book clubs, or in synagogues, mosques, or churches’ (p. 219). I have no doubt much would be gained from these hypotheticals and close readings in all these communities.

The question that M. does not address is about the immediate gains and their connections to the ‘serious thought’ that is vital both to self-examination and democracy (p. 11). How exactly does modelling more promising strategies of protreptic necessarily make us more conscientious, judicious, thorough and responsive citizens? I do not think the answers are obvious. After all, for all of Clitophon's glaring faults, we do have in him an ancient portrait of enthusiasm for protreptic giving way to frustration and aggression. Perhaps M.'s more creative and discerning approaches to protreptic might have kept Clitophon from Thrasymachus. And perhaps psychologists and social scientists are better suited to say why. My guess is that M. would respond simply, ‘Just try it and see!’ I know I will be giving it a go.