This international volume is the result of a cooperation between the Philosophy Departments of Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and Università degli Studi di Milano. The book mainly goes back to the 2015 conference Meinen. Wissen. Handeln. Epistemologie und Ethik bei Platon und im antiken Platonismus, which took place in Freiburg, but is not mentioned in the two-page introduction. As the title of the volume suggests, it focuses on the role of epistemology ‘in ethical and political discussions’ in Plato and the Platonic tradition, which ‘has not received the attention it deserves’ (p. vii). This claim is surprising because a lot has been written on how Plato's Republic employs metaphysical knowledge in order to orient the political decisions of the ruling philosophers. It is also astounding in the light of the controversial discussion of the role and activities of the nocturnal council in Plato's Laws, which takes on several political functions of those philosophers.Footnote ¹ Concerning the role of epistemology and knowledge in ethics, the editors mention the ‘intensely discussed question’ of ‘the moral or ethical intellectualism inspired by Socrates’ (p. vii).

One strength of the volume is that it focuses on the relation of epistemology and ethics in texts less researched than Plato's Republic, such as Alcibiades I, Plato's Seventh Letter, Menexenus, Kriton, Theages and the Theaetetus digression (172a1–7c4). A. Joosse's paper on Alcibiades I interprets the dialogue as a contribution to political philosophy, F. Forcignanò's article on the Seventh Letter analyses Plato's Syracusan experience and the prominent role that the conception of kairos plays in it, S. Mertler's paper on the Kriton interprets the text less as a political and more as an ethical dialogue that focuses on Socrates’ loyalty to his principles, and G.M. Margagliotta's article on the Theages centres on different interpretations of Socrates’ daimonion. Furthermore, the volume contains papers on a variety of topics such as the compatibility of Solon's Elegy on the Polis and his Elegy to the Muses, Plato's dialogical method and its relation to persuasion and demonstration, Plato's philosophy of language, the method of inquiry adopted by Aristotle in his Eudemian Ethics, the relation between ‘shame’ (aidôs) and the notion of the noble in Aristotle, the Platonic telos of assimilation to God and its connection to Aristotle's ideal of a ‘theoretical life’ (bios theoretikos), the relation of ‘knowledge’ (epistêmê) and ‘opinion’ (doxa) in the Anonymous Commentary on Plato's Theaetetus, Galen's theory of the mixtures of the human body and its ethical implications, and ‘self-movement’ (autokinêsis) in Plotinus’ Enneads. Such a vast variety of topics implies, of course, that not all articles are equally relevant to the topic of the volume. According to its introduction, the subject matter of the book is not merely ‘the connection between knowing and acting’, but also the discussion of this link from the angle of ‘conflict and disagreement’ (p. vii). Such a specific perspective, even broadly construed as the introduction does, is not traceable in several of the papers.

The fifteen articles are written mostly by young Italian scholars, often linked to the topics of their theses. Almost all the papers are not only well structured and worth reading, but also display a very good acquaintance with the relevant literature. The articles are mostly written in English while four of them are in German. The book has indexes of modern authors and relevant passages but no subject index. All texts start with an abstract; some of these are quite long and almost identical with parts of the main text (e.g. pp. 20–1, 29, 161, 186–7).

Much could be said about the content of the different articles, but I limit myself to some critical remarks. F. Trabattoni talks about ‘Plato's system’, a characterisation that is as problematic as the common label of Plato's ‘doctrine of forms’ (p. 21). Philosophers who propose systems and doctrines usually defend them. However, Plato's thought is open to substantial development and does not refrain from serious self-criticism, which is maybe best illustrated by the three strong arguments he introduces at the beginning of the Parmenides against his theory of forms. Joosse emphasises that in Alcibiades I Plato defines justice as doing ‘one's own thing’ (p. 41; cf. pp. 44–5). According to the dialogue, justice is achieved when ‘each person performs his own tasks and does not meddle in the affairs of others’ (p. 39). Surprisingly, however, Joosse refers nowhere to the Republic in which Plato proposes – on the level of the city – exactly this definition of justice. On p. 108 Mertler claims that at the beginning of Republic 2 Plato specifies justice as ‘something to be valued by anyone who is going to be blessed with happiness, both because of itself and because of what comes from it’ (Resp. 2.358a, trans. G.M.A. Grube, rev. C.D.C. Reeve). However, this is not really a specification of justice but rather its placement within Plato's classification of goods. Justice is both an intrinsic and an instrumental good. The specification of justice in the Republic – on the level of the city – is ‘the minding of one's own business and not being a busybody’ (Resp. 4.433a, trans. A. Bloom). In her text M. Bergomi refers to the sophist Gorgias and to the two surviving accounts of his treatise On What is Not (Peri tou me ontos). She makes the strong claim that with regard to Gorgias’ treatise it ‘is certainly true that his conception of rhetoric and deceptive logos lies on [sic] his strong belief that things no more are than are not’ (p. 163). Bergomi seems to be unaware that the interpretation of Gorgias’ treatise is a controversial issue. Scholars following H. Gomperz doubt that Gorgias had a serious philosophical interest and understand his treatise merely as ‘eine Redeübung an einem philosophischen Stoff’ (H. Gomperz, ‘Sophistik und Rhetorik’, in C.J. Classen [ed.], Sophistik [1976, original 1914], pp. 21–37, at p. 33).

Down to the present day the relation of epistemology and ethics, of knowing and acting, is a much-discussed topic. In contemporary meta-ethics, so-called ethical realists claim that moral facts or objective moral values exist, while anti-realists deny this. Cognitivists claim both that moral knowledge exists and that moral judgements express beliefs that can be true or false. Non-cognitivists deny these two claims. In the terminology of contemporary meta-ethics, Plato was both an ethical realist and a cognitivist. It is noteworthy that the contributors to this volume do not make an attempt to use contemporary terminology to improve the precision of their interpretations and to connect with current debates. However, all in all, the volume is a collection of valuable articles that shed more light on how the important relation between epistemology and ethics is conceived of in the Platonic tradition.