“Saracco’s book is an exciting and creative contribution to our understanding of Plato’s pedagogy. Saracco shares a common view that Plato writes so as to encourage the intellectual development of his readers. But she goes beyond the standard view in arguing that Plato calls for an especially wide-ranging collaboration between the author and the reader and that we can best appreciate the revolutionary power of Plato’s philosophy by grasping the analogical relations it has to various contemporary theories across a wide range of disciplines. She carries out this program with great energy and imagination in exploring several illustrative examples. Anyone interested in Plato’s pedagogy or the question of why Plato wrote as he did will want to read this important and fascinating book.” (Chris Bobonich, CI Lewis Professor of Philosophy, Stanford University, USA)
“This unusual and at times challenging book aims to reconstruct how Plato conceived intellectual development and contributed to cultural progress through a conception of higher order pedagogy. Saracco’s emphasis is very much on the pedagogical function of myth, which she defines as ‘an image for the mind’. A novelty of Saracco’s analysis is her use of modern theories of scientific modelling to elucidate the epistemic function of the Forms. But most surprising of all is the final chapter of the book describing a project whose laudable aim is to develop a philosophical pedagogy based on Plato’s texts to encourage critical thinking in 8-12 year olds, regardless of socioeconomic background. The modern world indeed has much to learn about pedagogy from Plato’s philosophical method, and Saracco’s book makes a stimulating contribution to the literature on the subject.” (Penelope Murray, Former Professor of Classics at the University of Warwick, UK)