在西方，柏拉圖一項被稱作哲學家中的哲學家。柏拉圖散見於各篇對話中有關藝術及美學方面的論述是西方美學和文藝學的重要源頭，舉凡《理想國》有關藝術功用的探討；《大希庇阿斯篇》有關美與形式、質料之間的關係的論述；《會宴篇》有關美的本質的對話，並斷言美是一種先驗的絕對理式，“是永恆的，無始無終的，不生不滅、不增不減的。一切美的事物都以它為源泉，有了它，那一切美的事物才成其為美”，第一次將人類的審美活動上升到哲學層面來考量。凡此種種，都為後世的美學家解決審美體驗、美的本質等問題開了無數方便法門。
本書所選各篇均配有英國著名古典學家本·喬伊特撰寫的導言，既對占希臘社會生活概貌有生動的介紹，又清晰地勾勒出柏拉圖學說的基本構架，十分有益初學者入門。
　PLATO HAD a love-hate relationship with the arts. He must have had some love for the arts， and his influence on western culture generally is a very strong one， and this includes a strong influence on the arts， and on theories of art.
　　Beauty，Justice， and Circle are all examples of what Plato called Forms or Ideas. For Plato， these Forms are perfect Ideals， but they are also more real than physical objects. He called them "the Really Real"， so art is imitation， and the best human life is one that strives to understand and to imitate the Forms as closely as possible.

作者簡介：

　PLATO（424/423 BC-348/347 BC）， was a Classical Greek philosopher， mathematician， student of Socrates， writer of philosophical dialogues， and founder of the

　　Academy in Athens， the first institution of higher earning in the Western world， just as A.N. Whitehead says：

　　The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato， I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings， I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.

　　Plato's dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects， including philosophy， logic， educes， rhetoric， and mathematics.

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