The ''Sixth Letter'', or ''Sixth Epistle'', is one of thirteen letters which are traditionally attributed to

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

Background

Unlike the large majority of Plato's major works, the Letters are not

Socratic dialogues Socratic dialogue ( grc, Σωκρατικὸς λόγος) is a genre of literary prose developed in Greece at the turn of the fourth century BC. The earliest ones are preserved in the works of Plato and Xenophon and all involve Socrates as the p ...

. Further, despite their traditional attribution to Plato, the Letters are variously held to be spurious or suspect by modern scholarship. Collectively, the thirteen Letters are commonly grouped together as one larger item (called either Letters or Epistles). In turn, this larger collection of Letters is traditionally the last item in the ''Thrasyllan tetraologies'', a traditional grouping of the major works of Plato which divides them into nine tetraologies of four works apiece. In this arrangement, the Letters occupy the thirty-sixth and final place in the traditional Platonic corpus.

References

Epistles of Plato {{philo-book-stub