Semantic Ascent and Pedagogical Misdirection in the Platonic Dialogues

This article argues that the Platonic dialogues presuppose a structured, multi-level pedagogical framework that governs how key concepts such as soul, justice, and warfare acquire progressively higher meanings. I propose that this framework can be reconstructed as a "Circle Ladder," consisting of five successive Circle Types—Public, Misleading, Academic, Philosophers', and Heavenly Circles—combined with three interpretive systems: the Public, Word, and Circle Systems. Together these yield seven interpretive levels that systematically reorganize the semantics of recurrent Platonic codewords across dialogues, most centrally in the Republic. The model explains otherwise puzzling features of Platonic pedagogy, initiation, misdirection, and self-reference and suggests that the dialogues reflect a tradition of esoteric instruction whose historical reality merits reconsideration.