Plato's moral statuary is the act that "moulds in words" (Republic, IX, 588 b 10) "many statues of excellence" (Symposium, 222 a 3-4) and consists of "modeling oneself" (Republic, VI, 500 d 6) on these images. Thus the statuary implies a process that is twofold: on the one hand there is a progress from the images contained in the dialogues to the values they refer to, while, on the other hand, it leads to a conception of platonic ethics as a particular art of living. This second approach follows Michel Foucault's analysis, whereas the first approach stems from an examination of the status of platonic language, a study of the rhetoric used in the dialogues as well as the figures of speech that are resorted to. This twofold approach enables to conclude that defining platonic ethics as ethical statuary is not merely a metaphor; it is an image that must be identified amidst the numerous images created by Plato, so as to provide a key to the reading and understanding of the Dialogues.
