He is not a participant in his own dialogue.

他并不是自己这部对话的参与者
He is the author, but not the participant.

他是作者但不是参与者
We don't know precisely what Plato thought, but we are helped,

我们无法明确地知道柏拉图在想什么但至少
at least, by a kind of intellectual autobiography

我们可以通过他写下的而且我们拥有的
that he wrote and that we still have,

理智的书信而得到帮助
in what is conventionally referred to as The Seventh Letter.

即一般所说的《第七封信》
Plato wrote a series of letters that we have.

我们有柏拉图写下的一系列书信
People have argued over the authenticity of them,

即使现在这些书信我认为已经被确认是他的了
although I think by now it is established that they are his.

但是人们还是在争论它们的真实性
In the most famous of these letters, the lengthy seventh one,

在这些书信中最著名的是这冗长的第七封
he gives us, again, something of an autobiography and

在信中他又一次地写下了类似自传的东西
tells us a little bit about why he came to write this book.

而且小小地告诉了我们为什么他写下了这本书