Dear NT:

You wrote:
> Consider these two sentences:
> 1-Conversation as Wilde understood it from the Platonic dialogues was
> inhabited by conflict.
> 2-Conversation as Wilde understood it, from the Platonic dialogues, was
> inhabited by conflict.
>
> Which of these sentences implies necessarily that Wilde had only one
> vision of “conversation”, one “understanding” of what conversation was?
> Which implies that he could have more than one way of looking at it? Are
> either of the sentences ambiguous in this regard?
>
Your question seems irrelevant because the second one does not really make any sense the way it is punctuated. The first comma, if there is one, should go after “conversation.” I would probably always punctuate it that way because
“as…dialogues” appears to be an appositive.

The fact that the sentence includes “from the Platonic dialogues” after the modifying clause means that Wilde got this understanding from the Platonic dialogues. Whether or not he had another idea from another source is irrelevant in this sentence. If he did, then say so. There would be no reason to punctuate without commas as this is a clause in apposition. It would probably be clearer to say, “As Wilde understood it from the Platonic dialogues, conversation was inhabited by conflict.” With that, there is little ambiguity.