2
THE PLATONIC CORPUS AND MANUSCRIPT TRADITION
Harold Tarrant
Our Platonic corpus, consisting of nine ‘tetralogies’ (groups of four works), goes back at least to the time of Thrasyllus, court intellectual of the Roman Emperor Tiberius in the first-century BCE. The same first tetralogy is also attributed by Albinus (Prologue 4) to a Dercyllides of uncertain date. Tetralogies were systematically furnished with second titles based on the topic under investigation rather than the participant (Diogenes Laertius D. L. 3.57). Some second titles unsurprisingly antedate Thrasyllus, but he presumably added others for the sake of completeness. Some manuscripts preserve both second titles and each dialogue’s ‘character’ as determined by a dichotomic classification at D. L. 3.49–51, though what standing the classification had is unclear, since most ancient Platonists from Plutarch to Olympiodorus afford little attention to characters, second titles and tetralogies alike.
In the tetralogies the multibook works (Republic; Laws) and the thirteen Epistles count as one item each. Many MSS preserve part of the Thrasyllan order. The two oldest date from the ninth century, Paris A (tetralogies 8, 9, and Spuria) and Bodleian B (tetralogies 1–6). Together they cover most of corpus, except the short tetralogy 7. Manuscript A has Armenian origins (Saffrey 2007), and MS D is an important additional witness for the R. MS B incorporates the scholia of Arethas, while MSS T and W are the best representatives of different families that supplement B, both preserving most of tetralogies 1–7 with some of 8. For a different part of the W-group P is the main representative, while Duke (1995:ix–xi) has afforded more weight than is customary to Q. F, which is the principal representative of a different arm of the tradition (Dodds 1959), is accordingly a valuable, if erratic, resource for selected dialogues, in addition to MSS A (Slings et al. 2005:195) and B, etc.
While not good enough to make scholarly emendation redundant, the combined MSS preserve their contents much better than MSS of most classical Greek authors. The ancient commentators, particularly Proclus, Damascius and Olympiodorus, preserve evidence of readings that have since disappeared, while occasionally being unaware of our readings. However, since ancient copyists were just as prone to making mistakes as Byzantine and medieval ones, even the earliest papyri of fragments of Plato’s text, going back to Hellenistic times, are more likely to be wrong than right when deviating from the principal MSS traditions. The most recent editions make considerably more use of the indirect tradition in the apparatus, but this does not result in very much change to the printed text.
Already in the second century CE authors were aware of emendations to the text of Plato that had been inspired by doctrinal rather than scholarly concerns (Dillon 1989). Galen, in his Commentary on the Medical Aspects of the Timaeus, prefers to check at 77b–c a copy stemming from one Atticus, possibly Cicero’s friend (Alline 1915:104–12). Whether it was possible to check superior copies of other dialogues is unknown.
It seems improbable that the Thrasyllan order, found at D. L. 3.56–61, was firmly established much before his time. Rival reading orders were promoted by other Platonists and scholars of the period, and Theon of Smyrna probably postulated different tetralogies (Tarrant 1993:58–84). In any case, it is clear that ancient Platonists generally refused to allow the Thrasyllan order any special status. Aristophanes of Byzantium (D. L. 3.61–2), at the close of the third-century BCE, had arranged 15 works into trilogies. What seems to have persisted was the belief that Plato had arranged dialogues in groupings reminiscent of tragic performances at the Dionysia, and the fact that some dialogues were intended to constitute sequences (e.g. Theaetetus-Sophist-Politicus) seems incontestable.
A recently published papyrus (Sedley 2009b) reveals the rationale for seeing the second tetralogy as a single coherent study. In it the Cratylus is seen as a prelude, while the remaining dialogues are said to deal with methods of definition and division; the Tht. is seen as the more tentative as it is keen to expose errors about knowledge, whereas the Sph. and Plt. are seen as confident.
It is usually assumed that some kind of important collection of texts was organized and retained in the Old Academy, and, by the time of Zeno of Citium’s youth (Antigonus of Carystus at D. L. 3.66), a fee set for consulting it. It is well known that Philip of Opus, alleged author of Epin. (q.v.), was held responsible for the arrangement of the Lg. into 12 books, and the Suda also credits him with the less-than-natural arrangement of R. into 10. The difference in the number of books employed, 10 rather than 12, suggests that the R. was meant to be read with Timaeus and Critias. This evidence is plausible, not compelling, and nothing is known about other early groups, though two further groups of 12 may have been intended, omitting most of the dubia (q.v.). However, the early inclusion of the dubia in the corpus would have soon obscured the rationale behind any ordering of the scrolls. Besides Philip, early Academics known to have had some role connected with the books include Hermodorus (trading in them), Crantor (as first exegete, at least of Ti., Proclus in Ti. 1.76.1–2) and Arcesilaus (‘coming to possess’ them, presumably those once available to his close friend Crantor, D. L. 4.32). The evidence suggests an important role relating to the books, separate from the scholarch’s more public position.
The early history of the corpus is in fact somewhat mysterious, and inseparable from the intractable questions of (a) the state in which Plato had left his writings (especially but not solely Lg.; Nails and Thesleff 2003), and (b) the origin of the dubia. Among these was Min., which Aristophanes of Byzantium already grouped with Lg. (plus the similarly dubious Epin.) in his arrangement, presumably because its proper place was by then believed to be with the corpus. The authorship of Alcibiades II, Hipparchus and Amatores was debated even in antiquity (Aelian VH 8.2; Athenaeus 11.506c; D. L. 9.37).
In antiquity, the preoccupation with understanding the full corpus seems to have been confined to the early Roman imperial period, following Andronicus’ work on the Corpus Aristotelicum. Platonists from Plutarch onward concentrated on the exegesis of what we should regard as ‘mature’ works, and Neoplatonists from Iamblichus onward employed a reduced curriculum of 12 dialogues (plus R. and Lg.). In this the only works sometimes (if controversially) thought ‘early’ today are Alcibiades I, Grg. and Cra.
ALCIBIADES I
Harold Tarrant
The Alcibiades I is a dialogue of moderate length in dramatic form, between two speakers only: Socrates in the guise of a divinely-inspired lover and educator, and the youthful Alcibiades who is slightly too old to prove attractive to men seeking physical gratification. His guardian Pericles is still alive, and he is on the threshold of embarking on a political career – prematurely in Socrates’ view. It is clear that Plutarch (Life of Alcibiades IV) regards it as historically sound, though Attic comedy ignores any relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades, both of whom are satirized separately.
The authorship of the Alc. I has, since Schleiermacher in the early nineteenth century, been more hotly contested than that of any other dialogue. Conclusive arguments for settling the issue are elusive (for opposing views, see Denyer 2001:14–20; Smith 2004). Similarly there is no agreement among those who defend Platonic authorship about whether it is early or late in his output. On virtually every page there is some connection with something elsewhere in the Platonic dialogues, usually in those deemed to be early – if only because what is at issue is the Platonic understanding of Socrates, whose picture is more vivid there. These connections consciously set the work in the Platonic (rather than Socratic) tradition (cf. Theages 128a, 130a), a fact which some see as confirming Platonic authorship, others as undermining it. There are oddities of both language and Socratic philosophy, but such are to be found in most genuine works. It may be argued that its presence in the Corpus speaks for authenticity, or that its actual placement, in the unusually suspicious Fourth Tetralogy, speaks against it.
The work adds to the mythology surrounding the allegedly erotic relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades, and captures a brief but allegedly important episode in Athens’ history, from the first word that Socrates addresses to Alcibiades until the latter’s agreement to reciprocate his love. In doing so it fulfils some of Aristotle’s important requirements for a tragic plot. It opens with Socrates explaining to Alcibiades why after following him about for years he is finally speaking to him, especially when no other lover has been well received. He credits the divine sign, here firmly associated with a guiding god, with having prevented him until now. He expects acceptance because Alcibiades has Alexander-like ambitions to rule the world, and he is the only one who can prepare him to achieve them – if the god allows (Alc. I 105e).
The dialogue naturally falls into three parts. The first, seen as employing Socrates’ traditional elenchus by Neoplatonist interpreters, demonstrates to Alcibiades that he has learned nothing relevant to public policymaking, in particular that he has learned nothing of justice and injustice precisely because he had supposed from childhood that he knew enough about them (110b). Accused of never seeking a credible teacher, Alcibiades suggests that he has learned from ordinary citizens, whose authority is then undermined with reference to their internal disagreement. Alcibiades claims that expediency is more germane to public debate than justice, but is forced to admit that there is no conflict between the two (116d). He remarks on his shaken confidence and vacillating ideas, which Socrates shows to be linked with his false assumption that he knows the most important things when he does not in fact know: the most lamentable form of ignorance (118b). It is then implied that Pericles’ record suggests that he knew no better.
Alcibiades’ tactic now changes. Thrown the lifeline that Athenians generally are ignorant, he claims that his abilities can at least prevail over them. Socrates shows that it is not prevailing over the Assembly that counts, but prevailing over the enemy. Alcibiades has to educate himself above the level of Spartan and Persian rivals (120a). In the second main part, a long, central speech, Socrates compares Alcibiades’ credentials with those of Spartan and Persian kings and imagines how unworthy an opponent for their sons the royal mothers would hold him to be.
Now chastened, Alcibiades asks Socrates how to correct his condition (124b). Seeing that he needs self-care, he is led to search in the final part for the right kind of self-improvement, but the idea of good deliberation proves inadequate. Eventually Socrates helps with the observation that self-care requires self-improvement, not improvement of things we have an interest in (128e), so that, first and foremost, we must know ourselves. This is shown to be neither of the bodies nor the combination of body and soul, but soul alone, with the welcome consequence that Socrates loves Alcibiades alone rather than Alcibiades’ attractive assets (131e). Self-knowledge is like self-seeing, in that it requires a bright and lively mirror (133a), so that rather than gaze into the pupil of another’s eye (a suitably erotic image), we must apparently gaze into the finest core of a soul, in which its wisdom and its divinity reside (133c).
Interpretation of this passage was hotly contested in late antiquity, resulting in textual difficulties (Tarrant 2007); a passage (133c8–17), absent from manuscripts, is sometimes supplied with too little caution from Christian sources. Reconstruction is uncertain. Pagan commentators assume that Alcibiades is being invited to gaze upon Socrates’ mind and upon a god operating within, not upon an external god as the additional lines assume. This section from 128e, which gave the work its ancient subtitle On the Nature of a Human Being, also attracts most attention in modern times from proponents of authenticity and spuriousness alike.
From that point Alcibiades is easily shown that he must aim at personal excellence rather than at tyrannical power (135b), and that excellence alone is the choice for a free man. Alcibiades returns Socrates’ love, and, while the ending is neither aporetic nor paradoxical, it includes an ominous warning that the power of the people may overpower their friendship.
THE APOLOGY OF SOCRATES
Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith
It is impossible to know precisely when Plato wrote the Apology of Socrates, although most scholars believe that it was written early in Plato’s career (q.v. Compositional Chronology). The work has the outward appearance of being a set of three speeches that Socrates actually made when he was tried for impiety in 399 BCE. No one thinks that Plato’s Ap. expresses Socrates’ words verbatim. Some argue, however, that Plato’s version must have captured the substance and tone of what Socrates said, since Plato’s intent must have been to show how unjust was Socrates’ condemnation, and Plato would have defeated his own purpose had he significantly distorted Socrates’ actual words. There were hundreds of witnesses to the speech itself who would have been able to identify serious distortions of the truth (e.g. Burnet 1924:63–4; more recently, Kahn 1996:88–9).
Others, impressed by the work’s exquisite crafting, argue that Plato’s version must be a fabrication, perhaps an account of what Socrates could have or should have said (De Stryker and Slings 1994:1–8). However, the fact that Plato’s Ap. is undeniably the product of literary mastery is obviously compatible with its capturing both the central claims Socrates’ made and the manner in which he made them. Yet another position notes the many incompatible reports about Socrates made by his contemporaries and urges scepticism regarding the historical question (e.g. Morrison 2000:235–65; Prior 2001:41–57). No one denies the importance of the work for Plato’s portrait of Socrates.
According to Plato, Socrates thought he had to answer two sets of accusations, the slanders that had been spread for many years that he was an atheistic nature philosopher and an amoral sophist (Ap. 19b4–c1), and the newer, formal accusations that he corrupted the young, did not believe in the gods the city believed in, and introduced new divinities (24b8–c1). He flatly denies the older accusations, explaining that his reputation for wisdom comes from his failed attempts to find a counter-example to a Delphic oracle that no one is wiser than Socrates himself. He concludes that what the oracle meant is that he ‘. . . is aware that he is in truth worth nothing with respect to wisdom’ (23b2–4). Socrates responds to the formal charges by means of an interrogation of his chief accuser, Meletus, in which Socrates shows that Meletus’ own conception of his accusations is self-contradictory. There is little credible evidence that the prosecution was relying on unspoken, distinctly political charges (Irwin 2005:127–49). For the view that Socrates’ was actually guilty of impiety, see Burnyeat 1997:1–12. For the view that the charge of ‘introducing new divinities’ was especially damaging to Socrates, see McPherran (1996:169–74).
The centrepiece of the defence speech is Socrates’ explanation of why he has engaged in philosophy. He declares that he has actually been ordered by the god to do philosophy and that this is a kind of service to the god (Ap. 23b7–c1, 30a5–7). His mission on behalf of the god is one he must pursue as long as he ‘draws breath and is able’ (29d2–4). The purpose of his mission is to exhort his fellow Athenians to pursue virtue and to understand that ‘. . . from virtue comes money and all good things for men in private and public’ (30b2–4). Since his fellow citizens have failed to grasp this truth, the god has attached him to the city ‘like a gadfly’ (30e5). Socrates explains that his ‘divine voice’, his daimonion (q.v.), warned him not to try to improve the city by going into politics because, were he to do so, he could not possibly survive as an honest person (31c4–2a4).
Socrates is convicted by a narrow majority – had only 30 more jurors found him innocent, he would have been acquitted (36a5–6). The closeness of the vote is remarkable given the long-standing prejudices against him in the minds of many jurors (see 18b1–c1). Because the penalty for conviction was not set by law, Socrates had the opportunity to offer a counter penalty to Meletus’ proposal that he be put to death. Socrates thinks he has been a great benefactor to Athens, and so says he deserves ‘free meals in the Prytaneum’, an honour reserved for Olympic victors and other distinguished Athenians (36d4–7a1). He explains why he cannot offer any penalty, including exile, which would preclude his philosophizing. In the end, he offers to pay a fine of thirty minas, a substantial sum, which he can pay with the help of four friends, one of whom was Plato himself (38b1–9).
In Socrates’ third speech, he first ‘prophesies’ to those who voted for his condemnation that there will be others who will come after him to ‘test’ them as he had tried to do and they will find these others even more difficult. To those who voted for his acquittal, he says that death is nothing to fear: it is either a dreamless sleep or a transmigration to Hades, where he can converse with the other dead. A good person cannot be harmed in life or in death (41c8–d2). He closes by exhorting this group of jurors to ‘trouble’ his sons in the same way as he has troubled his fellow citizens (41e2–2a2).
Scholars have been divided over what Socrates, as Plato portrays him, sought to accomplish. The traditional view is that Socrates was either indifferent to the outcome of the trial or that he was actually inviting martyrdom for the cause of philosophy (e.g. Taylor 1960:156). Against this, recent commentators, noting the closeness of the vote to convict Socrates, argue that Socrates actually convinced many jurors that he deserved to be released. Moreover, if, as he claims, Socrates sees himself as divinely ordained to practise philosophy, he could neither be indifferent to continuing this mission nor could he end his mission by seeking his own death. Trying to gain acquittal in a manner consistent with his moral commitments appears then to have been his only option (Brickhouse and Smith 1989:37–47, 210–34).
CHARMIDES
Gerald A. Press
The Charmides is set in a gymnasium on the day following Socrates’ return from military service in a siege at the outset of the Peloponnesian War (429 BCE). Socrates narrates to an unnamed ‘friend’ his discussion about sôphrosynê (temperance or moderation) with Charmides and Critias, Plato’s uncle and cousin respectively. Our awareness of their later historical lives as notoriously immoderate members of the tyranny that ruled Athens for a short time after it had lost the war establishes situational irony (q.v.) and a political context. The dialogue falls naturally into three parts or acts.
A long prologue (Chrm. 153a–9a) introduces Plato’s familiar thematic contrasts between ordinary socio-political concerns and philosophy, beauty and wisdom and body and soul. Whereas everyone in the gym wants to hear the war news, Socrates is only interested in knowing about the current state of ‘philosophy’ and whether any young men are notable for their beauty and wisdom (153a–d). Through the ruse that Socrates has medical knowledge and knows a cure for the headaches Charmides has been experiencing, he begins to discuss with the young and very beautiful Charmides the nature of the sôphrosynê that his guardian, Critias, has attributed to him.
In the second act, Charmides initially proposes (159b–62b) that sôphrosynê is quietness and that it is modesty. These are private and behavioural accounts appropriate to his age, but easily refuted. For although sôphrosynê, being an excellence (q.v.) must always be admirable (kalon, 159c), good and beneficial (agathon, 160e), quiet behaviours are not always admirable and modest behaviour may not always be good. Instead of thinking for himself as agreed, Charmides now proposes something he has heard, that sôphrosynê is ‘minding one’s own business’ or ‘doing one’s own things’ (to ta heatou prattein, 161b). The same phrase appears in the Republic (433a) as an account of justice (q.v.), and was a political slogan (North 1966:101f.). Here, however, Socrates calls it a riddle, because reading, writing and practicing productive arts such as healing and house building are doing other people’s business (Chrm. 161e) and a city would not be governed temperately or well ordered if every citizen did everything for himself.
The shift to a social and political scope for sôphrosynê coincides with a shift of interlocutor from Charmides to the elder politically active Critias from whom Charmides heard this idea. It exemplifies the pedimental structure (q.v.) often to be found in the dialogues, with discussion moving from an outer, behavioural to an inner, intellectual focus and from lower, existential to higher, conceptual accounts, returning later to the behavioural and existential level.
The argumentation in this third act (162c–75d) is far more complex and difficult than the earlier ones. In response to a series of Socrates’ objections, Critias explains ‘doing one’s own’ as doing or making good things (163e), then as knowing oneself (165b) and finally as knowledge of itself and other sciences or types of knowledge, knowledge of knowledge for short (epistêmê epistêmês, 166c). Responding to Critias’ proud but mistaken confidence that he has knowledge and his misappropriation of Socrates’ ideas, Socrates’ refutation of this view has two stages. First, he argues, it seems strange, perhaps impossible, for something to exercise its specific power on itself, for example, a seeing of seeing or a hearing of hearing (169b). Second, he argues that, even if knowledge of knowledge were possible, it would not be beneficial either to know that one knows something or to know what one knows; but if it is not beneficial, then it cannot be sôphrosynê since it was agreed that excellences are always beneficial. This is true even though a society in which individuals did all and only what they know might seem ideal (a utopia of knowledge or expertise, 173a–d), to which Critias agrees. Real benefit, however, would not derive from this sort of knowledge, but only from knowledge of good and evil (174d). Socrates concludes that they have failed to discover what sôphrosynê is (175b) and Charmides, with Critias’ collusion, declares that he will continue discussing things with Socrates, even if they have to force Socrates into it (176c).
Until the last few decades, most scholars focused on a few specific questions about the last act, particularly the complexities of epistêmê epistêmês (Chen 1978; Dyson 1974; McKim 1985), which seemed relevant to issues in contemporary epistemology. To many, the ending suggests that sôphrosynê is knowledge of good and evil, consistent with the unity of the virtues thought to be Socrates’ or Plato’s doctrine (Santas 1973; Stalley 2000). Others have seen the Chrm. more generally as teaching an interrogative philosophical stance (Hyland 1985) or as a microcosm of Socratic philosophy, the life of critical reason (Schmid 1997).
Recent scholars have more diverse interests. Some investigate the psychosomatic medicine that is a recurrent Platonic theme (cp. Laín Entralgo 1970; McPherran 2002; Murphy 2000). It has been recognized that the twist given to self-knowledge by Critias contradicts the traditional sense of the Delphic admonition ‘Know thyself’ (Benson 2003; Tuozzo 2000). The broadly political dimensions of the dialogue and false utopias that Socrates rejects have also been noted (Landy 1998; Tuozzo 2001). Several have observed a puzzling pattern, Socrates criticizing ideas here he elsewhere champions: doing your own thing, self-knowledge, knowledge of knowledge, culminating in his paradoxical, seeming rejection of sôphrosynê itself as either impossible or useless (Carone 1998; Tsouna 1997).
These problems can be resolved by a more holistic and contextual approach beginning from the observation that Socrates’ therapeutic educational mission with his interlocutors, like Plato’s with his readers, is guidance towards recognizing their lack of knowledge and sôphrosynê and pursuit of them through open-ended conversational dialectic (q.v.) rather than by propounding doctrines. It is important that sôphrosynê was semantically rich, aligned in various contexts with individual shame, self-control, moderation, purity, personal orderliness and good political order and opposed to folly, insolence or violence, courage, intemperance or licentiousness and wantonness (North 1966; Rademaker 2005). At the dialogue’s dramatic date, sôphrosynê was the locus of conflict between a traditional value and sophistic criticism while also politically contested as a term for Spartan identity but used rhetorically by Athenian oligarchs (Thucydides, History 3.82.8). Given Critias and Charmides as important oligarchs, their use of the Spartan-oligarchic political slogan, the epistemic utopia idealized by Critias (Chrm. 172a, 173d), his oligarchic reinterpretation of the Delphic motto to evade its traditional sense of controlling oneself and remaining within the bounds of appropriate human behaviour (164d f.), the Chrm. is a broad investigation of sôphrosynê that subsumes ethical and political meanings both traditional and contemporary.
As is usual in the dialogues, the conceptual theme, sôphrosynê, is dramatized in the resonances of characters’ historical lives with their dialogical words and deeds. Chaerephon, Critias and Charmides enact lack of sôphrosynê in different ways as Socrates enacts its possession both by his carefully described recovery from sexual arousal (155d) and by his modest, playful but rigorous philosophic inquiry. Critias and Charmides, the future intemperate oligarchs, both speak and act here in ways that are intemperate and quasityrannical. Socrates shows us the true sôphrosynê in contrast with them and with the ‘mad’ (153b) democratic Chaerephon as well.
The Chrm. thus canvasses many major contemporary uses of sôphrosynê, suggesting their limits, and the importance of a cognitive component. Given Socrates’ regular role in the dialogues as representative in word and deed of an alternative way of life called ‘philosophy’ (q.v.), the dialogue also suggests that unreflective traditionalism, sophistic rationalism and the contested contemporary political and rhetorical uses to which sôphrosynê was being put are transcended by something at once more rational, critical and intellectual than tradition and more modest and self-controlled than was understood by the politicians, democratic and oligarchic alike.
CLITOPHON
Francisco Gonzalez
Lacking a setting or dramatic date, the Clitophon begins with Socrates reproaching the eponymous pupil for speaking badly of him behind his back. Clitophon replies that while he has been critical of some things in Socrates he has also been always ready to praise other things. Socrates asks to hear of both his positive and negative points so as to learn and become better, and then remains silent while Clitophon delivers what proves to be rather more blame than praise. Praising and even imitating Socrates’ exhortations to virtue, Clitophon complains that Socrates never takes the next step of teaching us what virtue is. Clitophon claims to have been converted and to want nothing more than to be a just person, but when he has asked Socrates’ companions and Socrates himself for an account of what justice is and how it is to be attained, he has received only unsatisfactory and even contradictory answers. Imagine being persuaded to become a doctor, but then finding no one who can tell you what medicine is and how it can be learned! Clitophon therefore claims to have arrived at the conclusion that Socrates either does not know what he is talking about or is keeping his knowledge from others. In either case, Clitophon has no use for him and would rather go to Thrasymachus (q.v. sophists), who does have something to say about justice and is willing to teach it. The only other time we encounter Clitophon in the Platonic corpus is in the Republic where he has already become a pupil of Thrasymachus and comes to his defence.
As many scholars consider the Clit. to be spurious, much of the scholarship has focused on the related questions of the dialogue’s authenticity and its purpose. With regard to the latter issue, Slings (1999:128–34) and Gaiser (1959:30, 110–11) have both seen the Clit. as bringing out the protreptic character of the Socratic elenchus, even if they have interpreted this differently. Depending on one’s view of the relation between the Socratic method and Plato’s own philosophical method, the dialogue could also be seen as addressing the protreptic character of Plato’s philosophy. At issue in the dialogue would then be whether this characteristic is a weakness (with Clitophon, as did Grote 1865: vol. 3:22–3) or a strength (against Clitophon).
Already in antiquity Plato’s dialogues were criticized for having a primarily protreptic function. Cicero has Varro in the Academica observe that the Socratic writings of Plato and others show that ‘Socrates’ discourse was exhausted in the praise of virtue and in the exhortation of people to study virtue’ (I.4.16). But an important early testimony of Dicaearchus, the pupil of Aristotle and Theophrastus (Dorandi 1991:125–6), shows that not long after Plato’s death criticisms like Clitophon’s were directed against the protreptic character of the dialogues: the very success of the dialogues in exhorting so many to the pursuit of philosophy was seen as encouraging a superficiality that does not go beyond such exhortation and its obvious truisms.
Why then would Plato write a dialogue that appears to confirm such criticisms? Even if Plato wanted to draw attention to the protreptic character of the Socratic method and perhaps of his own dialogues, why would he do so in the form of an unanswered critique? One way of avoiding this question is to deny that Plato is the author. The best recent discussion is Slings (1999:222–7), who concludes that no linguistic case can be made against authenticity. Slings also rejects arguments based on formal composition and overall style, concluding with some hesitation that the dialogue is authentic. Yet, that such arguments are subjective is confirmed by the fact that in the 1981 version of his book, Slings, on the basis of the very arguments rejected in 1999, concluded that ‘the Clitophon was not written by Plato, but by a very close and intelligent pupil of Plato, who wished to advertise his master’s ideals of philosophical literature’ (Slings 1981:257).
Whether one follows Slings in 1981 or Slings in 1999, the question of the meaning and purpose of the dialogue of course remains. Even if one believes for stylistic reasons that the dialogue was not written by Plato, one could still hold that ‘The Clitophon is written from a wholly Platonic point of view’ (Slings 1999:227; see also 127) and therefore could have been written only by a student who fully understood Plato’s aims (Slings 1999:231). Indeed, apparently the only reason for the switch in Slings’ position between 1981 and 1999 is that he comes to find the hypothesis of such a perfect pupil too far-fetched. But then we are back to our question: why would either Plato or a faithful pupil write an unanswered critique of Socrates?
One other external solution has been proposed: the absence of a concluding response to Clitophon’s criticism has led many modern scholars (though apparently no one in antiquity) to the view that the Clit. is unfinished. Slings (1999) documents the history of this view (Slings 1999:10–13) and then proceeds to present arguments against it (ibid.:13–18). One argument appears especially strong: through his ironic assumption that Clitophon’s praise and blame will accurately describe his strengths and weaknesses, Socrates shows at the very beginning of the dialogue that he intends to make no response, but instead to listen demurely (Clit. 15).
If one believes that the dialogue is complete and that it was written either by Plato himself or by a faithful if perhaps somewhat clumsy student, then one is left with the following interpretative options: (a) that the ‘Socrates’ criticized in the dialogue is not Socrates (ibid.:3–4, 209–15); (b) that Plato saw the critique as valid against Socrates but as not applying to himself and therefore sought through the dialogue to distance himself from Socrates (Stefanini 1932:I.192–3, 204, 206–7); (c) that Plato saw the critique as unanswerable but not damning; for example, Roochnik holds that there can be no response to Clitophon because Clitophon is a radical relativist and philosophy is incapable of refuting radical relativism (1984:139–42); (d) that the dialogue implies an answer to the critique and can for some reason only imply it. Since Clitophon’s case rests on a sharp dichotomy between protreptic as what turns one to the pursuit of virtue, and teaching as what provides virtue, one way of defending the fourth option is to argue that the dialogue wants us to question, weaken and perhaps even reject this dichotomy. For example, Gaiser (1959) and Gonzalez (2002) argue that Socrates’ protreptic is constructive because it is capable itself of in some way providing the virtue towards which it turns one. Since virtue, as such a process, cannot be taught to someone who, like Clitophon, belittles the process, Socrates’ silence at the end can be explained.
Nonetheless, even if the Clit. were neither by Plato nor Platonic in content, it would still be a valuable record of an ancient critique of Plato’s Socrates that is undoubtedly shared by many readers of the Socratic dialogues today and hence merits serious consideration.
CRATYLUS
Robbert van den Berg
In the Cratylus Socrates explores the thesis of the eponymous character that the correctness of names (orthotês tôn onomatôn) depends uniquely on nature (physis) and does not involve convention (nomos) in any way. Names in this context include both personal names (e.g. ‘Socrates’) and common names (e.g. ‘horse’). The issue of the correctness of names was a topic discussed in Sophistic circles, as Socrates reminds his audience (Cra. 384a–b), yet his own discussion of it is clearly informed by Plato’s own philosophical theories, including that of the forms (q.v.). In part for this reason the Cra. is often considered to belong to the middle period dialogues that were written before the Republic (q.v.), even though some scholars tend to date it later, while it is also possible that Plato at a later time in his career updated an earlier version of the text (Sedley 2003:6–14).
The dialogue can be divided into three parts. In the first part Socrates examines, together with Hermogenes, Cratylus’ riddling claim that the correctness of names depends on nature alone and that this correctness is the same for those who speak Greek and other languages alike. Cratylus refuses to clarify his position and during the greatest part of the dialogue stands by silently while Socrates attempts to make sense of his claim. Elsewhere (Theaetetus 179e–80c; q.v.), this behaviour is associated with the followers of Heraclitus and at the very end of the dialogue Cratylus indeed declares himself to be one. Socrates starts by refuting Hermogenes’ view that the correctness of names is merely a matter of convention. Hermogenes holds that when we agree to call one type of animal ‘man’ and another ‘horse’, these are their correct names. When we next agree to call them the other way around, ‘man’ will be the correct name of a horse and vice versa. Against this thesis, Socrates argues as follows. There exist stable natures of things and actions, which may be used as criteria against which to judge particular things or actions: a good knife is a knife that has been made in accordance with its nature and thus performs its function of cutting well. The same holds for an activity. Therefore, if names are tools and naming is an activity, correct names and naming correctly depend on nature, not on convention. Names are the tools of (Platonic) dialecticians, who use them to teach by dividing up reality. A correct name functions as a didactic tool since it is somehow capable of expressing the nature of its object. A name does so because of its ‘form’ (eidos). This name-form is best understood as the meaning of a word. The name-form is the same in all languages, be it that it is expressed in different pieces of phonetic matter (i.e. in the sounds of the various languages). Take the names for horse in Greek and English: the sounds ‘hippos’ and ‘horse’ may be different, yet they contain the same name-form, that is, they both mean the same thing. Note that even though the name-form ‘horse’ is somehow related to the nature, that is, form of horse, these forms are not identical. The name ‘horse’ is after all not itself a horse (Kretzmann 1971:130).
In the second part of the dialogue Socrates shows how names may actually instruct us: when analysed correctly they reveal the reasons of the name-givers of old to name the things as they did. The gods, for example, are called theoi because the visible gods, that is, the heavenly bodies, can be seen to ‘run’ (thein, 397c–d). Modern scholarship frequently refers to this type of analysis as ‘etymology’, originally a Stoic term, and which should not be confused with etymology in the modern sense. Socrates continues to produce a massive collection of these etymologies, the function of which has been much debated in recent scholarship. In part, it is certainly intended to criticize widespread contemporary attempts to derive a deeper understanding of the nature of things by studying their names (Baxter 1992:86–163), yet Socrates’ etymologies seem too good to be merely a parody (see Barney 2001:49–80; Sedley 2003:75–146).
It is only in the third and final part (Cra. 427d ff.), though, when he finally manages to draw Cratylus into the discussion, that Socrates openly criticizes etymology as a source of knowledge. Having seemingly vindicated Cratylus’ claim, Socrates now confronts him with the fact that just as portraits allow for degrees of likeness, so names may have varying degrees of correctness. When a name is in certain respects unlike its object, however, it may still continue to function as a name, since we still understand what it refers to. Socrates puts this down to convention, which thus appears to play a role in the correctness of names after all. We judge the degree of correctness of names by comparing them to the things themselves. But if we have direct access to the things themselves, why bother about examining them indirectly by etymologizing their names? More in particular, Socrates asks Cratylus to reconsider his Heracleitean belief that everything is forever in flux. For, from Socrates’ etymologies it had emerged that the ancient name-givers all subscribed to Heraclitus’ flux doctrine. Yet, since they may well have been mistaken, we should investigate for ourselves the question whether Heraclitus was right or that there exist at least some unchanging entities such as beauty (q.v.) itself, a rather explicit reference to the theory of forms. Cratylus, however, turns a deaf ear to Socrates’ appeal to investigate the matter and leaves.
What, then, is the bottom line of the Cra.? Many scholars assume that it is the condemnation of etymology as a source of knowledge. The Cra., however, is not just about the philosophical abuse of names, but also about their proper use. Dialectic is the method to investigate things for ourselves – precisely what Cratylus declines to do – and names are the instruments by means of which this is to be done, as the Eleatic visitor demonstrates in the Sophist and the Statesman (Van den Berg 2008:8–13).
CRITO
Charles M. Young
In 399 BCE, Socrates of Athens was tried and convicted of impiety, and given the death penalty. Plato’s Crito purports to relate a conversion between Socrates and a friend and age-mate, Crito, shortly before Socrates’ execution is to be carried out. After some preliminary banter (Cri. 43a1–4b5), at times poignant (see esp. 44a1–b5), Crito urges Socrates to take advantage of plans that Crito and others have made to secure Socrates’ escape (44b5–6a8). As considerations in favour of Socrates’ acquiescence, Crito first claims (a) that Socrates’ execution will cost Crito an irreplaceable friend (44b6–8) and (b) that it will make Crito look bad in the eyes of the many, whether deservedly so or not (44b9–c5). He also alleges (c) that Socrates would be doing wrong in allowing his enemies to succeed in bringing about his death when he need not do so (45c5–8); (d) that it would also be wrong to abandon his children to the fate of orphans (45c8–d8); and, to sum up, (e) that if the execution takes place, everyone – Socrates and all his friends – will have behaved badly in every stage of the business (45d8–6a4). In between these points in favour of escaping, Crito tries to defuse various points against escaping, arguing that the costs to himself and others for aiding and abetting the escape would be minimal (45a6–b7) and that Socrates will be safe in exile (45b7–c4).
Socrates responds by moving to the level of principle (46b1–c6). Ignoring (a) as irrelevant, he first disposes of Crito’s opinion, explicit in (b) and implicit in (e), that it matters what other people think (46c6–7c7). He also ignores (c) and (d), except for their presupposition that it matters whether what one is doing is right or wrong. In fact, he argues, given (f) that what really matters is living well and rightly (48b3–9); the only thing that matters in acting is whether one is doing right or wrong (48b12–c2), with doing wrong understood to include harming people (49c7–8). Thus he reaches the conclusion (g) that one should never do wrong (49b8) and the question whether Socrates should disobey the law according to which the judgements of courts are authoritative (50b6–8) and escape comes down to the question whether it would be right for him to escape (48b11–c2).
To settle this question, Socrates advances a further principle: (h) that one should do what one has agreed to do (49e6–7). He also suggests (j) that escaping would harm those least deserving of harm (49e9–50a3) and (k) that escaping would involve breaking an agreement (50a2–3). Crito accepts (h) but pleads incomprehension in the face of (j) and (k). Socrates then at 50a8–4d1 personifies the Laws of Athens and imagines what they might say to him if he did choose to disobey the law.
The Laws’ speech is dense, complex and highly rhetorical. But they do want to be understood, and so they tell us at 51e how to disentangle their various lines of thought. They say that he who disobeys them does wrong in three ways, because he disobeys us who are his parents, because he disobeys us who are his benefactors and because he disobeys the laws without persuading them that they are in some way wrong. By this they mean that they have three arguments leading to the conclusion that he who disobeys does wrong, one involving an alleged similarity between the Laws and one’s parents, another appealing to the fact that the laws have benefited him and a third invoking an agreement they think he has made to ‘persuade or obey’ (hereafter, simply ‘obey’) them.
The Laws’ strategy in each of these three arguments is the same. They take obligations that anyone will agree one has – that it is wrong (a) to harm or do violence to (hereafter, simply ‘harm’) one’s parents, (b) to harm one’s benefactors and (c) not to do what one has agreed to do – and argue that each applies to a citizen who disobeys the law.
(1)Since it is wrong to harm one’s parents (51c2), and worse to harm the laws than to harm one’s parents (51c1–2) and disobeying the law harms the laws (50a9–b5), it is wrong to disobey.
(2)Since it is wrong to harm one’s benefactors (unstated), and the laws are one’s benefactors (see 50d5–e1; see also 50e2 and 51c7–d1) and disobeying the laws harms the laws (50a9–b5), it is wrong to disobey.
(3)Since it is wrong not to do what one has agreed to do (borrowed from Socrates at 49e6–7), and a citizen has agreed to obey the laws (51e1–4), it is wrong for a citizen to disobey.
When Crito has no response to these arguments, Socrates decides to remain in prison and await his execution (54e1–2).
Several points about these arguments are worthy of note. First, the first argument does not depend on the idea that it is wrong to disobey one’s parents (pace Brickhouse and Smith 1994:143–9; Kraut 1984:92–103). It rather depends on the idea that it is wrong to harm one’s parents; suitably qualified, this has a chance of being true. Second, Socrates himself thinks that harming is always wrong; the Laws say only that harming one’s parents or one’s benefactors is wrong; their claims, suitably qualified, have a better chance of being true than Socrates’. This is one reason to think that the Laws may not speak for Socrates; for others, see Young 2006: notes 4, 8 and 11. Third, (1) and (2) depend on the idea that disobeying causes harm; (3) does not. So to win the day, the Laws need only the claim that disobeying causes harm or the claim that a citizen has agreed to obey them, but not both. Finally, the requirement to obey enters into all three arguments. But according to (1) and (2), one is alleged to have an obligation to obey because of the consequences of disobeying (the harm such failure causes), whereas according to (3), the obligation to obey is itself alleged to be a consequence of one’s having agreed to obey.
Nearly everything about the Cri. is controversial. Perhaps the most important questions are how to understand Socrates’ defence of his idea (g) that one should never do wrong (49b8) and how to understand the Laws’ claim that a citizen is required to ‘persuade or obey’ them (51b3–4, 51b9–c1 and 51e7). For a sense of the range of interpretative options for the first question, see Gomez-Lobo (1999:chs 6–9), Vlastos (1991a:chs 7–8) and Young (1997). For the second, see Brickhouse and Smith (1994:sec. 5.2), Kraut (1984:ch. 3) and Young (1997).
DUBIA AND SPURIA
John Dillon
A notable feature of the Platonic Corpus (like some other ancient collections) is the inclusion of works the majority of modern scholars – and in some cases ancient scholars – deem spurious. Suspected works include Alcibiades I, Clitophon, Epinomis (often credited in antiquity to Philippus of Opus, probably correctly) and even Hippias Major; their authenticity has also found defenders in recent years, some strenuous. This article concentrates on two further categories to be covered here: (a) works now almost universally regarded as un-Platonic, but included by the first-century CE editor Thrasyllus in his tetralogical system (and hence classified as dubia); and (b) works which had in antiquity been relegated to an Appendix (and so categorized as spuria). The former group comprises the following: Alc. II, Amatores (or Anterastae, ‘Rivals in Love’), Hipparchus, Theages, Minos; the latter: Axiochus, Definitions, On Justice, On Virtue, Demodocus, Eryxias, Sisyphus. They vary from the relatively well turned and interesting to the schematic and simpleminded. I will deal with them in turn, after first contributing some reflections on the composition of the corpus as a whole.
We cannot be sure whether any dubia, for example, Epin., Hp. Ma., Clit. or Alc. I, were already incorporated in the original edition of Plato’s works, probably put together under Xenocrates (Alline 1915:46–50) and, if so, on what grounds. Xenocrates may have welcomed such documents as useful products of the Academy, compatible with what Plato would have accepted, and thus the edition was not intentionally confined to Plato’s works. We should try to penetrate the state of mind of whoever initially included these and other works that we do not deem genuine, and of whose origin they must surely have been aware. If the concept of an official Old Academic edition or collection is rejected, the next candidate will be Aristophanes of Byzantium (c. 257–180 BCE), second Head of the Alexandrian Library, who arranged at least fifteen of the dialogues into trilogies. However, since Aristophanes only arranged some dialogues, he hardly concerned himself with dubia or spuria, but internal evidence (both of language and of philosophical content, including antistoic themes) suggests that many of them crept into the corpus somehow during the period of the New Academy. Otherwise, prior to Thrasyllus, we have only the shadowy Dercyllides (Albinus, Isagoge 4) to whom one might plausibly attribute the tetralogical arrangement, but we have no idea what his contribution may have been.
We must, however, assume that during the evolution of our corpus, works which were plainly not Platonic (e.g. Alc. II, Just., Virt. or Demod.) were admitted to the collection, albeit in a subordinate capacity, by editors aware of their spuriousness, who felt that they contributed to Platonist doctrine, perhaps as teaching aids for beginners (a role later played by both Alc. I and Thg.). At any rate, we need not imagine that ancient editors or readers, either of these or of the collected Epistles, were necessarily deceived concerning their status.
The topic of the short Alc. II is overtly (as represented by its subtitle in MSS), ‘prayer’ (proseukhê) – Socrates finds Alcibiades on his way to offer a prayer to the gods – but in reality it concerns rather the Stoic ‘paradox’ that all those not wise are mad, and then the subversion of this in a ‘Socratic’ direction. A distinctly ‘Xenophontic’ (i.e. rather sententious) Socrates, starting from this Stoicizing position, proceeds to argue that it is actually better not to possess ‘technical’ knowledge unless one also knows what is best, that is, how and when best to apply one’s knowledge (Alc. II 146e–7d). The work exhibits echoes of Alc. I; so, it must postdate Alc. I. It is probably a product of the New Academy, designed to upstage the Stoics.
Rather different is the case of Amat., the topic of which, as indicated in its subtitle, is the nature of ‘philosophy’. Couched in a narrative by Socrates (on the model of Charmides or Lysis), this involves a dispute between two rivals in love whom Socrates engages over the relative merits of physical training (gymnastikê) or cultural pursuits (mousikê). The supporter of the latter, who defines philosophy as the acquisition of ever more technical knowledge (Amat. 133c), might be expected to find support from Socrates, but Socrates cuts him down, by dismissing this in favour of the ideal of self-knowledge. Unlike Alc. II, this could be a product of the later Old Academy, and embodies an attack on Peripatetic philosophy, which could be seen as encouraging polymathia.
Hipparch., about which doubts were expressed by Aelian (Varia Historia VIII.2), is a curious production, involving a disputation of Socrates with an unnamed ‘companion’ on the moral status of ‘gain’ (kerdos). The companion begins with a simpleminded denunciation of the money-grubber, or ‘lover of gain’, which Socrates then picks apart by getting him to agree that gain is useful, and so, is a good, and all men desire it. The dialogue acquires its name not from a participant, but from the Athenian tyrant Hipparchus, son of Peisistratus, who is dragged into the discussion as the author of the precept ‘Do not deceive a friend’. The purpose of the work seems dialectical rather than ‘ethical’, which would be consistent with a New Academic date.
Thg. is more polished, centring on a request by Socrates’ old friend Demodocus for advice on the education of his son Theages, who is badgering him to be allowed to study statecraft with a sophist. The employment of the Socratic elenchus is here rather ham-handed, as is usual in doubtful works, but its most un-Platonic aspect is a long speech by Socrates concerning his daimonion, or divine sign. The statement that its influence is always negative is Platonic enough, but Socrates’ description of its power in respect of his would-be students, is quite un-Platonic. It seems designed almost to elevate Socrates to the status of a divine man. It could, from the linguistic and stylistic point of view, conceivably be a product of the Old Academy, but may be much later. Its genuineness, however, was never doubted in antiquity.
Min. is a brief discussion between Socrates and an unnamed companion, and begins with an attempt to define ‘law’. There is a central digression involving the excellent education given directly by Zeus to Minos, the legendary Cretan law giver, from whom the work gets its name. Superficially it serves as a more Socratic introduction to the topic of Laws, but its dialectical nature and structure are reminiscent of Hipparch.
Among works relegated to the Appendix as spuria, Ax. takes the form of a protreptikos, calculated to dispel the fear of death, in which Socrates, at the urging of Cleinias, delivers a discourse to Cleinias’ father Axiochus, who thinks that he is dying. It is well composed and quite lively, but its language is notably un-Platonic, many forms being otherwise unattested before late Hellenistic times. It also draws upon an established tradition of consolation-literature. It may be dated to the last period of the New Academy.
Def. was attributed in ancient times to Speusippus (Anon. Proleg. 26), and an item by that name is listed among his works by Diogenes Laertius (D. L. 4.5), but what we have seems rather to be a product of multiple authorship. It consists of a list of 185 definitions of philosophical terms, in no obvious order and often providing multiple explanations. More precisely, there is a first section (Def. 411a–14e), in which the terms are arranged according to the scholastic division of philosophy, first formalized by Xenocrates, into physics, ethics and logic (including epistemology), followed by a somewhat shorter section (414e–16d), exhibiting no order whatever. While it may partly originate with Speusippus, it has the appearance of a work to which anyone could add, and a number of the definitions reflect Stoic formulations.
Just. and Virt. are among several dialogues described as akephaloi (‘headless’) in a list preserved by Diogenes Laertius (3.57), which contained many lost works along with Halcyon (a lively little work, preserved in the corpus of Lucian, though much earlier). ‘Headless’ cannot mean simply that they lack a frame-story or conversation, since that is common. It highlights rather their extreme lack of any introductory element. The Just. begins ‘Can you tell me what is the just?’, and the Virt., ‘Is virtue something teachable?’ In either case, Socrates is presented as addressing an anonymous interlocutor. Both dialogues last for just over three pages. In the former, we are faced mainly with a scholastic exercise in method, but the conclusion is reached that no one is willingly unjust. In the latter, Socrates concludes that virtue is neither teachable nor a gift of nature. These may be no more than student exercises, drawing respectively on such works as Gorgias, Republic bk 1 and Men., and cannot be dated.
Demod. is also ‘headless’. It falls into four parts, only the first of which explicitly involves Demodocus (father of Theages). This part comprises an argument by Socrates against the coherence of the concept of taking counsel together (symbouleuesthai). The other three parts address other questions of ‘practical ethics’: (a) is it right to condemn someone after listening only to their accuser? (b) who is at fault (hamartanei), he who asks unsuccessfully for a loan or he who refuses? (c) in whom is it better to put one’s trust, in strangers or in friends and relations? The arguments appear to be exercises in ‘equipollence’, and compatible with the New Academy rather than with the Platonic tradition.
Eryx. concerns the ethical status of wealth, and the nature of true wealth, consequent on Socrates and a group of friends viewing a Syracusan ambassador – described as the richest man in Sicily, but also the wickedest. Socrates argues that only the wise man is rich, while Critias counters that without some wealth one cannot even exercise one’s wisdom. Socrates, however, comes back with the argument that riches are only advantageous to those who know how to use them, viz. the wise. The dialogue is well composed and exhibits no distinctively late features. It has been argued that the examination of the distinctively Stoic thesis that ‘only the wise man is rich’ necessitates a New Academic provenance, but the theme of the self-sufficiency of virtue was also explored in the Academy under Polemon.
The Sis., lastly, is concerned, like Demod. I, with the theme of ‘taking counsel’. The scene appears to be set, most oddly, not in Athens, but in Pharsalus in Thessaly, where Socrates is conversing with a prominent citizen of that town, Sisyphus, who had to miss an interesting talk by the musician Stratonicus the previous day by reason of having to attend a meeting of the City Council. The wisdom of consulting with one’s peers, irrespective of their expertise or wisdom, had plainly become something of a topos in the Hellenistic period, if not before. This would seem to be a product of the New Academic period.
EUTHYDEMUS
Monique Dixsaut
The Euthydemus is entirely governed by ambiguity. The Socratic art of argument, dialectic (q.v.), is introduced facing its double, the art of ‘fighting with words’ or eristic. The aim is to bring their differences to the fore, but the dialogue also reveals to what extent their practises are formally identical. The characters move in couples: Euthydemus and his elder brother Dionysodorus, who late in life have discovered the most refined version of pancratium, the art of refuting any assertion whether true or false; young Cleinias and his lover Ctesippus, Socrates and Crito, or Socrates (who relates) and Socrates (who dialogues). A conversation between Socrates and Crito at the beginning and at the end provides the framework of the dialogue: Socrates’ long account of the discussion he had the previous day. It is divided into three eristic sections separated by two dialectical ones.
The two sophists pretend that they can teach excellence (q.v.; aretê) and exhort anyone to philosophize, the rules being that the interlocutor agrees to answer, that he does not answer by means of another question and that he adds no determination or qualification, thus committing a ‘paraphtegm’. In order to make a demonstration (epideixis) of their ‘protreptic’ knowledge, the sophists first ask Cleinias whether those who learn are wise or ignorant, and whether they learn what they know or what they do not know. By compelling the boy to agree that in any case it is impossible to learn, the two brothers state from the outset what essentially differentiates them from the philosopher: a sophist never learns anything, whatever the length of time he spends ‘rolling about among arguments’ (Sophist 264a2). Due to his refusal to cram his memory with what he may have said, he is doomed to an indefinitely repetitive present.
Socrates explains to a perplexed Cleinias that the sophists are only preparing him to find out about ‘the correctness of names’, and then he questions the boy in his turn to give the conversation a more serious turn. Both agree that all men certainly wish to be happy (eu prattein) and believe that it means having many good things, but Socrates shows that what matters is not possessing them, for nothing can benefit us unless we make good use of it. Since nothing can bring about right use except knowledge (epistêmê), knowledge (q.v.) is in fact the only good worth having. But the nature of such knowledge remains unspecified.
Socrates then surrenders the conversation to the two eristics, who seize the occasion to complement a first series of paradoxes following from the sophistic theory of logos. Each single argument is cut to the familiar Eleatic pattern: ‘is’ and ‘is not’ obey a strict law of contradiction, any middle being excluded. So, to wish that Cleinias becomes virtuous is to wish him not to be (i.e. not virtuous): to be dead; similarly, knowing excludes every form of not knowing, hence the impossibility of ignorance, false statement and contradiction. Socrates is quite familiar with the latter argument, having heard it from the followers of Protagoras, but the Socratic Antisthenes may be the target (Brancacci 2005:217–23). Since their teaching has turned out to consist in nothing but refutation, the sophists make themselves ridiculous when they argue that refutation is impossible.
Before resuming his discussion with Cleinias, so as to give an example of how a dialogue should be conducted, Socrates insists that the sophists must be listened to because, in spite of everything, they urge one to philosophize (that is probably the reason why, the day before, his daimonion had prevented Socrates from leaving the palestra). The highest good has been identified with a knowledge that must be both a science of production and a science of use, but now neither the art particular to the orator nor the art of leading men (strategy or politics) fulfils that demand. For just as the general does not know what to do with his quarry and hands it over to the statesman, so the geometer hands his to the dialectician, Cleinias explains (Crito doubts Cleinias could have said that, and Socrates is not quite sure he did: the story comes to us as filtered all along through ‘Socrates’ ironic screen’) (Friedländer 1964:179). A royal art has emerged into view, but if it makes men good and useful, that will be only thanks to a knowledge which has no object but itself, that is, the art of making others good and useful (cf. Charmides 166e ff.). Socrates is no more a teacher than the sophist since neither of them is able to teach something.
The eristics make a pretence of coming to the rescue. From Socrates’ admission that he knows one thing, they move on to the conclusion that Socrates knows, has always known and will always know, everything. Confounding that which is other with that which is not, and using the equivocation of words such as ‘his’ or ‘yours’, the sophists establish that any man who is a father is a father of all and that Ctesippus’ father is a dog. So the reader is led to understand the necessity to introduce qualifications in the law of contradiction by specifying ‘when’ and ‘to what respect’. Next it is the theory of participation (q.v.) which comes in for its share of derision: to say that a beautiful thing is beautiful because a certain beauty is present with it (para) amounts to saying that if an ox is present with you, you are an ox. Since Socrates and the ox are both physical particulars, the only possible mode of presence is a physical one, and any difference between forms and particular objects is denied. Dionysodorus’ ox is the comic equivalent of Parmenides’ sail (Parmenides 131B–C; cf. Sprague 1962:29), and both point to the danger of using spatial terms like being ‘in’ or ‘over’: here, the sophists come nearest to being philosophers.
Are those sophisms borrowed from some collection or from a treatise written by Euthydemus, or did Plato make them up himself? No one will ever know, but in any case it is clear that he groups and connects them after a strategy of his own, and in such a way as to provide a key to them. While Aristotle’s Soph. El. proceeds according to an ordered listing of the causes of paralogisms, Plato is more interested in their content: the problems they raise. Socrates clarifies the semantic equivocation of learning (manthanein), ‘acquiring knowledge’ or ‘understanding’, but for him the difficulty remains and will be solved only by venturing the hypothesis of reminiscence (Meno 80e f.). The Eleatic denial of change and becoming, along with an eristic technique, is applied to major problems of Plato’s philosophy: learning, is virtue teachable, forms and participation, capacity (dunamis) active and passive, due measure, the existence of an opposite of being, sameness and difference, otherness and not being, etc. Each will prove to be dealt very seriously in later dialogues.
When Socrates suggests again that Crito and his sons should follow the eristics’ teaching his friend remains reluctant. He does not seem to consider, however, that Socrates would be a decent teacher – a doubt strengthened by the conversation he just had with ‘somebody’ who, after listening to the debate, has concluded that philosophy ‘is worth nothing’. It hardly matters whether Isocrates is referred to here (as is probably the case) or not. Socrates constructs an hybrid type who stands halfway between philosophy and politics and claims that his sophia betters that of those he calls ‘sophists’ (Dixsaut 1986), those to whom philosophy deals only with words, not realities – and that it also betters the sophia of those to whom politics is just a question of action. By borrowing from politics its ‘great subjects’, he wants to avoid the logomachy threatening any philosophical discussion, while at the same time he refrains from getting involved in the dangers and fights of public life. Socrates does not tackle the heart of the matter and seems to hold that a logic of the value of the intermediate (metaxu) is enough to refute this anonymous character, since it shows that what stands midway between two good things is inferior to both.
The outcome of the dialogue is the rejection of philosophy conceived as the pursuit of an eristic as well as a rhetorical sophia. Dialectic alone has the power of converting the souls of those who, like Cleinias, are able to learn by themselves, which is arguably the only possible meaning in Plato of the word ‘protreptic’.
EUTHYPHRO
Roslyn Weiss
Plato’s Euthyphro raises the question, ‘What is holiness?’, one of the many ‘What is x?’ questions that are central to Socrates’ conversations with his interlocutors. (Other dialogues explore the nature of virtue, justice, courage, temperance and friendship.) The Euthphr.’s question is prompted by Socrates’ indictment in 399 BCE on the charge of impiety (and of corrupting the youth), which brings him to the court of the King Archon where he fortuitously meets Euthyphro who is there to prosecute his father for murder. Euthyphro’s justification for prosecuting his father relies on an odd mixture of principle and self-serving protectionism (McPherran 2005; for Weiss 1994:263–4, it is mainly the latter; so, too for Burnet 1924:23). In Allen’s view (1970:23), Euthyphro is concerned for his father’s purity as well as for his own). Although Euthyphro speaks of a duty to prosecute anyone who has committed injustice, he is concerned about the pollution (miasma) that affects the close associates of the offender. He emulates Zeus, the god he regards as most powerful, never questioning the justice of Zeus’ own slaying of his father. Euthyphro’s arrogant confidence in his expertise concerning the gods’ ways and their likes and dislikes make him a fit target for Socrates’ withering elenchus. On the pretence that only instruction in holiness or piety by Euthyphro will save him from death by hemlock, Socrates turns to him for enlightenment as to the nature of the holy.
Euthyphro tries to oblige. His first attempt to define the holy yields: ‘The holy is what I am doing now’ (Euthphr. 5d–e), namely, prosecuting anyone who commits injustice. His second proposal is that the holy is what is dear to the gods, the unholy what is not dear to them or hated by them (6e–7a). Third, he suggests that the holy is what is dear to all the gods (9e). Fourth, that the holy is tendance (therapeia) of the gods (12e). And fifth, that it is providing service or assistance (hupêretikê) to the gods through prayer and sacrifice (13d–14c).
Each of Euthyphro’s attempts at definition is thwarted by a fatal Socratic objection. The first, as Socrates sees it, hardly qualifies as a definition at all: it offers an example of holiness but misses its core. Geach (1966) objects to Socrates’ dismissal of Euthyphro’s first definition, challenging what has come to be known as Socrates’ priority of definition principle. Geach contends that there is little reason to believe that one cannot know anything, and hence that one cannot give examples of anything, before or without knowing its ‘essence’. The second falls short in that it specifies a definition not exclusively of the holy but of what is both holy and not holy – since some gods may well love what others hate. The third is found lacking because even if all the gods love the same thing, that accord remains accidental or coincidental; indeed, when the gods are not themselves just, it makes little difference whether or not they all agree (Friedländer 1964:87). Moreover, unless there is something inherently holy in the object of the gods’ love by virtue of which all the gods love it, their loving it is irrelevant to its status as holy. The fourth fails because the gods do not need, and do not stand to benefit from, anything human beings can provide. And the last collapses because the prayer and sacrifice involved in tending the gods reduce to a commercial exchange and ultimately to a means of pleasing the gods – and so are tantamount to a return to the first definition. The dialogue’s significance and continued relevance owe much to its pivotal argument in which Socrates asks Euthyphro, ‘Is a thing holy because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it is holy?’ In the hands of the ethicists and theologians who later appropriated this question, right and wrong were substituted for the holy, as follows: are right and wrong determined by god’s will and command (a view known as voluntarism), or do the divine will and command reflect what is (independently) right and wrong? The Euthphr. strongly suggests that the latter is the case: god may apprehend what is good and just but that does not make it so.
The argument proceeds by distinguishing between a thing’s being god-loved (theophiles) and its being holy: a thing attains its character as god-loved by the gods’ loving it (just as a thing acquires the status of being a carried thing by virtue of someone’s carrying it), but a thing’s being holy does not await the gods’ loving it; on the contrary, it is its holiness that inspires the gods’ love. Some scholars – for example, Friedländer (1964:87); McPherran (1985:289) – have credited Euthyphro with successfully identifying if not the ousia (essence) of the holy, then at least a relevant pathos (attribute) (Euthphr. 11a–b). Yet, all Socrates says in fact is that Euthyphro has spoken in pathos- (as opposed to ousia-) terms – not that the pathos he has provided is a correct one. The best-known reconstruction (and critique) of this argument is Cohen’s (1971). In Cohen’s view, Socrates has proved not that the holy cannot be defined as god-loved, but that it cannot be defined as god-loved when the gods’ reason for loving it is that it is holy. Geach (1966), too, is critical of the argument; he contends that the gods love a thing not because it is holy but because they know or believe it to be so; moreover, there is no reason that they could not love what is intended to please them. A recent and thorough discussion of the argument and related secondary literature (Wolfsdorf 2005:32–49) faults Plato for taking being seen and being loved as states that involve change. For a defence of Plato and the ambitiousness of his project, see Judson (2010). Vlastos (1991a) sees in this central argument of the dialogue a rejection of the traditional, or ‘magical’, Greek religious understanding of the gods as essentially powerful and capricious beings who need to be pampered and placated.
One lingering question is whether any acceptable definition of holiness emerges from the Euthphr. Might holiness indeed be the assistance human beings provide to the gods in producing a noble product (Euthphr. 13d–14a)? If so, the nature of that product needs to be specified: a likely candidate would be human virtue. Socrates in the Apology (29e–30b) certainly portrays himself as the god’s servant or messenger whose task it is to encourage those he encounters to care above all for prudence, truth and the virtuous state of their souls. Perhaps he is, for this reason, a paragon of piety.
GORGIAS
Harold Tarrant
The Gorgias is a work of ethics with important political implications. Political questions generally cause Plato to write at greatest length, as in Republic and Laws. Grg. is accordingly the longest of his single-book dialogues, and not unexpectedly shows considerable complexity, both in its philosophic ideas and in their literary presentation. There are three interlocutors, Gorgias the rhetorical teacher, Polus his pupil and the writer of a rhetorical handbook and Callicles, an otherwise unknown Athenian with undisguised political ambitions. Also present, and contrasted with Gorgias’ understudy Polus, is Socrates’ companion Chaerephon. Anachronistic references to Archelaus of Macedon obscure a setting in the 420s (Tarrant 2008).
Like other putatively ‘early’ dialogues, Grg. contains long stretches of Socratic argument known as elenchus (q.v.), but is perhaps the first to show Socrates (a) reflecting on the nature of proper elenctic practise (metaelenctic: Grg. 473b–5e, 505d–6a, 508e–9b), (b) going over the steps of an argument with an imaginary rather than a real interlocutor (506b–7c), (c) explaining a complicated theory of real and false crafts of his own involving dichotomic classification (464b–6a) and (d) twice assuming the role of myth-teller (493a–c, 523a–4a), while using myths to illustrate a view of his own.
The dialogue moves from polite but tough engagement with Gorgias (whose concern is the reputation of his own discipline), through somewhat impatient argument with the younger Polus (who is more intent on scoring points than on solving issues), to an urgent discussion of how one should live one’s life in the real world of fifth-century Athens with the somewhat better-intentioned Callicles. The futures of Socrates (486a4–d1) and of Callicles (526e1–7a4) are both at stake. As in Theaetetus, the material becomes increasingly challenging as the dialogue progresses, making scholars wonder why it is named after Gorgias rather than Callicles, the dominant interlocutor for three fifths of the work (481b6–527e7).
The dialogue opens with Socrates and Chaerephon arriving too late for Gorgias’ demonstration of his rhetorical skills. Gorgias agrees to answer some of Socrates’ questions, and Chaerephon is told to ask what Gorgias is, that is, what profession he practises. Polus tries to answer, but even Gorgias finds it hard to satisfy Socrates’ requirements for a definition that excludes all other practises. It transpires that it is productive of mass persuasion concerning matters of justice, injustice and the like, but does not profess to impart knowledge (455a). Pointing to the walls and dockyards of Athens as examples of rhetoric’s power (455d–6a) Gorgias seems to impress Socrates, who politely conceals his true evaluation of such ‘defences’ until 519a. Socrates pounces at 457c when Gorgias refers to people who use rhetoric for unjust purposes. Does this mean that they have not been taught regarding what was allegedly the subject matter of rhetoric, including justice? Gorgias is shamed into answering and agreeing that any pupil of rhetoric who does not know what justice is could learn it from him (460a). This Socrates finds inconsistent with the view that teachers should not be blamed for unjust uses – though it is doubtful whether Gorgias meant to imply that this ‘learning’ of justice involved acquiring just habits.
This infuriates Polus, who accuses Socrates of boorishness, and is in turn lured into a conversation, in which he asks questions – following Socrates’ prompts. Socrates explains that he regards rhetoric as a non-scientific knack rather than an art (q.v.), since it aims at the pleasure of the listeners rather than at their benefit. It competes with justice, the genuine art of restoring psychic health. The disjunction of what is (for the present) pleasant and what is genuinely good is vital to the dialogue, central to the explanation of the term ‘fine’ or ‘honourable’ (kalon) at 474d–5a and the following argument about why doing injustice is worse than receiving it; central to the dispute between Socrates and Callicles about how life should be lived at 495a–9b; and central to Socrates’ view of the shortcomings of Athenian politicians.
Polus, shocked to hear Socrates deny that rhetoric is a fine thing, resumes the theme of rhetoric’s power, as evidenced by the slick-speaking tyrant’s unrestrained opportunity for injustice. Distinguishing between what one (genuinely) wants and what one should do to achieve it, Socrates denies such persons’ power, since they mistake for ends the means by which they can achieve them (467c–8e), so that tyrannical power is ‘unenviable’ (469a). Polus ultimately claims that getting wronged is worse (kakion), yet less fine/honourable (less kalon, i.e. aischion) than wronging another (474c). Socrates himself would normally identify ‘good’ and ‘fine’ and hence ‘bad’ and ‘dishonourable’, but suggests that Polus employs twin criteria when applying the terms ‘fine’ and ‘dishonourable’, goodness and pleasantness (474d–e). If wronging another is more dishonourable than getting wronged it should therefore be either (a) worse or (b) more painful. But it is less painful. Therefore it is better. Similarly avoiding punishment is more dishonourable than getting punished, so, being less painful, it is worse. Debate arises over whether the argument is flawed (Klosko 1984; Vlastos 1967), but being ad hominem, it needs Polus to refute it. Otherwise Socrates is free to conclude for him that orators wanting the best outcome should ensure that they and their friends are punished for any injustices they had committed (Grg. 480a). The underlying medical notion of injustice as disease that undermines its agent’s soul, and requires the cure of punishment, fleshes out the picture.
Callicles’ entry introduces the sophistic distinction between what is naturally just, good and fine, and what is conventionally so, and with it an attack on the uselessness of philosophy in the real world. He advocates pursuit of natural justice, that is, becoming better off in every respect than others, encouraging and satisfying the desires and identifying pleasure and the good. Socrates counters with myth, didactic images and two powerful arguments against the hedonistic thesis (493a–9b). Callicles, he claims, has failed to see the importance of orderliness in the world and in the human soul, which underpins all human virtues. By vindicating the distinction between good and pleasure he renews the attack on rhetoric (particularly Athenian political rhetoric) as pleasure-giving flattery, which fails to do what is good for citizens and encourages their vices. Condemnation of Pericles and other democratic heroes presents a radical and uncompromising challenge to democratic assumptions.
The final myth (523a–4a) speaks of Zeus’ introduction of the naked judgement of the soul, so that nobody can avoid punishment by deception from Hades: identified in the earlier myth with the unseen workings of the inner soul (493b). Whether the myth really concerns punishment and cure in this life or the next (Sedley 2009a), it offers an unreformed Callicles nothing to look forward to.
The Grg. achieves a powerful philosophic unity, underpinned by its insights into the life and death of Socrates (Stauffer 2006); in so doing it sees Socrates transformed from the tricky interrogator into an independent political thinker, armed with new tools of persuasion, the beginnings of a complex psychology and a powerful vision of the role of justice and order in the world.
HIPPIAS MAJOR
Jacques Antoine Duvoisin
Socrates meets the sophist (q.v.) Hippias somewhere in Athens and they discuss the nature of to kalon (the beautiful, noble or fine).
The dialogue begins with a discussion of Hippias’ achievements as a private teacher and as an envoy of his city. Socrates engages in teasing flattery as well as some quite subtle wit at Hippias’ expense. This lays the groundwork for the central theme of the main argument – How can anyone praise or blame anything without being able to articulate the principle whereby one judges? – but also for the dialogue’s central comic conceit. Socrates invents an alter ego who chastises him for the flaws in the positions Hippias offers so as to protect Hippias’ enormous vanity from being bruised in the interchange.
This passage culminates in Hippias’ account of his recent and popular exhibition in Sparta, which he intends to present 2 days later in Athens. The exhibition consists of an imaginary conversation between Nestor and Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus, after the fall of Troy. Hippias, speaking as Nestor, gives a long speech outlining the noble deeds that lead to great reputation. In response, Socrates announces that he recently discovered, at the hands of an insolent questioner, that he is unqualified to find fault with speeches or to praise them as beautiful or noble, since he is unable to say ‘what the beautiful is’ (Hippias Major 286d). This introduces the subject of the rest of the conversation.
Hippias proposes several accounts of what the beautiful is: a beautiful maiden, gold and finally ‘to be rich, healthy and honoured by the Greeks, to reach old age and, having buried one’s parents, to be buried lavishly by one’s own children’ (291e). Each is more extravagant than the last, and each is rebutted with considerable comic wit. Socrates then offers several of his own: the appropriate, the useful and the beneficial. Each of these falls short as well. A final suggestion – the pleasing through hearing and sight – leads to a lengthy digression on the meaning of the phrase ‘both and each’. Can two things together be something (fair, strong, just, etc.) that each is not, or vice versa? Hippias thinks not and tries to embarrass Socrates, accusing him of dialectical hairsplitting and failing to consider ‘the wholes of things’ (301b). Socrates gives a series of arithmetical examples (e.g. each is one but both together are two, both together are even but each one is odd) which, while intriguing, do not further the inquiry into the beautiful. The dialogue ends, returning briefly to an earlier proposal: what is pleasant through sight and hearing, which suggests that the beautiful is beneficial pleasure. But Socrates points out that this fails for the same reason that the beneficial failed earlier. Hippias laments the tendency of Socrates’ conversation to reduce everything to slivers and bits, and reminds him of the value of being able to produce a well shaped discourse in the courts or the assembly, while Socrates points out that speaking about noble deeds in public without being able to say what the noble is constantly reminds him of the wretchedness of his own condition.
In ancient Greek, to kalon covers a wide range of moral and aesthetic ground unlike any single word in English. The beautiful or the noble each cover part of what to kalon means, but neither is adequate by itself. The fine has both a moral and an aesthetic sense, but is perhaps too weak.
The Hp. Ma. resembles other early dialogues like the Euthyphro, Laches and Meno, in which a moral issue is reduced to an underlying question of the form ‘What is __?’ As in those other dialogues, the question remains unanswered and the conversation ends in perplexity (aporia). But comic inflection is much more evident in the Hp. Ma. than elsewhere. Also, perplexity concerning to kalon is not the end point of this dialogue, but rather its starting point: Socrates introduces the main question with reference to a perplexity that he was thrown into prior to meeting Hippias. Finally, the activity in relation to which Socrates professes to be perplexed is different. He is thrown into perplexity ‘. . . while criticizing things in certain speeches as ugly, and praising other things as beautiful . . .’ (286c). The praising and blaming of things in speech is central to Socratic dialectic, and accordingly the dialogue might be viewed as the aporetic dialogue, since it examines the perplexity of dialectic itself.
In the sequence of answers Socrates proposes – the appropriate, the useful and the beneficial – each falls short, giving way to a syntactically similar successor formed out of its own failure. It might seem that this series could continue indefinitely, but here the beneficial is the end of the line. No further answer is possible. Since the beneficial is the cause or father of the good, it cannot itself be good. But to say that the beautiful is not good is absurd. Other early dialogues fail to define courage or piety or virtue because the interlocutors are unable to proceed further. But here the failure grows out of dialectic itself. Socrates apparently introduces the question concerning to kalon to discourage Hippias from holding his exhibition. But he is not persuaded to call it off even though he cannot say what to kalon is. By contrast, Socrates makes explicit for himself (and us) the inability of dialectic to resolve the perplexity concerning to kalon. The distinction between the philosopher and the sophist could not be clearer.
The comedy of this dialogue is not just an occasional witty exchange, or a borrowed phrase. The narrative structure of the Hp. Ma. is comic in shape. The usual stock characters of the comic tradition are here: the eiron (Socrates), the alazon (Hippias), but also the beautiful maiden of ambiguous circumstances and the wayward son. The only figure missing is the negligent father. But that may be the philosophical point. The father – a moral, educational authority – is absent, here as in so many other dialogues, and there is a contest to take his place. Hippias’ exhibition makes his claim to the educational authority of the absent father. Socrates effectively punctures Hippias’ pretensions, even if he cannot persuade him to give them up. But Socrates also cannot claim the father’s authority for philosophy. The father is a guarantor of legitimacy, and in his absence everything shows itself to be inauthentic, even dialectic, since it cannot articulate the relationship between the noble and the good except in the paradoxical image of negligent paternity: the beautiful turns out to be the father of the good, but a father who does not resemble his child. If comedy is the genre most suited to inauthenticity, it may also be suitable to philosophical inquiry as Plato conceives it. The question of the generic constitution of philosophy has not received much attention in the scholarly literature, but the Hp. Ma. is an invitation to take it up for ourselves.
The authenticity of the Hp. Ma. was much debated in the previous two centuries. Arguments for rejecting it were based on judgements of its comic style and vocabulary, or on a concern that it seems to combine mature theoretical motifs with the aporetic shape of the earliest dialogues. But in the absence of decisive evidence against it the Hp. Ma. has quietly been received back into the canon in recent years. Ironically, however, the question of authenticity in various forms is a central concern of the text, and so the question of textual provenance should not be simply forgotten even as the text has come to be accepted.
HIPPIAS MINOR
Francesco Fronterotta and Jean-François Pradeau
The dialogue takes place following a lecture Hippias has just given on the Homeric poems, before a large audience (Pottenger 1995–6). Socrates, who has attended the lecture, wants to question the sophist on a particular point of his Homeric exegesis: the definition he has given of the characters of Achilles and Odysseus. Achilles, more simple and sincere (or the most veridical, haploustatos kai alêthestatos) is supposedly better than Odysseus, who is ‘double’ (polutropos). It is thus Achilles’ ‘simplicity’ that should reveal his sincerity, whereas the ‘duplicity’ (or ‘multiplicity’) of Odysseus, for its part, indicates an ambiguous and deceptive character (Mulhern 1984). These are the moral qualities that will form the subject of the discussion.
A large part of the text is devoted to the examination of the examples that the two interlocutors propose – and oppose – to one another in the course of the discussion; first on the basis of Homer (Hippias Minor 364b–5d, 369a–71e), then by examining the various domains of knowledge of the sophist (366c–9a), the activities of the body (372a–5a) and the properties of the soul (375a–6b). The sequence of arguments in the Hi. Mi. is rather simple, and is summarized as early as 366a–7a. The starting point is the hypothesis that all deception comes from knowledge and a capacity (or power: dunamis), for the deceiver must be capable (dunatos) of deceiving, and can be so only on the condition of having knowledge in the field in which he is to carry out his deception (sophos kai dunatos, 366a; Weiss 1981). It is this affirmation that collides head on with the ethical theory Plato makes Socrates profess in the dialogues, a doctrine according to which excellence or virtue (aretê) is a form of knowledge or reflection (Jantzen 1989). On the other hand, if one maintains that knowledge is morally ‘neutral’, insofar as its application may vary according to the subject practicing it, it can no longer be identified with moral excellence. We then witness the ruin of another major thesis of Platonic ethics, according to which the freedom of an individual finds its limit, according to Plato, in the demand for a self-realization that affirms that no one can wish for his own destruction and his own death, his own ‘evil’, but that every individual desires to be happy, by conquering his happiness or his well-being (cf. for instance Gorgias 509e, Meno 78a, Protagoras 345d).
The most radical consequence of these premises, which Hippias and Socrates are obliged to accept on several occasions (particularly at 366b–c, 367a, 367e, 368b–9a, etc.), is the following: if having knowledge and being capable of something means that one is ‘good’ (agathos) at it, or that one is ‘the best’ (aristos) at it, then the man who is ‘good’ or ‘the best’ will necessarily be the one who deceives, that is, the one who ‘does wrong’ (366c–7a). At first glance, the Hp. Mi. thus ends with an admission of defeat (376b–c), for Socrates and Hippias cannot accept that it pertains to a good man to choose deception and voluntary wrongdoing; yet they cannot succeed in correcting the argument. Yet, it is possible to read the course of the discussion in another way, by asking, Do the competence and capacity that enable one to tell the truth or to deceive, to distinguish and then to practise the true or the false by exercising free choice presuppose a genuine indifference with regard to good and evil on the part of the agent? In other words, do ‘knowing’ and ‘being able to do’ evil necessarily imply that one does it? Is the knowledge that leads one to do evil genuine knowledge? As Aristotle emphasizes, alluding explicitly to these difficulties (see Metaphysics 5.29, 1025a2–1; cf. also Nicomachean Ethics 7 3, 1145b), the demonstration of the Hp. Mi. puts to the test a certain idea of knowledge (sophia), understood as the neutral possession of several items of theoretical knowledge, which are translated into technical competence and practical capacities. This conception of knowledge is characteristic of the epistemological and ethical doctrine of the sophists (q.v.), at least insofar as Plato depicts and refutes it. In this sophistic perspective, ‘knowledge’ indeed leads to a ‘know-how’, indifferent in itself to good and evil, and the choice of good or of evil, detached from knowledge, remains up to the agent. Reading the Hp. Mi. in this way, and imputing the aporiai of the dialogue to the sophistic conception of knowledge, one immediately realizes what must be opposed to the sophist, at the same time as the result of these aporiai: the Platonic ethical doctrine of excellence as knowledge. For, the knowledge that coincides with excellence consists, according to Plato, in the possession of a knowledge that contains its good (agathon) within it: that is, the element that guides and orients the agent’s will and his choice. One must concede that all knowledge implies the knowledge of good and evil (with regard to its objects and with regard to its eventual implementation), so that no neutral knowledge exists, nor, consequently, does any will that is indifferent to good and evil. The sophoi kai dunatoi, who were to deceive intentionally, according to Hippias, turn out to be bereft of genuine knowledge: if they choose in full cognizance that they are deceiving, their knowledge lacks the indispensable awareness of the distinction between good and evil and is therefore not genuine knowledge. If, however, they deceive unintentionally, this can obviously only be through ignorance of the good.
Taking the measure of the conflict between the paradoxical ethics assumed in the Hp. Mi. and the Platonic doctrine of excellence (aretê), one is able to see more satisfactorily the meaning of the dialogue, and the direction Socrates wishes to impose upon the discussion. We are invited to do this by the discussion at 376b, when Socrates adds a restriction to his conclusion according to which ‘the person who behaves and works in a shameful and unjust way . . . can only be the man who is good’, adding nonchalantly, ‘if a man of this kind exists. . . .’ However, for the reasons that have just been indicated, this man cannot exist if aretê is really a form of knowledge.
ION
Christopher Janaway
Ion, Plato’s shortest dialogue, is often assigned to an early Socratic period. There are two characters: Socrates and Ion. The latter (not a known historical character) is a professional rhapsode, a public reciter and commentator on poetry. Ion appears to contain the beginnings of Plato’s philosophical reflection on the arts (q.v. Aesthetics), and has been treated as a foundational document in Western aesthetics (Schaper 1968:20–1; criticized by Stern-Gillet 2004).
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s appreciation of Ion and his influential translation (1821) epitomize attempts to find a positive account of poetry in Socrates’ evocation of inspiration (q.v.) at the heart of the dialogue (Ion 533c–5a, 535e–6d). In a long display speech, markedly different from the surrounding question-and-answer style, Socrates portrays poets as lacking rational understanding of the process by which they compose, and subject to powerful external influence from one of the Muses. Like rings attracted to a magnet, they acquire magnetic power themselves, inspiring a performer such as Ion, who recites scenes from the Iliad and Odyssey, transmitting the magnetism and moving his audience.
‘Good poets’ owe their finest productions to their being divinely inspired (entheios) and may even be called divine (theios). But this is no unequivocal praise of poetry (q.v.), or perhaps no praise of it at all, given the framing parts of the dialogue in which Socrates refutes Ion’s claims to expert knowledge – epistêmê or technê, the latter term being preponderant. The main force of the divine inspiration story is to deny that poetic composition, performance and exegesis arise ‘by technê’, by expertise or skill (q.v. Art). While performing, Ion is said to be ‘taken out of himself’, abandoned to emotions elicited by the Homeric scene he recites: evidence of his place in the chain of sheer inspiration (535b–e).
When Ion claims he is expert on the poetic virtues of Homer, but can say nothing worthwhile about other poets, Socrates refutes his claim to master a technê on the grounds of his commanding no general principles that apply across all relevant subject matter (531a–3c). Later Ion asserts that he is well versed in all forms of expertise that Homer portrays well, such as charioteering and generalship, conflating knowing about the poetic representation of some expertise with possessing that expertise. Socrates elicits from him the absurd statement that he is the best general among the Greeks – ‘That, too, I learned from Homer’s poetry’ (541b). But Ion gives evidence of being good at nothing except rhapsody, so had better accept the epithet ‘divine’ on pain of appearing dishonest (542a–b).
The dialogue has been found puzzling and even contradictory, in that Socrates talks repeatedly of ‘rhapsodic expertise’ (rhapsoidikê technê), while apparently arguing that there is no such thing. The contradiction may be removed if the assumption of rhapsodic expertise is merely ironic throughout (Flashar 1958), or if Plato recognizes the possibility of rhapsodic and poetic technai, but denies them any role in the ‘artistic success’ or fineness of the best poetry (Janaway 1995:14–35; opposed by Stern-Gillet 2004), or if he allows poet and performer each a technê, but denies this status to the rhapsode’s critical discourse about poetry (Ferrari 1989).
LACHES
Eugenio Benitez
According to the canon of Thrasyllus (see D. L. 3.59), Plato’s Laches is about courage and employs, to borrow a term from Theaetetus 149a–51d, an ‘obstetric’ method, in which the ideas of Socrates’ interlocutors are delivered into the light of day and examined. These Thrasyllan labels correctly identify the simple theme and tactic of the La., but as with all of the Socratic dialogues, apparent simplicity disguises enormous subtlety of structure and composition. One thing that seems hidden from most readers is the special relation between theme and tactic, namely that the practise of Socratic dialogue requires and exhibits courage in examining what one really thinks. The La. seems also to be a ‘proleptic’ dialogue, in the sense of anticipating philosophical views presented more fully in later works (see Kahn 1998); at least, many strands of its argument are taken up in other dialogues, especially the Protagoras. The conversation in the La. itself ends inconclusively. The La. is a dramatically rich dialogue in the sense that its interpretation must be guided by knowledge of its characters (q.v.), setting and dramatic date. Specific behaviours of Socrates’ interlocutors (such as Nicias’ attempt to avoid being drawn into the conversation) display attested features of their character (e.g. Nicias’ circumspection) in relation to the theme of courage. While a basic understanding can be acquired from reading the La. on its own, the appreciation gained from examination of historical events surrounding the dialogue is invaluable (q.v. History).
The La. is set during the Peloponnesian War, possibly during the Peace of Nicias, certainly after the retreat from Delium, and certainly before the Sicilian Expedition. There are possible allusions to the Battle of Mantinaea, at which Laches was killed (La. 193a), and the debacle at Syracuse, following which Nicias met his death (199a). The fact that two generals are chosen interlocutors is almost universally agreed to reflect their appropriateness to the topic; nevertheless, their deaths in battle may signal an intention on Plato’s part to look beyond the art of war for the source of courage. Other characters of the La. have only a minor part in the conversation, yet their role is important in establishing the context within which an examination of courage becomes necessary. Lysimachus and Melesias, who initiate the discussion, are shadowy figures in history, although there is some suggestion that Melesias at least may have been anti-democratic (Thucydides, History 8.86). The pretext under which the dialogue takes place is a prearranged meeting with Nicias and Laches at a demonstration of hoplitics or ‘fighting-in-armour’ by a mercenary sophist named Stesilaus. Scholars have not treated Stesilaus or his art as a paradigm of courage, either for Plato or the characters in the dialogue. The pretext merely allows Lysimachus and Melesias to introduce their sons to two of the most influential men in Athens. Socrates is the spanner in the works. He is present by some chance, but he is already acquainted with the sons of Lysimachus and Melesias, and his bravery in battle, attested in the La. as in the Symposium, gives him the right to speak and ask questions about courage. Socrates’ tactic of direct examination appears as counterpoint to the indirectly domineering tactics of Lysimachus.
The conversation is not initially about courage but about Stesilaus’ art of fighting in armour. Lysimachus and Melesias make it clear, however, that what they want most is for their sons to become prominent. Socrates steers the conversation towards what would make them deservedly prominent. Everyone agrees that excellence (q.v. aretê) would do the trick, but as to what that is, they can neither say themselves nor point to anyone who can say. The theme of courage is then introduced as part of the investigation into what excellence is. Thus questions about the nature of excellence, whether it can be taught and whether the cardinal virtues are proper parts of excellence or something else lie at the foundation of the philosophical arguments of the La.
Socrates first discusses courage with Laches. The direct results of their discussion are not very significant, but the examination reveals three principles characteristic of Plato’s approach to ethics. The first is that the cause of excellence is distinct from its effects. In this connection, the scope of courage is widened considerably. The La. displaces the Greek focus on military exploits, first by the reminder that even standing one’s ground takes courage, and then by expanding the concept of endurance to cover bearing up under all sorts of circumstances, including cross-examination. The courage to persist in an inquiry introduces a second principle, namely, the say-what-you-think rule of Socratic conversation (La. 193c, 194a). This principle of openness stands in direct opposition to the assumption of Lysimachus, Melesias and Nicias that safety is to be found in cover. It is connected with a third principle introduced by Laches, namely the harmony of word and deed (188c–9c). This principle seems fundamental to explaining the failure of the La.: none of the characters exhibit it (193e), yet without such harmony there appears little hope of understanding what courage really is.
Socrates’ conversation with Nicias adds a cognitive dimension to the conception of courage, and shows partly why the harmony between word and deed has not been attained. Even animals perform brave deeds; human courage must involve some sort of understanding, forethought or wisdom. The refutation of Nicias (who gets his idea about courage from what he has heard Socrates say) is mostly a lesson about what sort of understanding courage does not involve. It is not tactical understanding, nor is it the art of prognostication. It seems to be an understanding of value, but Nicias is unable or unwilling to look far enough into himself to find out more.
Plato does not hide the principle of word and deed in the La. As Chaucer pointed out, anyone who can read Plato will see it (Man of Laws Tale, prologue 741–2). The implication that comparing the characters to their words is fundamental to understanding the La. is often forgotten, however (for further discussions, see Benitez 2000; Schmid 1992).
LAWS
Eugenio Benitez
The Laws is the longest and, according to tradition, the last of Plato’s dialogues. It was left ‘in the wax’ at the time of Plato’s death and brought into publication by Philip of Opus (D. L. 3.37). Whether Philip had a hand in editing the work or whether he merely transcribed it is uncertain (for one recent account, see Nails and Thesleff 2003). The most recent analyses of its style indicate significant affinities with the Sophist, Politicus and Philebus, though there are stark differences in places. These, however, might be explained in various ways, and there has never been any question that the Lg. substantially contains the thought of Plato. If we set special problems of composition aside, including admittedly serious questions about the overall coherence of the dialogue, then the chief difficulties remaining for an interpreter of the Lg. include (a) its dramatic date and structure, (b) its relation to other political dialogues of Plato, especially the Republic and the Plt. and (c) the extensive discussion of cosmology and theology in Lg. bk 10.
The Lg. is the only dialogue set at any distance from Athens. It is set in Crete, where three elderly gentlemen – an unnamed Athenian, a Spartan (Megillus) and a Cnossian (Clinias) – pass the day in conversation about a political constitution as they wind their way from Cnossos to the cave of Zeus on Mt. Ida. Along the way the trio frequently remind us that they are old and that despite the seriousness of their topic, their discussion is a divertissement. These two dramatic features alone (the age of the interlocutors and their penchant for mild amusement) may account for the tendency of the Lg. towards digression, anacolouthon and inconsistency at least as well as the uncharitable supposition of ‘the failing powers of the author’ (Bury 1942:vii; for a thorough recent account of amusement in the Lg. see Jouët-Pastré 2006). At any rate, the Lg. loudly trumpets the view, expressed elsewhere in Plato’s dialogues, that written works are a form of play (see Phaedrus 276d). The choice for interpreters here seems straightforward.
A more difficult, but nevertheless significant choice concerns the dramatic date of the Lg. No specific date is given or determined by internal historical reference. Recently, however, Zuckert has argued that the Lg. is set before the Peloponnesian War (see Zuckert 2009:11–13, 51–8). Zuckert points out that the Lg. describes the Persian Wars and Persian culture in detail while it never once mentions the Peloponnesian War. Around this she builds a case that is circumstantial but difficult to resist. If Zuckert is right, then certain features of the Lg. – such as the absence of philosophy from the proposed curriculum for the fictional city of Magnesia, or the attention to habituated virtue rather than the virtue that involves genuine understanding of itself, or the separation of courage from the other virtues – need not be interpreted as signalling a change in Plato’s philosophical views, or as demanded by the general practical needs of establishing a city. An alternative view of the dramatic date is that of Dušanić (1990:364–5) who notes that the Spartan ambassador Megillus was active in about 408.
Whatever choices an interpreter makes, however, it is impossible to avoid comparisons between the R. and the Lg. The two dialogues can easily and usefully be mapped, book against book, to reveal treatments of similar themes, such as education, censorship, the relation of justice to happiness, the role of women as citizens, the different kinds of constitution and the role of a philosopher or council of philosophers in providing ultimate guidance for the city. A sensitive and careful comparison of the Lg. and R. in terms of fundamental themes in ethics and moral psychology can be found in Bobonich (2002). Another point of comparison, the development of Plato’s political philosophy from the R. to the Lg. has been a preoccupation of much scholarship. It is widely held that Plato gradually moves away from the rule by philosopher-kings prescribed in the R. and turns towards reliance on the rule of law, first in the Plt. and then even more emphatically in the Lg. The progression from personal authority to rule of law is discussed at length in Klosko (2006). Brown (2004) treats the similarities between the two dialogues’ ethical implications of early childhood rearing.
In addition to the points of comparison with the R., the Lg. discusses at length some political themes that are not given much attention in other dialogues, including the philosophy of punishment, the general conception of law (including its rationale and function), family law and the law of the marketplace. Despite the protestations of the Athenian that he can only outline a constitution, the Lg. provides a very thorough sketch of civil administration, including detailed discussion of executive, legislative, judicial, diplomatic, economic and religious offices, as well as arrangements for police, wardens, real estate officers and lesser functionaries. The Lg. also contains the only extensive example of a penal code to be found in Plato’s works. The code, which includes provisions for the law of both free persons and slaves, has been thoroughly discussed in Saunders (1994).
The tenth book of the Lg. contains an unexpected digression into matters of philosophy, cosmology and theology. The attachment of this digression to the law of impiety seems contrived, and the philosophical level of discussion – as seen in arguments concerning the types and origin of movement in the universe, naturalism and the existence of god – is well beyond anything else in the Lg. The Athenian even makes excuses for the level of difficulty (Lg. 892d–3a). The relation of this book to the rest of the Lg. remains a difficult and unresolved matter. It may be that Plato was not able to integrate this material adequately before his death. (For discussion that tends to support this view, see Dillon 2003a.) For Platonists, Lg. bk 10 must appear to be the central book, to the exclusion of practically everything else. For political philosophers, it appears incidental. In much of the recent literature, the theology and politics of the Lg. are treated separately. Excellent scholarship on the Lg. has emerged in recent years, including the publication a very useful bibliography (Saunders and Brisson 2000). For historical context the work of Morrow (1993) remains indispensable.
LETTERS
V. Bradley Lewis
Thirteen letters (epistulai) are included in the traditional canon of Plato’s works (q.v. Corpus). While both Aristophanes of Byzantium and Thrasyllus include the letters in their collections (third-century BCE and first-century BCE, respectively), modern scholarship has cast doubt on their authenticity. Seven of the letters concern Plato’s involvement in Syracusan affairs (Epistles 1–4, 7, 8, 13). Four are addressed to Dionysius II (1–3, 13) – two to the friends and followers of Dion (7, 8) and two to Archytas of Tarentum (9, 12) – one to Perdiccas of Macedonia (5) and one each to Dion (4), Hermias, the tyrant of Atarneus and Plato’s students, Erastus and Coriscus (6), Aristodorus, a friend of Dion (10) and a Laodamas, whose identity is uncertain (11). Both 2 and 6 also contain, like 7, some material of a cryptic, metaphysical nature.
The lengthiest and most significant letter is the well known seventh, which purports to have been an answer to a request by Dion’s friends for advice in the wake of Dion’s assassination in 353 BCE, but which also has the apologetic character of an open letter. It contains an autobiographical passage in which Plato recounts his early political ambitions, which were disappointed by the degenerate character of Athenian politics but especially by the judicial murder of Socrates. Plato concluded that real reform could only be accomplished from the perspective afforded by true philosophy and with the aid of virtuous and philosophical comrades under the right circumstances. He accordingly drew away from politics (324b–6b). His later Syracusan intervention is explained largely by reference to his friendship for Dion, whom Plato had befriended on his first visit to the island between 390 and 387. Dion wrote to Plato of Dionysius II’s passion for philosophy and suggested that Syracuse could provide a kind of proving ground for Plato’s political ideals. While there is some dispute about just what Plato’s hopes were in Syracuse, Ep. 7 provides little evidence that he aimed to establish a government there like that described in the Republic; rather it emphasizes Plato’s attempts to persuade Dionysius to abandon tyranny, give Syracuse a proper legal code and establish the city as a bulwark in the defence of Hellenic civilization in the west against the Carthaginians (see Morrow 1935:140–5). The letter also contains a famous but controversial discussion of knowledge and learning, the so-called philosophical digression (342a–4e).
Ep. 8 picks up from the seventh explaining in somewhat more detail the application of Plato’s political principles to the erstwhile reform of Syracuse. The content seems to closely track the proposals contained in the Laws. Of the other letters concerned with Syracuse, Ep. 1–3 are addressed to Dionysius II: Ep. 1 portrays Plato as a kind of vice-regent with Dionysius and is certainly spurious; Ep. 2 presents advice about both governing and philosophical study that is similar to that in Ep. 7; Ep. 3 purports to have been written between Plato’s second and third visit (although some suggest that, if authentic, it may have been written after Dion’s coup) and offers a defence of his conduct as well as of the then-exiled Dion. Ep. 13 concerns the same time period, but it is more personal and suggests that Plato hoped to influence the tyrant in a way favourable to Dion’s interests. Ep. 4 is addressed to Dion and claims to have been written between Dion’s victory over Dionysus and his assassination. It supports Dion’s work and advises political moderation. Among the remaining letters are the two brief missives to the Pythagorean mathematician-statesman Archytas and relatively brief letters to associates and letters of introduction and recommendation for others.
Most scholarship on the letters has concerned the question of authenticity. While the antiquity of the letters is impressive, the ancient practise of pseudonymous composition – especially of letters – is well known and doubts about some of Plato’s Epistles (especially the first, but also the twelfth) long predate modern textual criticism. No recent scholar has accepted all thirteen of the letters. Brisson’s 1987 survey shows that among 32 authors since Ficino in 1484 Ep. 7 and 8 have enjoyed the greatest support, with 26 scholars defending the authenticity of 7 and 25 that of 8. Ep. 6 was defended by 18 of Brisson’s authors; Ep. 3 has had 14 defenders. Most scholars have rejected the rest although all save the first has had a number of advocates (Brisson 1987:72). An earlier and somewhat less systematic tabulation by Guthrie (1978:401) yielded similar findings.
The modern debate on the authenticity of the letters has focused mainly on three issues: the coherence of the content of the letters with the content of the dialogues; stylometric comparison of the letters and the dialogues; and agreement between the content of the letters and other ancient historical sources, especially but not exclusively concerning the Syracusan affairs in which Plato was involved. Not surprisingly, given its potential value, most of the controversy has concerned Ep. 7, which critics have argued contains important contradictions with Plato’s established views about the theory of knowledge and about politics (see especially Edelstein 1966). Others have argued that the content of the letter does fit with Plato’s views about both matters (see Lewis 2000; Morrow 1935:61–79). Some have also suggested that the ‘philosophical digression’ in particular could be an interpolation in what is otherwise an authentic letter of Plato (see Brisson 1987:145–58). Ledger’s comprehensive 1989 stylometric analysis argues strongly that Ep. 7 was the product of the same author as the Lg., and also supports the authenticity of Ep. 3, 8 and 13. The other main approach to the authenticity question has focused on external evidence. Here, the strongest case can be made for Ep. 7 with the other letters facing more and more serious objections. Overall the balance of recent scholarly opinion has tended towards acceptance of Ep. 7 as either genuinely Platonic or the product of a contemporary with intimate knowledge of Plato’s thought and deeds (Brunt 1993:312–25), but the matter remains controversial.
LYSIS
Francisco Gonzalez
The dialogue opens in front of a newly constructed wrestling school where Socrates learns, in response to his usual inquiry after ‘the beautiful’, of the beautiful boy Lysis and his quite maladroit and fruitless pursuit by the hopelessly enamoured older youth Hippothales. Offering to show Hippothales how such a boy can be won, Socrates enters the school and engages Lysis along with his friend Menexenus in a discussion concerning the nature of friendship (q.v.; and, more broadly, love). After humiliating Lysis by arguing that his parents do not entrust their things to him and therefore cannot love him as their own because of his lack of wisdom, he humiliates the combative Menexenus by catching him in the dilemma of whether friendship is a nonreciprocal relation (as seemingly attested by the possibility of being a philos of wisdom) or is necessarily reciprocal (as seemingly attested by the absurdity of calling yourself the philos of someone who hates you). Socrates then shows the two friends how difficult it is to give an adequate account of friendship. Arguing that neither opposites nor those who are alike (specifically, alike in goodness) can be friends, Socrates suggests that perhaps the relationship exists between what is neither good nor bad (which would appear to describe the human condition) and what is good or beautiful. But because we clearly love some good things as a means to other good things, this account threatens to produce an infinite regress unless we postulate a ‘first beloved’ for the sake of which everything else is loved but which is not itself loved for the sake of anything else. But this creates another problem: why is the ‘first beloved’ loved if not for the sake of something else? The suggestion that it is loved as a means of eliminating what is bad, is rejected because not all desire appears to depend on the existence of something bad. The final suggestion is that we love the ‘first beloved’, that is, the good, because in being lacked by us it also naturally belongs to us. But is not claiming that the object of friendship is what is akin to us the same as claiming that it is what is like us: an account already refuted? With this aporia, their guardians forcefully take the two boys home.
For a long time the Lysis was, especially in English language scholarship, either ignored, dismissed as a failure (Guthrie 1975) or judged spurious (Tejera 1990), though it had a few defenders (e.g. Bolotin 1979; Glaser 1935). Some interpreters have been repelled by its seemingly ‘utilitarian’ conception of love (Vlastos 1973). In recent years, scholarship on the dialogue has grown exponentially and has proven nearly unanimous in judging it successful and indispensable to Plato’s thought. In what follows I will note the problems that originally led to the dialogue’s neglect and how these problems have been addressed in the recent literature.
The main problem was not its dubious arguments or inconclusive ending, which characterize other dialogues as well, but that while in other aporetic dialogues the argument could be easily seen as at least making progress, the argument of the Ly. seemed particularly disjointed and inclined towards preying on verbal ambiguities, that is, eristic (Annas 1997; Guthrie 1975:143; Price 1989). This problem has been addressed in the recent literature in three ways. First, more careful analyses of the argument have shown that it actually builds towards an increasingly better account of the subject. Second, in line with a more general trend in recent Platonic scholarship, the dramatic richness of the dialogue has been shown to provide an indispensable context for understanding the direction and point of the argument. (see Gonzalez 1995a, 2000, 2003; Penner and Rowe 2005:204–5). Third, this more careful analysis of the argument that also situates it in its dramatic context has found the dialogue suggesting a positive solution to the problems it raises; that we, as neither good nor bad, love that ultimate good of which we have been deprived but which belongs to us (Penner and Rowe 2005:182–4) and that this shared erotic affinity with the good grounds that affinity between two people that characterizes philia (Bordt 1998:89–92; Gonzalez 1995a, 2000, 2003; Penner and Rowe 2005:167–9). Justin (2005) and Rudebusch, on the other hand, interpret philia in the dialogue as only an instance of desire for the good that depends on finding something good in another person.
Without denying the utilitarian character of the friendship described in the Ly., scholars have been able to give this characteristic a much more positive interpretation (see Bordt 1998:139–40, 214; Gonzalez 2003; Penner and Rowe 2005:280–91).
Another debated question is the seemingly basic one of the dialogue’s topic. Those who think the dialogue is about philia (e.g. Annas 1977; Guthrie 1975:154; Hoerber 1959; Price 1989:9–10; Robinson 1986) could argue that this is the concept explicitly addressed and that the two boys, Lysis and Menexenus, are philoi and are explicitly described as instantiating, at least in appearance, what the discussion is about. Those claiming the discussion is about erôs (e.g. Bolotin 1979:206; Friedländer 1958–64:1:50–1, 2:102; Haden 1983) could point out that the impetus for the discussion is Hippothales’ erotic pursuit of Lysis and Socrates’ offer of showing that young man how to conduct such a pursuit properly, as well as pointing out that the discussion explicitly returns to eros at the very end. Ironically both interpretations of the dialogue’s topic only encouraged its neglect. If taken to be about erôs, then it was largely overshadowed by the much more exhaustive and seemingly positive treatments in the Symposium and Phaedrus. If taken to be about philia, it was overshadowed by the much more thorough, systematic and conclusive treatment of the topic in Aristotle’s ethics. Scholars have recently vindicated the independence and unique contribution of the Ly. by recognizing it to be about both erôs and philia together (Penner and Rowe 2005:270). It differs from the Smp. and the Phdr. in applying, through its emphasis on philia, their metaphysical interpretation of erôs to interpersonal relationships. And it differs from Aristotle’s treatment of philia in grounding this relation on the erotic drive towards some transcendent good.
Another disputed question has been the place of the Ly. in the Platonic corpus. The metaphysical content of the dialogue has created problems for dating: while in terms of topic and form it appeared to belong to the ‘early’ dialogues, its sophisticated metaphysical distinctions appeared to place it at least among the ‘middle’ dialogues. The question of dating has ceased to be pressing given the growing abandonment of any attempt to establish a chronology of Plato’s dialogues. The recent literature has also shown the dialogue to contribute to Plato’s metaphysics and thus to differ from other ‘Socratic’ dialogues. Whether due to its distinction between two kinds of being-present-in (see Bordt 1998:105, 191–2) or its analysis of how something can be ‘ours’ without being possessed or its elaboration of the notion of ‘real reference’ (Penner and Rowe 2005:210), the Ly. has become a reference text for understanding the Platonic forms and their relation to us and the sensible world. (And the long debate about whether forms are present or not in the Ly. appears to be settling towards the former alternative. See Bordt 1998:203–4; Penner and Rowe 2005:278.) The Ly. has thus gone from being at best a marginal and negligible text in the Platonic corpus to being now one of the key texts for understanding Plato’s philosophy as a whole.
MENEXENUS
Nickolas Pappas
The Menexenus is almost entirely a sample of funeral rhetoric (q.v.) whose purpose remains fundamentally controversial.
(I) CHARACTERS AND SETTING
Socrates meets Menexenus, who wants to speak at the annual public funeral for Athenian soldiers (Mx. 234b). Socrates says such rhetoric is magical (234c–5c) but not difficult. His own rhetoric teacher Aspasia (courtesan, companion to Pericles) taught him a fine example (235e–6c). Socrates delivers a speech in the manner of Pericles’ famous funeral oration (Thucydides, History 2.35–46; Monoson 1992).
(II) THE FUNERAL SPEECH
Socrates’ speech endorses the custom of such speeches (Mx. 236d–e), then praises Athens. The praise begins with a myth (q.v.) about the first Athenians’ birth from the earth (237b–8b) and continues with a synopsis of Athenian history (239a–46a). The history tracks Athens’ dominance from the Persian Wars (490 BCE) until the King’s Peace (386). Next, the speech turns to moral instruction. In the voice of the dead soldiers, it exhorts their survivors to moderation and courage (246d–8d). A dismissal follows.
(III) PARODY OR IMPROVEMENT?
One sentence from the Mx. (235d) is quoted twice by Aristotle (Rhetoric 1267b8, 1415b30); if not for this evidence of authenticity, the dialogue’s peculiarity might have caused it to be classed as spurious (q.v. Corpus). Instead, readers debate whether Plato meant the speech as serious rhetoric (Huby 1957; Kahn 1963) or as parody (Long 2003; Loraux 1986; Pownall 2004; Salkever 1993).
Certain features of the dialogue suggest a joke is afoot: the playful opening conversation, the claim that Aspasia wrote this speech (Bloedow 1975; Henry 1995), Socrates’ exceeding praise for Athens, with a history wiped clean of Athenian misdeeds (Trivigno 2009), and the anachronism in Socrates’ account of events down to thirteen years after his death (Rosenstock 1994). Instead of countering this interpretation with unprovable appeals to ‘seriousness’ of tone, one can argue that Plato intends the speech to be better than Pericles’ on the grounds that the differences between the speeches harmonize with other Platonic criticisms of Pericles.
The speeches differ in how they praise and how they characterize moral education. Moreover, the Mx. speech differs from Thucydides’ History in the form of macro-historical narrative it offers. Pericles’ speech stinted on praise and ignored the possibility that the city might improve its citizens. He disparaged rhetoric, elevating ergon ‘deed’ above logos ‘speech’. The Mx. deliberately raises logos to the status of ergon in recognition of how one inculcates virtue. Its report from the dead soldiers urges moral improvement; its myth of autochthony includes aboriginal divine instruction within the city’s founding (Mx. 238b). Again, unlike Pericles, Socrates praises Athens unrestrainedly. Praise is excessive language proper to magnificent objects and bespeaks moral elevation and exhortation.
Plato’s Gorgias (q.v.) and Protagoras (q.v.) take Pericles to task for neglecting to improve either his sons’ souls or his fellow citizens’ (Grg. 503c, 515e; Prt. 319e–20b). And in all the ways indicated, the Mx. speech aims at the educational function for rhetoric that Pericles declined to attempt. It can be called an attempt to produce something better than its original: rhetoric in a philosopher’s hands.
Finally, the speech reads as a rebuttal to Thucydides. Socrates recounts a history powered by psychodynamic forces. The world order deteriorates depressingly but coherently along lines reminiscent of the city’s decline in Republic 8–9 (q.v.), an order that Thucydides would not give to world events.
MENO
Roslyn Weiss
The Meno is a dialogue whose ethical and epistemological concerns are bridged by the question, ‘can virtue be taught?’ Although the dialogue begins with an exploration of the nature of virtue, the notion of teaching inevitably raises questions about knowledge or expertise and its relationship to belief or opinion.
The dramatic date of the dialogue is widely put at some time during 403/2 BCE, since it is thought that the Meno character of the Platonic dialogue is the same Meno who, according to Xenophon’s Anabasis, was employed as a mercenary in Cyrus’ unsuccessful attempt on the Persian throne, and who would therefore have been in Asia Minor by the year 401 and executed by the king of Persia in 400 BCE. The appearance of Anytus in the dialogue provides another clue: if Anytus currently holds office as a democrat, the dialogue must take place after the democracy was restored in Athens following the fall of the Thirty in 403.
The dialogue begins as Meno, a wealthy and well born Thessalian, young enough still to have suitors but not too young to command a company and head a household, confronts the older Socrates, now in his late sixties, with the question whether virtue can be taught or whether it comes by practise, is learned, is possessed by nature or has some other source (Men. 70a). The abruptness with which the dialogue begins precludes any proper setting of the scene; we learn only later (90b) that Meno’s host in Athens is Anytus, a democrat who is nevertheless staunchly conservative and who is known to have been one of Socrates’ three accusers at the infamous trial at which Socrates was sentenced to death.
Socrates swiftly turns Meno’s question concerning the manner of virtue’s acquisition into the more basic one with which he is more at home: what is virtue? A confident Meno, having studied with the prominent fifth-century rhetorician Gorgias, is certain that he knows: there is a distinct virtue for each kind of person – for men in their prime, for women, for children, for slaves and for old men. As Socrates presses Meno for a definition of virtue, for the specification of that which all the virtues have in common, a somewhat more diffident Meno ventures, first, rather obtusely, that virtue is the ability to rule men (70c), and second, that virtue is justice (70d).
Meno’s definition of virtue as justice launches an extended foray into the matter of definition. Since justice is agreed to be only a part of virtue, it cannot define virtue any more than roundness can define shape. Once Socrates has supplied models of definition that are acceptable to Meno (particularly the Empedoclean definition of colour in terms of effluences), it falls to Meno once again to define virtue. No more successful this time around – relying on a poet, he defines virtue as desiring fine things and having the power to attain them – Meno becomes belligerent, attacking Socrates for deliberately confounding those with whom he engages, for numbing them much as a sting ray does. He then produces his notorious ‘paradox’, in which he contends, first, that it is impossible to search for what one does not already know for one would not know what one is searching for and, second, that even if one were to happen upon that for which one searched, one would not know it (80d). Scholars have been divided in their views of how seriously Plato takes Meno’s paradox. Some think he regards it as an unworthy attempt to obstruct the discussion (Ritter 1933:102; Shorey 1933:157; Taylor 1926:235–6), particularly given its strikingly ad hominem form (Bluck 1961:272; Moline 1969:153–61; Thompson 1901:116–17; Weiss 2001:52n12); others think Plato takes it quite seriously, if not in Meno’s formulation of it, then at least in Socrates’ reformulation (Moravcsik 1970:57; Scolnicov 1976:51).
Socrates counters the paradox with a myth of recollection, which is intended to establish that inquiry into what is not yet known will succeed if one is sufficiently dogged, since one’s soul contains all that it has learned in previous incarnations. The myth has spawned much controversy, with some scholars convinced that what the soul ‘recollects’ are Platonic forms (Gulley 1954:195; Guthrie 1975:253–4; Taylor 1926:130) and others remaining far more sceptical (Ebert 1973:180, n2; Ross 1951:18n3, 22; Sharples 1985:14; Weiss 2001:75). One reason that scholars have come to believe that it is forms that the myth’s soul ‘sees’ is that Socrates chooses the nonempirical subject matter of geometry for his demonstration of how recollection works. He has Meno summon a slave untutored in geometry and, by means only of asking questions, appears to elicit from the slave the correct answer to the puzzle he has posed, namely, on which line of a square is a second square whose area is twice that of the original square constructed? Since Socrates asks the slave rather leading questions, however, it is unclear how much ‘recollecting’ is actually going on as the slave pursues the puzzle’s solution, and how much he is in fact being taught by Socrates. For some scholars (Bluck 1961:13; Guthrie 1975:255), all is recollection; for others, recollection ends at the demonstration’s final stage (Klein 1965:107; Vlastos 1991a:119); for still others, there is only teaching (Anderson 1993:135; Weiss 2001:98). Scott (2006:102–9) hopes to salvage recollection by deflating its sense: recollection is the ability to follow a demonstration. Yet, Socrates contends that the only explanation for the slave’s achievement is that true opinions were always in him (Men. 85c–6b).
As the dialogue proceeds, Meno revives his initial question: how is virtue acquired? Socrates introduces a new method, the ‘method of hypothesis’, as a fruitful way to approach questions whose answers are not yet known. Employing this new method, Socrates establishes that virtue is teachable: virtue is teachable if and only if it is knowledge; all good things are associated in some way with knowledge; and virtue is a good thing. No sooner, however, does Socrates confirm virtue’s teachability than he challenges his own conclusion by citing the empirical fact (if it is a fact) that there are no teachers and students of virtue.
The dialogue concludes with an important distinction between true opinion and knowledge. Socrates associates knowledge once again with recollection, recasting recollection as the ‘tethering’ of true opinion (97e–8a). Interestingly, Socrates in the Men. applauds true opinion for its capacity to guide aright, faulting it only for its tendency to take flight. Having determined, then, that virtue, since it has neither teachers nor students, is not knowledge, Socrates supposes that it is a kind of true opinion (or good repute – eudoxia), and settles finally on the rather unsettling insight that virtue must come to human beings by ‘divine dispensation without intelligence’ (99e).
How seriously one takes the dialogue’s conclusion may turn on one’s view of the sudden appearance of the term eudoxia, ‘good repute’, in place of the expected true or right opinion (compare Thompson 1901:225 for whom it is insignificant with Klein 1965:253): does the shift intimate that for Socrates good statesmen succeed not because they think well but because they are well thought of? Or does Socrates hold that there are in principle (Bluck 1961:39–40) or even in fact (Scott 2006:186–92) good leaders whose virtue depends not on knowledge but on true opinion? Or, in the end, is Socrates, for all his talk of true opinion, committed to the view that there can be no genuine virtue without knowledge (Wilkes 1979)?
PARMENIDES
Samuel Scolnicov
Interpretations of Parmenides have ranged from reading it as an introduction to the whole of Platonic – and more often Neoplatonic – metaphysics (e.g. Dodds 1928), sometimes in an esotericist variation (e.g. Migliori 1990), to viewing it as a record of unsolved (and perhaps unsolvable) ‘honest perplexities’ (Vlastos 1954), as protreptic ‘mental gymnastics’ (Grote 1875), as a collection of sophistic tricks (e.g. Owen 1970) or even as an elaborate (though admittedly tedious) joke (e.g. Taylor 1934). Logical reconstructions of the dialogue have been offered by Brumbaugh (1961) and recently by Rickless (2007).
The first problem in the interpretation of the dialogue is the relation between its first, aporetic part (Prm. 130a3–7c3), following the proem (126a1–30a2), and the longer second part, containing a set of ostensibly self-contradictory arguments (137c4–66c5). Ryle (1939b) followed Apelt (1919) and Wundt (1935) in surmising that the two parts were composed at different times and are only loosely connected. Cornford (1939) practically ignores the first part. More recent interpretations (Gill 1996; Meinwald 1991; Scolnicov 2003) have tried to present a unified view of the dialogue. For a useful summary of previous interpretations, see Migliori (1990).
The structure of Prm. is not unknown from other dialogues (Meno; Republic): a relatively short aporetic first part and a longer euporetic part aimed at solving the problems raised in the first part. As usual with Plato, whatever is said in it is to be understood from the point of view of the speaker who says it. In the first, aporetic part of the dialogue, the Platonic Socrates’ proposal of ideas (or forms (q.v.), as they are sometimes termed in English) and participation is criticized by Parmenides from an Eleatic point of view. In Parmenidean terms, participation (q.v.) is impossible. It requires not only two types of entities, rational and sensible (something the historical Parmenides was prepared to consider, albeit only in his Way of Opinion, f. 8.52–9), but also two modes of being, being in itself and being in relation to something else (which Parmenides did not accept, cf. f. 8.56 ‘apart’, 58 ‘in itself’). Types of entities are categories and are, as such, mutually exclusive: cats are not dogs, and sensible things are not ideas. Modes of being are different ways in which the same thing can be: a portrait is, in itself, without reference or relation to anything else, colour on canvas; in relation to its sitter, it is his or her portrait.
The second part of the Prm. proceeds in eight arguments (commonly, but erroneously called ‘hypotheses’). Neoplatonists and interpretations of Neoplatonic inspiration have seen in it nine ‘hypotheses’, counting IIa (see below) as a separate argument. But this goes against the method set out at Prm. 135c8–6e4. There, the method yields four arguments. The entity under investigation, the ‘one’, viz. any one thing but in particular the idea, is hypothetized to be or, alternatively, not to be. The consequences of the resulting propositions are considered for that one and for the others than it. But, in each case, the one is taken either in itself (Arguments I, IV, VI, VIII) or in relation to something else (Arguments II, III, V, VII).
The first Argument (137c4–42a8) reiterates and expands, in formal terms, the aporia of the first part. Let us take the Parmenidean view of being as being in itself. This constrains us to recognize that the one (whatever it is) cannot be in relation to anything else. Hence, it cannot have any properties, cannot be named, spoken about, thought, perceived, etc., and any participation is impossible (142a1–6). But if participation is impossible, thought too is impossible, as any relation between ideas or between them and he who thinks them is ruled out. The aporia, however, is pragmatic, not logical. The impossibility of thinking and speaking about the one poses a problem only for the person who is actually engaged in inquiry about it.
According to the method (q.v.) introduced by Plato in the Men., such a reductio ad absurdum does not block the way to a conclusion intuitively accepted (such as that true opinion and knowledge are possible) but requires a change of hypothesis, self-evident as the original one may be. Instead of accepting as the main premise that what is one cannot be many (137c4–5) – according to the strong, Parmenidean principle of noncontradiction (f. 7.1), that opposites must be mutually exclusive – an alternative premise is proposed, that what is one can be many, but not in the same respect. Thus, what is one can have different, even opposed, attributes. The whole of the second part of this dialogue is hypothetical, that is, its conclusions depend on the premise of each argument and refer to possibilities rather than to actualities. (Note the subjunctive or optative throughout this part of the dialogue, with the exception of Prm. 146a6–8, for stylistic variation, as recognized by Aristotle, Metaphysics 5.7; 1077a35). The list of properties potentially ascribed to the one in the various arguments, and especially in argument II, can be seen as Plato’s list of categories, culled, in fact, from Parmenides’ f. 8. Argument IIa (Prm. 155e3–7b5) is an appendix on entities that are specifically in relation to time, that is, sensible beings. Argument III (157b6–9b1) establishes the same consequences for the others than the one, showing that each of the others is also a one. Argument IV (159b2–60b2) demonstrates that if the one is only in itself, the consequences true of it in Argument I are true also of the others.
Argument V (160b5–3b6) gives us a detailed analysis of participation as restricted to those aspects of the idea that make it this, rather than that, idea, not those, such as atemporality or oneness, that are common to all ideas and establishes the interdependence of being and not being as a requisite of participation (162a4–b8). Argument VI (163b7–4b4) establishes that nothing can be true of the one that is not in relation to anything, Argument VII (164b5–5e1) presents a purely perspectival ontology, in which to be is to be only in relation to something or to someone, and merely to be different for something else. From Plato such an ontology is not impossible, but is epistemologically unsatisfactory. This conclusion leads directly to Argument VIII (165e2–6c2), to the effect that if the one is not in itself but only in relation to something or someone else, there can be no truth. The general conclusion (166c2–5) is that the one has to be, paradoxically but necessarily, both in itself and in relation to something or someone else so as to be able truly to bear all attributes, even contradictories, under different aspects.
PHAEDO
E. E. Pender
At the height of his powers as a composer, Plato presents a masterpiece. Phaedo responds to Echecrates’ opening question – how did Socrates die? – by narrating his account of the philosopher’s final conversations and death. The choice of Phaedo as narrator reflects the historical circumstance of his presence at Socrates’ death but also the possibility that he was the absent Plato’s actual informant on the events (Phaedo 59b). In addition, Phaedo’s life story, as a former prisoner of war liberated from slavery by Socrates and now practicing philosophy, gives further point to the main theme of death as liberation for the philosopher, a theme prominent in the dramatic scenario of the imprisoned Socrates, whose soul is about to be freed from the final bonds of the body. The frame dialogue between Phaedo and Echecrates is set in Phlius in the Peloponnese, where Echecrates is a member of the Pythagorean community (D. L. 8.46; q.v. Pythagoreans). Within the reported dialogue Socrates’ interlocutors are Simmias and Cebes – both Socratics but also familiar with Pythagorean thought (Phd. 61d). The setting and characters thus establish a Pythagorean complexion for a debate which has at its centre the, notably Pythagorean, claim that soul is immortal and able to survive the death of the body.
The first main argument is Socrates’ defence of his confidence in the face of death, which rests on his conviction that, as a philosopher, he will enter the presence of gods and gain a welcome release from the body (63b–9e). The argument that death is a blessing for the wise man motivates the four arguments for immortality of soul which in turn demand the exposition of forms (q.v.) as causes. In this way Socrates’ defence structures the dialogue and the final metaphysical account is revealed as the underlying cause and guarantee of Socrates’ hope and gladness at death, as the fulfilment of his purpose to gain phronêsis (68a2).
The first argument for immortality is that from cyclical processes (70c–2e) life and death are opposites and there is balanced reciprocity between dying and coming-back-to-life. Since living people are born from the dead, the souls of the dead must exist to allow this cycle to continue. The second argument, from recollection (72e–7a), maintains that our understanding of abstracts such as ‘the equal itself’ (74a10) depends on knowledge which must have been gained before our first sense-perceptions and therefore that our souls must have existed and been able to learn before birth. The third argument, from affinity (78b–84b), turns to the nature of the soul itself and rests on the principle that ‘like knows like’. Socrates distinguishes the naturally composite from the naturally non-composite: the former liable to change and dissolution, visible, apprehended by the senses and mortal; the latter constant, invisible, known only to the intellect and divine. The body’s greater affinity to the composite and the soul’s to the noncomposite is then established dialectically, with Cebes accepting wholeheartedly (81e11) the conclusion that the purified soul is stronger and more independent than the body and so is able to depart after death to the invisible, with which it shares affinity. Within this argument Socrates explains how contact with the body contaminates the soul while philosophy provides its only means of freedom and purification through detached reasoning (82e–3b). When this apparently climactic argument ends, there is silence (84c). But Cebes’ critical objection and demand for proof that the soul will definitively exist after death (86e–8b) forces a radically new approach: the final argument, from opposites (102a–7b). Socrates now recounts how he rejected explanations of the world deriving from physical causes and instead turned to theories as the only way to find truth (99e). To explain his new method of reasoning, he speaks of different entities each of which exists ‘itself by itself’ (100b) – the forms. Discussion of largeness and smallness leads to the key principle that opposites cannot admit opposites (102e–3a). Following various examples of opposition, the dénouement is reached at Phd. 105d as soul is identified as the principle of life and its opposite as death. Since soul as life-force cannot admit its opposite, death, then soul is necessarily immortal and imperishable.
Given the difficulty of the issues raised, it is not surprising that Phd. continues to occupy much critical attention. Scholars disagree on the purpose, details and validity of each one of the arguments and advance differing interpretations on every key aspect of the text: soul-body dualism (Pakaluk 2003), recollection (Dimas 2003; Franklin 2005); how the non-composite soul relates to tripartition; how reincarnation can be reconciled with an immortality deriving from contact with the Forms; whether continuity of experiences and consciousness across different lives is feasible; the hypothetical method (Rowe 1993:227–49); the nature of forms – as causes (Sedley 1998), reasons or explanations; the question of immanence, and their precise role in sense-perception and recollection (Osborne 1995).
In contrast, within the text at the conclusion of the four arguments, Cebes’ objections to the immortality of soul have been met and his doubts overcome. Simmias too is satisfied ‘as far as the arguments go’ but admits that he remains doubtful due to the nature of the discussion and his low esteem of human enquiry (Sedley 1990). Socrates has thus led an investigation that is a model of cooperative dialectic. He has stimulated reactions and challenges, probed responses and welcomed admissions of doubt. He has offered encouragement and reassurance, and, crucially, at the close guides his followers towards the further testing of hypotheses necessary to reach a definitive account (Phd. 107b).
It is only at this conclusion that Socrates turns to myth: the story of the afterlife is presented not as confirming or superseding the arguments for immortality of soul but as simply taking a different approach. The myth offers a detailed geographical account of the regions of the afterlife and the journeys of the souls after death. It provides a teleological perspective of the universe as a place of intelligent design where goodness is rewarded. While the mass of souls after death remain bound in the physical realm, the philosopher’s soul alone gains its freedom to live ‘bodiless’ forever, in beautiful dwelling places beyond the earth (114c). The myth therefore justifies the gladness of the philosopher at death and, for the rest, calls attention to the urgent need to philosophize in the here-and-now in order to seize this brief chance to escape from the horrors of the underworld and eternal reincarnation (Pender 2011).
While the grandeur of the myth opens an eternal perspective, the spell is broken as Socrates turns to the practical need to bathe before drinking the poison – to save the women the trouble of washing a dead body (115a). This detail intensifies the growing divergence between Socrates as an eternally living soul and Socrates as a corpse (see also 115c–d). While the narrative attention is fixed on the physical experiences of taking the poison, Socrates’ own thought lies elsewhere. So the dialogue ends with its main message played out in the dramatic action: the increasing detachment of the philosopher’s soul from body, and his consequent serenity.
The huge scope of the dialogue provides Plato’s comprehensive response to his philosophical predecessors: to the mystery-religions on the true nature of imprisonment and purification (62b, 67c–d, 69c–d); to the natural scientists on coming-to-be and passing away (96a–c); to Anaxagoras on what nous as a cosmic force really entails (97b–9d); and to the Pythagoreans on why their theories of immortality and reincarnation need revision in the light of the forms. Since Plato presents his distinctive metaphysics and teleology as a development of Socrates’ principles, Phd. asserts his position in the Socratic succession (Most 1993) and their shared preeminence in the Greek philosophical tradition.
PHAEDRUS
Alessandra Fussi
The dialogue (dramatic date: 418–16; cf. Nails 2002:314) can be divided into a prologue, three speeches on erôs, love (q.v.) and a discussion of good and bad speaking and writing. In contrast with the Symposium (a narrated dialogue on erôs whose main scene takes place at night, in a private house, with many speakers) the Phaedrus is a performed dialogue with only two characters, who converse during the day and mostly in the countryside. Phaedrus is the dramatic link between the two dialogues: the ‘father of the logos’ in the Smp. (177d5) plays a similar role in the Phdr. (cf. Socrates’ comment to this effect at 242a7–b4). Socrates and Phaedrus walk along the Ilissus River and exchange speeches while lying under the shade of a plane tree, with the sun reaching its zenith at the end of Socrates’ second speech (Griswold 1986:34). In the highly refined cultural setting of the Smp., the speakers compete to deliver the best encomium of erôs (Smp. 177d2–5, 198c5–9b5; on encomiastic discourse in the two dialogues, cf. Nightingale 1995:110–13, 138–9, 154–7). Not the positive, but the negative sides of erôs are highlighted in the first two speeches of the Phdr. (cf. Rosen 1988:78–101). It is only as an afterthought that Socrates decides to pronounce a speech in praise of erôs, the so-called palinode, because, if erôs is a god or something divine, the previous accusations were shameful and blasphemous (Phdr. 242de).
Glaring light, extreme heat, the chorus of the cicadas (230c3, 258e6–9d8) are carefully marked off as a background to the conversation, and central themes of the dialogue emerge from the characters’ response to their natural surroundings. Socrates emphatically highlights the beauty of the place (230b2–c5), while Phaedrus, a valetudinarian, finds the surroundings only fit for physical exercise (cf. Ferrari 1987:4–9). Phaedrus’ insensitivity to natural beauty matches his philosophical insensitivity: when Socrates’ palinode is over, he fails to raise any questions and rushes to imagine how Lysias, the rhetorician, might compete (Phdr. 257c).
The relationship between beauty (q.v.) and erôs is central in the dialogue (Hyland 2008:64–90). In the first speech in defence of the non-lover (a written text by Lysias read aloud by Phaedrus) lovers are criticized for their fickleness: attracted by the beautiful body of the beloved, as the bloom of youth fades they abandon the boy and break all their promises (Phdr. 234ab); in the second speech, delivered by Socrates in competition with Lysias, the fictional speaker is a concealed lover who passes as a non-lover. Here the relationship between erôs and beauty is more complex, because envy enters the scene (Fussi 2006). The lover is initially allured by the beauty of the boy (Phdr. 238b7–c4), but, being a slave to pleasure, he ‘will turn his boy into whatever is most pleasing to himself’ (238e; trans. Nehamas and Woodruff 1995). Since, however, ‘a sick man takes pleasure in anything that does not resist him, but sees anyone who is equal or superior as an enemy’ (238e–9a), the lover (older and uglier than the beloved: 240d8–e1) comes to resent the beauty of the boy. Rather than honouring and protecting the beloved, he degrades his physical beauty (239c3–d8), and hampers his potential for mental growth (239a2–c2).
This view of erôs derives from the concealed lover’s thesis that two principles fight for rule in the soul: when acquired opinion rules through reason, it aims at the best, but when the innate desire for pleasure prevails, the person becomes sick and completely unreliable (whether this conception exemplifies Plato’s previous theories is a matter of debate: cf. Nussbaum 1986; Price 1989). In the palinode, however, Socrates presents a tripartite image of the soul (q.v.). He likens the human soul to a winged chariot composed by a charioteer (reason) and two horses (spiritedness and appetite). Arguably, the soul’s wing symbolizes erôs (Griswold:94–9), as it mediates among the parts of the soul, transforming the natural run of the horses into upward movement to the hyperuranian region, where the soul can contemplate the forms (q.v.). Socrates’ reflection moves from the nature of the divine soul to that of the human soul, and from the condition that the latter enjoys before incarnation, to the travails encountered during its worldly life. When a soul loses its wings, it falls and takes on an earthly body. Only those souls which contemplated true being, however, can take on human bodies, and, of these, only that soul which was nourished on the forms long enough will take the body of a man who will become a ‘lover of wisdom or of beauty or who will be cultivated in the arts and prone to erotic love’ (248d). Philosophy, erôs and beauty are, therefore, closely linked together. Only the form of beauty, among the beings that truly are, can be perceived by the senses. The process of recollection (q.v.) from earthly beauty to beauty itself can be set in motion in a philosophical soul through falling in love (250d). The beautiful face of the beloved allows the wings of the soul to grow back, radically transforming the behaviour of the person who, as both Lysias’ non-lover (231d4–6) and Socrates’ concealed lover (241a4b3) had pointed out, when in love acts as if he was no longer himself. The sight of beauty, however, can have different outcomes, since it initiates a struggle among the three parts of the soul. When reason loses, behaviours like those criticized in the first two speeches are likely to ensue, and love can become a shameful affair. Paradoxically, reason wins the struggle with the bad horse not when it tries to control its team, but when its concentration shifts from the team to beauty itself, that is, when the beauty of the beloved reminds the lover of his ‘prior’ experience of divine beauty. Controlling the two horses, thus, is not the goal, but the outcome of recollection (Ferrari 1992:266).
Different kinds of souls react differently to beauty: when the palinode is over, Socrates and Phaedrus turn to discuss which kinds of speeches and writings are beautiful, which are shameful, and why (Phdr. 258d1–5; 259e1–2; on the supposed lack of unity of the dialogue, Burger 1980; Griswold 1986:157–201; cf. Hackforth 1972:136–7). Rhetoric, present in the first half of the Phdr. in the form of a written speech and two extemporaneous ones – all aimed at persuading a young beloved – becomes thematic in the second half, where those speeches are analysed in light of their being artfully composed or not (Phdr. 262c5–6b1). True rhetoric (q.v.) is distinguished from artless practise (259e4–60e5), and defined as the art of ‘directing the souls by means of speech’ (psychagogia tis dia logon, 261a6–7, cf. 271c10). According to Socrates, rhetoricians ought to know the truth concerning the subjects they want to address (259e4–6, 273d1–3), since a good composition mirrors in its structure the natural structure of its object, exhibiting the organic unity of a living creature (264c2–5). Good rhetoricians, therefore, are also dialecticians (266c1), capable of mastering the art of collection and division (263b6–c, cf. 273e1–4). Indeed, in Socrates’ account, only philosophers can become good rhetoricians (cf. 261a3–5, 273d–e), since rhetoricians ought to acquire knowledge concerning not only the subjects they discuss but also the souls of those they strive to persuade (271a1–2). The ideal rhetorician will study the nature of the soul in general – whether it is uniform or composite (270d1, cf. 230a) – as well as the different kinds of souls and characters in particular (271b1–d8). Furthermore, he will be able to detect in practise which speeches are best suited to whom (271d8–2a8), and to grasp the right occasions for speaking and being silent (272a4). The Phdr. ends with a critique of writing (274–9), which has attracted much discussion among scholars, especially in light of Plato’s choice to write dialogues (Derrida 1972a; Hyland 2008:115–35; cf. Szlezák 1999).
PHILEBUS
Verity Harte
The Philebus is one of Plato’s later works. Among these, it is unusual in featuring Socrates as lead speaker. This return of Socrates goes with the Socratic character of the dialogue’s topic: the nature of the good and of the good human life in particular. The dialogue stages a contest between pleasure and a family of intellectual candidates including reason and knowledge to determine which, if either, is ‘that state or disposition of soul capable of providing the happy life for all people’ (Phlb. 11d4–6). It concludes that neither pleasure nor the intellectual candidates win first prize: a life containing a mixture of pleasure and reason is better than a life containing pleasure or reason alone. But the intellectual candidates are more highly ranked in an evaluation of what contributes to the value of this victorious mixed life.
The Phlb. is a ‘direct dialogue’, a direct conversation involving the principal interlocutors without introduction or narration. It purports to begin in the middle of a conversation. Outside the frame of the dialogue, Socrates has been defending the claim of the intellectual candidates in this competition with pleasure against the hedonism of one Philebus. Philebus, however, ‘has withdrawn’ (11c8), leaving one Protarchus to be Socrates’ interlocutor in defence of pleasure’s claim. This pointed offstage placement of Philebus may itself be part of an argument against an extreme form of hedonism as defending a life removed from the human rational sphere (Frede 1997:94–5; McCabe 2000:128–34).
Given its topic and vivid presentation, one might expect the dialogue to be among Plato’s more popular works. That it is not so is largely due to the interruption of the otherwise smooth flow of its contest by apparent digressions into abstruse matters of methodology and ontology. A principal challenge for interpreting the Phlb. is making sense of its structure.
The first digression follows Socrates’ and Protarchus’ disagreement over whether or not pleasure – and Socrates’ intellectual candidates also – come in various kinds, kinds that make a difference to their value. Socrates’ insistence that they do leads to his more general claim that such structural complexity is omnipresent in objects of systematic investigation. Socrates proposes a general method for systematic investigation based on a claim about the nature of things: that everything is composed of one and many, having within it both limit (peras) and unlimitedness (apeirian) (Phlb. 16c9–10). Given this ontology, Socrates’ method proposes serial division and enumeration of each complex unity into its constituent kinds, ceasing – ‘letting each one of them go into the unlimited’ (16e1–2) – only when every component has been enumerated.
Protarchus baulks at applying such systematic investigation to pleasure and asks that Socrates do so. Instead, Socrates conjures one of the swiftest and most important of the dialogue’s arguments (20b–2c). Faced with a choice between two lives – a life in which there is pleasure, but none of the intellectual candidates and an intellectual life with no pleasure – Protarchus rejects not only the purely intellectual life, but also the life containing pleasure alone, concluding that a life in which both are present is better than either. Protarchus rejects the life of pleasure alone because a life in which one constantly experiences maximal pleasure, but does not know one is doing so nor remember one has is not a life that he – or any person – would rationally choose to live. This ‘Choice of Lives’ argument could, in principle, mark the end of the contest between pleasure and the intellectual candidates, giving victory to neither. In fact, it leads to a version of the promised systematic investigation of pleasure and the intellectual candidates in the service of a second contest – as to which of these competitors is responsible for the value of the victorious mixed life – and to a more detailed description of this victorious life.
Socrates does not immediately embark on the systematic investigation of pleasure and the intellectual candidates, but starts further back, dividing beings in general into four kinds (23c–7c). Two – ‘unlimited’ (apeiron) and ‘limit’ (peras) – pick up the claim about the nature of things that underlay his earlier method, although it is disputed whether these terms are used consistently in the two different passages. (Contrast Striker 1970 and Frede 1997:202–5 with Gosling 1975:186 and Meinwald 1998. For my own view, see Harte 2002:78–208). Third is the mixture of limit and unlimited, to which the victorious mixed life is assigned. Pleasure is agreed, on somewhat dubious grounds, to be of the kind, unlimited. Socrates’ intellectual candidates are assigned to a fourth kind, the cause of mixture, in an early version of the argument from design (28d–38d), according to which the order apparent in the universe is explicable only by appeal to an intelligent cause or designer. (See Frede 1997:213–21 for appropriate caution in drawing this comparison. For the history of ‘design arguments’ in antiquity, see Sedley 2007a.)
This assignment of the intellectual candidates presages the way in which, in the ensuing examination of pleasure, Plato’s most detailed psychology is used to show how pleasure is dependent upon Socrates’ candidates. Pleasure is identified with perceived processes of restoration of optimal conditions of body or soul (Phlb. 31c–2b). Deprived of such optimal conditions, an animal can, through perception, recognize this deprivation as painful; through memory, identify and desire what would restore its optimal condition; and, through human imagination and reason, derive pleasure from the confident expectation of its restoration. When these mechanisms err – in particular, when our confident expectations about future pleasure are wrong or exaggerated – we experience one or another kind of ‘false pleasure’. (Plato’s understanding of the falsity of false pleasures has been the subject of much dispute, for which see Evans 2008; Frede 1985; Harte 2003–4.) By the same token, even realistically appraised restorative pleasures are mostly irretrievably mixed up with pain: mostly – Socrates identifies as ‘true’ certain perceptual and intellectual pleasures that replenish painless lacks of which we are unaware (Phlb. 51a–3c). Nevertheless, all such restorative pleasures are dependent for whatever value they have on the value of the optimal condition they restore. Hence, this – not pleasure – must be the locus of value.
Brief by comparison, Socrates’ investigation of the intellectual candidates (55c–9d) also uses truth as a criterion to evaluate different intellectual activities, based on the use therein of forms of measurement. This appeal to measurement foreshadows its role in the final awarding of prizes in the dialogue’s contest. Though noteworthy for its inclusion of both pleasure and practical crafts in its victorious, mixed life, the dialogue’s ‘practical’ turn is offset by the abstract character of first and second prize-winners in its fivefold prize giving (66a–c). These go to geometrical features of the life’s construction: proportion, measure and so on. Third and fourth prizes go to Socrates’ intellectual candidates. Fifth prize goes to true pleasures, the only kind of pleasure to make it into the prizewinning components of the winning life.
The Phlb. – its discussion of pleasure especially – was influential in antiquity, for example, providing important background to the psychology developed by Aristotle in de Anima and Parva Naturalia, as well as to his treatment of pleasure in Nicomachean Ethics.
POLITICUS (STATESMAN)
Kenneth Sayre
Plato’s Politicus is introduced (Plt. 258a) as third in a projected quartet of dialogues: the Theaetetus (a discussion of knowledge between Socrates and the young mathematician, Theaetetus), the Sophist (a conversation between Theaetetus and a master dialectician from Elea on the art of verbal deception), the Plt. (between the Eleatic master and another young mathematician named Socrates) and a fourth dialogue on philosophy between the two Socrateses which was never written.
The Plt.’s ostensible topic is the art of statecraft (kingship). At the very middle of the dialogue (283c–5c), however, there is a succinct analysis of normative measurement on which statecraft is said to depend, immediately following which we are told explicitly that the conversation’s primary concern is not with statecraft but with making its participants better dialecticians. Statesmanship is the subject with reference to which the dialogue teaches its dialectical lessons.
One tactic followed by the Eleatic master is to make mistakes deliberately for instructional purposes. Statesmanship is defined initially as a self-directive kind of theoretical knowledge dealing with care for living subjects, specifically with herds of humans as distinct from beasts. This definition is judged erroneous because human herd-rearing is only a small part of herd-rearing generally and does not by itself comprise a form (eidos 262b; q.v.). There follows a tutorial on proper definition in which Young Socrates (YS) is advised to divide according to forms (kat’eidê 262e) by cutting things ‘through the middle’ (dia meson).
After testing YS with a few less-than-serious definitions of human being (including ‘featherless biped’), the Eleatic observes that they have not yet distinguished the statesman from other human care providers like farmers, bakers and doctors. Making that distinction, he says, requires a new beginning. He then recounts a myth contrasting the age of Zeus (the present age) with the age of Cronus (for detailed commentary on the myth, see Lane 1998; Miller 2002; also q.v. Myth).
Under Cronus the universe runs backwards and order is maintained by divine control. Human beings spring full grown from the earth and become increasingly younger until they disappear. All needs are satisfied by a bountiful earth and animals live without preying on one another. When Cronus releases control, however, the world becomes increasingly disorderly, creatures fend for themselves at each other’s expense and humans require god-given gifts of fire and craft for sheer survival. At the chaotic end of this sequence the universe reverses direction and the age of Zeus begins.
The express purpose of the myth is to show that the paradigm of shepherding, epitomized by Cronus, is a mismatch for civic leadership in the age of Zeus. This paradigm gives rise to the confusion between statesmen and care providers like farmers and doctors, and it provides no help in studying the manner of kingly rule. Another paradigm is needed. After a brief examination of the use of paradigms in learning grammar (a ‘paradigm of paradigms’, Plt. 277d), the Eleatic proposes weaving as a more helpful paradigm for statecraft under present conditions.
Weaving is defined first as a skill of fabricating woolen garments for protective wear. Like the initial definition of statecraft, however, this attempt fails to distinguish its definiendum from related arts (e.g. carding and fulling). A revised definition classifies these associated arts as merely contributive and singles out weaving as the manufacture of woolen clothing by intertwining warp and woof (283a).
Both weaving and statesmanship, like all other arts, depend upon due measure (to metrion 284a). The same holds for dialectic (q.v.) itself. In a brief discussion at the very heart of the dialogue (283c–5c), the Eleatic contrasts two kinds of measurement. One compares excess and deficiency (also termed the great and the small 283e) with respect to each other, the other measures them with respect to normative standards (the mean, the fitting, the timely and the requisite 284e). The latter (normative measurement) is prerequisite not only for art (q.v.) but for the difference between good and bad in human affairs (283e). If ‘due measure’ did not exist, there would be no arts, no products of arts and no difference between good and bad.
This key passage on measurement employs terminology characteristic of Plato’s late (post-Parmenides) ontology. Both excess and deficiency and great and small are designations of the principle which, according to Aristotle’s rendition of Plato’s views, cooperates with unity in producing forms and with forms in generating sensible things. The Plt. is one of several dialogues expressing such views, sometimes referred to as Plato’s Unwritten Doctrines (q.v.) (for details, see Sayre 2005, 2006).
In beginning the final definition of statesmanship (Plt. 287b), the Eleatic cautions that the divisions will not always be dichotomous. Nor will they be confined to the right hand side. Indeed, nondichotomous division along the left was previously introduced in the definition of weaving, a departure from the format followed earlier in the dialogue.
The final definition begins by separating civic arts into direct and contributory causes, which later are then subdivided into seven parts (e.g. tool making, vehicle manufacture). Direct causes are divided into governors and servants, the latter further divided into classes typified by slaves, merchants, clerks and priests. Here the Eleatic expresses concern that the statesman might become hidden in a group described as ‘the greatest enchanters among the sophists’ (291c). This danger is forestalled by dividing governors into leaders of genuine and imitative (303c) polities, including kingly and tyrannical monarchies, aristocracies and oligarchies and lawful and lawless democracies. Among leaders of genuine polities, the statesman is finally divided from his governor subordinates, notably generals, judges and rhetoricians.
At the end of this formal definition (305e), statesmanship emerges as the civic art controlling all other arts involved in the life of a genuine polity. After this paradigmatic illustration of dialectical procedure, the Eleatic returns to matters of practical statesmanship.
The paradigm of weaving is brought to bear once again at Plt. 305e with a discussion of the statesman’s practical task of weaving opposing temperaments into an integrated social fabric. ‘Warp’ and ‘woof’ for this fabric are provided by the polity’s more courageous and more peaceable characters, respectively. When these groups interbreed and are imbued with civic virtue (true opinion about the beautiful, the just and the good 309c), the result is a unified and prosperous state (311c).
PROTAGORAS
Daniel C. Russell
Protagoras, a so-called Socratic dialogue, features conversations between Socrates and the sophist Protagoras, a self-professed teacher of virtue (q.v.). The focus of the dialogue is whether virtue can be taught, and along the way Plato also examines several other issues: whether virtue is a unity; whether virtue is knowledge; the possibility and nature of akrasia (q.v.); and the value of pleasure (q.v.). The dialogue falls roughly into five sections.
Prt. 309a–17e. Socrates narrates how he was awakened early by a young friend, Hippocrates, eager to meet and study with Protagoras, recently arrived in Athens. Socrates suggests that they meet Protagoras to see whether he is a fit teacher, and this sets the tone of the dialogue: sophists profess to alter their students’ very souls, and students have reason to be cautious. They find Protagoras at the home of his Athenian patron, where he has been giving presentations of his rhetorical prowess before several prominent Athenians (the extended family of Pericles), other sophists (Hippias and Prodicus) and his own ‘chorus’ (315b) of hangers-on.
Prt. 317e–28d. Socrates questions Protagoras about whether virtue really is teachable. Protagoras replies with a long, eloquent discussion – often called his ‘Great Speech’ – on the nature and the teaching of virtue. He argues that while virtue is something common – and offers a myth to illustrate how virtue binds civilized society (see Shortridge 2007) – still virtue is teachable: for example, punishment of criminals and naughty children alike aims to instil virtue in them. Moreover, some people even excel in virtue, which can be taught by specialists. This issue is very important to Plato, since if virtue is teachable, then it should be some kind of knowledge (q.v.). It is also important in his assessment of the sophists (q.v.): they claim to teach virtue, but can they explain what sort of knowledge virtue is?
Prt. 328d–4c. In order to understand whether virtue is teachable, Socrates says, he needs to know how the several virtues are related to each other. As the dialogue unfolds, Socrates’ concern becomes clear: if virtue is teachable, then it must be a unified body of knowledge; but does Protagoras think virtue is knowledge, or a unity? Socrates first asks questions about unity, and in reply Protagoras says that the virtues are not the same but all distinct parts of virtue; moreover, these parts are heterogeneous, like the parts of the face, separable from each other and dissimilar to each other. Socrates then asks Protagoras about three pairs of virtues – justice (q.v.) and piety (q.v.), wisdom and temperance, and temperance and justice – in each case suggesting that Protagoras accepts more cohesion within these pairs than his previous statements suggest.
The heart of this discussion is Protagoras’ view as to whether to have any one of the virtues is to have them all, what scholars often call the ‘reciprocity of the virtues’ or the ‘unity of the virtues’ (see Manuwald 2005). Plato takes up this thesis in several other dialogues, but it is significant here for the connection that Plato clearly draws between it and the very idea that virtue is teachable.
Prt. 334c–49a. Protagoras soon tires of giving short answers, preferring to make speeches instead, and the conversation breaks down. After a struggle over how to proceed, Protagoras questions Socrates, focusing on an apparent inconsistency in a poem of Simonides, viz. that it is both hard to become good and not hard (rather, impossible) to be good. Thus begins what is sometimes called a literary digression, in the middle of the dialogue. Socrates discusses the poem briefly with the sophist Prodicus, and is eventually persuaded to make his own speech, which includes a good deal of humour and irony. To eliminate the apparent inconsistency, Socrates distinguishes between the process of becoming good and the state of being good (see Baltzly 1992 for discussion). But what is most significant about Socrates’ speech is his insistence there that no one does wrong willingly – the so-called Socratic paradox. Plato revisits this provocative idea throughout his career, and there is enormous scholarly controversy over how to characterize the progression of his thought on this issue. This idea is also a central issue in the dialogue’s final arguments, which follow immediately.
Prt. 349a–62. Socrates finally steers the discussion back to the relations between the virtues. Protagoras now says that while there may be connections between some virtues, ‘courage is completely different from all the rest’. In reply, Socrates focuses on Protagoras’ view that the knowledge he imparts is something fine and powerful. Socrates suggests presenting this knowledge as a skill – the ‘art of measurement’ – for measuring the quantities of pleasure and pain an action produces (see Nussbaum 1986:ch. 4; Richardson 1990). This is because laypersons would accept that an action is right when there is preponderance of pleasure over pain, and that pleasure and pain are the fundamental motivational drives. In that case, they would agree that the ‘art of measurement’ guarantees right action: right action, on this view, is also one that there is most motivation to do, and the ‘art of measurement’ identifies such action. Such an advertisement would both appeal to Protagoras’ audience and portray virtue as both teachable and immune to wilful wrongdoing. However, it also makes courage a form of knowledge, like the other virtues (and wisdom in particular), contra Protagoras’ earlier assertion. Protagoras then breaks off the discussion, and in parting, Socrates says that whereas originally Protagoras affirmed and Socrates doubted that virtue is teachable, their positions have now reversed. Like many Socratic dialogues, Prt. is ‘aporetic’, ending apparently without solving its central puzzles.
This passage is among the most controversial in the corpus (see the commentaries of Denyer 2008 and Taylor 1976). On one hand, it puts forth normative and psychological hedonism, as well as a quantitative model of virtue, but such ideas seem to conflict with Plato’s other dialogues; on the other, it also defends such Socratic theses as the reciprocity of the virtues and the Socratic paradox (on the latter see Wolfsdorf 2006). Much controversy surrounds the relation between Prt. and Gorgias particularly, since in Grg. Socrates is highly critical of hedonism. This controversy has not been conclusive: some deny that these dialogues actually disagree on this point (e.g. Rudebusch 1999); and even if they do, perhaps Plato simply changed his mind. Yet others argue that Prt. itself gives no evidence that Plato endorsed hedonism, other dialogues aside (e.g. Russell 2005). But at present, there is little reason to anticipate scholarly consensus on these points.
REPUBLIC
Nickolas Pappas
The Republic is among Plato’s greatest works and likely his most controversial. Its subject is dikaiosunê ‘justice’ (q.v.), both as an individual human virtue (q.v.) and a feature of political existence. The dialogue also ranges over topics in metaphysics, education (q.v.) and aesthetics (q.v.); but its proposals for political reform have inspired both the most enthusiastic revolutionary thinking and the most horrified anti-utopianism.
Whether Plato wrote the R. all at once or in stages, it was later editors who divided it into 10 books, those divisions sometimes registering turns in the conversation (beginnings of bks 2, 5, 8, 10). The change after bk 1 separates its rendered scene and characters from the drier constructive argumentation that takes up bks 2–10. Bks 2–10 rarely acknowledge that their conversation is unfolding anywhere special; bk 1 sets the stage in Piraeus, the port of Athens, at the home of Polemarchus, the son of Cephalus, a noncitizen who has grown old and wealthy. It is summer, the year perhaps around 422 BCE, although scholars have debated this consensus, many arguing for a dramatic date a full decade later (Nails 1998). If it is 422 the Peloponnesian War has paused in a truce; Socrates is about 50. (Plato wrote the R. decades later, when its active participants were dead.)
Socrates spends bk 1 trying to define and defend justice (Lycos 1987; Sparshott 1966). His host’s father is a pious man possessed of virtues but no skill at justifying them. Polemarchus represents the new ideas of Sophists and poets. Socrates reduces him to silence too. Then Thrasymachus mounts an attack on morality: ‘Justice’ refers to nothing but what benefits those in power (R. 338c). For that reason behaving justly is never in anyone’s interests (343c).
Bk 2 replaces these interlocutors with Plato’s brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus. They restate Thrasymachus’ challenge systematically, asking Socrates not merely to silence one critic but to defend morality against all critics (357a–b). Thereafter they let Socrates lead them through the thicket of the R.’s argument. They are civilized, even placid; they want to learn.
The R. thus represents two genres of Platonic dialogue, bk 1 resembling those contentious, inconclusive dialogues called ‘early’ or ‘Socratic’ while the remainder belongs with ‘Platonic’ dialogues about Forms, soul and other positive doctrines. Some scholars believe Plato wrote bk 1 earlier as a freestanding dialogue, revisiting it later to expand and improve its argument. More often it is thought he wrote bk 1 deliberately in the style of his own shorter dialogues, to contrast their negative and personal cross-examinations with another mode of philosophizing, something less embattled and therefore less exciting, but with the promise to issue in conclusions – something closer to teaching philosophy (Kahn 1993).
The R. as a whole is powered by an analogy that Socrates introduces in bk 2: A soul is like a city (R. 368e–9a). Justice and other virtues in a human soul (q.v.) share structural characteristics with the justice and other virtues of a state. The parallel between individual and collective virtues emerges from an underlying tripartite organization of functions common to city and soul. This analogy lets the R. explore ethical and political matters together (Cooper 1977; Ferrari 2005).
(I) POLITICAL THOUGHT
As a document of political philosophy the R. is sometimes called utopian. But it makes concessions to economic and political realities (abandoning the simple town Socrates first proposes to examine a sophisticated city that Glaucon considers more widely attractive: 372d–e); and it worries how to implement its reforms (e.g. 471c–d). The city it proposes is meant to follow from axioms applicable to every society: A1: People come together to create a new social unity (369c). A2: In a well-run society people specialize their labour (369e–70a). The R. appeals to A1 when mandating policies that promote concord, while A2 keeps each citizen assigned to a single task. Indeed, since Platonic justice is cooperation among disparate groups in a city (433a), justice combines the axioms.
A2 also yields Plato’s class analysis, when ‘labour’ means very broadly the three civic functions. People serve their society by producing goods and services. Citizens perform another civic function by fighting in the military. And they serve to the extent that they participate in governance. So Plato divides the city into three classes: a small group of rulers, a selective army and the productive mass of the population (414a–b). This is not a simplification of class divisions in Athens but the invention of new classes. The Greek cities’ mesoi ‘middle ones’ were farmers who worked their land, wore armour to serve in the infantry and voted in the assembly. Thus, Plato’s stratification divides the hoplite-farmer-assemblyman into three, signalling that the idealized citizen of classical Greece was untenable in a philosophical city.
The functional analysis may make trouble on Plato’s own terms. Athenian citizens had to exercise their reason in the assembly, fight courageously in the army and work as self-interested producers on the farm. They had to have the complete souls described by Plato’s psychology (see below). But those complete humans disappear from the Platonic city. Will the best city contain the best individuals after all?
The R. focuses on the rulers and soldiers, collectively ‘guardians’. They live communally, sharing meals and sleeping in barracks without privacy (416d–17b). Men and women (q.v.) rule and fight side by side (452a; Bluestone 1987); ‘marriages’ are temporary breeding assignments, orchestrated by the rulers so that the fittest guardians reproduce (459a–60a). Their children are reared in nurseries not knowing who their parents are (460b–d).
The abolition of the family leaves children attached only to fellow guardians. Their identity is their public identity. Athenian tragedy worried how to coordinate family loyalties with loyalties to the state; Plato undoes this problem at a stroke by eliminating families.
Finally the rulers must be philosophers – ‘philosopher-kings’ as they are popularly known – though it is important to remember that they are both men and women (473c–d). If the R. creates its classes by dividing actual Athenians into two or three functions, then the philosopher-kings and -queens reflect the forcible concatenation of two types, the executive and the contemplative. Scholars debate whether this figure violates A2, and how philosophers might be persuaded to be governed, when by their natures they have something much better to do (Brown 2000; Mahoney 1992).
Plato’s solution to the tensions inherent in the philosopher-king recalls his earlier solution to a lesser tension. When Socrates proposes a standing army he specifies that these guardians be gentle to fellow citizens but fierce towards enemies (R. 375c). How to produce a gentle fierce soldier? Education (410e): Socrates launches into a treatment of poetry and other arts, followed by extensive physical education (376c–412b). Analogously, those higher-flying birds, the philosopher-kings, need intensive intellectual education. They study the forms and ‘the good’ (503e–6a; Sedley 2007b). Their education also covers mathematics (q.v.) and dialectic (q.v.) (521d–34e; Burnyeat 2000).
(II) PSYCHOLOGY AND ETHICS
Socrates discovers a tripartite structure within the soul: reason, spiritedness, desire (440e–1a). Examples of internal conflict show that these are distinct elements or motives (437b–40a; Lorenz 2006).
The most innovative of the three is thumos ‘spirit’ or ‘anger’ (439e), the element that engenders shame and indignation. Without some such element the soul would only possess reason and desire, the outcome always threatening that desires can overpower the quiet voice of reason. The spirited part of the soul possesses irrational energy and therefore the strength to resist desires, yet it stands near enough to reason to take instruction from it. If the body is a cage and reason is the little human trapped inside with desire, a many-headed monster, spirit is the lion that this homunculus tames to keep the monster at bay (588b–9a).
Desire (q.v.) first appears simple, a self-gratifying wish that moves without thinking (437c). But desires vary from sexual desire, the maddest of all (329c, 458d), through desires for food and drink, to the most rational seeming among them, money love. Most desires co-exist: one eats, sees a play. But sexual desire tyrannizes the others (572e) until the sexual obsessive seeks nothing but forbidden intercourse (572c–d). At the other extreme, love of money imparts self-discipline (554c–d).
Reason is differently ambiguous. First it is the motive that governs other motives, the soul’s executive branch. Later reason’s function expands to include desire for knowledge (475b); so possessing a soul governed by reason means both coordinating your motives and practicing philosophy. Reason knows two native activities, as the philosopher-kings have two jobs to do.
Socrates argues that the soul is immortal (608d–11a). He recounts a myth (q.v.) of otherworldly judgement and reincarnation (614b–21b). However religious this argument sounds, it accords with the R.’s pattern of removing ‘body’ from accounts of motive (411e, 518d). All actions can be accounted for in terms belonging exclusively to soul; no wonder the soul persists without a body.
The city and soul work together, rather than in parallel, in the R.’s overarching argument. They also join in one subsidiary argument.
(III) THE BENEFITS OF JUSTICE
The R.’s overarching argument says that the just life is preferable to the unjust life. Justice in the city denotes an establishment in which rulers and ruled respect each other’s functions and interests, and cooperate in running the city (433b–d). The many kinds of injustice are presented as a sequence of decline in constitutions, from the best state to an honour-loving martial aristocracy (timocracy), then downward through oligarchy and democracy to tyranny (bks 8 and 9).
Meanwhile, the just soul possesses the appeal of a balanced mental state (443a–b). This sounds intrinsically desirable. But alongside his history of worsening regimes Socrates recounts the decline among souls, naming the ever-worse souls after the regimes they resemble. Each unjust soul makes the just type look better off, as bad cities enhance the appeal of the good city.
Socrates lingers over the contrast between a tyrant and a philosopher. Focusing on the superiority that intellectual pleasures enjoy over unnecessary bodily pleasures – all lust and illusion – Socrates concludes that the best person’s life is far happier than the worst person’s (587e; Parry 2007).
(IV) POETRY AND THE OTHER ARTS
The R.’s politics and psychology combine differently in its attacks on poetry (q.v.). The first treatment (bks 2–3) emphasizes politics and the young guardians’ education. Socrates evaluates the content of epic poems and Athenian tragedies: What do they say about gods and heroes (377a–91e)? His assessment becomes formalist when it banishes drama and narratives containing direct speech by characters. Mimêsis ‘representation, enactment’ amounts to inauthenticity or deception (392b–4c). Anyone who acts out the part of an inferior person will pick up bad habits (395d).
The arguments in bk 10 view mimêtic poetry from the soul’s perspective (595a), understanding mimêsis as representation or imitation (q.v.; Nehamas 1982b). Like painting, mimêtic poetry is the imitation of appearance (598b); therefore it strengthens the worst part of the soul, the part that feeds on illusions (602c–d; cf. 585d). Tragedy stirs up pity and grief and weakens the soul’s capacity to govern itself (606a–d).
Bk 10 extends the claims of bk 3. Not only children but nearly everyone risks being corrupted by mimêtic poetry. Not only the depictions of bad characters corrupt but depiction as such, for it trades in appearance alone, not truth.
(V) METAPHYSICS
A digression from the tight analogy between city and discussion of the ruler leads the R. to its central metaphysical subject: the forms (q.v.), objects of greater being than ordinary things.
Philosophers, who love learning, differ from ‘spectacle-lovers’ thanks to the difference between forms – what philosophers pursue in their studies – and the sights and sounds of particular objects that a fan of entertainment rushes to see and hear: tragedies, music and paintings (475e–6b). Individual things can only be objects of doxa ‘belief, opinion’ (479d–e). Forms are objects of knowledge (476d).
Often, as here, Plato’s Socrates introduces forms as if his interlocutor knew what they were. He speaks of those objects that philosophers love to learn about as ‘the beautiful itself’, for example, Glaucon acknowledges them (476a). Then (as elsewhere) the R. follows an argument for insiders with one directed to open audiences, in this case the experience lovers being differentiated from philosophers (479a–e). This argument says: Particular objects hold their properties equivocally, being beautiful in one respect and ugly in another; likewise both large and small, good and bad. What is and is not F (for any property F) cannot be clearly known as a form can be. For, by hypothesis a form simply is F. Largeness is large, not large and small (Nehamas 1979; Patterson 1985). One knows what is and has opinions about what is and is not.
If Socrates is right that non-forms cannot be known, the argument offers a pragmatic consideration in favour of forms’ existence. Without them there is no knowledge. If anyone knows anything, the philosopher knows forms. The lover of spectacles, sensations and things possesses mere opinions about the visible world.
(VI) THE GOOD
The form of the good (q.v.) is the conscious goal and consummation of the philosophers’ education (504a–6a). The good is not one form among many but in some way a greatest form. To show how they are related Socrates uses a simile (sun), a geometrical image (line) and an allegory (cave).
What the sun (q.v.) is among visible objects the good is among things understood by intellect (508a–9b). The sun is the cause of other objects and also provides the light by which those who see can see those objects. The good causes the existence of the forms and makes it possible for those who can reason to know forms. As the eye is guided by sunlight to see what the sun has caused to be, the mind is guided by the good to know what it has made.
The divided line (q.v.) complicates this analogy (509d–11e). Socrates divides a line into two segments of unequal length, then subdivides each segment. The main division separates visible from intelligible; within the visible domain the subdivision sets objects against their shadows and reflections. As a tree has greater reality than its reflection, so too does the intelligible world as a whole compared to the visible world (Denyer 2007; Smith 1996).
Within the intelligible realm the opposition between being and image (q.v.) distinguishes forms from mathematical objects. As an object of thought, the circle deserves a place in the world known to thought. But because mathematicians use such objects in a way that Plato calls ‘hypothetical’ – he seems to mean: without defining their terms – imagistic cognition remains mixed into their understanding (R. 510c–11a). Mathematicals stand below those objects of dialectic that philosophers know through rigorous definitions, the forms (511b–d).
Are there four different grades of objects on the line, each causing a distinct type of cognition; or do different ways of understanding a single object let it be more than one type of thing? The text is tempted by both possibilities. Socrates ranks mental states according to their objects’ reality (511d–e). But mathematical and empirical people look at the same round bowl and the mind of one goes to bodiless circles while the other stays focused on the material bowl (510d). How one thinks determines what one thinks about.
The allegory of the cave (q.v.) brings politics back into the metaphysics. The sun again represents the good; trees and animals stand for forms; the visible world is symbolized by the inside of a huge sunless cave. Within the cave, shapes of trees and animals correspond to three-dimensional things. Those shapes cast shadows on the cave wall and the shackled prisoners experience only these shadows. Socrates tells of one prisoner unchained and turned to see the shapes whose shadows he had been watching, then the fire that cast those shadows (515c–e). Finally he leaves the cave and truly sees. But he has to return to lead his former fellows, despite the ridicule awaiting him (516e–17a).
Why should the prisoner feel obligated to go back into the cave; why should the philosopher deign to reign? Socrates addresses that problem (519d–20c) but passes over another: If this returning figure is the good city’s philosopher, the jeers that greet him sound like the abuse that Socrates endured in Athens. After all the improvements that the good city promised, are these its citizens, the same know-nothings who shouted Socrates down in court?
SOPHIST
Noburu Notomi
Plato’s late dialogue, the Sophist, starts with the reference to ‘yesterday’s agreement’ of reunion (Sph. 216a), made at the end of the Theaetetus (210d), and thus dramatically succeeds that dialogue, by introducing a new speaker, the visitor from Elea.
When Theodorus introduces the Eleatic visitor as a ‘philosopher’, Socrates raises a question about the confusion between elenchus and eristic; he says that it is difficult to discern many appearances of the philosopher, for the philosopher is like a god and sometimes appears to be a sophist, a statesman and even a mad person (Sph. 216a–d). On the general assumption that the philosopher, sophist and statesman constitute three separate kinds, the speakers agree to define these three one by one, starting with the sophist. This setting of the inquiry may be taken as indicating a tripartite project to define the three figures in three dialogues, namely the Sph., the Politicus and the Philosopher. But the last one was never written, so many commentators conjecture about various reasons why Plato gave up the project. On the other hand, some argue (Frede 1996; Notomi 1999) that, as far as the initial purpose is to distinguish the philosopher from his appearances, the extant two dialogues suffice to show the philosopher by defining the other two. If this is the case, Plato had no intention to write an independent dialogue, but Sph. is expected to provide a key to defining the philosopher as distinct from the sophist. For an alternative view, see Davidson (1985).
A definition is pursued by dividing a genus into species. This method of division is originally proposed in Phaedrus, and fully used in Sph. (see Brown 2010; Gill 2010). The sophist is first defined as a hunter for rich young men, but then other definitions follow: a merchant, a retail dealer and a manufacturing trader of learning, an eristic, who fights and earns money in private arguments and a purifier of wrong opinions in the soul by means of refutation. These definitions show the aspects of the sophist’s activity, which were depicted in earlier dialogues (Protagoras, Gorgias, Euthydemus, etc.).
However, the sixth definition called ‘sophist of noble lineage’ looks like Socrates, and this resemblance casts a strong doubt upon the whole inquiry of definition. Also, the plurality of definitions causes a serious problem because each object must have a single definition of its essence. A new attempt at a final definition then reveals that the essence of the sophist’s art lies in the very act of making such appearances. But when the art of image making is divided into the making of likenesses (correct images) and that of phantasmata (wrong images), the inquirers face a series of difficulties, as if the sophist counterattacks them. From this point, a long digression of the middle part of the dialogue (Sph. 236d–64b, which modern scholars see as central and most important) starts.
The difficulties are concerned with appearance, image, falsehood and not-being (to mê on): ‘appearing without really being so’ and ‘stating a falsehood’ presuppose that ‘not-being is’, which was strictly forbidden by Parmenides (236d–7b). The inquirers now have to prove, against Parmenides, the proper combination of not-being and being (to on), as if committing a ‘parricide’ (241d–2a).
Examinations are made in a parallel way concerning not-being and being. First, it is shown that self-contradiction results from any attempt to treat ‘not-being’ in isolation: it is totally unspeakable or unthinkable, but this conclusion already involved the speaker in speaking of it. Next, it is also shown that various attempts to define ‘being’ fail. First, both pluralist and monist positions turn out to be inconsistent and contradictory. Then, the materialists, who maintain that only bodily things are, and the idealists, called ‘friends of forms’ (whose theory resembles the earlier theory of forms in Phaedo), are made to accept that being is both things changing and things unchangeable. However, since this definition does not properly grasp being as distinct from change and rest, all the attempts fail. Now the inquiry needs ‘joint illumination’ or ‘parity assumption’ of being and not-being (250e–1a).
The second half of the middle part seeks a solution of the difficulties of not-being and falsehood. To prove the correct relation between not-being and being, the inquirers have to secure the proper combination of kinds in general. They demonstrate how the greatest kinds (change, rest, identity, difference and being) relate to each other. This demonstration itself belongs to the art of dialectic (253c–e), and therefore it shows what the philosopher should do, in contrast to the sophistic argument that confuses these concepts so as to produce falsehoods, contradictions and refutations.
After proving the proper combination of not-being and being (as principles of separation and combination), and thus by securing the possibility of logos in general, the inquirers next show that a false statement combines a statement (logos, as the combination of a subject and a verb) and not-being. Thus, the inquiry of the middle part of the dialogue defends the definition of the sophist as a maker of false statements.
The topic discussed most in the latter half of the twentieth-century scholarship was whether, and how, Plato distinguishes different uses of the verb ‘to be’. Does he distinguish between copula and existence or between identity and predication, or not at all? (see Brown 1986; Owen 1971) However, recent studies focus more on the nature of logos (q.v.; discourse, argument or statement) rather than the verb ‘to be’ (see Brown 2008; Notomi 2007).
The final inquiry succeeds in defining the sophist as the imitator of the wise without really being wise (Sph. 268b–d). This dialogue thus settles a crucial issue and a long concern in Plato’s philosophy, that is, what the sophist is, and how Socrates’ true philosophy differs from sophistry. It provides a basis of ‘logic’ for Aristotle, who makes a full use of its fruits in his logical treatises, especially De interpretatione and Sophistici elenchi.
SYMPOSIUM
Angela Hobbs
The Symposium tells of a drinking party in which a variety of characters meet to celebrate the tragedian Agathon’s victory in a dramatic contest; they decide to forgo the customary sensuous entertainments and give speeches instead on erôs, erotic love. Plato explores questions about the origins, definition, aims, objects and effects of erôs both through what the symposiasts say in their formal speeches and by how they interact; he thus gives an indication of what sort of life and moral character a particular view of erôs might promote and reflect. The distance between the date of composition (c. 384–379 BCE) and the dramatic dates of the symposium and the framework conversation (416 BCE and c. 405 BCE) allows Plato to make ironic references to future events known to his readers, such as the downfall of the soldier-statesman Alcibiades, the death of Socrates, and the connection between their two fates.
The choice of a relaxed symposium setting enables Plato to reveal different facets of Socrates’ complex personality, such as his ability to drink without becoming drunk (cp. Laws 633c, on the importance in a state of regular drinking parties as a means of testing self-control). The occasion also allows the beautiful Alcibiades to recount how Socrates resisted all his youthful attempts to seduce him; in this respect at any rate, Plato implies, Socrates did not corrupt the young.
The tale of the drinking party is intricately nested: Apollodorus, a follower of Socrates, recounts it to a group of unnamed businessmen, having heard it himself from Aristodemus, another Socratic acolyte who was actually present; one of the central speeches, that of Socrates, relates Socrates’ purported conversation with a priestess named Diotima. Furthermore, Aristodemus cannot remember all the details clearly (Sym. 180c) and admits to having fallen asleep towards the end. Plato thereby creates even more distance than usual between himself as author and the content of the speeches and compels his readers to participate in interpretation; we are also invited to reflect on the crucial but unreliable nature of intermediaries – a central theme of the dialogue – and how best to get at the truth of different kinds of subject matter. What is the relation between mythos (q.v. Myth) and logos (q.v.)? Can there be a logos of love?
Considerable emphasis is placed on the order of the speeches, which anticipates the importance of an orderly rational and emotional progression up the rungs of the ladder of love in Diotima’s speech; in general, order, not disorder, is seen as the more creative force in the dialogue (note the banishment of the aulos-girl at 176e; q.v. Women).
The first speaker, Phaedrus, gives an encomium to romantic love of a particular individual. We want our beloved to admire us and we thus behave at our best in their presence; the gods will in turn reward us after death for self-sacrifice inspired by love. Phaedrus believes he is portraying love as entirely desirable and beneficial; the reader, however, may feel that his lovers tend to die young. A more pragmatic view is taken by Pausanias, who distinguishes between ‘heavenly’ and ‘popular’ erôs; he anticipates Diotima to the extent that the quality of erôs depends on the nature of its object, and the manner in which it is performed. ‘Popular’ love is concerned with the body and can be directed by the male lover (Pausanias envisages a male subject) towards either women or boys; ‘heavenly’ erôs occurs when a man is attracted to a boy’s intellect, and is concerned to further his cultural and political education. Pausanias depicts heavenly love as perfect, but its time limit (the passive role of the boy ‘beloved’ was not considered appropriate for a man) means that it contains inherent tensions.
The doctor, Eryximachus, continues the distinction between good and bad erôs, but, in a further anticipation of Diotima, the concept of erôs is widened. It is now a cosmic force, the attraction of one element for another, and has both physical and moral dimensions: the right kind of attraction leads to harmony and health, the wrong kind to conflict and disease. The good erôs reconciles opposites in fields as diverse as medicine, music and the climate; it is, critically, the force that mediates between humans and gods. Eryximachus assumes that erotic love, properly conducted, is essential for our physical and mental well-being. The comic playwright Aristophanes expands on this, claiming that to understand love we need to know first about the nature of human beings (189d). Plato thereby invites us to consider which speaker (and which kind of expertise) gives the most accurate account of our human needs. According to Aristophanes’ myth of our origins, humans were once spherical beings (some all male, some all female and some hermaphrodite), but were split in two when they challenged the gods. Bereft, they search the world for their missing half, and this desire for and pursuit of the whole is what we call erôs (192e): the lost half does not have to be good or beautiful, but simply one’s own. Those that find their other half yearn to accept Hephaistus’ offer and be fused into one.
Aristophanes’ myth raises profound questions. If love is defined as a search, then would not the completion of this search cancel out the conditions that make love possible? Do lovers perceive and love each other as unique, separate individuals or simply as the missing part of themselves? The host Agathon’s speech, in contrast, self-referentially depicts the god Erôs as a beautiful, winsome and perfectly good youth, but Plato’s intentions in including his anodyne poetics become clear when Socrates subjects them to an elenchus, arguing (pace Aristophanes) that as love is of the beautiful and good things that it lacks, love itself cannot be beautiful or good – an argument that depends on beauty being homogeneous and coextensive with equally homogeneous goodness.
These conclusions form the basis (201d) of Socrates’ account of Diotima’s teachings on love (q.v. Love, Women). Diotima claims that erôs is a daimonic intermediary between god and humans. Its object is permanent possession of what is good (206a), and it achieves this ‘through giving birth in the beautiful, in relation to both body and soul’ (206b); as personal immortality is not available for mortals, these creations are the best substitutes we can achieve. There are different grades of creation, and physical offspring are the lowest; the highest are the products of reason. We begin by loving a beautiful body, but, if we are guided aright, we will re-channel this erotic energy onto beautiful souls, laws and sciences, until finally we come to apprehend and love the form of beauty itself, in which blessed state life is truly ‘liveable’ (211d). Whether this ascent up the ‘ladder of love’ requires us to give up our risky attachments to individual humans is vigorously debated: what does contemplation of the form of beauty actually involve? And can it still accurately be described as a state of erôs or has erôs transformed into something else? Furthermore, if the form of beauty is itself beautiful, then would it not be vulnerable to the Third Man argument?
The counter claims of love for a unique and irreplaceable individual are movingly put forward by Alcibiades, who declines to give an account of erôs, offering instead a history of his personal (and sexually unrequited) love for Socrates. Both the creative and destructive possibilities of such an attachment are manifest both in his speech and in his interchanges with Socrates and Agathon. Here too there is keen debate as to how seriously Plato views Alcibiades’ challenge: he is allowed to be glamorous and charismatic, and to give the last speech; on the other hand, his chaotic and clouded exit perhaps provides the dangerous cômus to Plato’s own symposiastic entertainment. Socrates then debates with Agathon and Aristophanes whether the same man can write both tragedy and comedy – maybe Plato believes that in the Smp. he has achieved both feats with Alcibiades’ help – and, after they too fall asleep, leaves for the Lyceum to begin a new day of philosophical inquiry.
For further information, see Ferrari (1992), Hobbs (2000:ch. 9; 2006), Hunter (2004), Lesher et al. (2006), Murray (1990), Price (1989) and Santas (1988).
THEAETETUS
Ronald Polansky
Shorey (1933) considered Theaetetus ‘arguabl[y] . . . the richest in thought of all the Platonic dialogues’. The dialogue opens the dramatic series surrounding Socrates’ trial and death: Tht., Euthyphro, Sophist, Statesman, Apology, Crito and Phaedo, by raising the fundamental question, ‘What is knowledge?’ Two great mathematicians, Theodorus and the young Theaetetus are Socrates’ interlocutors. A frame dialogue set outside Athens, like the Phd., has Euclides and Terpsion probably in 369 BCE recalling Socrates’ death and linking it with the impending death of Theaetetus. Far from corrupting the youth Theaetetus, Socrates seems to have contributed to his intellectual success and bravery in battle.
The dialogue seeks knowledge of knowledge. The elderly Theodorus resisting philosophical conversation, the young Theaetetus becomes the main interlocutor led through four progressively stronger accounts of knowledge. Theaetetus first names what Theodorus teaches and the productive arts as knowledge (Tht. 146c–d), which only offers instances of knowledge rather than disclosing what knowledge is. Theaetetus is provoked to recall earlier mathematical insight that may be pertinent (147c–8b). He had divided the integers into ‘square numbers’, for example, 4, 9, 16 (=n2), with the other integers being ‘oblong numbers’. When squares are made with areas equal to ‘oblong numbers’, their sides will be incommensurable with the sides of the squares of ‘square number’ area, but the areas of the squares are all commensurable. Yet, Theaetetus cannot fashion an account of knowledge like this mathematical work, so Socrates encourages him by professing to practise midwifery that detects youths fertile with conceptions, and delivers and tests their conceptions (148e–51d).
Theaetetus then suggests that knowledge is some sort of perception (aisthêsis, 151e), as he has ‘perceived’ the two sorts of numbers project into squares. Since Theaetetus is vague about ‘perception’, Socrates delivers the conception by identifying as its ‘parents’ Protagorean relativism and Heraclitean flux. These parents are necessary and sufficient conditions for the conception to be viable. Extreme individual relativism based on removing any unity and being leaves only relational becoming so that whatever appears to any sentient being seems ‘knowledge’.
Much of the dialogue is Socrates delivering the conception by linking it with its ‘parents’ and countering each part of the conception (151e–86e). Thus he introduces and undermines some classic arguments for relativism and scepticism, such as whether we are now dreaming (158b–d), nothing universal exists except names (157a–c) and only shifting aggregates, rather than wholes, truly are (159c). Protagoras is imagined back to life in the dialogue. Forced to defend his own claim to wisdom if each sentient being measures what is true for it, he argues that the wise change perceivers so that they have better, though not truer, perceptions (166d–7d). But this Protagorean wisdom presupposes superior insight into the future, so not all appearances are true (177c–9b). Protagorean relativism also refutes itself by conceding that those disagreeing with him are correct, for they think themselves absolutely rather than just relatively correct (170a–1c). Heraclitean flux makes things change so much that no statement such as ‘knowledge is perception’ has stable truth (181b–3b). And Theaetetus’ proposal that perception is knowledge fails since each sense perceives only its own sort of object, yet we make judgements about objects of all the senses (184b–6e). Either perception can make no judgements at all and does not get to any truth, or perception cannot get to the essence of things to know what they really are. In what he calls a ‘digression’ at the dialogue’s centre, Socrates contrasts the hustling Protagorean courtroom orator with a philosopher, holding it wisdom to escape this realm and to liken himself to god (176a–d).
The account of knowledge as perception rejected, Theaetetus suggests that knowledge is true judgement (187b). But unless there can be false judgement, true judgement adds nothing to judgement. Several efforts to account for false judgement explore the obstacle of non being, define thought as silent internal conversation, depict the soul as wax receiving impressions (191c–5b), and introduce levels of actuality and potentiality in the aviary image (196c–200a). Inadequately accounting for false judgement, which might be ignorance, they can reject true judgement as knowledge since judges in court might be persuaded to make the right decision, but do not know as a firsthand witness (201a–c).
Theaetetus proposes that knowledge could be true judgement supported by an account (201c–d). Socrates explicates this ‘dream theory’ (201–6) to mean that ‘simple’ elements permit no further account but the ‘syllables’ they compose have an account through these elements. This applies to mathematicians who make demonstrations from unaccountable hypotheses and other sorts of positions based on beliefs taken to be self-justifying or self-evident. Since Theaetetus is dissatisfied with unaccountable elements, Socrates works out three further accounts of ‘account’ that might convert true judgement into knowledge. Account giving might be: (a) vocalizing the true judgement (206d–e), (b) going through all the elements of the whole about which the true judgement is made (206e–8b) or (c) saying what is uniquely different about what we would know (208c–10a). But none of this helps. Anyone can vocalize a true judgement, which does nothing to supplement it. Going through all the elements still does not guarantee knowledge since a child may spell his entire name but be unable to spell the same syllables within other names. And adding the difference to a true judgement that must already have the difference to be about just this thing adds nothing.
They are left with no account of knowledge. But if the four accounts they have considered are all the really likely accounts of knowledge, and the accounts of account offered are all the plausible accounts of account or justification, then this dialogue has engaged in comprehensive reflection. Moreover, the four accounts of account at the end can be seen in one-to-one correspondence to the four major accounts of knowledge through the dialogue. Thus, they may manage to overcome the incommensurability of true judgement with knowledge since the last part’s reconsideration of all that preceded is ‘squaring’ that raises true judgement to commensurability with knowledge, as suggested by Theaetetus’ mathematical work. Merely adding an account as additional judgement does little, but reviewing perspicuously all they have gone through they get beyond true judgement. This interpretation has the dialogue enacting just what it is about, human understanding.
Other prominent interpretations seek to explain the dialogue’s apparent failure. Some suppose we should see that without introducing the forms knowledge could not be understood (e.g. Cornford 1935). But though unchanging objects are needed for knowledge, this hardly tells what knowledge is. Burnyeat (1990) suggests that Plato leaves the reader to pull the dialogue together, which is compatible with the large interpretation offered, though the offered interpretation already pulls it together. Sedley (2004) supposes that the Tht. has the late Plato reutilizing Socrates to show how Plato came to be dissatisfied with some of his earlier positions, and hence Socrates serves as midwife for Plato’s later thought. This version of chronological interpretation has the attraction or limitation of all such interpretation.
THEAGES
Mark Joyal
The dialogue’s setting is the Stoa of Zeus in the Athenian agora. Demodocus and his son Theages have travelled to Athens from their rural home in order to consult Socrates. Inspired by reports from his friends, Theages wants his father to put him under the tutelage of a sophist who will make him ‘wise’ (sophos; Theages 121cd). Through probing from Socrates, Theages is driven to acknowledge reluctantly that the ‘wisdom’ he seeks is really the desire to become an absolute ruler. An inquiry follows whose goal is to identify the ideal teacher for Theages. Several possibilities are discarded; both Theages and Demodocus then turn to Socrates himself to assume this role. Socrates protests, alleging his near complete lack of knowledge (apart from expertise in matters of eros, ‘love’ or ‘desire’; Thg. 128b). Theages, however, thinks that his educational progress depends upon Socrates’ willingness to associate with him. Not so, says Socrates; the progress which his ‘associates’ make results from the willingness and participation of his ‘divine sign’ (to daimonion sêmeion; 128d). Socrates tells a series of stories to illustrate the behaviour of his sign. These do nothing to dissuade Theages, who even proposes that he will placate the divine sign with prayers and sacrifices, if he must.
Most discussion about this work has focused on its authenticity, its depiction of Socrates’ divine sign and its purpose. The three issues are interrelated, since judgements about authenticity have usually depended in large measure on the character of the divine sign (q.v. daimon) as it appears in Thg., and many interpreters have seen the dialogue’s purpose as tied to the prominent role that the sign seems to play (more space is devoted to it in Thg. than in any other Platonic dialogue). The divine sign differs here from its presentation in other dialogues whose authenticity is generally unchallenged. Above all, in Thg. it is given a wider and more active role than the purely personal and inhibitory character that it displays elsewhere in the Platonic Corpus: the sign occurs to Socrates not only when he should desist from an act on which he has embarked but also when a companion of his should desist; it provides Socrates with the ability to foretell the outcome of future events; and it is said here to participate in the improvement which Socrates’ companions make through their association with him. This portrayal raises doubts about authenticity not simply because of its differences from representations of the divine sign in indisputably genuine Plato, but also because it anticipates emphases that we find in much later conceptions of the sign (Joyal 1995).
There is no unanimity about the authenticity of Thg., but the majority opinion is against its Platonic authorship. There is likewise no consensus on the dialogue’s date of composition (q.v. compositional chronology): proposals range from the early part of Plato’s literary career to the half-century or so after his death. The dialogue’s value, however, is not necessarily diminished by doubts about authorship: even if the dialogue is un-Platonic, it is important as a relatively early expression of the intellectual preoccupations of an otherwise unknown Socratic writer. Accordingly, several interpreters in recent years have made sincere attempts to understand the dialogue on its own terms (e.g. Bailly 2004; Döring 2004; Joyal 2000). There now seems widespread agreement that the theme and purpose of Thg. are not simply to describe one author’s understanding of the nature of Socrates’ divine sign. Instead, the sign is viewed as an important element in Socratic ‘association’ (sunousia) (e.g. Joyal 2000:48–9, 59–61; Tarrant 2005). In Thg. the nature of this remarkable association serves to distinguish Socrates from other candidates for the role of Theages’ teacher (e.g. Friedländer 1965).
TIMAEUS AND CRITIAS
Thomas Johansen
The Timaeus and the Critias are the first two parts of an unfinished trilogy, presented to Socrates as a single project (Ti. 17b) in return for his account of an ideal state much like that of Republic. The speeches are thematically linked: Timaeus’ cosmology (q.v.) shows how goodness is represented in nature (q.v.), while Critias’ Atlantis story further shows how citizens of Socrates’ ideally just city will conquer evil, given the support of Timaeus’ natural order. The Ti.-Criti. as a whole presents a world in which goodness prevails, from the planets down to the human sphere.
Timaeus argues that the cosmos is a likeness of the eternal forms (q.v.) and that an account of such a likeness can at best be ‘likely’ (29b–d) (Burnyeat 2005). The reason why there can be no certainty about the likeness seems to be that its features are not the same as those of the original but only analogous. So, for example, the cosmos is spherical as an analogue to the completeness of the shapeless forms (Johansen 2004:49–60).
Timaeus characterizes his account alternately as logos and muthos, ‘reason’ and ‘myth’ (q.v.). It may be that the qualifier ‘likely’ cancels out the customary logos/muthos contrast (Vlastos 1965). Alternatively ‘muthos’ may serve to downgrade the account available to humans compared to one obtainable by a god (Johansen 2004:62–4).
Cosmology relies on two causal principles (Johansen 2008): the desire of a divine craftsman to make the world as good as possible and ‘necessity’, that is, necessary conjunctions or consequences of properties that are, as it were, brute facts of nature. So, for example, fire is necessarily mobile because it is composed of small pyramid-shaped parts (Ti. 55e–6a). Necessity can be employed to further the good, as a ‘co-cause’ (sunaition, 46d–e), but intelligence cannot alter the way necessity itself works.
‘Necessity’ relates to the nature and motions of the simple bodies and these depend on the so-called receptacle. The simple bodies appear fleetingly in the receptacle without any substantiality. It is unclear whether Timaeus is characterizing bodies as they are now (cf. Theaetetus 156a–7c) or as they were before the cosmos. According to whether it enters into composition of bodies, the receptacle may be seen as matter, the stuff bodies are made of or as that ‘in which’ bodies occur, that is, the place or space (chôra) that bodies occupy.
The cosmos is an ensouled body, composed according to geometrical principles that ensure order and unity. The soul is made from a mixture of the divisible and indivisible kinds of being, sameness and difference. The composition explains both (cf. Aristotle, De Anima 406b28–31) the soul’s ability to move (57d) and its ability to make judgements about sameness and difference, on the principle that ‘like is known by like’. The mixture is structured according to the harmonic scale, and then divided and bent to form seven circular hoops, which move the seven planets according to different ratios.
To fit the world-soul its body is spherical. Its constituents, earth, water, fire and air, are proportionately ordered in the same way as the soul (Cornford 1937:49). Each body is composed of one of two sorts of triangle, which combine according to geometrical principles (53c–7c) (Vlastos 1965:401–19) and allow the bodies (with the exception of earth) to change into each other (54b–c).
The human, immortal soul (q.v.) is created in the same way as the world-soul, albeit with less pure ingredients. When embodied, the soul is disturbed by irrational desires. But because the soul is in origin rational, it can, through the study of the cosmos, assimilate its motions to those of the world-soul, thereby again becoming orderly and temperate (47b–c, 90c–d) (Sedley 2000).
To help us in this task, god’s assistants in creating human nature, the ‘lesser gods’, have divided the soul into the three parts familiar from R., the rational, the spirited and the appetitive. This arrangement allows for each part to perform its proper function without interference from the others. The human body has three distinct regions, head, heart and lower abdomen, which service the three parts of the soul. The entire human organism is thus designed for the promotion of our good while embodied (Johansen 2004:142–52). Those men who fail will be reincarnated as women or as the various lower animals, according to their degree of irrationality. Thereby the cosmos becomes complete with all the kinds of living beings.
Criti. sets out to show how ancient Athenians, with Timaeus’ nature and Socrates’ education, prevailed against Atlantis. Where Athens is a projection of the intellectually spirited, Atlantis is from its inception appetitive. So, the virgin Athena founded Athens to produce philosophy-warriors like herself (Criti. 24c–d), while Poseidon instituted Atlantis to protect his mistress. While originally virtuous, its luxurious, variegated designs and its location by the sea (cf. Laws 705d) make Atlantis susceptible to vice. Its dynastic constitution recalls Asian tyrannies, while also resembling fifth-century democratic Athens (Vidal-Naquet 1981), not a contradiction given that both tyranny and democracy, according to R. 571a ff., are political manifestations of the appetitive soul. If Atlantis looks like a utopia, it is an appetitive utopia, and so, in Plato’s eyes, a dystopia. While various historical events (such as the volcanic eruption at Thera) may have inspired Plato (Gill 1979:viii–xii), Atlantis was clearly conceived by him as a foil for his ideal city.
Criti. ends with Zeus about to announce his punishment of Atlantis. One theory is that the work was left incomplete to reflect Critias’ limited abilities or devious character (Welliver 1977:44). However, Critias (Ti. 26a–b) had already delivered his speech to his companions the same morning. Another suggestion is that Plato abandoned the project in favour of the Lg, whose third book tells of the near destruction of civilization by a deluge and its subsequent history down to Plato’s day. This further suggests that Hermocrates might have spoken about the different kinds of constitution now also contained in the Lg. (Cornford 1937:7–8; Gill 1979).