Reading Plato in Antiquity 9781472597823

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Contributors Hayden W. Ausland is Professor of Classics at the University of Montana. His many publications on Plato include 'On Reading Plato's Dialogues Mimetically', in the American Journal of Philology (1997). Dirk Baltzly is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Monash University in Australia. His publications cover a wide area of Ancient Philosophy from the Presocratics to Proclus, and include volume III of Proclus: Commentary on Plato's Timaeus (2006). Luc Brisson is Director of Research at the National Center for Scientific Research (paris), and has published widely on philosophy and religions in Antiquity, including bibliographies, translations, and commentaries. Much of his work is devoted to Plato and Plotinus. Tim Buckley received his doctorate from the University of Sydney in 2003, and has worked there in a number of capacities since then. He has also been involved in the Australian project preparing a translation of Proclus' Commentary on Plato's Timaeus. John J. Cleary is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College, and Associate Professor at NUl Maynooth. He has published extensively on ancient philosophy, including Aristotle on the Many Senses of Priority (1988) and Aristotle and Mathematics (1995). John Dillon is Regius Professor of Greek, Trinity College Dublin. He is author of The Middle Platonists (1977, 2nd. ed. 1996), Alcinous: The Handbook of Platonism (1993), and The Heirs of Plato (2003). John F. Finamore is Professor and Chair of Classics at the University of Iowa. Among his publications on the Platonic tradition are Iamblichus' De Anima: Text, Translation, and Commentary (2002, with John Dillon) and (ed. with Robert Berchman) History of Platonism: Plato Redivivus (2005). Lloyd Gerson is Professor of Philosophy in the University of Toronto. He has published widely in ancient philosophy, and recent books include Ancient Epistemology (forthcoming), Aristotle and Other Platonists (2005), and Knowing Persons. A Study in Plato (2003). Vll

Acknowledgements In July 2002 a small symposium on the interpretation of Plato was held at the University of Newcastle, Australia. All contributors either gave, or expressed interest in giving, papers at that symposium. The resultant papers are much changed as a result of refereeing, updating, and editing. The Editors would like to thank the Australian Research Council who funded the wider project and part of the symposium; the University of Newcastle; and Monash University. We are also grateful to Nick Eliopoulos for preparing the Index Locorum.

H.T. &D.B.

November 2005

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In trod uction Harold Tarrant and Dirk Baltzly The place of classic texts in the study of philosophy is now assured. In the early days of Greek philosophy one might have had difficulty in giving such a guarantee, but not today. Certainly one may argue about the way such texts should be used and the proportion oftime to be devoted to them, since independent argument and a willingness to develop new approaches must also be valued. One may also argue about what should be regarded as a 'classic text', though accomplished philosophers will want to return with some frequency to texts that they admire, puzzle over, or have a special desire to refute. For undergraduate study, moreover, what would philosophy be like in the absence of any texts - ancient, modern, or contemporary - which could not be regarded as specially recommended? It is not surprising then that ancient philosophy itself made extensive use of texts for the purpose of developing the abilities of pupils. Clearly this happened less in the early days, when there was little that could be profitably prescribed for the new philosophic reader. The Presocratics had written in an enigmatic manner that made them difficult to understand. Consequently, in Plato's time the principal classic text was the same as for the rest of the Greeks, Homer himself, and one searched for whatever help it might provide for advancing philosophic debate. Hesiod and a range of other literary authors were also mined for what value one might extract from them. To dignify such exercises with the name 'interpretation' would seem premature, but texts were certainly being used for the advancement of philosophic goals. It is against that background that we should read the closing pages of Plato's Phaedrus, which shows how great a problem the independent life of the written word had become. An author should not expect the written text to continue doing the same work that it would have done under his own supervision. Few texts have been as controversial as the closing pages of the Phaedrus, for the status that we afford Plato's writings - and hence the Plato that we feel we know - depends upon it. It was inevitable that such a text would be subject to divergent interpretations over the centuries. These issues of interpreting the one text, a fraction of a single dialogue, cannot easily be settled without appeal to a range of other issues: the overall purpose ofthis work, its relation to a vexed passage in the Seventh Epistle, the authenticity of that Epistle, the range of written works that it actually

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Platonic interpretation and eclectic theory Harold Tarrant i. The response to Plato in Polemo's Academy Recently we have recognized the importance in Roman times of the search for ancient authority - for a revelation from a time of superior wisdom. l Plato had practised philosophy during Greece's golden age, and thus became a revered authority. By the second century AD his influence extended over non-philosophic genres too. The struggle for Plato's authority had coloured Cicero's formative studies in philosophy, for his authority was being sought by (at least) two factions in the Academy, those of Philo of Larissa and Antiochus of Ascalon. Their followers were mischievously designated 'Fourth' and 'Fifth' Academies by Sextus Empiricus (PH 1.235), following a Pyrrhonist tradition that postulated successive doctrinal revolts in the Academy over two centuries. By questioning Academic fidelity to Plato, that tradition paved the way for any version of Plato others chose to promulgate. This freedom helped not only the Sceptics, for Plato's support could now be claimed by other doctrinal systems, like the Pythagoro-Platonic philosophy of Numenius. 2 When Plato's authority was so important, other schools gained by postulating a hiatus in the Platonic tradition, while legitimate heirs to the Academy preferred to deny this break-down - until Philo of Larissa, the last who could claim such legitimacy. Philo formally championed the thesis of one continuous Academic tradition, with the implication that his Academy had remained true to Plato. 3 I now question the sharp changes of direction within the Academy claimed by the Pyrrhonists and others. Though the school did change, and leadership styles varied, over the two and a half centuries after Plato's death, nevertheless the Socraticism and resistance to straightforward teaching, which we associate with Arcesilaus, were there under his predecessors Polemo and Crates. I have recently argued this in relation to the Platonic Theages, showing that the work best reflects the educational ideology of Polemo's Academy.4 'Socrates' had become an inspirational, daemonic and erotic figure, who mayor may not have some positive impact on pupils, failing to control the process himself. His intentions are good, but reason cannot determine his results. He influences by proximity, the closer the better. It helps if pupils listen, but it may work if they are in the next room! He has no methods, no elenchus, no midwifery, no dialectical

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Pedantry and pedestrianism? Some reflections on the Middle Platonic commentary tradition John Dillon Proclus, at the beginning of his Platonic Theology,l looking back, from a lofty perspective, over the whole sweep of the Platonic tradition, sees the divinely-inspired wisdom of Plato, after its original shining forth and later coming to completion (EK