The Third Way: New Directions in Platonic Studies 0847681149, 0847681130

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Ed i ted by francisco

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Classics • Dhdosoph4

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by francisco J . Gonzolez

ABO T THE ED TOR

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ROWMAN & l! lifl.'. EF.IEL! D P.UBLISRERS INC

ISBN 0-8476-8114-9

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The Third Way N ew Directions in Platonic Studies

- edited by FRANCISCO J. GONZALEZ

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ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

ROWMAN & LfITLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Published in the United States ofAmerica by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, Maryland 20706 3 Henrietta Street London WC2E 8LU, England Copyright © 1995 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Ali rights reserved. No part ofthis publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

British Cataloging in Publication Jnformation Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Toe third way: new directions in Platonic studies / [edited by] Francisco J. Gonzalez. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. l. Plato. I. Gonzalez, Francisco J. B395.T52 1995 184--dc20 95-30779 CIP ISBN 0-8476-8113-0 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 0-8476-8114-9 (pbk.: alk. paper) Printed in the United States of America

8"'Toe paper used in this publication meets the mínimum requirements of American National Standard for Jnfonnation Sciences---Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39 .48-1984.

Contents Preface

vii

Introduction

l. A Short History of Platonic Interpretation and the "Third Way"

Francisco J. Gonzalez

1

Part I: Philosophy and Speech: Plato's Dialogues Between Oral and Written Discourse

2. Reflections on the Orality and Literacy of Plato's Dialogues Jackson P. Hershbell

25

3. Plato's Audiences, or How Plato Replies to the Fifth-Century Intellectual Mistrust of Letters Elinor J. M. W!st 41 4. Neither Published Nor Perished: Toe Dialogues as Speech, Not Text

Joa,nne Wiugh

61

Part II: Philosophy and Rhetoric: Between Persuasion and Proof 5. Socrates' Rhetorical Attack on Rhetoric

David Roochnik

V

81

6. Apodeiknunai, Dialegesthai, Peithein: A Reconstruction of Plato's Methods of Argument in the Phaedo 95 P. Christopher Smith

Part ID: Philosophy as Myth, Drama, and Enactment: Between Imagination and Reason, Plot and Argument 7. Methodology in the Reading of the Timaeus and Politicus T. M. Robinson 8. How To Read a Platonic Dialogue

James A. Arieti 9. Plato's Dialogues as Enactments

Gerold A. Press

111

119

f33

Part N: Dialectic and Dialogue: Between Skepticism and Dogmatism 10. Self-Knowledge, Practical Knowledge, and Insight: Plato's Dialectic and the Dialogue Form

Froncisco J. Gonzalez

155

11. Dogma, Skepticism, and Dialogue

Vtálter Vtátson

12. Toe Dialogical Composition of Plato's Rlrmenides Victorino Tejero

189

211

Part V: Between Unwritten Doctrines and Written Dialogue

13. Toe Choice Between the D1"alogues and the "Unwnºtten Teachings": A Scylla and Charybdis for the Jnterpreter? Mitchell Miller

225

Bibliography

245

Index

259

About the Contributors

267

vi

Preface Now, had Thshtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious perishing, smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant spennaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber and sanctum sanctorum of the whale. Only one sweeter end can readily be recalled-the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seekiµg honey in the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed. How many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head, and sweetly perished there? Herman Melville, Moúy Dick, ch. 77

Those observing from the outside the busy industry of contemporary Platonic studies must wonder how anything new can remain to be said about Plato after more than two thousand years. Yet, to judge from the issues that are currently being debated, there is little exaggeration in saying that the study of Plato is still in its injancy. Scholars not only sharply disagree on the details of Plato's positions; they disagree on how we are to go about discovering these positions, indeed, they disagree on whether Plato even had positions! Furthermore, the purposes of the dialogue furm in which Plato chose to write are as much in debate today as they were almost two thousand years ago in the anonymous Prolegomena to Plato 's Philosophy.' One should not ignore the positive gains that have been made recently in our understanding of specific dialogues. But can the lack of consensus on fundamental issues fail to be a source of profuund embarrassment to us? In the introduction I attempt to explain, if not excuse, this state of affairs by showing that the history of Platonic scholarship has been a succession of

1. Anonymous Prolegomena to Plato's Philosophy, ed. & trans. L. G. Westerink (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1962).

vii

viii

Toe Third Way

competing paradigms and that, as the contributors to this volume in general agree, a completely adequate paradigm has yet to be discovered. Toe Neoplatonic paradigm ruled for approximately one thousand years, mu~h longer than the competing skeptical paradigm. When the. Neo~latomc interpretation ca.me to be rejected by at least the 1700s, Platomc ~tudies had in essence to begin ali over again. Plato's philosophy was now mterpreted according to the paradigm of "systematic" philosophy of the kind found in Descartes, Kant, or even Hegel. When this paradigm could not account for contradictions in the dialogues, it was emended with the notion of "evolution," so popular in the nineteenth century. Though this characterization of .Pla~'s philosophy as a system evolving from one dialogue to another 1s stlll "orthodox" in sorne quarters, it has been challenged by the advocates_ of Plato's "unwritten teachings" who characterize their view as a "new paradigm. "2 Both interpretations are in turn being challenged by a resurgence of the skeptical paradigm. Toe history of Platonic scholarship has therefore alternated between radically different ways of characterizing Plato's philosophy and thus of interpreting bis philosophical texts. What is distinctive of our own time is that such diverse paradigms are existing simultaneously and that therefore fundamentally different presuppositions are guiding the work of different scholars. Toe only thing that provides the appearance of consensus and stability in this country is the insularity of much English-language scholarship. Is there really any way of deciding on an adequate paradigm? Is it not inevitable that the dialogues, given their elusive character, will always be

2. In / tre paradigmi storici nell'interpretazione di P/atone e i fondamenti del nuovo paradigma (Napoli: Istituto Suor Orsola Benincasa, 1991), Giovanni Reale distinguish:s between three paradigms in the interpretation of Plato's philosophy: 1) the Neoplatoruc paradigm that !asted fifteen hundred years and interpreted Plato allegorically; 2) the paradigm, beginning in the 1800's and lasting one hundred and fifty years, that sought to interpret Plato solely on the basis of bis writings and that ignored bis "unwritten teachings" as handed down through the indirect tradition; 3) the "esotericist" paradigm that first became prominent in the 1950's with the Tübingen School and seeks to make the "unwritten teachings" central to the interpretation of Plato's thought. This characterization of the bistory of Platonic interpretation is inadequate for a number of reasons: i) it ignores the New Academy's interpretation of Plato; ii) it lumps together in 2) very divergent positions; and ili) it exaggerates the extent to wbich 3) is a radical new departure. As I try to show in the introduction to this collection, the "unitarian," the "developmentalist" (both of wbich Reale includes in the second paradigm) and the "esotericist" interpretations can ali be seen as attempts to reconcile a shared conception of Plato's philosophy as "systematic" with the clearly unsystematic, fragmentary and open-ended forro of bis writings. An alternative to this "dogmatic" paradigm is the "skeptical" paradigm. If this latter paradigm is itself defective, as I argue it is, then a third paradigm is needed distinct from any of those Reale recognizes.

Preface

ix

mirrors reflecting the interpreter? Will not Plato always be a skeptic to the skeptics and a dogmatist to the dogmatists? I do not think this is necessary as long as we attempt to meet one essential requirement, which scholars have so far appeared unwilling or unable to meet: that in attempting to understand the dialogues, we be willing to put aside as much as possible ali of our assumptions concerning the nature of philosophy. This is the most difficult requirement for an interpreter to meet, and perhaps it can never be fully met. 3 Yet we can certainly avoid seeing Plato as a would-be analytical philosopher or a would-be deconstructionist. What is required, for example, is that the analytical philosopher allow that perhaps Plato was neither a good nor a bad logician but something totally different, and that the deconstructionist allow that pe~baps Plato ~as neither a "modernist" nora "postmodernist" but again, something totally d1fferent. More generally, wbat is required is that we keep

3. In a very important article, Hans Kriimer uncovers sorne of the fundamental philosopbical presuppositions of both the "developmentalist" and "skeptical" or "antisystematic" interpretations . of Plato current today ("Pichte, Schlegel und der Infinitis~us in de~ Platondeutung," Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Ge1stesgesch1chte 4 [1988): 583-621). More of this kind of work needs to be done in order to check the natural tendency of Plato's interpreters to see bim in their own image. It is odd that K.rii.mer appears to believe that an acceptance of the evidence of Plato' s "unwritten teachings" renders an interpretation proof against reading into Plato· s thought alíen philosophical assumptions. This is clearly false. Not only are these teachings avail~ble to us only through the second-hand reports of other philosophers whose assumpt1ons, we have much reason to believe, differed from Plato's own, but a coherent system can be extracted from these reports only through a reconstruction. Here there is obviously much opportunity for missing the spirit and context of Plato's philosophizing. In fact, K.rii.mer's own view that Plato's philosophy was an axiomatic and deductive system more geometrico is not derived from the evidence of the "unwritten teachings," but is guided by a conception of "system" that is distinctly Post-Cartesian (as, for example, Heidegger has shown in bis lecture course on Schelling: Schelling: Vom Wesen der Menschlichen Freiheit [1809), in Gesamtausgabe 42 [Prankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1988], 47-52). Portunately, K.rii.mer's assumption that an acceptance of the evidence of the "unwritten teachings" commits one to bis characterization of Plato's pbilosophy has been challenged by Rafael Perber's book, Die Unwissenheit des Philosophen oder Warum hat Plato die 'ungeschriebene Lehre • nicht geschrieben? (Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 1991). Perber has shown that an acceptance of this evidence is compatible with a characterization of Plato's philosophy compl~tely ~ppo~ed to that of K.rii.mer, i.e., a characterization of it as essentially aporellc. K.ramer s assumptions concerning the nature ofphilosophy, and those of other "esotericist" interpreters, may therefore be no less aliento Plato's thought than those of the "developmentalist" and "sceptical" interpretations K.rii.mer criticizes. Por sorne interesting observations on the philosopbical agenda behind the "esotericist" interpretation see Enrico Berti, "Strategie di interpretazione dei filosofi anticbi: Platoni e Aristotele," Elenchos 10 (1989): 289-300.

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Toe Third Way

open the possibility that Plato was neither a dogmatist seeking to establish doctrines nor a skeptic seeking to undermine them but, once again, something totally different. But these examples show why this is such a hard requirement to meet. Toe analyst is being asked to grant that maybe for Plato formal logic was not as central to the philosophical enterprise as analytical philosopby assumes it to be; the deconstructionist is being asked to grant that perhaps Plato does not fit into any of the categories recognized by the critic of "modernism;" philosophers in general are being asked to consider the possibility of a philosophy whose main aim has nothing to do with refuting or establishing doctrines. Difficult or not, however, this requirement cannot be ignored. Indeed, if there is on~ thing we must learn from Plato's dialogues, it is that we should always be willing to expose to questioning not simply sorne of our specific philosophical positions, but even our most fundamental assumptions about the nature, point, and value of philosopby. It is likely that this willingness will enable us to do much more justice to the dialogues and allow them in turn to offer us much more. Though I cannot defend this view here, I would even suggest that the reason why none of the traditional paradigms have proveo adequate is that they depend on one-sided and impoverished conceptions of philosophy that could never do justice to the much richer notion of philosophy in the dialogues. In this case we would indeed have much to gain from abandoning our preconceptions and actually leaming from , which for Plato meaos being transformed lJy, the dialogues. Toe attempt to meet the above requirement is perhaps the most imponant common characteristic of the contributors to this volume. They ali pursue a "third way" by bringing into question traditional oppositions between philosophy and oral discourse, philosophy and rhetoric, philosophy and drama, philosophy and imagination, skepticism and dogmatism, and written and unwritten teachings. Philosophy has always defined itself in opposition to something else; therefore, one way in which we can examine our assumptions about the nature of philosophy in the attempt to understand Plato is by bringing sorne of these oppositions into question. Toe "third way" represented by the contributors is therefore not a new school or a new interpretation: it is instead a way of exploring relatively new territory beyond the boundaries of the skeptical and "doctrinal" conceptions of philosophy that have so far ruled Platonic studies. In the introduction I provide detailed summaries of ali of the papers in order to guide the reader along the different paths they follow, showing where they diverge and where they intersect. Toe bibliography at the end of the volume (more than a list of works cited) is meant to be an aid to the reader in exploring further the issues they address. I have also sought to make the volume accessible to the beginning student of Plato (perhaps the best reader because still innocent of the preconceptions from which the collection seeks to break away). Foreign language quotations and Greek expressions have

Preface

xi

been translated, while also being retained in the original for the scholar. I wish to thank two people without whom this book could not have been. Toe first is Gerald Press, who originally suggested that I edit this book and who set a welcome precedent with his own collection, Plato's Dialogues: New Studies and Interpretations (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1993). Jerry p~ovided indispensable help at every stage of the process, from substan~1ve comments on the introduction to tecbnical advice on editing and ~rmatt1ng: He also deserves credit for organizing panels on "nondoctrinal" mte1:Pretat1ons of _Plato in conjunction with the meetings of the Society for An~1ent Greek ~hilosophy. These panels have provided a stimulating forum in which the contnbutors to this volume and others have been able to share their work. and ideas. The second person to thank is Joanne Waugh, who was my co-:~tor before family obligations prevented her from continuing in this pos1non. I doubt that I would have undertaken this project if I had not had her help at its inception. Our numerous initial conversations were indispensable to me. specifically assisted me in the process of evaluating potential contnbut1ons and deciding which ones to include. Unfortunately for me of course, I can blame neither Jerry nor Joanne for the results! ' Editing a collection of papers today requires more expertise in computer use than I had at the outset. I therefore also need to thank Bill Duffy of the Center ~r. Inform~tion Te_chnology Services at Skidmore College for his eager and dihgent ass1stance m converting files and scanning documents. My ho~e is that this collection and others like it will encourage a kind of sch?larship_~at seeks neither to "vindicate" Plato as "up to date" (i.e., as ha~u~ ant_1c1pated our own wisdom) nor to condemn him as hopelessly pn~nve (1.e., as not poss:ssi~ our enlightened logical tools and concepts), but mstead to learn from his dialogues new and hitherto unimagined ways of philosophizing.

!º~e

F. J. G. Saratoga Springs, NY May 1995

1

Introduction: A Short History of Platonic Interpretation and the "Third Way" Francisco J. Gonzalez

Toe papers brought together in this collection display a wide range of interpretative strategies and aims. What unites them, however, is the general goal of finding a "third way" between oppositions or dichotomies that have traditionally divided Platonic scholarship. While each paper characterizes this "third way" and, therefore, the other two ways, somewhat differently, they ali seek to avoid, in varying degrees, two general altematives that tend to be seen as exclusive and exhaustive. These altematives are clearly stated by Diogenes Laertius when he tells us that an interpretation of a Platonic dialogue must decide, among other things, whether the statements in it are meant to establish Plato's own doctrines (eíc; óo-yµchwv KCJ.TCXCTKEIJTJV) orto refute the interlocutor (ill.65). On this view, to the extent that a dialogue is not simply refutative, we can assume that its primary or sole aim is to expound and argue for certain philosophical theses. Toe tasks of the interpreter are therefore to identify these theses, to analyze the arguments and, finally, to determine the truth of the theses by evaluating the arguments. But are these the only altematives? Must a dialogue be interpreted either as "aporetic" in the sense of containing only refutations, questions, and problems or as "constructive" in the sense of defending doctrines? While the contributors ro this collection may lean more one way or another (e.g., doctrines play a more important role for sorne than for others), they all seek sorne kind of third altemative here. Because they give

2

Toe Third Way

more importance than usual to the literary, dramatic, and rhetorical aspects of the dialogues, they try to avoid identifying their aims with either the establishment or the refutation of doctrines. Instead, they characterize the dialogues as "inspiring" us, as providing us with a "vision" of the world, as "exhorting" us to action, as expanding our imaginations, as "orienting" us in our own inquiry, as communicating a forro of reflexive, practical, and nonpropositional knowledge, or as inviting us to a conversation in which we must actively participate in order to arrive at the truth. These are different suggestions, sorne compatible and sorne not, but they ali share the general goal of finding a "third way." Yet why is a "third way" needed? Why should we avoid interpreting the dialogues as aiming either to establish or refute philosophical doctrines? To answer these questions, we need to look at the two paradigms between which the interpretation of Plato's philosophy has traditionally oscillated. 1 Toen we will be able to see how both paradigms, along with their historical offshoots, have failed to do justice either to the content or to the form of the dialogues. Toe first paradigm, beginning with the Old Academy, continuing through the Neoplatonists, and still prevailing in our own day, regards the airo and final product of Plato's philosophizing to have been a systematic body of philosophical doctrines.2 Another tradition, mainly associated with the New

1. In his book The Decline and Fall of the Neoplatonic lnterpretation of Plato (Helsinki: Societas Scientarum Pennica, 1974) E . N. Tigerstedt argues that the Neoplatonic and the skeptical interpretations of Plato's philosophy were the only two major ones available until the former carne to be rejected in favor of a "third alternative," an alternative that Tigerstedt sees as first emerging with the work of Ioannes Serranus in the sixteenth century (42). However, Tigerstedt also recognizes that this new alternative that defines modero Platonic scholarship is in a different sense not really a third alternative, since it shares with the Neoplatonic interpretation the basic assumption that Plato had a philosophical system. Tigerstedt therefore observes that the scholar Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann bequeathed to modero Platonic scholars "the belief that Plato bad a philosophic system. This assumption was, of course, no invention of Tennemann's, for it was more or less shared by ali earlier Platonists, save the New Academy, and can be traced back to Plato's immediate successors in the Old Academy, Speusippus and Xenocrates, though it culminated in the Neoplatonists" (68). See also Tigerstedt's other important book, lnterpreting Plato (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1977), for a discussion of modero representatives of the traditional "skeptical" and "dogmatic" interpretations. Toe view that inspires the present volume is that what is presently needed in Platonic scholarship is finally a genuine third alternative to these interpretations. 2. Toe attempt to systematize Plato's thought began with his immediate successors in the Academy, Speusippus and Xenocrates (heads ofthe Academy 347-339 B.C. and 339314 B.C., respectively). They seem to have had little interest in the dialogues, being more conceroed with developing the theory of ultimate principies that Plato apparently

Introduction

3

Academy under Arcesilaus and finding an occasional exponent in the subsequent his~ry of P~atonic sch_olarship, portrays Plato as a skeptic refusing to advanc: philos?phical doctnnes of his own and instead using his argumentahve, poet1c, and rhetorical skills to undermine conceit and promote 3 open-ended inquiry. Thus, as a member of this latter tradition Cícero writes

c?mm~nicated only orally. Their systematizing in fact led them to positions greatly d1vergmg from what is found in the dialogues (see Eduard Zeller, Plato and the O/der Academy, trans. Sarah Prances A1leyne & Alfred Goodwin [London: Longmans, Green, and Co:, 18761: 55~-622; W . K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 5 [C~bndge Urnvers1ty Press, 1978], 446-492; Giovanni Reale, A History of Ancient Ph1losophy. III. The Systems of the Hellenistic Age, trans. John R. Catan [Albany: SUN~, 1985], 67-83). This enterprise soon met resistance within the Academy itself (see foll~wmg note). Much later (third century A.D.) the Neoplatonists, beginning with Plotmus, s_ystematized Plato's philosophy (making it in fact essentially identical to the Neo~lat~rnc sy~t~m) through a selective reading of bis works that ignored their aporetic and rrornc qualit1es. Por a good, succinct account of this reading see Giovanni Reale A History ofAncient Philosophy. IV. The Schools ofthe Imperial Age, trans. John R. ca~n (Albany: SUNY, 1990), 307. Aécording to Reale, "the dialogues which are valuable to him [Plotinus] are the Phaedo, Phaedrus, Symposium, Timaeus, the central books ofthe Re;:ublic, and, in a lesser way, sorne aspects of the Sophist, the Parmenides, the Ph1lebus, and the Second Letler" (307). Here we already see a general characteristic of the ''.doctrinal" _inte1:J>retation: that it either ignores Plato's aporetic dialogues altogether or g1ves them linte unportance. Yet even the dialogues that were read could be shown to contain the Neoplatonic system only by means of allegorical interpretation. on which se~ Reale's s~ccinct discussion in/ tre paradigmi storici nell'interpretazione di Platone e 1fondament1 del nuovo paradigma (Napoli: Instituto Suor Orsola Benincasa, 1991), 2225. Por a general account of the Neoplatonists' principies of interpretation see J. A. Coulter, The Literary Microcosm: Theories of lnterpretation of the Later Neoplatonists (Leiden: Brill, 1979). . 3. Toe s~te of Platonic interpretation during Arcesilaus' lifetime (c. 315-240 B.C.) well ~ecnbed by A. A . Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 1 ~Cambnd~e University Press, 1987), 445: "In fact there had been no consensus mterpretauo~ of ~lato's_philosophy at any time since bis death , sorne seventy-five years before Arcesilaus elect1on. If, as seems likely, Polemo [head of Academy c. 314 to 276 B.C.] and his contemporaries had already begun to react against the efforts of their p~edecessors: Spe_usippus and Xenocrates, to create a hard-and-fast system out of Plato's d1al~gues, this will have encouraged Arcesilaus to challenge the wbole enterprise of readmg Pla~o as a doctrinaire philosopher." Por a thorough though generally unsympathetJc account of Arcesilaus' interpretation see Julia Annas' article: "Platon le sce~~ique," Revue de Metaphysique et Morale 95 (1990): 267-291. Por a somewhat more ~os1t1ve and ~~mpathetic,account, however, see Carlos Lévy's reply to Julia Annas: Platon, Arcesilas, Carneade. Reponse a J. Annas," ibid.: 293-306. See also Annas' mo:e recent version of this article, "Plato the Sceptic," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, supp. vol. (1992), ed. James C. Klagge and Nicholas D. Smith, 43-72. Sorne of the arguments with which the ancient skeptics tried to show that Plato was not a IS

4

Toe Third Way

that in Plato 's books "nothing is affirmed, many arguments are presented on both sides of a question, and ali is inquired into without anything certain being said. " 4 Toe first paradigm constitutes the orthodoxy bebind the dissension and divergence in what can be called "mainstream" Platonic studies. Many scholars today agree in assumi~ that Plato's thought takes the forro of a roughly gystematic body of doctrines, and that the main point of the dialogues is to present arguments in defense of these doctrines. Divergences are to be found, however, in how this assumption has been reconciled with the actual forro of the dialogues. Toe death of the Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato simply gave way to other attempts to reconstruct Plato's philosopbic syste~. One such attempt was made by Wilhelm Gottlieb Tenneman who, in bis book, System der P/atonischen Philosophie (Leipzig, 1792-95), could get a system out of the ungystematic and fragmentary dialogues only by ignoring their forro and using Kant's critical pbilosophy to fill in gaps. 5 Friedricp Schleiermacher's famous introduction to bis translations of the dialogues (1804) was in large part directed against the kind of violent treatment of the dialogues characteristic of Tenneman's approach. However, Schleiermacher did not abandon the assumption that Plato, like any other pbilosopher, must be seen as expounding a system. 6 What distinguished bim from Tenneman and

dogmatic philosopher can be found in the Anonymous Prolegomena to P/,ato 's Philosophy, ed. L. G. Westerink (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1962), 20-24. Por a more comprehensive history of this alternative tradition see Tigerstedt's The Decline ami Fall ofthe Neop/,atonic lnterpretation of P/,ato, 7-10, 12-13, 31-38, and 49. 4. "cuius in Jibris nihil adfinnatur et in utramque partem multa disseruntur, de omnibus quaeritur, nihil certi dicitur" (Academica 1.46). 5. Por an account of Tennemann's interpretation see Tigerstedt, The Decline ami Fall, 64-68. 6. See Schleiennacher's claim that Plato was the first systematic philosopher, in Geschichte der Philosophie, aus Schleiermachers hamischriftlichen Nach/,ass, ed. H. Ritter in Siimmtliche Werke III 4, 1 (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1839), 98 . Schleiennacher's systematic approach is evident even in the famous "lntroduction," where he divides the dialogues into the following three groups: 1) the earliest group, which focuses on the preliminaries of a science, i.e., Jogic, epistemology, and philosophical method in general (this group includes the Phaedrus, Protagoras, and Parmenides as well as the "aporetic" dialogues); 2) a middle group, which further develops the general principies of philosophy and begins to apply them in a tentative way to the concrete subject matter of ethics and physics (here are included the Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, Phaedo, and Philebus, in that order); 3) a final group, which finally provides a constructive and scientific exposition of the main areas of philosophy (here are included the Republic, Timaeus, Critias, and Laws) . What is described by this grouping is a gradual introduction to a system of doctrines. Since most of the dialogues are far from having even the appearance of being systematic or fully conclusive, Schleiermacher must characterize

Introduction

5

probably constituted bis most important bequest to modero Platonic studies was bis insistence that the pbilosopbical content of the dialogues was inseparable 7 from their forro. His own way of reconciling forro with content was to see the dialogues as a gradual and pedagogically ordered exposition of Plato's system. This interpretation committed Schleiermacher to the view that Plato's doc~nes ~emain fundamentally the same throughout the dialogues: only the imy 10 wbich they are presented changes. Schleiermacher therefore represents a "unitarian" view of Plato's doctrines that is primarily associated in this century with Paul Shorey. 8 This view, however, has always been threatened by the existence of apparent contradictions between what is said in different dialogues. 9 It has therefore been superseded by the "developmentalist" interpretation dominant in Platonic scholarsbip today, wbich was inaugurated by Karl Friedrich Hermano, the nineteenth-century scholar who combined the notions of "system" and "evolution"-a synthesis pronounced by the very title of bis ?ook: (!eschichte und System der Platonischen Philosophie. 10 Toe 10troduct1on of the notion of "evolution" allowed Hermano unlike Schleiermacher, to explain contradictions among the dialogues" (the; are due to the fact that Plato's doctrines developed throughout bis writing career) and thus to vindicate the systematic character of Plato's thought. 12 This is in fact

most of them as preliminary or tentative. 7. "So_also will those spectators of the analysis fail altogether to attain to a knowledge of the Philosop~! of_Plato, for in that, if in any thing, form and subject are inseparable, and ~o p~opos1t100 1s to be rightly understood, except in its own place, and with the combinattons and limitations which Plato has assigned to it" (lntroductions to the Dialogues of P/,ato, trans. William Dobson, reprinted [New York: Arno Press 1973] 14). ' ' 8. Paul Shorey, The Unity of Plato's Thought (University of Chicago Press, 1960). 9. One way in which scholars in the nineteenth century sought to eliminate these contradictions was to reject from a few to most of the dialogues as spurious. Por an excellent account and critique of the excesses of this "solution" see Luigi Stefanini, P/,atone, 2d. ed. (Padova: CEDAM, 1949; repr. 1992), xviii-xx. 10. Heidelberg, 1839; reprinted New York: Arno Press, 1976. 11 . Por Hennann's argument that Schleiermacher's view is incompatible with contradictions existing between the dialogues see ibid., 352 and 369 (examples of these contradictions can be found on p. 371 ). An excellent survey of sorne of the contradictions can also be found in Stefanini, xiv-xvü. 12. Hennann_ is no less_~onvinced than Schleiermacher that Plato's philosophy is a system of doctnnes (see 1bid., 347). This is why, apart from the fact that Hennann places th~ Phaedrus_ in the /,ate period of Plato's career, his division of the dialogues into three p~nods essenl!ally agrees with Schleiennacher's division (see note above; the only other differences are that Hermann places the Parmenides in the middle period and the Phaedo in the late period). Por both scholars the final group of dialogues is

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Toe Third Way

the virtue of the "developmentalist" hypothesis that makes it today the most 13 widespread form of the "doctrinal" interpretation. • • Yet even this hypothesis is starting to face criticism. One problem 1s that 1t depends on establishing the order in which Plato actually wrote the dialogues, and the meaos by which this has been attempted are beginning to betray flaws and serious limitations. 14 Another problern is that this interpretation requires

"constructive" because in them Plato finally offers an exposition of bis whole system. Of course, geneticists in the twentieth century depart from the division of both scholars by inverting (in large part due to stylometric studies) their m.iddle and late periods (so that the Republic is placed in the m.iddle period and the Sophist and Statesman in the late period). Despite, however, these disagreements about the order of the dia~og~es (and therefore about the character of Plato's final "system"), the fundamental pnnc1ples and presuppositions of the geneticist interpretation have remained constant since the publication of Herroann's monumental work. 13. Por a few out of the numerous examples of this approach see: I. M. Crombie, An F.xamination of Plato's Doctrines (London: Routledge, 1962); R. C. Cross and A. D. Woozley, Plato's Republic: A Philosophical Commentary (London: Macmillan, 1964); Plato, a Collection of Critical Essays /: Metaphysics and Epistemology, ed. Gregory Vlastos (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1970); Plato, A Collection of Critical Essays, II: Ethics, Politics, and Philosophy of Art and Religion, ed. Greg~ry Vlastos (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1970); Terence Irwm, Plato 's Moral Theory: The Early and Middle Dialogues (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977); Nicholas P. White, Plato on Knowledge and Reality (lndianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1976); Gregory Vlastos, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Ithaca: Comell University Press, 1991); The Cambridge Companion to Plato, ed. Richard Kraut (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Though the latter volume claims to presenta "conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Plato," it essenti~lly ignores alternatives to the developmental, doctrinal interpretation, and the editor categorically states that "the dialogue forro of [Plato's] works should not keep us from saying that they are vehicles for the articulation and defense of certain theses and the defeat of others. Though they are not philosopbical treatises, many of them share these purposes with philospbical treatises" (26). As Mary Margaret McCabe rightly observes, "the editorial tendency of this col!ection seems to be more towards the setting out of Platonic doctrine rather than the assessment ofbis arguments in context" ("Porro, Porros, and Reforro," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 12 [1994]: 220). 14. Por serious challenges to attempts to establish a chronology see Holger Thesleff, Studies in Platonic Chronology (Helsinki, 1982) and "Platonic Chronology," Phronesis 34 (1989): 1-26; Jacob Howland, "Re-reading Plato: Toe Problem of Platonic Chronology Reconsidered," Phoenix 45 (1991): 189-214; Debra Nails, "Platonic Chronology Reconsidered," Bryn Mawr Classical Review 3 (1992): 314-27, "Problems with Vlastos' Platonic Developmentalism," Ancient Philosophy 13 (1993): 273-91, "Plato's Middle Cluster," Phoenix 48 (1994): 62-7. Ledger's recent stylometric study in Re-counting Plato: A Computer Analysis of Plato 's Style (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989) is important because it draws our attention to the circularity of previous stylometric

Introduction

7

us to read the dialogues as treatises in whicb Plato defended wbatever doctrines he was committed to at the time of composition and thereby requires us in principie to deemphasize their dramatic and literary aspects. 15 Finally, there are questions central to Plato's system (e.g., "What is the Good?") that apparently never receive answers in the dialogues. 16 One way out of these problems is to abandon the "developmentalist" hypothesis in favor of another form of "doctrinal" interpretation that is becoming increasingly influential: the "esotericist" hypothesis. 17 According

studies. However, Ledger's analysis itself does not fully avoid circularity, as is pointed out by Nails in "Plato's Middle Cluster" and by T. M. Robinson in "Plato and the Computer," Ancient Philosophy 12 (1992): 378-9. Por other problems with Ledger's ana~ysis and with stylometry in general see Charles M . Young, "Plato and Computer Datmg," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 12 (1994): 227-250. 15. Toe major defect ofthe "developmental" interpretation is that it is not compatible with reading the dialogues as dialogues. It is therefore not surprising that Karl Priedrich Herroann who, as noted above, was the principie originator of this interpretation, dismissed the dialogue forro as "eine beliebte und hergebrachte Einkleidungsweise" (3545). Toe incompatibility is well-expressed by Jacob Howland: "Toe key point here is that one cannot consistently appeal both to what Plato is alleged to have thought at a certain time a_nd to features interna! to a given dialogue (including its dramatic time and setting, narrat1ve structure, the character of its interlocutors, literary and bistorical allusions. and the like) in order to explain the kinds of styles of argument one fmds in it. Toe Traditionalist may claim to be sensitive to the fact that the dialogues, as written records of living conversations, must be understood in terros of their rhetorical and dialectical dimensions, but he undercuts this claim precisely at the point where he appeals (as ~evitably he must, gi:en bis fundamental interpretative presupposition) to putatively mdependent chronolog1cal considerations" ("Philosophy as Dialogue," Reason Papers 17 [Pall 1992]: 118-19). See also the fol!owing critiques of Terence Irwin: David Roochnik, "Terence Irwin's Reading of Plato," in Platonic Writings, Platonic Readings, ed. Charles L. Griswold, Jr. (New York: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, 1988), 183-193; Victorino Tejera, "Methodology of a Misreading: A Critica! Note on T . Irwin's 'Plato's Moral Theory,"' lntemational Studies in Philosophy 10 (1978): 131-6. 16. Por a thorough defense ofthe claim that what is said about dialectic and the Good in ~e m.iddle book~ of the Republic cannot be unders~?od and explained without going ou~1~e. of the d1al~gue see: H. J. Krlimer. "Uber den Zusammenhang von Pnnz1p1enlehre und D1alektik bei Plato; zur Definition des Dialektikers Politeia 534B-C " Philologus 100 (1966): 35-70; and Giovanni Reale, Per una nuova interpretazione di Platone: Relettura della metajisica dei grandi dialoghi alle luce delle 'Dottrine non scritte,' 6th ed (Milan: Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. 1989), 293-333. 17. Toe classic presentation of the "esotericist" interpretation is to be found in Krlimer's Arele bei Platon und Aristoteles: zum Wesen und zur Geschichte der Platonischen Ontologie (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1959) and Gaiser's Platons Ungeschriebene Lehre, 2d ed. (Stuttgart: E. Klett, 1968). G. Reale leads the Italian branch of the Tübingen position: his exposition and development of it can be found in

8

Toe Third Way

to tbis view, Plato's philosopbical system neither develops nor re~ains the same throughout the dialogues because, it is not to be found in the dialogues. Instead, Plato communicated bis system only orally witbin the Academy and therefore its most fundamental doctrines are available to us only through the reports of Aristotle and other members. Toe problem with tbis interpr7tati?n is that it requires us to look for Plato's pbilosophy not in the extraordinanly rich and suggestive body of writings he left us, but instead in a bighly abstract system of principles reconstructed from . incomplete, biased, and bighl_y ambiguous reports in secondary sources. 18 What needs to be note~ here. 1s that all three of the above interpretations found in modero Platomc studies assume that Plato's pbilosophy is a system of pbilosopbical doctrines and ~en pursue different ways of reconciling tbis assumpti_on with _the unsys~matic, nondoctrinal form of the dialogues, namely, by seemg the dialogues e1ther as a gmdual exposition of the system ("unitarianism"), or as records of the system's evolution ("developmentalism"), or as propaedeutic to a system they do not contain ("esotericism"). 19 Partly as a result of dissatisfaction with all of these "doctrinal" interpretations, the skeptical interpretation is finding an increasing number of exponents today. 20 Sorne scholars have emphasized, like Cicero, the absence

Per une nuova interpretazione di Platone, cited above. Now we also hav~ a very thorough explanation and defense of this position in English, though unfortunately very bad English: Krlimer's Plato and the Foundations ofMetaphysics, ed. and trans. John R. Catan (Albany: SUNY, 1990). 18. Por an excellent recent critique of the "esotericist" interpretation see Kenneth Sayre, "Review of Krlimer's Plato and tbe Foundations of Metapbysics," Ancient Philosophy 13 (1993): 167-184. . . . . 19. "Esotericism" sees itself as a radical departure from the rnterpretat1ve pnnc1ples of Schleiermacher. This is true to the extent that it rejects the autonomy that Schleiermacher grants the dialogues, but it does so only because it refuses to abandon Schleiermacher 's other presupposition: that Plato 's philosophy is a system of doctrines. Por example, Reale's objection to seeking Plato's thought in the dialogues alone is that the latter provide us with neither an adequate "systematic framework" nor the "doctrinal nuclei of Plato's thought" ("i nuclei dottrinali del pensiero platonico;" I tre paradigmi storici, 28 & 30). 20. It is significant that in addition to the old question ofwhich views in the dialogues are Plato's and which are Socrates' , one now finds with increasing regularity the question of whether any of the views in the dialogues are Plato's. Por example, in his prologue to the recent collection on "Methods of Interpreting Plato and his Dialogues," James C. Klagge asks: "Does Plato expound his own views, as opposed to not expounding views at ali?" (Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, suppl. vol. [1992), ed. James C. Klagge and Nicholas D. Smith, 4). Another paper in the same collection begins with the question: "Does Plato have a philosophy?" (S. Marc Cohen and David Keyt, "Analy~ing Plato's Arguments: Plato and Platonism," ibid., 173). A few years ago these questions

Introduction

9

in the dialogues of final answers to the questions Plato considered most important. 21 Other scholars have been led to deny the existence of doctrines in the dialogues by a desire to place greater emphasis on their dramatic and literary character. 22 Leo Strauss and bis followers have been the main representatives of tbis approach in North America. Their view that every dramatic detail has significance and must be given weight in an interpretation generally leads them to minimize the existence or importance of "doctrines." Thus, Strauss claims that Plato's "dialogues supply us not so much with an answer to the riddle of being as with a most articulate 'imitation' of that riddle. His teacbing can never become the subject of indoctrination. In the last analysis bis writings can not be used for any other purpose than for pbilosophizing. "23 Similarly, one of bis students, Stanley Rosen, writes that "Pbilosophy as portrayed in the Sophist, and in the entire Platonic corpus, is

would have provoked only laughter from most scholars. There are two distinct issues here, however, which are not kept distinct by Klagge when he responds to his question by concluding that "the evidence establishes a slight presumption in favor of the view that sorne of the main philosophical and political positions articulated by the leading characters in the dialogues do indeed represent the views of Plato himself" (Klagge, 11). I frnd it plausible that the dialogues contain sorne of Plato's own views, justas I frnd it plausible that King Lear and Hamlet contain sorne of Shakespeare' s own views. Yet this leaves open a different and more important question: is the aim of Plato's dialogues , and of bis philosophizing generally, to expound and defend such views? It is a positive answer to this question, and not simply the belief that Plato's views can be found in the dialogues, that defrnes what I call the "doctrinal" approach. Toe papers in the present collection, on the other hand, seek to ascribe to Plato different aims, aims more consonant with the characteristics of the dialogue fonn. 21. A skeptical interpretation of the "Socratic dialogues" has been defended by Richard Kraut, Socrates and the State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), a skeptical interpretation ofthe dialogues as a whole has been defended by Peter Stemmer, Platons Dialektik: Die Früheren und Mittleren Dialoge (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1992), especially 222-3 and 272-3, and a skeptical interpretation of both the dialogues as a whole and the "unwritten teachings" has been defended by Rafael Ferber, Die Unwissenheit des Philosophen oder Warum hat Plato die "ungeschriebene Lehre" nicht geschrieben (Sankt Augustin: Akademia Verlag, 1991). Ali three authors, in opposing the mainstream "dogmatic" interpretation, work entirely within the dichotomy that the present volume seeks to transcend. 22. Annas comments on the parallel between Arcesilaus' interpretation of Plato and that of modern commentators "who emphasize the 'literary' aspects of the Socratic dialogues" ("Plato the Sceptic," n. 28, p. 60; "Platon le sceptique," n. 18, p. 281). 23. "On a New Interpretation of Plato's Political Philosophy," Social Research 13 (1946): 351.

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Toe Third Way

not a doctrine but a problem. " 24 However, the nondoctrinal approach is by 25 no means confined to Strauss and bis followers, even in North America. In Europe existentialism and phenomenology have encouraged this kind of interpretation. Sorne of the major representatives in Germany are H. G. Gadamer, Hermann Gundert, and Wolfgang Wieland.26 In France, the literary dimension of the dialogues has always been given much attention by interpreters: a classic example is R. Schaerer;27 a more recent one is Jacques Derrida. 28 Despite the great diversity to be found in the different strands of

24. Plato 's Sophist (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 331. See also Rosen's "Platonic Hermeneutics: On the Interpretation of a Platonic Dialogue," in Proceedings of the Boston A rea Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, vol. 1, ed. John Cleary (New York: University Press of America, 1986), 271-288. In tum, a student ofStanley Rosen has defended a similar position: Drew Hyland, "Why Plato Wrote Dialogues," Philosophy and Rhetoric 1 (1968): 38-50; see especially p. 41. 25. Two other North American representatives of this approach are Frederick J. E. Woodbridge, The Son of Apollo (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1929; repr. New York: Columbia University Press, 1965) and J. Randall, Plato: Dramatist of the Lije of Reason (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970). 26. See especially H. G. Gadamer, Dialogue and Dialectic, trans. P. Christopher Smith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980) and Plato's Dialectical Ethics: Phenomenological Interpretations Relating to the Philebus, trans. R. M. Wallace (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991); Hermann Gundert, Der Platonische Dialog (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1968) and Dialog und Dialektik (Amsterdam: B. R. Grüner, 1971); and Wolfgang Wieland, Platon und die Formen des Wissens (Goningen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982). Wieland claims that dialectic, unlike mathematics, does not have the goal of winning and establishing true propositions about certain facts. He can therefore assert that while there are "mathematical propositions," there are no "dialectical propositions" ("Platon und der Nutzen der Idee. Zur Funktion der Idee des Guten," Allgemeine Zeitschrift jür Philosophie 1 [1976]: 32). 27. R. Schaerer, La question platonicienne: Étude surles rapports de la pensée et de l'expression dans les dialogues, 2nd ed. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1969). (Note the very Schleiermacherian subtitle). 28. See his very influential essay: "La Pharmacie de Platon," in La dissémination (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1972), 69-198. It is important to note that Derrida himself tends to see Plato as a metaphysical dogmatist. Sorne of those influenced by his reading of the dialogues, however, deny this characterization of Plato and thus make Plato more like Derrida than Derrida himself does. See, for example, David M. Halperin's statement: " ... I read Plato in opposition to Derrida not as a metaphysical dogmatist but as a kind of deconstructionist avant la lettre, a cunning writer fully alive to the doubleness of his rhetoric who embraces différance and who actively courts in his writing an effect of undecidability" ("Plato and the Erotics of Narrativity," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, suppl. vol. [1992), ed. James C. Klagge and Nicholas D. Smith, 118). Por another, more thorough critique of Derrida for not recognizing in Plato a fellow "deconstructionist," see Stanley Rosen, "Platonic Hermeneutics," 271-288.

Introduction

11

this "nondoctrinal" approach, what unifies it is the view it shares with the skeptical paradigm described above: that the form of the dialogues is incompatible with the characterization of Plato as a pbilosopher whose aim was to prove and defend specific pbilosopbical doctrines. 29 This approach does in fact appear best able to explain the dialogue form. If Plato was a skeptic or, in more modero terms, a "deconstructionist," then he understandably would have wanted to distance bimself from what is said in the dialogues by biding bebind their dramatis personae and never stating anything in bis own person. This distancing, on the other hand, appears pointless from the perspective of the other tradition that depicts Plato as a pbilosopher seeking to defend bis own doctrines. Toe sceptical interpretation can also account for another important characteristic of the dialogues: ad hominem argumentation. If Plato's aim was to present universally valid arguments for the establishment ofpbilosophical doctrines (something that could be done in a treatise), then the dialogue, which at least in form relativizes argumentation by referring it to a specific context and a specific interlocutor, appears not only unnecessary but even obstructive. If, on the other hand, Plato's aim was to expose and refute the presuppositions of specific types of interlocutors, then the necessity of ad hominem argumentation is evident. Its importance would in turn explain the literary and dramatic aspects of the dialogues, since in order for it to be effective, the interlocutor would have to be given a concrete character and placed in situations where bis behaviour and the presuppositions upon which this behaviour rests are made clear. 30 Toe literary and dramatic details of the

29. Por examples of the nondoctrinal approach in ali of its diversity, see the following two collections of essays and discussions: Platonic Writings, Platonic Readings, ed. Charles L. Griswold Jr. (New York: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Inc., 1988); Plato's Dialogues: New Studies and lnterpretations, ed. Gerald A. Press (Rowman & Linlefield Publishers, Inc. , 1993). Many of those who could be classified under this approach are offering a genuinely new "third way" of interpreting Plato's dialogues, but too often they do not clearly distinguish their approach from the "skeptical" one. 30. Julia Annas shows how the New Academy, by finding skeptical ad hominem argumentation in the dialogues, coutd do justice to their literary and dramatic aspects: "lf an argument is ad hominem then fully to understand it we must know about what the int~rlocutor thinks, and focus on the actual moves and why they are made, rather than seemg the argument as part of a built-up 'Socratic ethics.' Much recent focus on the 'dialogue forro' and treatment of Socratic arguments piecemeal with stress on the particular context implicitly revives Archelaus' Socrates. Toe Academy may even have stressed th~se literary aspects themselves, since we know that an interest in oratory developed m the Academy, and Socratic arguments provide much natural material for studying how to (and how not to) convince various types of people" ("Plato the Sceptic," P- 60, n. 28). It is worth noting that Arcesilaus apparently owned Plato's books, perhaps even the original manuscripts (" KOlL rcx {3i(J>.fo eKÉKTTJTO Dlvroü," Diogenes Laertius, IV.32-3; A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley interpret this as probably meamng that

12

Toe Tbird Way

dialogues appear as so much pointless and even misleading omamentation, on the other hand, if Plato's objective was to transmit and defend pbilosopbical doctrines, unless one is willing to give these details allegorical significance in the manner of the N eoplatonists. Toe irreconcilable opposition between the "doctrinal" interpretation and the dialogue forro is most evident if one considers the comerstone of this interpretation: its attribution to Plato of a "theory of forros." To the unprejudiced reader, it is evident that there is no "theory of forros " in the dialogues. What one instead finds is what one scholar has called "impressionistic language"31 from wbich readers, starting with Aristotle, have attempted to construct a "theory of forms." This is to say that the the9ry, whether rightly or wrongly attributed to Plato, is a construction by the reader of what is not to be found as such in the dialogues. But then the simple question is unavoidable: why did Plato, rather than writing a treatise in wbich this comerstone of bis metaphysics is fully worked out, instead write dramatic dialogues in wbich references to the forms are not only scattered and ad hoc, but are also generally couched in poetic images and metaphors? Toe skeptical interpretation would have no difficulty in accounting for Plato's choice of dialogue over treatise, since it does not see him as committed to any theory. Yet despite this virtue, the skeptical interpretation is flawed. While the dialogues may be unsystematic, it is clearly not the case that they contain only problems, refutations, and questions. Tbey suggest sorne sort of positive pbilosophy. If one wants to claim that this positive pbilosophy is not a "system" nor a set of "doctrines," then the burden is on one to explain what exactly it is. If Plato did not see pbilosophy as a matter of advancing and defending pbilosophical theses, then how did he understand it? And what is the connection between pbilosophy as thus understood and the dramatic, literary form of the dialogues? If it fails to answer these questions, the "nondoctrinal" interpretation being advocated today runs two risks: either it will "tum Platonism into empty 'pbilosopbizing"' 32 and the dialogues into "mere

"A.rcesilaus was in possession of Plato's own library and manuscripts" [The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 435)). 31. Gail Fine, "Aristotle's Criticisms of Plato," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, suppl. vol. (1992), ed. James C. Klagge and Nicholas D. Smith, 13-41. Toe most thorough and convincing defence of the claim that there is no "theory" of forms in the dialogues is to be found in Wieland's book, Platon und die Formen des Wissens, 95-150. Wieland does not deny that forms are recognized in the dialogues, but claims that they are not and cannot be made objects of any "theory." Toe phrase, "Ideen ohne ldeenlehre," succinctly expresses his positiofü 32. This is the phrase used by E. N. Tigerstedt to describe what Plato's thought is transformed into by certain "existentialist" interpreters (lnterpreting Plato, 103). lt is also worthwhile citing here Findlay 's sharp criticism of the "nondoctrinal" interpretation:

Introduction

13

literature" or it will surreptitiously reintroduce a "doctrinal" conception of pbilosophy into the dialogues by, for example, seeing their literary details as a kind of secret code for bidden doctrines. 33 Many of those classified above under the "nondoctrinal" approach have already at least begun to answer these questions, and the contributors to this volume are indebted to sorne of their suggestions. To this extent, however, they are moving away from the purely skeptical interpretation. wbich is itself inadequate because it cannot explain the positive pbilosopbical content of the dialogues and therefore either ignores it altogether or lapses back into the doctrinal interpretation. What these observations leave us with is a paradox: the skeptical interpretation can account for the form of Plato's writings only by minimizing their positive pbilosopbical content, wbile the "doctrinal" interpretation can uncover their content only at the cost of considering their form little more than a curiosity and even an embarrassment. Tbis state of affairs cannot but leave us wisbing for sorne third alternative: an interpretation that, unlike the sceptical one, grants positive content to Plato 's pbilosophy, and that, unlike the "doctrinal" one, is able to show sorne necessary connection between this pbilosophy and the dialogue forro. Is there such an alternative? It is precisely such an alternative that the papers in this collection seek to define. Toe different ways in wbich this alternative is sought are reflected by the division of the collection into five parts representing five sets of oppositions. Toe papers in the first part observe that Plato's critique of the writ!en ~ord as ~•~xed" and "unalterable" counts against the view that the goal of bis pbilosophiz1ng was to communicate and defend pbilosopbical doctrines. On the other hand, despite bis apparent preference for oral discourse, Plato did wri~e. This tension in bis thought between oral and written discourse provides fertlle ground for discovering an alternative both to interpretations that characterize bis thought as completely fluid and open-ended (like a runny nose, to adapt one of Plato's own images) and to interpretations that characterize bis thought as fixed doctrine. Jackson P. Hershbell's paper provides a good starting point for working out such an alternative by reviewing the different theses that have been advanced in the scholarly literature concerning the origins, nature, and purpose of the

"Many are satisified with this tentative, suggestive thought-fragmentation which is certainly worth a pack of low-grade systematization, but the nisus of Plato's thought is n~ne ~e l~ss towards systematic completion, and if we lose the willingness to run along w1th this msus, the fragments lose ali their meaning, become even trivial and ridiculous. A Plato who merely played around with notions and arguments is a Plato corrupted, a Plato unworthy of serious study" (Plato: The Written and Unwrirten Doctrines, 6). 33. For a critique of Straussian interpreters along these lines see Harry Berger Jr., "Levels of Discourse in '.lato's_ Dialogues," inLiterature and the Question of Philosophy, ed. Anthony J. Cascard1 (Baltunore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 77-100.

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Toe Third Way

dialogue forro. In addition to the often-noted influence of Athenian drama, Hershbell points to the Athenian symposia or "drinking parties" and to courtroom elenchus or cross-examination as possible influences on Plato 's choice of the dialogue forro. Hershbell also reviews the arguments made for seeing the dialogue forro as reflecting a transition from orality to literacy. Most importantly for the purposes of the present volume, Hershbell discusses the pbilosopbical motive that sorne have seen bebind Plato's choice of the dialogue forro: the view that both the written and the spoken word are inadequate for expressi~ the truth, and that, therefore, a forro of writing is needed that not only approximates the fluidity of oral discourse but is also nondogmatic and open-ended, always reminding the reader that he must go beyond what is written or spoken in order to discover the truth. Hershbell does not choose between these different explanations of the dialogue forro nor does he see them as mutually exclusive. His paper, however, provides us with an excellent account of the present state of the scholarsbip on this question. Elinor J. M . West is one of those who sees the Platonic dialogue as existing at the crossroads of orality and literacy. She rejects the equation of an "unlettered" society with an "uncultured" society, showing instead how an oral culture's attitudes towards time, composition, and remembering differ from those of a literate culture. Agreeing with those who have seen the culture of Ancient Greece as originally and predominantly an oral one, West argues that one should understand Plato's dialogues within the context of such a culture, wbich, even in its transition to literacy, still exhibited a "mistrust of letters" (a mistrust that West thoroughly documents). In this way, West is resistí~ the common tendency to understand the dialogues within the context of our own culture in wbich the written word is predominant. By situating Plato within an oral culture with its different attitudes towards time, composition, and remembering, West can claim that Plato cannot be understood as an "author" in our sense of the word, that he cannot be seen as "developing," and that the categories of "fact" or "fiction" are inappropriate for describing bis portrayal of Socrates. In commenting on Plato's anonymity or silence in the dialogues. West makes the interesting suggestions that "Plato" is the relation between Socrates and bis respondents, and that "Plato" is the "temporal unity of each of bis texts" (something that is similarly, but not identically, true of "Homer"). These suggestions oppose the view that "Plato" is to be identified with specific doctrines stated in the dialogue (by Socrates or someone else), as well as the view that the space at the end of an "aporetic" dialogue represents a failure. To understand "Plato," we must rehearse and recreate the conversations preserved by the dialogues, making objections and asking questions, _spotting relations and discontinuities. "Plato" cannot be equated with any written words in bis texts. To this extent, he remains faithful to the Athenian mistrust of letters. Joanne Waugh explores further the pbilosophical implications of the

Introduction

15

distinction between spoken and written discourse. Waugh argues that the understanding of pbilosopbical language as logically tenseless and as completely independent of the specific context in wbich it is spoken emei:ges only with the forro of discourse that is capable of rendering language fixed and unalterable: writing. Toe sentences fixed in this way become "timeless" propositions and thus the objects of knowledge. Therefore, Waugh argues that to look for such propositions in Plato's dialogues is to miss completely their oral dimension, their portrayal of philosopbical language as rooted in the specific contexts of contingent, concrete discussions. This is not to say that pbilosophy for Plato has no universal import, but rather that the universal truth that pbilosophy actively seeks is not to be found in a system of timeless propositions that can be written down. Waugh shows that our conception of pbilosophy is fundamentally transforroed if we see it as an "oral" enterprise instead of as a matter of "publisbing or perisbing." Toe papers in the second part seek a "third way" in the uneasy kinsbip between pbilosophy and rhetoric. One cannot deny that the dialogues are critical of rhetoric and the relativism that it seems to presuppose. However, the rhetorical character of pbilosophy as depicted in the dialogues also cannot be denied and appears to tell against the possibility of pbilosophy being a purely rational and apodictic science. Here again, Plato's pbilosophy appears to exist between two opposites. David Roochnik's paper brings into question the standard view that Plato completely opposes pbilosophy to rhetoric. In focusing on the locus classicus for this view, the Gorgias, Roochnik shows that the criticism of rhetoric there is highly ambiguous. In addition to leaving many fundamental questions unanswered, Socrates assumes rhetoric to be a techne in bis refutation of Goi:gias and denies it is a techne in bis discussion with Polus, thus not only leaving its nature questionable but also appearing to use rhetoric for bis own purposes. Moreover, the discussion in the Gorgias enables us to make a sharp distinction between pbilosophy and rhetoric only if pbilosophy is itself a techne with a fully determínate, specific subject matter. However, Roochnik provides reasons for doubting, even within the context of the Gorgias, that pbilosophy is a forro of technical knowledge. Socrates uses the techne analogy both to ~efute the rhetorician's claim to have a techne and to encourage bis mterlocutors to pursue knowledge. Neither use implies that Socrates bimself as a philosopher possesses a techne. In conclusion, Roochnik sees pbilosophy as a tension between the indeterminacy of the concrete and contingent situations to wbich rhetoric is restricted and the determinacy of that technical knowledge of the good that the philosopher seeks without ever attaining. Plato chose the dialogue forro on account of its ability to portray this tension by rooting the pursuit of knowledge of the good in the contingency of discussions taking place at a particular time and place with particular interlocutors. Toe dialogue is neither a rhetorical composition nor a technical treatise and is

16

Toe Third Way

therefore perfectly suited to conveying a philosophy that is neither rhetoric nor tecbnical knowledge, but a tension between the two. P. Cbristopher Smith also seelcs a via media between seeing the dialogues as mere literary dramas aiming at rhetorical exhortation and seeing them as trearises expounding and demonstrating doctrines. In interpreting what is actually taking place in the dialogues, Smith makes use of Aristotle's distinction between demonstrarive aigumentation and rhetorical-dialectical argumentation. Toe former is the kind of argumentation used by mathematics and starts with self-evident axioms in order to deduce from them sorne new knowledge. Toe latter starts with generally held beliefs, which are understood to be always open to question, and aims not so much to provide knowledge as to influence one's decisions. Given this distinction, which kind of argumentation do we find in the dialogues? Smith turns to the Phaedo, both for its wealth of arguments and for its reflections on the nature of argumentation. In examining the different arguments put forward by Socrates for the immortality of the soul, Smith shows that most of them are rhetoricaldialectical and not at ali demonstrative. After the major objections of Simmias and Cebes, Socrates indeed attempts to demonstrote the immortality of the soul by means of a method of "hypothesis" like that employed by the mathematicians. Smith argues, however, that by the end of the dialogue we are meant to see that this attempt has failed. When it comes to matters like the soul, the good, and beauty, no unshakeable or divine logos is available to us. Toe failure to find such a logos does not collapse the dialogue into a mere literary drama. Instead, in its very failure, the dialogue reveals a via media between mere exhortation or persuasion and apodictic demonstration. Toe papers in the third part explore the "third way" offered by Plato's use of drama and myth. Toe dialogues appeal not only to our reason, but also to our emotions and imagination; they not only prove points, but also enact something and tell stories. While they are not simply dramas or myths, they are also not abstract theoretical treatises. A proper understanding of Plato's philosophy therefore requires an understanding of the relation in bis dialogues between imagination and reason, between drama and philosophical aigument. Many readers of Plato's dialogues, starting with Xenocrates and Speusippus, have denied the importance of the myths by interpreting them as mere allegories that clothe a systematic doctrine arrived at and defended through rational argumentation alone. This interpretation assumes that views arrived at solely through flights of imagination (which is what the myths are) and not based on solid evidence or argumentation are not worthy of a philosopher. T. M. Robinson, however, shows that imagination is an indispensable and valuable component of Plato's speculation on the nature and origin of the cosmos. Against the allegorists, he shows that both the generation of the cosmos described in the myth of the Timaeus and the reversal of the world's movement (with the bizarre consequences that attend it) described in the

Introduction

17

Statesman are to be taken literally and seriously, not as playful allegories for sorne more "rational" truth. Robinson then shows the importance of what he calls Plato's "cosmological imaginativeness" by comparing it to the role that imagination has · played in the thinking of modern cosmologists such as Einstein, Heisenbeig, and Hawking. Despite the limitations imposed on Plato's imagination by the lack of a concept of four-dimensionality, Robinson sees Plato's imaginativeness as anticipating sorne ideas of the modero cosmologists, such as a beginning of time (Big Bang theory), the tensility of space, and the contraction of the universe (Oscillation theory). Robinson's article shows that myth and imagination are for Plato an autonomous source of insights and as such complement and enrich, rather than contradict, the purely rational aigumentation that is also to be found in the dialogues. According to James Arieti, a fundamental presupposition of most Platonic scho!arship is that Plato intended the dialogues to present systematic, cons1stent, and straightforward positions defended with sound, clear, and unambiguous arguments. Since the inconsistent, ambiguous, and unsystematic appeai:ance of the ~ialogues, however, does not confirm such a presupposition, Pl~tomc scholarship has resorted to something analogous to the theory of ep1cycles employed by the ancient astronomers to make the apparently erratic ~ovements ~f the heavenly bodies conform to the presupposition of perfectly circular mot10n: the theory of "cycles" in Plato's life according to which the dialogues can be divided into "early," "middle," and "late" groups. Arieti, however, considers this theory as untenable as the theory of epicycles and ~uggests that we simply abandon the presupposition that has made it necessary, J~st as astr~mome~ eventually abandoned the presupposition of perfectly crrcular motion. In 1ts place we should recognize that the dialogues are meant to_ be re~d as _dra.mas_ and that only when read in this way can they inspire us w1th the1r philosophical point. Through observations on a number of Plato's dialogues, Arieti demonstrates the results that a dramatic reading can have. For example, only when read as dramas do the Phaedo and the Crito make the philosophical points, respectively, that an aigument should be courageously pursued despite the imminent threat of failure, and that one must act in accord~ce with the best argu01ent available to one at the time, despite the uncertamty and the momentous consequences. Such points do not constitute any "theory" or "doctrine," but they do have the positive content of what Arieti prefers to call inspirotion. Like_Arieti, Gerald A. Press focuses on the dramatic aspect of the dialogues by c~hng them "enactments." Press, however, is primarily concemed with show1ng how understanding the dialogues as philosophical enactments allows us to overcome many of the dichotomies that have divided traditional Platonic scholars~p. Toe ~iew that the primary purpose of the dialogues is to ~omm~m_cate doctnnes, by either asserti~ them as disguised treatises or 1nstant1ating them as "mimes," gives rise to a number of unresolved either/or

18

Toe Third Way

questions. For example, which doctrines are Socrates' and which are Plato's? Are Plato's doctrines to be found in the dialogues or outside them in "unwritten teachings?" Did Plato's doctrines develop or remain the same throughout the dialogues? Was Plato a dogmatist who held certain doctrines to be indubitable or was he a skeptic who sought only to refute them and show their limitations, as the New Academy believed? Instead of choosing one side of these dichotomies, Press advocates a "Copernican revolution" that would allow us to transcend them: we should see the dialogues not as saying something, but as enactments that do something. But what exactly do the dialogues do? According to Press, they create a worúi that the reader is expected to enter into and experience intellectually, imaginatively, and emotionally. What one gains through entering the world of a dialogue is not a "theory" in the sense of a "doctrine," but a "theory" in the sense of a "vision" : a certain way of seeing, experiencing, and doing things. Toe world that the dialogues embody and enable us to envision is characterized by Press as a simultaneous opposition and interpenetration of the real and the ideal, the everchanging and the stable, the concrete and the universal. Press concludes by indicating how sorne of the traditional dichotomies of Platonic interpretation can be overcome by understanding the dialogues in this way: e.g., the point of the dialogues is not to present doctrines, whether Socrates' or Plato's; Plato's philosophy consists neither of doctrines found in the dialogues nor "unwritten doctrines," but is instead that experience or vision with which the dialogues provide us; the dialogues offer neither developing doctrines nor unchanging doctrines, but instead a constant vision; Plato is neither a skeptic nor a dogmatist, since philosophy for him is not a matter of either asserting doctrines or refuting them. An important hermeneutical principie running through Press's paper is that we should make our concept of Plato's philosophy conform to tbe dialogues rather than make the dialogues conform to it. Press's suggestion is that if we do so. we will see that the dialogues evade the oppositions in terms of which many scholars have tried to understand them. Toe papers in the fourth part seek to avoid characterizing Plato's philosophy as either "dogmatic" or "skeptical" by placing the emphasis on its dialectical or dialogical character. Dialectic can be seen as a process that will never termínate in final and universal conclusions or definitions, but that nevertheless has positive universal content. lt is neither a dogmatic monologue nor purely ad hominem refutation. In my own paper, I develop an alternative to the skeptical and "doctrinal" interpretations by arguing that neither can do justice to the unity of form and content in Plato's dialogues. An explanation of this unity requires a third interpretation that characterizes Plato's philosophy as a dialectic with the following three characteristics: 1) it is reflexive in the sense that its content is not objectifiable as a result separable from its method. My suggestion is that

Introduction

19

the dialectical method itself instantiates the truth it seeks and that to this extent the method is itself the content. Furthermore, because the method of philosop~ has this char~cter, philosophical knowledge is not of sorne purely external, impersonal obJect and therefore is not "objective" in the way the sciences are, but is instead inseparable from self-knowledge. Toe treatise presents formal ai:guments in the defense of certain conclusions while in Iarge ~art. abstracti~ from the philosopher by whom, and the actual process of mqwry by which these conclusions were reached; it is precisely the Iatter, on the other hand, that the dialogue form strives to capture. This is why the "reflexive" character of philosophy demands the dialogue form. 2) Dialectic for Plato therefore also is and provides a form of practica/ knowledge ("knowledge how"). Accordingly, Plato's philosophy cannot be expressed in the "_knowledge that" provided by the treatise, but reveals itself only in the practtce so succesfully portrayed by the dialogues. 3) Finally, the insight with which dialetic also provides us is nonpropositional. Such insight cannot be commu~cated by a treatise, but it can be sparked by the suggestive silences of the dialogues. These three mutually dependent characteristics, which this paper can only briefly illustrate, map out a new direction in which Platonic sc~olarship can head_in the attempt to understand both Plato's conception of philosophy and the dialogue form that this conception demands. Walter Watson asks why the skeptical and dogmatic interpretations have been _so preval:nt in the history of Platonic scholarship. His answer is that both mterpre~t1ons d~w our attention to opposed tendencies that are actually to be found m the dialogues, but fail to see that these tendencies do not necessaril~ contradi_ct each other. For example, the skeptic rightly points out the ~llo~1ng: ali v1ews found in the dialogues are presented as the views of spec1fic mterlocutors and notas the views of Plato oras "divine truth·" what is s_aid i~ the _di~ogues is rooted in the concrete existential situatio~ they d~p1ct; d1ale~ttc 1s ~ed to refute those who claim to have knowledge; each d1alogu~ has 1ts own mtemal unity and is thus independent of the others. Toe dogm_at1st, on the other hand, rightly asserts the following: the dialogues co~tam truth that is "divine" in the sense of being independent of the human beings who express it; the dialogues acknowledge universal "forms" that transcend any specific_ concrete situation; dialectic aims to provide knowledge through formally vahd arguments; the dialogues are to be understood in relation to each other and thus as constituting sorne kind of "system. " Watson argu~s that once these apparently contradictory positions are rid of the ?n:s1dedness and exaggeration that historically has characterized them, their ms1gh~ can be reconciled in a third interpretation (the "dialogic") that recogmzes the paradoxical but intelligible unity of opposites characteristic of Pl~to's dialogues_: the dialogues are human and divine, particular and umvers~, refutat1ve and affirmative, rhapsodic and systematic. Through a companson of the Republic, the Statesman, and the Laws, Watson shows

20

Toe Third Way

concretely how the skeptical and dogmatic approaches, when properly restricted, can complement both each other and the dialogical approach. Victorino Tejera defends and explains his own version of a dialogical approach through a discussion of the fbrmenides. Tejera insists that the dialogues are always dialogical, even when one interlocutor (e.g., Socrates or the Stranger) dominates. It is therefore wrong to see any of the dialogues as a disguised monologue in which Platonic doctrines are being expounded. Toe difference that reading the dialogues "dialogically" (and this means with sensitivity to the dramatic context) can make is indicated by Tejera when he points out that if the fbrmenides is read in terms of dramatic chronology as the first of Plato's dialogues (since it is the dialogue in which the character Socrates is youngest), then we must see Socrates in the PluJedo and the Republic as already aware of the criticisms to which the Theory of Forms is subjected there. As for these criticisms, Tejera sees them as logically refuting the theory of forms but without denying the fonns their role as necessary assumptions of ali intelligible discourse. What the young Socrates learns is to become what he will become in other dialogues: a practitioner of elenchus rather than an advocate of any "theory." Similarly, Tejera sees the difficult second half as intended to exhibit for the young Socrates the limitations of refutationism and deductivism. There is much matter in the hypotheses of this second half for serious reflection, but this should not blind us to their satirical and ironical character. As interpreted by Tejera, then, the fbrmenides portrays the training of a philosopher who will become neither a dogmatist nor a skeptic. Toe paper that comprises the fifth and final part of the book attempts to find a third way by relating the dialogues to Plato's so-called "unwritten teachings." These teachings reported by Aristotle and others are normally avoided like the plague by those who seek to remain faithful to the form of the dialogues. As suggested by the brief history above, the unwritten teachings have allowed the esotericists to preserve the systematic, doctrinal character of Plato's philosopby by taking this philosopby out of the dialogues altogether, safe from the contaminating influence of their irony, ambiguity, and skeptical bent. However, it is possible that if the unwritten teachings are put back into the dialogues, they may simply constitute a philosophical orientation that steers clear of both skepticism and "doctrinalism." In showing how the unwritten teachings are put to work in the third hypothesis of the fbrmenides and the diaireses of the Statesman. Mitchell Miller can reconcile the apparently doctrinal character of these teachings with the ironic and indirect character of the dialogues. When we understand the unwritten teachings in the context of their use in the dialogues, we recognize that they do not constitute an apodictic system in which the fonns are deduced from higher causes and their natures fully defined. Instead, because their role is to guide us in the effort to understand the causal pawer of the forms in

Introduction

21

relation to sensible things, their purpose is to orient inquiry rather than resolve it. This downward path from the forms to sensible objects that the unwritten teachings orient cannot be substituted for the upward path to the forms themselves: the absolute transcendence of the forms affirmed in the dialogues cannot be denied. Once the role of the unwritten teachings is limited and contextualized in this way, they can be reconciled with both the existential and the ironic/indirect character of the dialogues. By indicating the order and arrangement by which being is brought into becoming, they provide us with a model to imitate in the fonnation of our character and actions, the kind of formation at which the dialogues as "psychagogical rhetoric" aim. Because their limitations make them subject to misunderstanding and misuse. the unwritten teachings need the irony of the dialogues to awaken in the reader self-understanding and awareness of his or her own limitations (among those lacking such awareness and thus potentially misusi~ the teachings must be included members of the Academy). In this way, Miller manages to avoid both the Scylla of dogmatism that threatens the interpreter who abandons the dialogues in favor of the unwritten teachings and the Charybdis of skepticism that threatens the interpreter who abandons the unwritten teachings in favor of the dialogues. · These different ways of inaugurating a new approach to Plato display the wealth of possibilities available to those who are willing to break away from the two general interpretations that to this day tend to be considered exclusive alternatives. Since ali of the contributors acknowledge intellectual forebears this approach is "new" only in the sense that it is still far from mainstream'. Fu~e:°11or~, i~ is not the ambition of this collection finally to provide a defimtlve third mterpretation to replace the traditional ones. Its aims are more modest: to point out that there is a third way, to encourage its pursuit, and to provide sorne assistance in the form of preliminary and diverse maps of where it might lie. This collection therefore raises more questions than it answers. Yet one can say without exaggeration that what is most lacking in Platonic studies today are good questions. Toe dominance of the "doctrinal" interpretation has prevented the most important questions from even being asked. Because it has been assumed that philosopby for Plato is completely "other" than rhetoric is like modera professional philosopby, primarily written discourse, aim~ a~ the establishment and defense of philosophical doctrines, is only accidentally related to drama and myth-because these assumptions have not been doubted, the urgency of the crucial and terribly difficult questions that the articles collected here raise and address has for the most part not been felt. If this collection succeeds in conveying that urgency, it has accomplished much. And this is not simply a matter of understanding Plato. lf our assumptions about what is and what is not "philosophical" prevent us from seeing the uniqueness of Plato's thought, they may also blind us to a whole dimension of doing

22

Toe Third Way

philosophy. Our inability to understand Plato 's dialogues may stem from our own philosophical impoverishment. In this case, it is ali the more important that we fullow Plato on his path, however strange, rugged, and labyrinthine it may seem, rather than dragging him along our own familiar, well-paved but perhaps also too predictable thruways.

I

Philosophy and Speech: Plato' s Dialogues Between Oral and Written Discourse

2

Reflections on the Orality and Literacy of Plato's Dialogues Jackson P. Hershbell According to Diogenes Laertius (ill. 5), Plato "wrote poems, first dithyrambs, afterwards lyric poems and tragedies," 1 and in 1895 R. Hirrel commented on the "poetic" character of Plato's dialogues in his monumental Der Dialog.2 Hirrel wrote of the "poetic talent" ("poetische Anlage") of Plato's mind3 and claimed that sorne "anachronisms" in his dialogues, the

l. Diogenes' report is preceded by reference to Dicaearchus' On Lives (IlEp, {3iw11). Since Diogenes drew not only from this but from several other works for his life of Plato, it cannot be concluded that Dicaearchus was his source for this report. Immediately after mentioning Plato's poetic activity, Diogenes cites On Lives by Timotheus of Athens and Successions of Philosophers by Alexander (Polyhistor), and recounts how Plato burned a tragedy he wrote after listening to Socrates talle before the theatre of Dionysus. Por recent comment on Diogenes' life of Plato, see J. Mejer, Diogenes Laertius and his Hellenistic Background, Hermes Einzelschriften 40 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1978), 36-38. Several charming epigrams attributed to Plato are generally considered genuine. See, for example, W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, IV (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 13, n. 1 for bibliography. 2. Rudolf Hi.rzel, Der Dialog, Ein literarhistorischer Versuch , Pt. I (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1895), 179ff. 3. /bid., 176.

26

Toe Third Way

Symposium, for example, are reminiscent of the high spirits, even audaci~ of Attic comedy. 4 Taking note of Diderot's attempt to transform the Phaedo mto a tragic drama (on Socrates' death scene, the philosophe wrote, "What a canvas for a poet" ["Quel canevas pour un poete"]), Hirzel commented at length on the differences and similarities between Platonic dialogues and drama. 5 In Plato's Progress (1966), G. Ryle reported how sorne of Plato's earlier dialogues (which are more "dramatic" than his later ones) were performed "by 6 schoolbc,ys and students and, as we should expect, they act extremely well. " Yet few scholars doubt that despite their similarities, ancient dialogue and drama are different genres: a dramatic poet's concem with characters and chorus and emphasis on plot and traditional tales (mythoi) are features, for example, that distinguish drama from dialogue. Although both oft:n portray conversation between participants, only dramas involve costunung, stage 7 settings and, in the case of ancient Athens, religious festivals. But whatever the differences between dialogue and drama, Plato grew up

4. [bid., 182-83. See also R. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909, repr. 1969), 66, who found the reference to Mantinea's "division" (&oua.uµóc;) into several villages "audacious" (see 193a). This did not occur until 385, well after Socrates' death. 5. Hirzel, Dialog, 202-203. See also a quite recent attempt to view Plato's dialogues as individual plays by J. A. Arieti, lnterpreting Plato: The Dialogues as Drama (Savage, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1991). Arieti does not mention Hirzel's work, ~ut his study is interesting even though it draws little attention to drama and theatre m the fifth-fourth centuries B.C.E. A.E. Taylor, Plato. The Man and His Work (New York: Meridian Books, 1956), 2.1, objected to viewing Plato's works as dramas. Por him, it was absurd to think of Plato as "'dramatizing' the sayings and doings ofthe living man (Socrates) whom he revered above all others .. . . " C. Kahn, "Did Plato Write Socratic Dialogues?" in Essayson the Philosophy ofSocrates, ed. H.H. Benson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 35-52, claims that the dialogues are works of dramatic art, and although he does not doubt the historicity of Socrates presented in the dialogues, he questions the historicity of the dialogues as reports of fifth-century philosophical conversations. Kahn's essay appeared earlier in Classical Quarterly 31 (1981): 305-20. 6. GilbertRyle, Plato's Progress(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 23. 7. As Hirzel remarked, Dialog, 203-204, drama and dialogue in the ancient world are perhaps related somewhat as Shakespeare's works, for example, may have in~irectly influenced the dialogues of Berkeley. Hume. and Shaftesbury, "but drama and dialogue are still essentially different" ("aber Drama und Dialog sind doch auch wesentilich verschieden"). Much has been written on Greek drama and theater production, and a recent work of B. Zimmermann, Greek Tragedy, trans. T. Marier (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991) provides a good bibliography and overview of the genre. K. J. Dover's Aristophanic Comedy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972) is a good survey of ancient or "political" comedy.

Orality and Literacy of Plato's Dialogues

27

whe.n .drama (tragedy and comedy) flourished in Athens and, not surprisi~ly, rellllmscences of plays by Euripides and Sophocles can be found in his dialogues. For example, the argument between Zethus and Amphion in Euripides' now-lost Antiope was perhaps dramatic inspiration for the debate between Callicles and Socrates in the Gorgias on philosophy's value. 8 Further according ~ Hirzel, the use of two persons in several Platonic dialogues, fo; example, m the Grito, Euthyphro, and Phaedrus, shows drama's effect ("Wirkung") on Plato, for until Aeschylus introduced a third actor in the Oresteia, only two actors assumed various personae in his plays. 9 In Plato 's ~gress, Ryle . also suggested drama's influence on Plato, referring to D1ogenes Laertms who at m. 56 mentions Thrasylus' report that Plato "published his tetralogies like those of the tragic poets. Thus, they contended with the four plays at the Dionysia, the Lenaea, the Panathenaea, and the festival of the Chytroi. " 1º Connection of these latter two festivals with dramatic performances is possible but, as Ryle observed, it remains unclear how 1:h,rasylus ~eant to assimilate Plato's publication of dialogues to that of tragedies. Desp1te the apparent absunlity of Thrasylus' groupings of Platonic dialogues into four, he did, according to Ryle, "have something to go on. " 11 For example, the Sophist, Statesman, and unwritten Philosopher were planned 12 in sequence. But contrary to Diogenes Laertius' report of Thrasylus-or Ryle's comments on it-a genuine tetralogy of Plato's dialogues is nowhere to

8. See, for example, Hirzel, Dialog, 206, n. l. The evidence is tenuous. 9. /bid., 206-207. J. Andrieu, Le dialogue antique, Structure et présentation (Paris:

Les "Belles Lettres, " 1954) also discusses drama's influence on Plato, and considers a transition "de la narration au drame;" 316-319. His examination of the dialogue form is somewhat narrow, focusing on papyrological research, and contributes little to understanding Plato's choice ofthis genre. "Platon et la perspective temporelle" receives special attention in his study. " 10. ~ee Ryle, P~t~•s Progress, 34, where he remarked that Thrasylus' groupings into four, are often nd1culous. On the festivals themselves, see A . Picard-Cambridge The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 2nd ed. rev. by J. Gould and D. M. Lewis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973). Por Thrasylus' report, see Picard-Cambridge's assessment on p. 56. · . 1 ~. R~le, Plato 's Progress, 34. Diogenes Laertius (III. 56-62) attributes an arrangement m trilog1es to "sorne, including Aristophanes the grammarian" (61-62). Publication in tetralogies he assigns to Thrasylus, whose identity remains somewhat of a puzzle. See Guthrie, A History, lV, 39, n.2. 12. '!he question at_the opening ofthe Sophist is whether sophist, statesman (politicus) and philosopher are different designations for the same person. The "Eleatic " considers ~e three distinct, and debate has arisen about whether Plato intended to devote a further dialogue to the "philosopher." Guthrie, A History, V, 123, n. 1, believes that the beginning of the Statesman, and Sophist 253E leave "no room for reasonable doubt that P. planned the Philosopher."

Toe Third Way

28

be found. It is teinpting, of course, to regard the Apology, Crito, and Phaedo as a trilogy and to add the Euthyphro to form a tetralogy (as Thrasylus does; see D.L. 58), but it is unlikely that they were composed or "published" at the same time. More intriguing is Ryle's suggestion that sorne dialogues, especially the Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesma,n, forma trilogy, and that the Olympic games, according to Plato's Hippias Minar (363C-364a and 368b ff.) had competitions for prose and verse compositions. 13 From Hippias' rem~ks, however, it is not wholly clear that formal literary contests were held or pnzes given, and Ryle's suggestion that the dialogues were composed for Games audiences suffers, as he himself notes, in regard to the "mammoth dialogues," the Republic and Laws. 14 In brief, there is not enough evidence to reach firm conclusions about Plato's original audience or readers. Toe suggestion that the Platonic dialogue had its origins in drama may also overlook another important social phenomenon of the ancient Athenian world, the symposium or drinking party, which, in addition to conversation or dialogue, involved riddles, fables, and drinking songs or skolia. A famous skolion often alluded to in Plato's dialogues involves the "four best things:" beauty, health, strength, and wealth. 15 Moreover, besides Plato's Symposium and that of Xenophon, which are early masterpieces of symposium literature, dialogues with the same name were composed by later Ac~demics and Peripatetics as frameworks for philosophical discussion. Even Ep1curus wrote a Symposium, criticized by Athenaeus (186e) for lack of artistry. Further evidence for the symposium's influence on Plato are the frequent references to it in his works, and also to the sympotic dialogue or discourse (lagos

ni.

13. Ryle, Plato 's Progress, 33f. According to Ryle, not ali the dialogues were so written. Toe Timaeus, for example, was written for members of the Academy, and the "mammoth dialogues" were composed for private clubs in Athens. As for the evidence in the Hippias Minor, it is perhaps worth noting that what Hippias read were epideictic speeches, not dialogues. Given that the Hippias Minor is one of the earliest of Plato's works and contains "manifest absurdities" (see Guthrie, A History, IV, 195f.), its evidential value for determining Plato's own audience seems minimal. 14. Ryle, Pl.ato's Progress, 44ff. who speculates that "if there did exist in Athens the postulated literary or literary-cum-social-cum-political clubs, one of th~m could_ in the course, say, of a winter have gone through the whole of a mammoth dialogue like the Republic or the Laws," 48. Despite such speculation, Ryle raises an important questi~n often ignored by scholars of Plato: for whom were bis works composed? Who read bis dialogues in the fourth century, and why? 15. M. Tecusan, Lagos Sympotikos: Patterns of the Irrational in Philosopbical Drinking: Plato Outside the Symposium," in Sympotica. A Symposium on the Symposion, ed. o. Murray (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 229-260, has a thorough discussion of the sympotic institution in Plato's pbilosophy. On p. 240, for example, she discusses this skolion.

Orality and Literacy of Plato's Dialogues

29

sympotikos). Tecusan's recent study of the lagos sympotikos makes clear how important the symposium was in Plato's whole philosophy. 16 According to Tecusan, elements from the symposium can be found in Plato 's epistemological thought, and the Timaeus begins as a symposium in which Critias, Timaeus, and Hennocrates pay back Socrates' hospitality. 17 Their task is to feast Socrates in retum, and Plato sometimes described Socratic conversation in terms of a "word-feast." At Lysis 2llcl0-dl, for example, Ctesippus expresses a jealous wish to hear the debate in terms of a neglected banqueter asking for bis due meal. Toe Laws opens with discussion on the symposium and drunkenness, and this extends over two books of this work. There seems to be little doubt that the symposia described by Plato involved the kaloikagathoi, the Athenian gentlemen or nobility, and that the aims of the symposium were connected with "education" (paideia), and at Protagoms 347c-e may be found an account of the "good" symposium as Plato envisioned it. Unlike ordinary or simple men (the phauloi), Plato's friends, the kaloikagathoi, knew how,to converse and debate topics on their own. They did not need entertainers or musical perfonners; the entertainment and education involved in the symposia of Athen's kaloikagathoi were largely intellectual and pbilosopbical. 18 Finally, Plato's own Symposium may show how an "ideal" drinking party was conducted by Athenian intelligentsia. Given the symposium's importance in Athenian life, and its conversational nature, it seems likely that this social institution, as well as drama, influenced Plato's choice of the dialogue fonn. In any case, it seems impossible to ascertain for whom Plato's dialogues were composed, "games-audiences," Athenian literary-political clubs, and well-to-do participants in symposia, notwithstanding. Speculation that Plato wrote for members of the Academy or as a means of recruiting new members is also unsupported by the evidence. Although it is not known when the Academy was founded or when Plato composed bis works, sorne Socratic

16. See preceding note. Interestingly enough, the later Platonist, Plutarch of Chaironeia (45-125 C.E.) wrote a number of sympotic dialogues, the Quaestiones con vi vales. 17. Tecusan, "Logos Sympotikos," 243. 18. /bid., 257-258. Contrary to Tecusan, it is not clear that the first two books of the ~ws wbich describe sympotic customs, represent different patterns ofpaideia from those m the P7:o~agoras (ibid., 259ff.). Wine may play a decisive part in Plato's thinking about ~ympos1a m the Laws, but Plato's awareness of human irrationality seems justas strong m the Protagoras as in the Laws. In any case, Tecusan's views of these dialogues do show that the symposia were often gatherings of intellectuals, and there is sorne likelihood that Plato's written dialogues appealed to the same audiences. On the kaloikagathoi, see the brief discussion in V. Ehrenberg, The People ofAristophanes: A Sociology of O/d Attic Comedy (London: Methuen, 1974), 97-99.

30

The Third Way

dialogues and parts of the Republic may have been written before the Academy was organized. 19 Moreover, if Plato's dialogues were written for the Academy, what was their purpose? To teach its members to think philosophically? To remember Socrates? To provide texts for the members that, much like the quodlibeta of medieval thinkers, would then be discussed and debated? To draw attention to the Academy and advertise its existence? Perhaps ali of the above, but once the Academy was founded, there is sorne evidence that Plato's instruction in it was oral: according to Aristotle, Plato Iectured; the dialogues may have supplemented his oral teaching and provided a basis for discussion and further inquiry. 20 Turning from these reflections to studies by the late E. A. Havelock, sorne of which remain unpublished,21 it seems appropriate to reveal a somewhat

19. Much has been written about the founding of Plato's Academy and the dating of his works. Suffice it to say that the Academy was established sometime after Plato's retum from his first Sicilian joumey (about 388-7). See C. W. Müller, "Die hellenistische Akademie" in Kleines Worterbuchdes Hellenismus. ed. H. H. Schmitt and E. Vogt (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1988), 23ff. On the chrooology of the dialogues, see, for example, Guthrie, A History , IV, 41-54. Oo the whole. attempts to coordioate the compositioo of the dialogues with the fouoding of the Academy are a waste of time. 20. See, for example, A. E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and His Work, 6f. who refers to Plato's lectures in the Academy as beiog delivered "without a manuscript." Taylor perhaps thought of Aristoxeous' report that Aristotle was fond of telling the story of Plato's lecture "On the Good," at which maoy left in disgust since his talk was ali about astrooomy and mathematics. Por the full text, see l. Düring, Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition (Goteborg aod Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1957), aod K. Gaiser, "Plato's Enigmatic Lecture 'Oo the Good'. " Phronesis 25 (1980): 5-37. 21. See, for example, E. A. Havelock's Preface to Plato (Cambridge, Mass: The Belkoap Press of Harvard University Presses, 1963), The Literate Revolution in Greece and lts Cultural Consequences (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), aod The Muse Leams to Write (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986). lo his unfinished aod unpublished work, The Preplatonic Thinkers of Greece: A Revisionist History, Havelock discusses the "mimes" of Plato. Toe term "mime" is reminisceot. of course, of the mimes of Sophroo of Syracuse, who was admired by Plato (see Douris of Samos in P. Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker(Berlin and Leiden: Weidmann aod E. J. Brill, 1923- ) 76, F 72. An attempt has been made to recoostruct one of Sophron's mimes from Plato's Gorgias 493d-494aff. , but this was rightly rejected by Hirzel, Dialog, I, 24, o.2. The fullest study of Sophron's influence on Plato is J. M. S. McDonald, Character-Portraiture in Epicharmus, Sophron, and Plato (Sewaoee, Tennessee: Toe University Press, 1931). McDonald's doctoral thesis cootaios a good assessment of the ancient evidence about Sophron's possible influence on Plato. The "mime" itself was coosidered a form of drama (see McDonald, 134), aod preseoted scenes from everyday life "with situatioos aod characters of a sort that the reader or spectator of that day recognized. " Besides Douris, other ancient authors reported oo Plato's admiration for Sophron's mimes (see 129ff.) and, Iike Sophron aod Epicharmus,

Orality and Literacy of Plato's Dialogues

31

pers~~al bias: wh~tever. the genesis of Plato's dialogues, they reflect a trans1t10n from oral1ty to literacy. His dialogues and even those of Iater authors such _as Plutarch are perhaps best understood as having their origin in what r:mamed an oral-aural culture until book printing in the fifteenth century. Ryle himself argued that Plato and others composed dialogues for audiences Iater making them available to readers, and at Phaedrus 274b-277a, So,crates deplores the use of books except as aide-mémoires. 22 Making do with straws Ryle went on to argue against the hypothesis that Plato wrote fo; "book-rea~ers." _Ryl_e took no account of Havelock's 1963 Preface to Plato (the work 1s not m his acknowledgements); since then, other pioneering works of ~avelo~k have appeared. Given these works of Havelock, W. V. Harris' ¿nc~ent Lztero.cy23 and K. Robb's Litero.cy and Riideia in Ancient Greece, it 1s dtfficult to understand why sorne scholars persist in denying that ancient H~Ilas :as Iargely an "oral culture." O. Murray's recent essay on "Sympotic Htsto~ also acknowledges Havelock's work and its importance for drawing ~ttent1on ~ v~rbal perform:mce ~d understanding the orality of early Greek hterature. D1sputed questions wdl probably remain: for example, when or ~ow the alphabet was introduced into HeIIas; estimates of the extent of ltte~cy; what lit~racy meaos (or meant in the ancient world); or the influence of Itteracy on anctent thought and behavior. These are ali difficult matters. But ther~ see~ be no reason to doubt that Plato, searching for a suitable meaos of d1sse~natu~ his own "ideas" or beliefs, saw purpose in using the dialogue, an. ostenstbly o~al phenomenon, for what was to be a reader's corpus of wntten prose. Gtven the plausible tradition reponed by Diogenes Laertius that Plato started his literary career as a composer of poems and plays, it is not

f?

Plato to~k great int~res: in cha~acter portrayal in his dialogues. McDonald also rejects Schuster s attempt m Heraklit uod Sophroo in platonischeo Citateo," Rheinisches Mus~um ~9 (1874): 590-632, to regard Plato's Gorgias 493dff. as ooe of Sophroo's P~SS!ble influences on Plato as not very useful for understaoding the origios of the dialogue form. 22. Ryle, Plato's Progress, 22ff. 23. W. V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press 1989). On p. 86, Harris_ remarks that the works of Aoaxagoras, Socrates, aod Protagora~ we_~ read al_oud. Hams also has sorne important observatioos oo Plato's mistrust of wn_tmg, a IOlstrust ~hared by his cootemporary rival, Isocrates. Both seemed to have believed that_the wntte~ word cannot clarify or defend itself. See pp. 91-92 aod 30-31. See also Kevm Robb, Llleracy ~nd Padeia in A.ncient Greece (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1~4), 159-2~1, ~oran unportant assessmeot of literacy's influence on Plato. His speculattoos oo orality, literacy, and the dialogue form (233ft) are especially worthwhile 24IM · · ·. n un:ay, Sympollca, 8-9. Murray specifically mentioos Havelock's role in· focus_mg attenlloo on performance as a crucial factor in explaining the nature aod functtoo of early Greek poetry.

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surprisi~ that he carne to write a "prose drama of ideas," ~ quote Havelock. 25 But Plato's doubts about the written word as a vehicle for philosophical expression seem clear not only from the ~fte,n-m~ntion:d Pha,edrus passages,26 but also from his Seventh L~tter ~ D1on s frie~ds m Sicily, in which he suggests that he never committed his actual behefs to writing (see 34lcff.).27 At least one problem arises from Plato's ~emarks, and that concerns whether the spoken word is really more effect1ve than the written. If Aristotle's report about Plato's lecture "On the Good" is trustworthy, his audience tumed away in disgust or disappointment, an 28 indication that Plato was a better writer than speaker. In any case, the effectiveness of both oral and written communications depends on a well-informed and educated audience, but almost nothing is known about Plato's audience or their preparation for understanding his dialogues. Plato lived at a time when he could expect circulation of his works among well-to-do readers and, as Havelock noted, it was an ingenuous method to construct "characters engaged in dialogue, as in a stage play, and to give them names of well-known thinkers designated to serve his own philosophical purposes. " 29 Thus, for example, Plato used Parmenides, whom he revered,

25. Havelock, The Preplatonic Thinkers, 24. 26. Por exarnple, at 275e Socrates says: "and every discourse (t-ó,yo~) once written, is bandied about, both arnong those who understand it, and those who take no interest in it. And it knows neither to whorn to speak nor not to speak. When ill-treated ... it has no power to defend or help itself." See also the critique of writing at 275 A ff. as producing "forgetfulness," and at 277eff. similar doubts are again expressed about the written word. 27. Whether the Seventh Letter is genuine or not and its authenticity, like those of the other twelve, have been endlessly discussed. On the authenticity of the Seventh Letter, see Guthrie, A History V, 402, and T. A. Szlezák, Platon und die Schriftlichkeit (Berlin: Walter der Gruyter,, 1985), 388-390, who, with sorne resignation, rernarks that "the burden of proof lies with the opponents of its genuineness" ("die Beweislast liegt bei den Gegnem der Echtheit"). In a later study, "Gespriiche unter Ungleichen. Zur Struktur und Zielsetzung der platonischen Dialoge," Antike und Abendland 34 (1988): 99-116, Szlezák rightly notes that what is said in the Seventh Letter agrees with Plato's "Schriftkritik" in the dialogues. See p. 102. 28. See n. 20 above. According to Diogenes Laertius (111. 37) citing Pavorinus, Plato also read a dialogue "On the Soul" at which only Aristotle stayed to the end. Toe rest of the audience left. 29. In his Preplatonic Thinkers, 3lff. As Havelock noted, "this free rnanipulation within limits" is found also arnong the tragic poets who presented personalities of past history, e.g., Xerxes in Aeschylus' Persians, and the comic poets who "went so far as to allow the adaptation of Athenian historical personalities, living and dead, to the purposes of drarnatic invention." B. Gentili, Poetry and lts Public in Ancient Greece. From Homer to the Fifth Century, trans. A. Thornas Cole (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

Orality and Literacy of Plato's Dialogues

33

as. a persona in the dialogue named after him. Sometimes Plato's purpose in us1ng_a c~ara_cter is polemical , and in the dialogue named after Protagoras, the Sophist 1s g1ven a defensive role in an argument supporting Plato's own philosophical interests. Similarly, Gorgias is a given brief identity as he speaks, but is then connected to an argument by a possibly fictional character (Callicles) in order that the argument, Plato's own literary creation can be refuted in Platonic terms. 30 ' According to Havelock, the "management of characters" in Plato's works presents a forro of composition that is neither fact nor fiction, but a mode of memory . s~ited to the interests of the remembrancer, a mode "highly chara tenst1c of the w_ay recollected language behaves in an oral culture, put to a hterate use at a time when orality was yielding to Iiteracy. " 31 Ryle also noted _that Plato's dialogues, although obtainable by readers, were composed "for hsteners," and that Plato carne to abandon the eristic dialogue with its practice of the Socratic method, because he had no more "moot records or memories to dramatize. " 32 When Socrates, Plato's inspiration for elenctic arguments, was executed and his personal participation in dialectical debates stopped, the eristic dialogue disappeared. Ryle's views seem to be not very different from those of Havelock. ~e hypotheses of Havelock and Ryle may help in understanding Plato's use of dialogue, but they do not exhaust comprehension of what, in essence, was Pl~to's literary creation or the superiority of bis dialogues over those of other wnters. For students of Socrates- e.g., Aeschines, Antisthenes and Arist~ppus-did compose dialogues, and according to Diogenes Laerti~s (II. 62), 1t was at Megara that Aeschines read aloud one of the first Socratic

7

University Press, 1988), 155-176, has sorne interesting remarks on "intellectual activity and ~~cioecono~c situation," especially in regard to the book trade. According to Gentili, Thucyd1des, Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle are the "vanguard of the new book culture in ancient Greece" (see p. 169). But how expensive were books, and who could afford them? Here Plato may provide sorne evidence. At Apology 26D, Socrates refers to the purchase of Anaxagoras • "book" or papyrus rolls (ft,{3>úcx.) for a drachma. C~Iculations of daily wages in early fourth century Athens are düficult, but in G. s. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 357, there is a calculation by A. H. M. Jones ofthe arnount of wages paid to a slave copyist, and the time required for copying Anaxagoras • work. A bo~k_sold for a drachma would amount almost toan ordinary man's daily wage. In _the Eleus!Il1an accounts, according to Jones, skilled Iaborers, e.g. , stone masons, are pa1d two to two anda half drachmae a day. In sum, a "book" such as Anaxagoras' was not cheap, and Plato's longer dialogues would have been expensive. 30. !bid., 31-32. Taylor's assessment, Plato, 105, seems more cautious: "Callicles of Acharnae, of whom we only know what Plato has thought fit to tell us." 31. Havelock, Preplatonic Thinkers, 38-39. 32. Ryle, Plato's Progress, 204.

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dialogues. Ironically, it was Socrates, who himself apparently wrote nothing and believed that truth can be attained only by verbal cross-examination (the elenchus), who inspired the beginnings of written dialogue. Probably part of the purpose of these early dialogues was to preserve a memory of Socrates. Mention of the Socratic elenchus is a reminder that this word suggests the legal terminology of ancient Athens, 33 and if characters in Aristophanes' plays, such as The Birds, can be trusted, it was a society plagued by lawsuits. Plato's own Apology claims to be Socrates' defense against the charges of Anytus and Meletus before an Athenian jury and, given the oral exchange between prosecutor and defendant (speechwriters or Logogrophoi aside), another likely ímpetus for Plato's use of the dialogue form was the elenchus of the Athenian law-courts. As D. M. MacDowell observes, the magistrate's preliminary inquiry, the anachrisis, for example, involved interrogation in which the magistrate put questions to the claimants or disputants. They could also question one another, thus giving each a "clearer idea of what the other was alleging and what were the exact points in dispute. " 34 In the dialogues, Socrates often interrogates his respondents, and Plato was probably familiar with the practices of the Athenian lawcourts. Toe production of dialogues must, of course, be distinguished from that of dialectical arguments. Toe two are sometimes confused, and dialectic in turn needs to be distinguished from eristic. 35 Certainly the latter term has been used in conjunction with the Socratic method, the elenchus or cross-examination, and it too was an essentially oral phenomenon. But Diogenes Laertius reports at m 24 that Plato coined for "eristic" the noun "dialectic," derived from the word óto:AÉ-yeCT0m, 33 . Toe term e>-.e-yxoc; appears in the works of sorne of the Attic orators, e.g., lsaeus, 8.42. Demosthenes, 22.22ff. distinguishes between aiTía and e>-.e-yxoc; as, respectively, "accusation" and producing evidence of the matter asserted. "E>-.e-yxoc; seems to be characterized as a quasilegal concept involving a certain procedural sufficiency (the production of evidence transforms what would otherwise be mere insult and abuse into a charge requiring the defendant to respond on the merits). My thanks to my colleague George Sheets for calling attention to the Demosthenes passage. A very good study of the Socratic elenchu.s remains that of R. Robinson, Plato 's F.arlier Dialectic, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953) 7-19. See also Ryle's discussion of elenchu.s and the eristic dialogue in Plato's Progress, 193-215. His frequent references to "moots" (imaginary cases argued by law students asan exercise) are a reminder of the legal connotations of the elenchu.s. Although a cross-examination in an Athenian dikasterion or a court of justice is not a written philosophical dialogue, it is not amiss to see sorne connection. 34. D. M. MacDowell, The Law in ClassicalAthens (lthaca: Comell University Press, 1978), 241. 35. They are confused by Diogenes Laertius, for example, in his life of Plato (111. 48 and 79). On the contrast between eristic and dialectic, see Ryle, Plato 's Progress, 126129. His whole discussion of dialectic on pp. 102-145 is worth reading.

Orality and Literacy of Plato's Dialogues

35

meaning. "to discuss, debate," specifically "to debate by question and answer," once aga.in, an oral phenomenon. So at Cra.tylus 390c Socrates asks, "and the perso_n who knows h?~ to ~sk and answer questions you call the dialectician?" Desp1te the ~ofty pos1t1on g1ven to the results of dialectical thinking in Republic Vil, the Phzlebus, or Sophist, dialectic remains connected with spoken or verbal exch~nges, and _as Plato wrote in the Seventh Letter (341C-45): "there does_ not exist,_ nor wll_l there ever exist, any treatise (CTÚ"f'ypo:µµo:) of mine deal!ng therew1th. For 1t does not at ali admit of verbal expression like other stud1es, _but as a ~esu!t _of continued application to the subject itself and commu~on _therew1th, 1t 1s brought to birth in the soul on a sudden ... " . At this ~01~t, a brief digression about ancient historiography seems relevant. Ltke Pl?to s dialogues, ancient historical works such as those of Herodotus and Thucydides are much closer to poetry and rhetoric than is sometimes 36 acknowledged. For example, the speeches in Thucydides' history are p~rhaps bes_t understood_ not as reports of what was actually said, but as the ldnds of things that fillg~t have been said. Similarly, Xenophon, a close contemporary of Plato, g1ves assurance in his Cyropaideia (I. 1, 6) that he ~ants to r~port_ what is know~ about Cyrus. Yet what one finds in this work ~s not an histoncal account of the Persian ldng, but Xenophon's portrait of an ideal monarch. ~ _Cícero _remarked: "that Cyrus sketched by Xenophon was not for the cred1b1h~ of h1story, but for the ideal of just rule" ("Cyrus ille a Xenophonte non a~ ~storiae fide~ scriptus, sed ad effigiem iusti imperii, " Ad. Q. fr. 1, 1'. 2~). S1ID1larly, there 1s no reason to believe that Plato's dialogues ar~ transcnpt1ons of the Socratic elenchus. He was not a courtreporter but a thinker. very much influenced by the world of Athens with its litigation sympos1a, and dramas. ' Plato's dialogues continue to be read, and they are often difficult to interpret partly because he seems to. reach no final conclusions in them, but Jeaves his readers and students to think things out for themselves. As v. Tejera and 37 others have observ~d, Plato 's use of the dialogue form may suit his reluctance t? dogmat1ze or systematize in any obvious fashion. Quite recently A. T. Cole_m The Origins ofRhetoric in Ancient Greece, has emphasized h~ the d.ramattc form of Plato's dialogues excludes any single voice of authority even that of Socrates. He is not, according to Cole, a completely reliabl~ spo~sm~ 1?r ~e author, a_nd what emerges is "the author's ability to replace anything m it w1th something better should need arise-in the form of new

:º~

36. a rece~t good discussion of these and other matters, see A . J. Woodman, Rhetonc m Class1cal Historiography: Four Studies (Portland Oregon· Areopagitica Press, 1988). ' · 37. V. Teje~a, Plato 's Dialogues One by One: A Structural /nterpretation (New York· lrvmgton Publishers, 1984), 4-5 and 75. ·

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evidence, new insights, new arguments not envisioned when the original piec,e was produced. " 38 It is also important to observe that not only do ~latos dialogues avoid reacbing "final" conclusions, but th~ also suggest to~1cs for future discussion and further hypotheses to be exannned, none of which ~e fully pursued within a given dialogue. Moreover, the vi~s ~resented m various dialogues are not always consistent: the human psyche 1s discusse~, for example, in the Phaedo and Republic and yet Socrates p~esents ~eellllngly incompatible views of it.39 In brief, unlike a drama (or tnal), which has a beginning, middle, and end, Plato's dialogues are often openended and allow the reader (or listener) to reflect further about the topic(s) discussed, perhaps connect this discussion with other works in the corpus, and come t~ the realization that the written dialogues need "help." In contrast to other wnters, philosophers may realize that their works need discussion in order to be understood and, as T. Szlezák observed, the dialogues are the~selves examples of discussion (written) that need oral or verbal ass1stance ("mündliche Hilfe"),40 and are thus models for _what Pl~to w?ul~ consider ~e "help" necessary for following and understanding the mvest1gat1ons begun m the dialogues. Along lines similar to those of Cole and Szlezá~, M. Fre~e has recently argued for the inextricability of pbilosopbic teaching and hterary form.41 For Frede, Plato thought that the only way to present arguments (and arguments do bave a prominence in Plato's conception of pbilosophy ~s found in the dialogues) was in the form of fictional dialogue. Althou~h the d1~ogu:s are supposed to teach a pbilosopbical lesson, they "are not p1eces of d1dact~c 42 dialectic with Plato appearing in the guise of the questioner. " Much of ID:eu didactic quality consists not in what is argued or said, but in making one think 43 about the arguments presented. • My preceding reflections are not meant to be an exhaus~1ve a~count_ of the origins of the Platonic dialogue, but given that Plato hved m a time of transition from orality to literacy, and that the dramas, lawcourts, and symposia of Athens influenced bis choice of the dialogue form, were not more

38. The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 124-25. 39. Various scholars such as R. S. Bluck, P/ato's Phaedo (London: Routledge & Pa~l, 1955), 3ff., have noticed that the soul is regarded as having three p~rts in the Rep_ubllc: intellect or reason, the passionate or spirited part, and the appet1tes, whereas m the Phaedo Socrates speaks of the soul as if it were intellect or reason alone. 40. "Gesprache unter Ungleichen," 105. . . 41. M. Frede, "Plato's Arguments and the Dialogue Fonn," in Oxford Stud1es m Ancient Philosophy, eds. J.C. Klagge and N .O. Srnith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 201-219. 42. /bid., 219. 43. /bid. , 216.

Orality and Literacy of Plato's Dialogues

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pbilosopbical or theoretical considerations involved in bis use of this Iiterary genre? Studies by Cole, Frede, Szlezák, and others strongly suggest that there were, and although the Phaedrus is an important source for Plato's views on literacy and orality, many of bis other works, for example, the Meno and Book X of the Lo,ws, must ~lso be c?~idered. ~ Study of these works, including the Seventh Letter (the mauthent1c1ty of which remains unproven) and perusal of an ever-burgeoning secondary literature on Plato, suggest that bis views on the spo~en an~ written ~ord cann?t be state~ in definitive or summary fasbion. Szlezák s stud1es espec1ally call mto quest1on what he considers the modern theo~ of the dialogue, a theory traceable back at least to Friedrich Schle1ermacher's first printed translation of Plato (1804). According to Szlez~k, the "minimal version" (Minima,lform) of this "modern theory" is that the dial_ogues have the function of either reporting actual, living discussion (le?endig~s Gesprilch), or of condemning learned, systematic presentation of philosophical thought (the uú·y-ypa.µµ