Plato on the Problem of Written Texts
Yasuhira (Yahei) KANAYAMA
Nagoya University
In this international conference Gadamer is one of the central focus points. To my regret I am
not a specialist of Gadamer, while I am working on Plato, whose interpretation Gadamer himself
attempted. In this paper I am going to follow in Gadamer’s footsteps in my attempt to interpret
Plato, concerning his view on written texts.1
1. Thamus’ criticism on writing, written in Plato’s Phaedrus
Plato presents in the Phaedrus what looks like a criticism of written texts, making Socrates
relate an Egyptian myth concerning the invention of letters. The story, which he introduces as what
he heard, goes as follows (274Cff.):
There was in Egypt a god called Theuth, who invented numbers, arithmetic, geometry
and astronomy, board games and, most important of all, letters. He went to the king of gods,
Thamus, that is, Ammon, and showed his inventions, with the boastful comment that they
ought to be imparted to Egyptians because they would certainly benefit them. But Thamus
was rather skeptical. He examined the use of each invention. When they came to writing,
Thamus pointed out its defects, contrary to Theuth’s claim that it was a medicine (φάρμακον)
of memory (μνήμη) and wisdom (σοφία) that would make the Egyptians wiser and improve
their memories. According to the critical view of Thamus and Socrates:
(1) Writing will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they
will not exercise their memory (μνήμης ἀμελετησίᾳ). They trust in written texts produced
by external characters, and don’t try to recollect on their own from inside (αὐτοὺς
ὑφ’ αὑτῶν ἀναμιμνῃσκομένους). What Theuth found was a medicine for reminding
(ὑπόμνησις), not for memory (275A).
(2) People hear much without instruction, and they come to be regarded as wise, without
really being so. They become the kind of people that are hard to get along with (275A–
B).
(3) Written words are of no use except to remind (ὑπομνῆσαι) one who already knows the
matter about which they are written (275C–D).
1 Part of this paper is based on Kanayama (2009). Some addition is made after the conference. I didn’t stick to the word-to-word
correspondence between the English and Japanese versions of this paper.
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Yasuhira (Yahei) Kanayama
(4) Written texts resemble paintings of living beings. They cannot reply when they are asked
questions, but keep a solemn silence, always giving the same signs (275D).
(5) Once written, they go anywhere, even to those to whom they should not go (275D–E).
(6) On such an occasion, they may be ill-treated, without being able to defend themselves
(275E).
In contrast to this low evaluation of written discourse, Socrates regards highly another kind of
discourse, which is written down in the soul of the learner, together with knowledge. This discourse
can defend itself, and knows to whom it should speak and before whom it should be silent. Phaedrus
calls it “the living and breathing discourse (λόγος) of the man who knows, of which the written
discourse can be justly called an image (εἴδωλον)” (276A).
Making comparison of these two kinds of discourse, Socrates says as follows:
The man who has knowledge of just things, beautiful things and good things will not be
serious about writing them in ink through a pen. When he writes, he does so as a childish play
(παιδιά), storing up reminders (ὑπομνήματα) for his own old age of forgetfulness (λήθη), and
also for everyone else who wants to follow in his footsteps (ταὐτὸν ἴχνος μετιόντι) (276C–
D).
Α more beautiful and serious pursuit (σπουδή) is to plant and sow discourses with
knowledge in a proper soul, by means of the art of dialectic. These discourses are capable of
helping themselves as well as the man who planted them. They are not fruitless, but yield seed,
and from this seed spring up in other minds other discourses capable of granting to the seed
immortal life and to their possessors the fullest measure of happiness that man can attain to
(276E–277A).
Although we can detect in this story some negative attitude towards writing, it is undeniable
that Plato was one of the most prolific writers in ancient world. He also expresses favorable opinion
about writing in other dialogues (Timaeus 23A, E, Critias 113A–B), referring to the preservation
of the stories of ancient Athens and Atlantis through written texts kept in Egypt.2 Theuth was selfconsciously proud of his invention of letters in the Egyptian story of the Phaedrus (274E). Plato
must have been well aware of the great value of writing system in human development.
Besides, it is in his own writing that he says writing is just a childish play (παιδιά) (276D–E,
277E, 278C). This fact suggests that what is written as a criticism of writing may not be a serious
statement to be literally taken, but itself a childish play.3 Further, the comment that a written
discourse has no power to defend itself when ill-treated makes us feel as if we were hearing its
father, Plato, asking, or rather challenging, us to treat his writing justly by interpreting it properly.
2. The limit of memory
This story written down in the Phaedrus has made a great number of interpreters write very
many discourses, starting from Derrida’s ‘Plato’s Pharmacy’4 and Ricoeur’s Memory, History,
Forgetting. It is as if Plato’s child in the Phaedrus were treated in thousands of ways by the
posterity, fairly or unfairly, without its father’s presence. To try to deal with all these discourses, or
even with one or two of these, may lead us to ill-treat them with the absence of their parents. So I
2 Blair (2010), 271 n. 10.
3 Mackenzie (1982), 65.
4 In Derrida (1972).
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Plato on the Problem of Written Texts
limit myself here to the writing of Plato, trying to follow in his footsteps as much as possible.
Let us begin our journey of following him, from considering what influence the invention of
the alphabet around 800–750 BCE (about 400–350 years before Plato lived) may have brought
about in Greek world. The use of letters brings about the age of literacy. An important thing to
note is the fact that our capacity to memorize is limited with the exception of so-called “savants”,
who have a prodigious memory function. According to the limit dubbed the “magical number
seven”, the brain’s working memory can handle normally at a time only up to seven items, which
is why telephone numbers are usually seven digits long.5 It is very difficult to remember a 10-digit
number, e.g. 1984747365, and even if you have succeeded in remembering it, it is unlikely for
you to recollect it successfully in about ten minutes’ time. However, there are special methods to
remember long strings of numbers: it is useful to make use of images and stories, adding some
impressive meaning to abstract strings. One way is to make a story on the basis of your background
knowledge. For instance, imagine George Orwell (1984) sitting on a jumbo jet (747) for one year
(365), then, you will be able to remember it even in ten years’ time.6
It is extremely difficult for us to keep in memory meaningless things. In remembering
something we connect it with what we have stored in our memory, interpreting and making it
somehow understandable from our own perspective. Thus, if we try to remember such an unusual
story as a Native American folk tale called “The war of the ghosts”, which Bartlett used in his
experiment, we change it, through rationalization, to make it fit in with our expectations, based
on our experiences and understanding of the world.7 According to Bartlett’s “schema theory”, we
perceive and encode information into our memory in terms of our past experience, which differs
from person to person.8 This process of encoding information in our memory storage changes and
even distorts it so that it can fit well in our brain cabinet.
However, it is not only on the occasion of storage that this kind of distortion takes place. Our
memories are changed even when they are retrieved. Memories are not like old written documents
shelved away in a library deep inside in our brain. Between brain cells there are vacant gaps called
“synaptic clefts”, which need to be bridged on each occasion of remembering, and it is possible
for a new bridge leading to a different route to be constructed in this process. “Every time we
remember anything, the neuronal structure of the memory is delicately transformed, a process
called reconsolidation”.9 We can say each act of remembering is a fresh attempt of interpretation.
If memories were like old books in a library, we would be able to rely on pieces of information
that are taken down from shelves, so as to know the facts. However, they are not so, or if they were
like books, these books would be such that change their contents every time we read, according to
our expectations. The only way to prevent such distortion is to have a fixed and reliable document
whose contents do not change. Here what was described as a defect of written texts in the Phaedrus
((4) above) becomes a merit. Their always giving the same signs, keeping a solemn silence, means
resistance against being distorted according to the understanding of readers, at least in its form.
3. Writing as an aid for enquiry (historiē)
The availability of fixed documents creates a big difference between literate and non-literate
societies. In the latter remembering is swayed by the influence of people’s understanding of the
5
6
7
8
9
Miller (1956).
Groome (2006), 141.
Bartlett (1932), 65, chap. X (A Theory of Remembering), 197–214; Goody and Watt (1963), 307; Groome (2006), 136–7.
Groome (2006), 6, 137.
Lehrer (2007), 85, also 82ff. Cf. also Tronson and Taylor (2007).
21
Yasuhira (Yahei) Kanayama
world and society, and although what continues to have social relevance is stored in the memory,
other things are usually forgotten.10 This creates the situation where “the whole concept of an
original is out of place”.11 This absence of the original makes it difficult, or almost impossible, to
compare the status quo with what is passed down from the past. This further makes it difficult to
criticize things in the present, on the basis of things in the past and vice versa. In order to make
a comparison and criticism we need a fixed point, whether it may be as a target or as a base of
criticism.
With the invention and diffusion of the alphabet, which consists of 24 letters, vowels as well
as consonants, it becomes possible and easy to obtain such unchanging points for comparison. They
come not only from the distant past but also from geographically distant places, thanks to papyrus,
which is light to carry and able to contain a fair amount of information. According to Agathemerus,
Geography 1.1 (DK 12A6; KRS 98),12
Anaximander of Miletus [c.610–540BCE], who studied under Thales, was the first who dared
to draw the inhabited world on a tablet; after him Hecataeus of Miletus [6–5 century BCE],
a well-travelled man, made it precise and detailed so that the product became a thing of
wonder.
Hecataeus was actually the first historiographer who tried to write down the customs and peoples
of the Mediterranean, on the basis of his own enquiry and rational analysis.13 He wrote two books,
Circuit of the Earth and Genealogies (or Histories), of which the latter begins as follows:
Hecataeus of Miletus relates thus. I write what follows as it seems true to me. For the discourses
of the Greeks are various and, as is clear to me, ridiculous (Fr. 1).
He is the only prose-writer to whom Herodotus (c. 490–430 BCE) refers by name, though
critically, but also with some appreciation (2.143, 5.36). Herodotus was very conscious of both the
importance of Hecataeus’ rational method of enquiry and the superiority over Hecataeus of his own
enquiry. Herodotus follows Hecataeus in putting his name and birth-place at the very beginning of
his work.
Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his enquiry (ἱστορίη), so that things done by man
may not be forgotten in time (Herodotus, proem).
“Enquiry” is the translation of ἱστορίη, from which the English word “history” comes. With the
invention of the alphabet, Greeks came to possess fixed points of reference, which promoted
their enquiry and documentation of histories and geographies, allowing them to criticize their
predecessors and contemporaries. The author of the third renowned “history”, Thucydides (c. 460–
400 BCE), also begins his work (The Histories) with his name and birth-place:
Thucydides the Athenian wrote the history of the war fought between Athens and Sparta
(1.1).
By putting their names at the beginning of their works, all those historiographers must have
wanted to make it clear that they were the fathers of these splendid children. According to Plato’s
Symposium 209D–E, living beings strive for immortality through leaving their children behind. The
10 Goody and Watt (1963), 306–307.
11 Goody (1987), 170.
12 Cf. Strabo, 1.1.1, 11.
13 De Sélincourt (2003), xviii ff.
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Plato on the Problem of Written Texts
art of writing itself was Theuth’s child, his affection for which made him declare the very opposite
of its true effect, according to Thamus (Phaedrus 275A).
4. Writing, memorizing and enquiry
If all those historiographers were self-conscious of themselves as real masters of enquiry,
so must Plato have been as a philosopher (a person who is engaged in philo-sophy = “love of
wisdom”). But for Plato there was something more important than just becoming immortal by
leaving his works as his children. He tried to follow in the footsteps of Socratic enquiry, and enquiry
was all that mattered to him. Some aspects of Thamus’ criticism of writing focus on whether writing
serves enquiry. And for this purpose it will certainly be better to possess written texts, which enables
you to check the same thing any number of times you like. In fact in the Phaedrus itself, although
Socrates once heard Phaedrus read the speech of Lysias, he asks him again to read its beginning
(262D). Phaedrus himself heard Lysias recite his speech several times, but he returns to its text and
examines it many times.
The Phaedrus starts with Socrates’ encounter with Phaedrus having a walk. What was
Phaedrus doing by strolling? He was trying to memorize the speech of Lysias with it in hand
(228A–E). Although writing may hinder memory and promote forgetfulness, possession of written
texts, to which you can return again and again to make sure their literal text, will certainly work as
a great aid to verbatim recall of a certain amount of text, much more than a person who can recite
the same text to you, according to your request.14
Besides, pace Thamus’ criticism, the development of Greek and Roman mnemonics was much
helped by the image of writing on a wax writing tablet. According to Cicero, De Oratore 2.351ff.,
when Simonides of Ceos (556–468 BCE) was dining at the house of a wealthy man, named Scopas,
he was asked to go outside, being requested by two young men (in fact Castor and Pollux, to whom
he paid homage in his lyric poem, even though this gave Scopas an excuse to reduce the fee for
the poem to half). When he went outdoors, he could not see anybody, and in his absence the roof
of the hall fell in and all the people there were crushed to death. But Simonides was enabled by his
recollection of the place where each of them had been sitting to identify them for their burial. After
that Simonides discovered the truth that the aid for memory lies in orderly arrangement. According
to Cicero (De Oratore 2.354),
He inferred that persons desiring to train this faculty must select localities and form mental
images of the facts they wish to remember and store those images in the localities, with the
result that the arrangement of the localities will preserve the order of the facts, and the images
of the facts will designate the facts themselves, and we shall employ the localities and images
respectively as a wax writing tablet and the letters written on it. (tr. by Sutton)15
It is clear that the image of the space of the wax writing tablet accompanied by the writing of letters
offers the framework of Greek mnemonics. In Simonides’ mnemonics one uses natural or artificial
small scale scenes as localities in which to place images, and if one desires to memorize a large
number of items, one must equip oneself with a large number of localities so as to be able to set a
large number of images.16 Phaedrus was going for a walk outside the wall (227A), at the same time
14 Goody (1987), 234.
15 Goody (1987), 180–2. See also Yates (1966/1992), 17–22 (1992). The reference to a wax writing tablet can be seen in Pseudo-Cicero, Ad
Herennium 3.30, too.
16 Pseudo-Cicero, Ad Herennium 3.29–30.
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Yasuhira (Yahei) Kanayama
trying to memorize Lysias’ speech. He may have been placing in his mind’s wax writing tablet each
word of Lysias’ speech as some image, using natural scenes on the road along the River Ilissus.
It is certainly useful for memorizing as well as for examining to have something in vision
either in a material wax writing tablet or in the mind’s wax writing tablet. Phaedrus didn’t like the
speech of his beloved Lysias to be scrutinized (264E), but once something has been put into letters,
it cannot escape critical examination. And this examination is facilitated by visualization of many
passages in a single space, to which you can return any time you like. It may sometimes happen that
one’s child suffers from unjust criticism ((6) above), but if so, all the more urgent will it become
to possess the art of writing, for it is necessary to make the child less vulnerable to unfair attacks.
One of the best ways to make writing defensible is to establish non-incompatibility, precision,
appropriate justification, non-repetition etc., and this purpose is served well again by written
representation of the child.
Socrates says that just like the body of a living creature a discourse should be constructed so
as not to lack a head or feet or middle parts or extremities, all those parts being made to fit to each
other and to the whole (264C). But without writing it must be extremely difficult to improve the
balance of the whole composition, due to the above mentioned limit of our working memory. It
certainly becomes much easier to examine its balance if we can take in one view its head, feet and
all the other limbs together. Socrates criticizes the epigram inscribed on the tomb of Midas, on the
ground that a rearrangement of the verses (the head, the middle parts, and feet) would not make any
difference to its quality (264D). Plato is reported not to have ceased, when eighty years old, to comb
and curl his dialogues and re-shape them in every way, with a tablet being found after his death,
testifying that he arranged in elaborately varying order the beginning of the Republic (κατέβην χθὲς
εἰς Πειραιᾶ μετὰ Γλαύκωνος τοῦ Ἀρίστωνος, [I] went down yesterday to the Piraeus together with
Glaucon the son of Ariston).17
Besides, it sometimes happens in enquiry that its target is difficult to set. According to the
Phaedrus 250B–E, such objects of love as justice, self-control and wisdom, with the exception of
beauty, lack clear images (εἰκών 250B4, εἴδωλον D5); so they cannot be grasped easily even with
the keenest sensation, sight. For such things, such a paradox may be easily raised as was raised
by Meno, who became tired of searching after virtue: “How is it possible to search for what one
does not know at all?” (Meno 80D). In the Meno, the so-called theory of Recollection is presented
as the answer. But it will be possible just to say, “Through its name”. Or rather, in order to begin
investigation it is necessary first to set the target of enquiry through its name or description (cf.
Epist. VII 342B). In fact in the Meno, what was required for the slave boy in the experiment of
his recollection was just that he could understand Greek (Meno 82B). However, even in this case,
if the name is just pronounced without being written down, the target of enquiry remains only in
memory, either as its name or as its concept, and it may be easily forgotten. But we can create its
visible image in the form of writing, and feel its vivid existence. It serves as the surrogate of the
real thing.18 When we are in love, we speak out the name of the beloved in his/her absence, and
what’s more, we write down his/her name. In Athens too, a lover used to write the name of his
beloved young boy, such as Δῆμος καλός (Demos beautiful) on some doorway, when he could not
see Demos in person (Aristophanes, Wasps 97–8).19
17 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De Compositione Verborum, chap. 25, pp. 264–5 (W. R. Roberts). As is often pointed out, the first word
κατέβην ([I] went down) suggests the descent into the cave.
18 Goody (1977), 46.
19 Dover (1978), 111ff.
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Plato on the Problem of Written Texts
5. The instruction of Theuth’s medicine
However, Thamus’ judgement that writing will produce forgetfulness in the minds of learners,
making them stop practicing their memory (274E–275A), will be still right. An important thing
to note here is that Thamus does not say that writing is a medicine for producing forgetfulness or
that it should be banned. He is just pointing out good and bad points of what Theuth invented, in
the capacity of arbiter of what was produced. Writing is a medicine, and as a medicine it has some
side effects which can be harmful. It may become a poison, as Derrida emphasizes in his “Plato’s
Pharmacy”.20 But if we make its correct use, it must bring about many good effects. Although it is
not the medicine for memory, it is explicitly said to be the medicine for reminding (275A5–6). If
one tries to recollect on one’s own from inside, it will be certainly useful as a helpful reminder.
Besides, it is not the best thing to have recourse to medicine. Although medical science is a
good thing in that it cures disease, gymnastic science is superior to it in that it yields more positive
effects to the body (Gorgias 520B). As to the health of the soul too, it will be certainly better to
get healthy and strong by appropriate exercise than by mere use of drugs, and even when the use
of drugs is needed, it will be important to combine appropriate exercise with drug therapy. Then, it
becomes necessary to attach to drugs directions to do with exercise. In fact what looks like criticism
to the drug of Theuth can be taken as such directions, caution and warning for the medicine.
INSTRUCTION FOR THEUTH’ DRUG
For takers of medicine:
This is a medicine for reminding, not for memory or wisdom.
Do not put too much trust in it.
Use it as a reminder and exercise yourself by trying to recollect on your own from inside.
Too much trust will produce forgetfulness.
Do not think that you have become wise, just by taking it.
Do not think that it has more power than that of reminder.
Do not be misled by the same signs given by it.
Do not ill-treat it.
For pharmacists:
Take its limits into consideration.
Do not forget that it may go to those to whom it should not go.
Take every care so that it may not be ill-treated.
In teaching this instruction to Theuth, Thamus and Socrates must have a different conceptual
framework from that of Theuth. Although Theuth was thinking about wisdom (σοφία) in terms of
forgetfulness (λήθη) and memory (μνήμη), they are thinking in terms of reminding (ὑπόμνησις,
ὑπομνῆσαι), or more specifically of recollecting (ἀναμιμνῃσκομένους) on one’s own from inside,
through reminders (ὑπομνήματα). Then, what does this difference imply concerning knowledge
and learning, which is equivalent to enquiry for Plato?
Theuth appreciates highly exact memorization, but Plato does not share this attitude. People
may memorize lots of things with the aid of written texts, but memorized learning does not make
them any wiser. If they think they have become wise, they will show themselves as an embodiment
of the defect the introduction of writing was said to bring about. A typical case is Meno, whose
name “Meno” suggests that he is the man of memory (mnēmē), who is always staying (menōn)
20 Derrida (1972), 118, (1981), 98ff.
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Yasuhira (Yahei) Kanayama
in the same place, without proceeding forward in enquiry.21 His memorizing did not lead him any
nearer to such recollection as Thamus and Socrates sought after, or to such happiness as is secured
by the breathing discourse; he died as a wicked person a most miserable death.22
Although Meno readily gave a reply at first when he was asked to recollect what Gorgias said
virtue is (73C), he becomes reluctant, after having been refuted, to do any effort of recollection
(76B). Phaedrus too, who gladly recited the speech of Lysias, got reluctant when asked to recollect
what he heard from Lysias or anyone else concerning the art of discourse (272C). The kind of
recollection they were reluctant about is different from simple recollection by means of mnemonics.
Meno and Phaedrus may have been good at memorizing by means of mnemonics available in
Greece. But when they tried to recollect the view of Gorgias or Lysias in such a way as to be able
to give its explanation, it became suddenly difficult because it is not enough to quote from their
sayings or writings. It will require strenuous consideration in which it is necessary to collect in one
view their statements and divide them according to their meaning so that they can form one single
balanced body, which in turn requires the art of discourse according to the Phaedrus. That is to say,
in order appropriately to recollect something it is necessary to have in command the art of division
and collection (265D–266B, 273E, 277B).
Although Theuth’s eulogy on writing does not contain the word “recollect”, he is certainly
thinking of recollection when he says writing is the medicine of memory and wisdom; memory can
cover recollection as well. But his idea of recollection is just like that of his going inside the library
and re-collecting a document from a shelf where he put it, just as in Greek and Roman mnemonics
people put visible images of items to be remembered in various localities. Using this mnemonic
technique, they do a mental tour of the localities so as to re-collect each item from each place. For
Phaedrus what was to be re-collected had a fixed form like that of a document in the library, which
will never change its shape or content.
But this is not the only form memory can take. As we saw above, remembering is, according
to recent research in cognitive science, rather like building a bridge between the thing to be
remembered and another item that we already know. Each act of remembering is a fresh attempt of
interpretation. And in fact this view was shared by Plato. He says in the Symposium (207E–208A)
as follows:
Not only is it the case that some branches of knowledge come to be in us while others pass
away and that we are never the same even in respect of knowledge, but also that each single
piece of knowledge is affected in the same way. For what we call exercising (or studying,
μελετᾶν) exists because knowledge is leaving us: forgetting (λήθη) is departure of knowledge,
while exercise (studying, μελέτη) saves the knowledge by putting back a new memory (μνήμη)
in place of the memory that went away, so that the knowledge seems to be the same.
The resonance and contrast with the position of Theuth is clear. When one recollects something,
what looks like the same memory is in fact a new memory replacing an old one, contrary to Theuth’
understanding of memory as a fixed document. According to the Theaetetus (153B), the condition
of the soul is improved by learning and exercise (or studying), which are motions, with knowledge
being acquired and preserved, whereas in a state of rest, where the soul will not exercise or learn, it
not only fails to learn but also forgets what it has already learned.
21 Klein (1965), 44–5 and n. 32.
22 Xenophon, Anabasis 2.6.28–29.
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Plato on the Problem of Written Texts
6. Reminders as the aid for recollection
Recollection has a special meaning both in the Meno and in the Phaedrus, for we find in these
dialogues (in addition to the Phaedo) Plato’s so-called theory of Recollection. There is no time here
to enter the difficult question of what Recollection is in Plato’s epistemology or of what relation,
if any, can the renewal of memory in the Symposium have with Recollection as learning. But one
thing is certain. According to the Meno (81C–D) recollection is possible because all nature is akin
in a hierarchy, where all the items are related with each other like family members. This means
that in order to recollect and learn something, we need to locate it in a hierarchical structure of
networks of family trees. But this hierarchical structure is not given to us from the start. Rather we
as learners need to construct on our own the best possible structure that reflects the true state of the
world. At each attempt of recollection we need to try to build a bridge or bridges between the thing
to be recollected and another item or other items that we already know. Or if enquiry is compared
to wayfinding, as is certainly so compared by Plato, at each attempt of recollection in our enquiry
we need to make a new route in the direction of our destination, trying to reach some interim city,
town or village which may lead finally to the destination.23
This wayfinding enquiry is at the same time an attempt to approach god-like knowledge,
which is described in Homer’s Iliad (2.484–6) as follows (tr. by Samuel Butler):
O Muses, dwellers in the mansions of Olympus, tell me—
for you are goddesses and are in all places so that you see all things,
while we know nothing but by report.
From Olympus high above gods can see all the roads below, having a bird’s-eye view, but at the
same time they can zoom-in to wherever they want, so as to rescue their pet heroes any time. We
humans always stay on the ground, but we can gain, through navigation, a so-called cognitive map,
and by making it more detailed we will be able to approach the god’s eye view.24 In this respect
forgetting may serve some purpose, for if the route is so fixed in our memory that it does not allow
us to deviate from there, we will never have a chance of trying a new (and better) route.
According to Socrates, leaving written texts had meaning just in that it enables people who
have knowledge to store up reminders for their own old age of forgetfulness, and for everyone else
who wants to follow in their footsteps (276D). One of the characteristics of reminders lies in the
fact that it is only part of the whole, while this part helps those who use them to approach the whole.
When one writes down a reminder, only a tiny part of what one thought about is reflected there. But
just because it is imperfect, we can start exploring the field so as to approach the whole. Although
it may always give the same signs ((4) above), to be blamed is not the writing itself, but those who
cannot read anything but the same signs, for if one embarks on enquiry with the map that always
shows the same signs, one can certainly make lots of new discoveries. In this sense being but a
reminder deserves much merit.
In the quest for the art of discourse Socrates says in the Phaedrus (272B–C) that it is necessary
to turn all the arguments or discourses every which way and to consider whether there is some easier
and shorter road to the art. Reminders never fail to make us turn discourses in every direction, and
by going here and there, we explore the territory of truth. In this wayfinding enquiry even getting
lost is rewarding, because it teaches us which roads lead to a cul-de-sac or to the same place, and
thus makes us improve our cognitive map. It is just for this reason that written texts by previous
23 Concerning this kind of interpretation on Plato’s view on knowledge and enquiry, cf. Kanayama (2010) and (2011).
24 This process of approaching may be called “élargissement de notre horizon” or “la fusion des horizons” after Gadamer.
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Yasuhira (Yahei) Kanayama
enquirers have meaning.
Plato himself was such an enquirer, and left his written dialogues as reminders that help us
in the world of truth to go forward in quest of the living and breathing discourse, whose image
(εἴδωλον, Phaedrus 276A) his dialogues were. For Plato, perceptible things are also images and
reminders (ὑπομνήμασιν, 249C7), and as long as they are made use of as such, they don’t cause
damage, but once you make use of them as true realities, they wreak much havoc, as is warned in
the Phaedo (99Dff.), which is why it becomes necessary to have recourse to the method of studying
in logoi.25 Written texts can cause damage if people identify them with truth, but if they employ
written discourses as reminders, under the guidance of the method of studying in logoi (discourses,
propositions), which constitutes the art of dialectic, they will certainly help us to proceed forward
in enquiry.
Each Platonic dialogue was intended as such a reminder, starting from early dialogues,
which are the very reminders of Socrates’ life and death. In fact the substantial conversation in
the Theaetetus is said to be the reminders (ὑπομνήματα) of the dialogue between Theaetetus and
Socrates, written down by Euclides (142D–143C). Euclides and Terpsion make a slave boy read
the book and then, we enter into the world of enquiry, which is actually a never ending story, for
the Theaetetus ends without allowing us to exit from the conversation noted down in the book,
with Theaetetus’ enquiry (or rather our own enquiry) in the Theaetetus being succeeded by that in
the Sophist. Thus we are made by Plato to remain in the world of his reminders, and if we accept
staying there, we ourselves can do our own enquiry, reading and interpreting his reminders, and
further leave our reminders for fellow enquirers. This speech of mine was also one of such attempts,
and even if it happens to be mistaken, it will certainly have meaning as one instance of journey of
interpretation.
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