WEEK #1
INTRODUCTION: READING
PLATO
(Syllabus/Biography/Works)
(1-17-06)
Agenda
• Syllabus
• Difficulties w/ Reading Plato
• Biography
• Chronology of Dialogues
• My View
DIFFICULTIES W/ READING PLATO
• Plato Writes Dialogues
• Inconsistencies & Tensions: Examples
• Socratic (or Platonic) Irony
• Aristotle
Plato Writes Dialogues
• Others wrote Dialogues
– Hume
– Berkeley
• Only Dialogues
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Never writes in his own voice
Controversies concerning Socrates
Not always Socrates
External evidence
ARISTOXENUS’ report of Plato’s lecture on the
Good, Elementa Harmonica ii. 1 (tr. Myles
Burnyeat, 78): ‘Everyone came expecting they
would acquire one of the sorts of thing people
normally regard as good, on a par with wealth, good
health, or strength. In sum, they came looking for
some wonderful kind of happiness. But when the
discussion turned out to be about mathematics, about
numbers and geometry, and astronomy, and then, to
cap it all, he claimed that Good is One, it seemed to
them, I imagine, something utterly paradoxical. The
result was that some of them sneered at the lecture,
and others were full of reproaches.’
Plato Writes Dialogues
• First Rate Literature
– Not obvious systematic treatments of specific
topics
– Appear to be genuine record of conversations
– Easy to get caught up in the drama
Plato Writes Dialogues
• Often No Obvious Conclusions
– Aporetic (aporia) dialogues
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Euthyphro
Laches
Protagoras
Theaetetus
• Why did Plato write dialogues
– Kahn 1981
– Press 1995
– Thesleff 1993
Inconsistencies & Tensions:
Examples
• Laches & Protagoras on courage
• Apology & Phaedo on immortality
• Phaedo & Republic on parts of soul
• Forms
– Laches, for example
– Phaedo, for example
– Parmenides
Socratic (or Platonic) Irony
•
Euthyphro 15c-16a
•
Republic 337a
–
By Heracles, ..., that’s just Socrates’ usual irony. I knew, and I
said so to these people earlier, that you’d be unwilling to answer
and that, if someone questioned you, you’d be ironical and do
anything rather than give an answer. [Republic 337a4-7;
Grube/Reeve trans.]
Socratic (or Platonic) Irony
• Irony is always available to
– Resolve tensions
– Dismiss bad arguments
– Save an interpretation
• A clear, non-ad hoc, decision procedure is
needed but is not available
• Irony should be an interpretation of last
resort
Aristotle
Metaphysics I.6
1. Numbers come from participation of the
Great and the Small in Unity.
2. Sensible things are constituted by the
Forms and the Great and the Small.
3. Forms are composed by the Great and the
Small and Unity.
4. Forms are numbers.
5. The Good is Unity.
Standard Responses
• Can be found in the dialogues - Neoplatonists
• Rejection of secondary tradition - (Cherniss 1945)
• Last unwritten phase of Plato’s thought - (Zeller
1885)
• Accept tradition and dialogues are for the
uneducated public- esoterists - (Gaiser 1980) Tübingen school
• Both dialogues and tradition in dialogues Straussians
Moderate Developmentalism
Benson/Kraut/‘Common View’
• The Philosophical Development of Plato’s
Thought
– Socratic Period
– Classical Period
– Critical Period
• Same General Perspective
– Plato’s position throughout
– Same General Questions
– Solutions to Problems from Earlier Period
Alternatives
• Vlastos (Vlastos 1991 and 1994), who would be
sympathetic with much of what I have said, thinks that the
early view is as different from the later view as the views
of Wittgenstein in the Tractatus are from the views in the
Investigations.
• Shorey (Shorey 1968), would deny that there is any serious
change throughout the corpus - Unitarians. More recently,
see Kahn 1996 and Annas 1999.
• Others would deny that the dialogues represent the views
of Plato - the Germans and the unwritten dialogues, the
Straussians and the hidden meaning, and Burnet 1911 and
Taylor 1956 who attribute the whole business to Socrates.
PLATO’S BIOGRAPHY
• Personal Data
• Chronology
Personal Data
• Born: 428 B.C.E.
• Family: Aristocratic/political
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Father - Ariston (died in Plato’s childhood);
Mother - Perictione
Step-father - Pyrilampes
Brothers - Glaucon and Adeimantus
Sister - Potone
Cousin – Critias
Uncle - Charmides (members of the Thirty)
• Dies: 348-347 B.C.E.
Chronology
(Seventh Letter)
• Born: 428
– Athens from 428 to 400
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Socrates Dies: 399
First Trip: 387 (39-40 years old)
Founding of the Academy: 388-386
Aristotle enters the Academy: 367
Second Trip: 365 (60 years old)
Third Trip: 361-360 (65 years old)
Dies: 348-347
CHRONOLOGY OF
DIALOGUES
• Data
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External Remarks
References to Historic Events
Internal References
Comparative Doctrinal Maturity
Stylometry (Brandwood 1992)
• A ‘Safe’ View
Early (Socratic)
Middle
Late
Apology
Cratylus
Critias*
Charmides
Parmenides*
Laws*
Crito
Phaedo
Philebus
Euthydemus
Phaedrus
Politicus*
Euthyphro
Republic^
Sophist*
Gorgias
Symposium
Timaeus*
Hippias Major#
Theaetetus
Hippias Minor
Ion
Laches
Lysis
Menexenus*
Meno
Protagoras
FLESHING OUT MY VIEW A BIT
(Philosophical Developmentalism)
The ‘Socratic’ Period
I.
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II.
value of knowledge or wisdom
the elenchos
a pre-occupation with definition
the unity of virtues
virtue <--> happiness
the focus of ethics
the close connection (perhaps identity) of virtue and knowledge (intellectualism)
The Meno
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Problems
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Initial Solutions
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III.
Objects of definition
Paradox of inquiry
Plausibility of intellectualism
Theory of Recollection
Method of hypothesis
Virtue is true belief
Classical Platonism (Symposium, Republic, Phaedo, Phaedrus)
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IV.
Theory of Forms
Theory of Recollection
Dialectic
Form of the Good
Critical Period
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V.
Theaetetus, Parmenides
Late Period
•
Philebus, Timaeus, Sophist, Laws
FLESHING OUT ALTERNATIVES
I.
Unitarians
1.
2.
3.
II.
Shorey
Kahn
Annas
Esoterists
1.
2.
Findlay
Kramer
III. Straussians or Hidden Doctrine
1.
2.
3.
4.
Strauss
Rosen
Schmid
Roochnik
“Our best chance of understanding Plato is therefore to
begin with the assumption that in each dialogue he uses
his principal interlocutor to support or oppose certain
conclusions by means of certain arguments because he,
Plato, supports or opposes those conclusions for those
reasons. ... This methodological principle is not an a
priori assumption about how Plato must be read, but is
rather a successful working hypothesis suggested by an
intelligent reading of the text and confirmed by its
fruitfulness. ... The fundamental idea is that unless we
have good evidence to the contrary, we should take Plato
to be using the content of his interlocutors’ speeches, the
circumstances of their meeting, and whatever other
material he has at his disposal, to state conclusions he
believes for reasons he accepts.” (Kraut 29-30).