Philosophy in Dialogue Plato S Many Devices PDF
Philosophy in Dialogue Plato S Many Devices PDF
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction
Gary Alan Scott ix
10 In Plato’s Image
Jill Gordon 212
Appendix: Dramatic Dates of Plato’s Dialogues 239
Index 253
We would like to express our appreciation for all of the editorial, pro-
duction, and marketing staff at Northwestern University Press for their
professionalism and dedication in the production of this volume. The
project editor, Serena Brommel, shepherded the book through its vari-
ous phases, and it has been my pleasure as the book’s editor to work with
her. We also appreciated the careful work of Northwestern’s marketing
and sales department in facilitating the marketing questionnaires and
other aspects of publicity for the book.
Paul Mendelson was meticulous and thorough in copyediting the
book, which surely saved us from innumerable errors.
We also want to thank Susan Betz, acquisitions editor and editor
in chief, for guiding the manuscript through the review process and for
placing the book well in Northwestern University Press’s Topics in His-
torical Philosophy series, and we wish to thank the series editors, David
Kolb and John McCumber.
All the contributors to this collection and its editor owe a debt of
gratitude to Hilde Roos, who was, in effect, the editorial assistant for the
book throughout its various stages of production. And finally, we wish
to acknowledge Ms. Lisa M. Flaherty, administrative assistant to the phi-
losophy department at Loyola College in Maryland. Her coordination
and facilitation in getting the chapters to the contributors and back to
the press, on top of her many other duties, were indispensable.
vii
Introduction
Gary Alan Scott
Questions concerning Plato’s many and varied devices arise almost im-
mediately upon beginning to read one’s first Platonic “dialogue.” Just
what kind of work is a “dialogue,” and how do such works communicate
their author’s philosophical views? To what sort of literary genre or phil-
osophical “school” do Plato’s dialogues belong? Readers new to Plato
quickly notice that there is something peculiar about his philosophical
texts: they are decidedly not first-person essays or treatises, the standard
form in which most modern and contemporary philosophy has been
presented. These “dialogues” are also not “critical” works (such as Kant’s
three “critiques”), nor are they archaeologies or genealogies, polemics,
meditations, confessions, consolations, letters, handbooks, or autobiog-
raphies. Plato’s dialogues are not written in the first person, because
in them Plato never speaks in his own voice (though he might be said
to speak in his own voice in the oft-disputed letters attributed to him).
Instead, there are often several voices heard, and frequently others (in-
cluding various poets and historians) echoed in a single dialogue.
Plato’s audience is indeed presented with a variation on the first-
person voice in a dialogue such as the Apology of Socrates, but the voice
one hears is the voice of Socrates and not the voice of Plato. The Apology
is a “direct” dialogue, rather than a “reported” (or “narrated”) dialogue.
Socrates delivers his speech directly to his large jury and audience, and
his speech is not mediated by any narrator or “narrative frame.” There-
fore, the reader has the impression that Socrates is speaking directly to
her. But of course, Socrates is not the author of this work. So the fact
that Socrates speaks directly to the reader does not create the kind of
first-person point of view that would permit one to read off what the
author, Plato, thinks from what is said in the first person by a character,
Socrates, in the drama Plato immortalized.
The new reader quickly notices that it is characters (such as
Socrates, Euthyphro, Laches, Crito, Phaedo, Gorgias, and some seventy
others) who speak and interact in little plays, in which the talk quickly
turns to questions at the heart of human life. Since the nineteenth cen-
ix
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noted, the dialogues employ a double irony: on the one hand, irony is
characteristic of Socrates’ posture toward many interlocutors, but it is
also a feature of Plato’s posture toward his audience, so that “as we watch
Socrates manipulate his interlocutors, we ourselves are being manipu-
lated by Plato.” 10
3. Socrates may fairly be regarded as sometimes preachy and at
other times as unfair to his interlocutors, and he appears patently stub-
born in arguments with some people.11
4. One might conclude from reading some or all of Plato’s dia-
logues that Socrates learns very little about justice, piety, courage, mod-
eration, rhetoric, or friendship from his interlocutors. But he does learn
one important thing about wisdom, and this is that he is apparently
better off as he is, knowing what he does not know, rather than thinking
that he knows (see Apology 22e–23b). Dialogues such as Symposium and
Menexenus may present counterexamples in which Socrates does seem
to learn from female teachers; but this learning is set in the distant past
and, by and large, if Socrates learns anything in the course of a Platonic
dialogue, one must look for what he has learned somewhere other than
in the conversation’s express content.
5. Finally, Socrates might be judged culpable by Plato’s readers
(though it is doubtful that this reflects Plato’s own view) for his treat-
ment of his wife and children, both on account of his absenteeism at
home and because of his willingness to sacrifice himself for his cause,
whether or not his principled action was best for his family and friends.12
This last point forces Plato’s audience to wonder whether Socrates’ life
is livable, whether it is amenable (as a whole) to imitation, or whether
Socrates is one of a kind, as is implied by the descriptions of him as ato-
pos (in all of its senses: unclassifiable, strange, and without place).
Yet the difficulty in regarding Plato’s dominant philosophical
characters as philosophical exemplars or role models is not limited to
Socrates. It would seem that all of the philosophical characters in the
dialogues—Socrates, Parmenides, the visitor from Elea, the Athenian
Stranger, Timaeus, and Diotima—confess to a gulf between their own
wisdom and the wisdom they desire and believe they need. Many, if not
all of them, thus say things that downplay their knowledge or distance
themselves from the highest and most desirable kind of knowledge.13
Add to this the fact that many investigations end in aporia (and in
the ones that do not, no one appears on the scene to tie together in
summary form what has been learned through the conversation), and
the task of ascertaining Plato’s views is rendered even more difficult.
In Plato’s dialogues, gods don’t appear or speak and there is no obvi-
ous “messenger” or “chorus,” as one often finds in tragedy, to supply
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Socrates suggests (at 11e–12a) that piety is a part of justice, but he and
Euthyphro are unable to determine the part of justice to which piety be-
longs because Euthyphro is in too big a hurry to get on with his prosecu-
tion, despite the fact that he still does not know what piety is. This shows
that the dialogue’s ending is probably not meant to suggest that there is
no way in principle to know what piety and impiety are. Similarly, in the
Lysis, Socrates explicates the reason for the inadequacy of the inquiry
into friendship when he expresses the need to find older interlocutors
with whom to carry on the discussion begun with the two pubescent
boys (Lysis 223a). Such dialogues compel one to move from the level of
the drama to the level of the impact of the drama on the audience. This
two-level approach, as Holger Thesleff termed it, introduces another
series of questions about how the dialogues work. Readers or auditors
can learn from the mistakes of characters in conversation, or they may
be able to see why a given conversation stalls or a particular line of argu-
ment runs into difficulty.
The more one studies Plato’s dialogues, the more one has the gath-
ering sense that Plato “knows” more than he reveals in his works. This
leaves the impression that Plato is cryptic, sphinxlike, reticent, or (to
borrow Diskin Clay’s word) silent. All serious schools of Plato interpre-
tation have to address this issue. Plato might have taken this approach
because he wanted his readers to do a great deal of difficult work on
their own (if they are truly to harbor any hope of understanding his
conception of philosophy), or because he has no dogmatically held doc-
trines that he wants his readers to share, or because the most important
things he knows—as the Seventh Letter suggests—are not things he will
write down, at least not in simple, pithy phrases or maxims, even if he
could, because the deepest insights are inexpressible in any simplistic or
formulaic fashion. This may be the principal reason why Plato cultivates
a pregnant silence in his dialogues, remaining immanent but ubiqui-
tous and forsaking the authorial prerogative to appear and speak as a
character, as Dante will later do.
It is not only that Plato chose the dialogue form in which to pre-
sent his philosophy and his conception of the philosopher, but also that
the kinds of dialogues he wrote do not lend themselves to straightfor-
ward exoteric readings. Plato chose to write open-ended, often aporetic,
dialogues in which the various positions taken and the many arguments
made are heterogeneous and always context-dependent; that is, the
views expressed are always tied to particular people acting in particular
situations. So one must justify or legitimate any attempt to detach these
views from their native context and render them absolute or abstract.18
So why did Plato write dialogues? The simple answer may well be
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way he crafts his dialogues. It is well also to keep in mind that Plato’s
“texts” were crafted, one might say, between orality and literacy, and
that they are set in the previous generation, in the fi fth century, when
only 5 to 10 percent of the population could read and the rest would still
have been quite mistrustful of letters. So the dialogues are “between”
orality and literacy in at least two ways: (1) they are set at a time when
the oral culture still flourished; and (2) they are between oral and liter-
ate traditions because they are written works in which characters recite,
compose, and rehearse aloud, but also discuss problems associated with
the written word (most notably at Phaedrus 274c ff.). Plato’s (written) dia-
logues depict characters reciting long passages from memory, rehears-
ing old myths and stories, or composing or memorizing long speeches.
The facile textbook treatments of Plato’s dialogues make a reconsidera-
tion of Plato’s many devices all the more urgent. The richness, open-
endedness, and literary brilliance of the dialogues are too often lost in
the reduction of these finely textured dramas to the set of arguments
and “doctrines” that are expressed in them by one character or another.
Even the obvious fact that Plato chose to write dramatic dialogues in
the tradition of sokratikoi logoi, rather than compose treatises or straight-
forward essays, has often been lost on readers and commentators alike.
Such interpreters proceed as though the many disclaimers, apparent
contradictions, Plato’s anonymity, or a dialogue’s inconclusiveness pose
no problem for understanding or interpreting the author’s “doctrines.”
So although it has been often noted, it bears repeating that Plato not
only wrote dramatic philosophical conversations, but if they champion
anything, it is the primacy of dialogue in the care of the self, because
dialogue is a fundamental human activity that forms and shapes one’s
character and thought.27 This is perhaps Plato’s way of assigning pride
of place to the process over the product. Dialogue is itself a kind of spiri-
tual exercise (an askēsis or technē tou biou) that, at one and the same time,
is focused on the questions concerning how best to live, while exercising
one’s character and thereby improving it.
Because philosophy, in Plato’s time, was still very much a way of life
and therefore an inherently ethical activity, self-transformation needed
to be supported by a set of practices that functioned as “spiritual exer-
cise.” Paul Rabbow has shown that various forms of such exercise were
practiced in Plato’s Academy.28 And the dialogues depict some of these
practices, perhaps most prominently the role of dialogue itself in form-
ing and shaping human beings.
Yet the care of the self in Plato’s time was certainly not divorced
from the philosophical content or subject matter of thought either, so it
would be a mistake to conclude that the philosophical content did not
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matter. It is simply that philosophy today has moved so far away from
practice that it is necessary to remind modern readers that spiritual
exercises were very much a part of the way of life called “philosophy”
in antiquity. In Plato’s dialogues, particularly, ethics and metaphysics
seem to interpenetrate on ever-higher levels of understanding and ex-
pression. Work on one’s behaviors and practices was an integral part
of the practice of philosophy, as I suspect Plato understood it. This is
why the philosophers Plato features in his dramas are chiefly concerned
with what they regard as fundamental human concerns. Central among
these concerns were the questions: “What is the best way to live?” and
“What is the Good?” Not surprisingly, then, Plato’s philosophical ex-
emplars are often concerned in his dialogues with practical, existential
questions rather than solely speculative ones. Or to put it another way,
we might better say that the speculative inquiries are motivated by, and
brought to bear upon, pressing fundamental human concerns.
Whereas Plato in his dialogues seems to have been thoroughly en-
gaged in wresting a distinctive meaning for philosophia by carving out
its signification from, and contrasting it with, rival paths to wisdom,
contemporary philosophy has become increasingly narrow and more
specialized. It consists primarily in the study of texts. Far from being a
way of life, contemporary philosophy has become primarily academic
philosophy, a training of specialists by specialists. Most philosophers to-
day are employed by a college or university, are required to teach and
to publish, and, as a result, both the ancient tradition of philosophy as
a way of life and that tradition’s guiding questions have given way to the
study of myriad philosophies and the texts that express them.
It would hardly be surprising, then, if our modern understand-
ing of philosophy colored the way Plato is now read and interpreted.
It should also not be surprising if contemporary philosophy, no longer
connected to any way of life except “the way of life of a university profes-
sor,” as Hadot puts it, has become a highly technical and overly abstract
endeavor. Through the centuries since Plato lived and wrote, philoso-
phy has differentiated itself from history, from literature (including my-
thology, drama, and poetry), from rhetoric, theology, political science,
the natural sciences, and psychology.
It is to the dramatic, literary, interdisciplinary Plato described
above that the textbooks could hardly do justice. Hence it is this Plato
that is reexamined in this collection of original essays. Several of the
essays included here suggest new models for thinking about what Plato
is doing in his dialogues and for adumbrating his conception of phi-
losophy itself. Others focus on Plato’s use of Socrates as a character in
his dramas. The overwhelming majority of Plato’s dialogues feature
xxiv
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oneness, a unity that includes plurality. The more the dialogue makes
things many—distinctions, classifications, repetitions—the more in the
end it makes things one. Woodruff concludes that just as the best life
belongs to the mixed category of thought with pleasure, pleasure in
thought, the method of the Philebus itself belongs to the mixed category
of reconciliation. The initial stark oppositions between hedonism and
intellectualism, the non-limited and the limited, must be tested and
refined by the method of classification and reconciliation. Further-
more, the essay contrasts the method of the Philebus with that of the Par-
menides, in which the dramatically different language of addressing the
one and the many leads to (apparently) insurmountable paradoxes.
In chapter 8, entitled “Is There Method in This Madness?” Chris-
topher Long argues that for modern philosophy, method is designed
to set forth objective rules of procedure so as to establish philosophy
as a rigorous science. For Plato, however, method cannot be divorced
from the contingent contexts in which philosophy is always practiced.
While modern method permits no madness, there is madness in Pla-
to’s method. Long traces three strategies that constitute the method
of madness that operates in the Symposium and Republic. The first is a
distancing strategy in which Plato systematically distances himself from
the content of the ideas expressed in the dialogues in order to provoke
the sort of critical self-reflection required for philosophy. The second
is a grounding strategy whereby Plato embeds philosophical debate in
determinate social and political contexts so as to anchor philosophy in
the concrete world of human community. The third is a demonstrative
strategy in which Plato models philosophy as an activity intent on weav-
ing a vision of the good, the beautiful, and the just into the contingent
world of human politics. Together these three strategies function meth-
odologically to show the powerful conception of philosophy embodied
in the dialogues.
In chapter 9, “Traveling with Socrates: Dialectic in the Phaedo and
Protagoras,” Gerard Kuperus explores Plato’s method by following out
two different metaphors: navigation and the labyrinth. In the Protago-
ras, the interlocutors use the metaphor of sailing or navigation in their
discussion about which method to use. Kuperus analyzes this metaphor
by examining some other appearances of navigation and sailing in the
Socratic dialogues. He argues that with the image of navigation, Plato
depicts the dialectician as a philosophical navigator who is in search of
the right course in the dialogue. Similarly, in the Phaedo, the labyrinth
is (implicitly) used as a metaphor for the way in which the dialectician
must follow the thread of the argument, and so the dialogues can be
understood as labyrinths of argument, of possible ways and non-ways.
xxix
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Notes
Socratic Elenchi,” in Does Socrates Have a Method? Rethinking the Elenchus in Plato’s
Dialogues and Beyond, ed. Gary Alan Scott (University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2002), 89–100.
5. For what is known about the characters in Plato’s dialogues, see Debra
Nails, The People of Plato: A Prosography of Plato and Other Socratics (Indianapolis:
Hackett, 2002).
6. See the appendix for a chronology of the dramatic dates of Plato’s
dialogues.
7. John J. Mulhern showed in a 1971 paper that such an argument is re-
quired, but one still finds this sloppy turn of phrase in many works on Plato. See
John J. Mulhern, “Two Interpretive Fallacies,” Systematics 9 (1971): 168–72. Lack-
ing an argument which proves that a particular character is presenting Plato’s
view, commentators could argue from the premise that Phaedrus or Pausanias
in the Symposium, for example, are presenting Plato’s views of eros. This is just
what Elizabeth V. Spelman does in her essay “Woman as Body,” which appears
in the popular textbook Twenty Questions, 4th ed., edited by Lee Bowie, Emily
Michaels, and Robert Solomon (New York: Harcourt, 2000), 209–14.
8. See chapter 3 in the present volume for illustrative examples.
9. Alexander Nehamas, The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Fou-
cault (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 26. This is the theme of
the chapter “Socratic Irony: Character and Interlocutors.”
10. Nehamas, Art of Living, 48. We should recall in this connection Kierke-
gaard’s infamous suggestion that Socratic irony “can deceive a person into the
truth.” Quoted by Nehamas, Art of Living, 52 without reference/citation.
11. For an analysis of the merits of the arguments of Socrates’ interlocu-
tors, see John Beversluis, Cross-Examining Socrates: A Defense of Socrates’ Interlocu-
tors in Plato’s Early Dialogues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
12. The Symposium depicts a Socrates who stays out all night drinking and
talking with his friends before going back to his usual haunts in the city for a
day of discussion. The Crito raises the issue of Socrates’ duty to his family and
friends, but Socrates of course remains true to his principles. In the Phaedo, we
see Socrates asking Crito to have some of his men take Xanthippe and their
baby home, leaving Socrates to talk with his friends in his final hours. And in
the Apology, Socrates mentions his wife and three sons only to make the point
that he is not going to go for the sympathy vote.
13. See, for example, Statesman 277d; Timaeus 29b– d; Laws 641d, 732a–b,
799c– e, and 859c; and the aporetic ending of the Parmenides.
14. Don Adams and Mark McPherran have both made this point. See Don
Adams, “Elenchos and Evidence,” Ancient Philosophy 18, no. 2 (Fall 1998): 287–
307. Mark McPherran has developed this as the method of induction. See his
“Elenctic Interpretation and the Delphic Oracle” in Scott, ed., Does Socrates Have
a Method? 114– 44.
15. The sole exception to this statement is Socrates’ claim in the Symposium
that the one thing he understands is the art of love (ta erotika). But insofar as
eros, in Socrates’ view, is a desire for what we lack, his knowledge of eros comes
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down to the very same knowledge entailed in Socratic ignorance, namely, that
he knows what he doesn’t know.
16. This list could include Cephalus, Polemarchus, Lysis, Agathon, Meno,
Meletus, and many more. Perhaps most prominently, Socrates uses the play on
Meletus’ name (which means “blockhead” and is cognate with the word for
“care” or “concern”) as the fulcrum for his counteroffensive against his accus-
er’s carelessness respecting the charges, the truth, and the youth whom he ac-
cuses Socrates of corrupting.
17. For an excellent example of Plato’s use of the prologue, see Fran-
cisco J. Gonzalez, “How to Read a Platonic Prologue: Lysis 203a–207d,” in Plato
as Author: The Rhetoric of Philosophy, ed. Ann N. Michelini (Cincinnati: E. J. Brill,
2002), 15– 44.
18. In this connection, see, for example, Holger Thesleff, “Looking for
Clues: An Interpretation of Some Literary Aspects of Plato’s ‘Two-Level’ Model,”
in Plato’s Dialogues: New Studies and Interpretations, ed. Gerald A. Press (Lanham:
Rowman and Littlefield, 1993).
19. See Thomas M. Robinson, “The Dissoi Logoi and Early Greek Skepti-
cism,” in Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy VI: Before Plato, ed. Anthony Preus
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), 159. Robinson suggests that
the possibility exists that the Dissoi Logoi or one of many similar manuals of so-
phistical refutation in circulation at the time were read by Socrates and Plato.
20. Charles Kahn details what we know of eight authors of sokratikoi lo-
goi in his Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Kahn examines what is known
about Antisthines, Phaedo, Eucleides, Aristippus, Aeschines, and Xenophon,
in addition to Plato.
21. See especially the last few pages of chapter 2, “Missing Socrates,” in Jay
Farness, Missing Socrates: Problems of Plato’s Writing (University Park: Pennsylva-
nia State University Press, 1991).
22. Pierre Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy? trans. Michael Chase (Cam-
bridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2002), 24.
23. Diskin Clay reminds us that the second edition (1970) of the Oxford
Classical Dictionary contains an entry on “Plato” authored by two different Ox-
ford philosophers, one of whom (J. D. Denniston) writes one numbered section
on Plato’s “style,” while the other (Richard Robinson) writes fi fteen numbered
sections on Plato’s arguments. In the third edition (1996) of the Oxford Classi-
cal Dictionary, however, the article on “Plato” makes no mention of his style or
form, and it is telling that this article was written by Julia Annas, the past presi-
dent of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association. Thus is
the state of the question today. See Diskin Clay, Platonic Questions: Dialogues with the
Silent Philosopher (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), xi.
24. Cited in Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy? 65. This seems overstated or
oversimplified. It is not that one must choose either to form oneself or else to
learn the teachings of the school, but rather that the teachings of the various
schools underwrite the school’s practices or spiritual exercises.
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25. Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy?, 73, quoting Goldschmidt, Les Dia-
logues de Platon (Paris, 1947), 3.
26. See Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy? The six schools are Platonism, Aris-
totelianism, Cynicism, Pyrrhonism (Skepticism), Stoicism, and Epicureanism.
27. Hadot puts the matter this way:
This ethics of the dialogue explains the freedom of thought which, as we
have seen, reigned in the Academy. Speusippus, Xenocrates, Eudoxus, and
Aristotle professed theories which were by no means in accord with those of
Plato, especially on the subject of Ideas. They even disagreed about the defi-
nition of the good, since we know that Eudoxus thought the supreme good
was pleasure. Such intense controversies among the members of the school
left traces not only within Plato’s dialogues and in Aristotle, but throughout
Hellenistic philosophy, if not throughout the entire history of philosophy.
In any event, we may conclude that the Academy was a place for free discus-
sion, and that within it there was neither scholastic orthodoxy nor dogma-
tism. (Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy? 64– 65)
If this is true, we may wonder what the school’s unity could be based upon. I
think we can say that although Plato and the other teachers at the Academy dis-
agreed on points of doctrine, they nevertheless all accepted, to various degrees,
the choice of the way or form of life which Plato had proposed. It seems that
this choice of life consisted, first, in adhering to the ethics of dialogue of which
we have just spoken. This was a “form of life” (to use J. Mittelstrass’s expression)
which was practiced by the interlocutors; for insofar as, in the act of dialoguing,
they posited themselves as subjects but also transcended themselves, they expe-
rienced the logos which transcends them. Moreover, they also experienced that
love of the good which is presupposed by every attempt at dialogue. From this
perspective, the object of the discussion and its doctrinal content are of second-
ary importance. What counts is the practice of dialogue and the transformation
which it brings. Sometimes the function of dialogue can even be to run into
aporia, and thus to reveal the limits of language—its occasional inability to
communicate moral and existential experience.
28. Paul Rabbow, Paidagogia: Die Grundlegung der abendlandischen Erziehung-
eskunst in der Sokratik (Göttingen Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1960), 102.
PHILOSOPHY IN DIALOGUE
1
The things they mould and draw, which have shadows and im-
ages of themselves in water, these they treat in turn as images,
seeking those Forms which can be conceived only in thought.
Republic 510e1– 511a1
Neither will the imitator know, nor opine rightly concerning the nobil-
ity or vulgarity of his imitations. . . . On this issue, then, as it seems,
we clearly agree that the imitator knows nothing worth mentioning of
what he imitates, and that imitation is not serious. (602a8– 9, 602b6– 8)
3
4
NICHOL AS D. SMITH
It will not come as news to hear that the Republic has been read in
many, sometimes radically, different ways. On the basis of worries such
as those I have already expressed, some interpreters have argued that we
should understand the Republic as a kind of self-deconstructing comedy,3
whose arguments and specific prescriptions should not be understood
as spoudai`o~. This very radical understanding of the work, however,
confounds the way the work has been read since antiquity—book 2 of
Aristotle’s Politics plainly suggests that if Plato had intended his Republic
as a joke, his best student didn’t “get it.” Throughout most of the history
of interpretation of this text, as far as we know of it,4 the Republic has
been understood as a serious work of political philosophy.5
In this essay, I suggest a somewhat different way of understanding
Plato’s greatest work. In the view I propose, Plato’s work is intended nei-
ther as humor (though it is sometimes funny) nor as a straightforward
blueprint for political reform, but as an educational work, whose edu-
cational methodology is best understood in the light of the discussion
of mathematical methodology that we find in the work itself. In brief,
the Republic presents the reader with a series of images that are not at all
intended in the imitative way Plato disparages in book 10, but to be used
as images that provoke thought (diavnoia), in much the same way as Plato
describes the proper use of images in the quotation with which I began.6
This, then, is just what I was trying to explain just now, about things
that are provocative of thought and those that are not, where provoca-
tive things are those that lead to perceptions that are at the same time
5
PL ATO’S BOOK OF IMAGES
opposites, while those that do not do this do not tend to awaken the
intellect [ejgertika; th`~ nohvsew~]. (524d2– 5; see also 523e1)
Plato’s gripe with the imitators is not simply that they make im-
ages, then, for the geometers also do this, and Plato regards the latter’s
uses of images as extremely important in the process of education. The
problem with the imitators is that their images are not intellectually pro-
vocative; instead, Plato complains, they do nothing good themselves, for
they neither know the Good nor even have correct belief, and thus do
not create images that are conducive to truth:
[The poets and other such] are imitators of images of virtue and of the
other things they make and do not grasp the truth. . . . The creator of
the phantom [eijdwJlon], the imitator, we say, knows nothing of what is,
but only the appearance. (600e4– 6, 601b9–10)
But why does the same argument not also apply to the geometers, who,
we may suppose, because of the defects of their methods relative to that
of the dialectician, also do not know what they imitate when they shape
their images? More importantly, since Plato puts all of these words into
the mouth of Socrates, who repeats his well-known disclaimer of knowl-
edge in several places in the dialogue (see, for example, at 368b4– 8,
506c203), why does the same criticism not also apply to Socrates
himself?
It might be tempting to answer these questions by talking about
the different motivations of the geometers and Socrates, on the one
hand, and the poets or visual artists whose work Plato deplores. The for-
mer, it might be insisted, are at least seekers after truth, whereas the lat-
ter seek only to flatter and to gratify their audience. Plato certainly has
Socrates make this claim (“his appeal is to the inferior part of the soul”
[605a10–b1]), but it is not one of Plato’s most impressive arguments.
After all, as defenders of literature and the arts always insist when they
read this critique, why must we suppose that one simply cannot create
visual or literary art that aims at revealing (however imagistically) some
semblance of the truth?
Happily, however, the motivational argument does not provide
Plato’s only grounds for distinguishing the imitators he deplores from
the image-makers he praises—including especially the one whose im-
age he creates as the main speaker in the Republic itself. But to see this
more clearly, we must look more closely at the epistemic condition Plato
assigns to the mathematicians.
6
NICHOL AS D. SMITH
The problem we encountered in the last section was that Plato criti-
cizes the imitators as engaging in image-making without knowledge.
And yet it would appear that the same objection can be made against
those whose creation of images Plato seems to endorse. In this section,
however, I deny this comparison. The imitators, I claim, do what they do
without knowledge, whereas the mathematicians (and Socrates) do what
they do with knowledge. I recognize that in saying this, I appear to con-
tradict the very passages in which Plato has Socrates compare the cog-
nitive states of the mathematicians unfavorably with the dialecticians,
on the one hand, and also those in which Socrates himself disclaims
knowledge, on the other. So in order to secure my claim, I must explain
how my reading actually does not violate the sense of these texts.
Given the way contemporary philosophers approach epistemol-
ogy, it might seem as if the only question we must settle here is whether
or not the mathematicians generate warranted true beliefs in regard to
the subjects they pursue by their use of images, or perhaps alternatively,
whether their use of images is conditioned upon or derives from such
cognitive states. But just to put the question this way already creates
a difficulty for the Plato scholar, for the epistemology of the Republic,
especially as it is most carefully articulated in book 5, makes it plain
that unlike contemporary epistemologists, Plato does not provide an
analysis of knowledge as a species of belief. In contemporary epistemol-
ogy, knowledge is generally treated as a species of belief, of course—as
justified or warranted true belief. Justification or warrant, we are often
told, is that additional feature of knowledge that is lacking in other sorts
of true belief.7 But in Plato’s account, not only is knowledge not some
special kind of belief, but in fact it is not any kind of belief at all, but is
instead an entirely different cognitive power altogether. So if we are go-
ing to make much headway in discovering how Plato makes assessments
of knowledge, we will need to leave our modern epistemological presup-
positions “at the door,” as it were.
Plato introduces his notion of cognitive powers by likening them to
our sensory capacities, such as sight and hearing. Such powers, he says,
are to be distinguished by what they are naturally related to as object,
and by what they produce from their activity. Knowledge (ejpisthvmh),
Plato argues, is a distinct cognitive power from belief (or opinion—
dovxa) because knowledge is naturally related to what is, whereas belief
is naturally related to particular sensible things.
Plato’s epistemic complaint about the imitators—and his qualified
7
PL ATO’S BOOK OF IMAGES
One who recognizes beautiful things, but does not recognize The
Beautiful Itself and cannot be led to the knowledge of it—do you
believe he is living in a dreaming or a waking state? Consider: Isn’t
dreaming, whether asleep or awake, taking the likeness not as a like-
ness, but as the thing itself that it is like?
I most certainly take such a one to be dreaming.
Well, then; to take up the opposite of this: someone who recognizes
The Beautiful Itself and is able to distinguish both it and the things
that participate in it, and does not take the participants to be it, or
take it to be the participants—is such a one living in a waking or a
dreaming state?
Very much, he said, a waking state. (476c2– d4)
The distinction Plato has Socrates make here is not made between those
who recognize only images and those who recognize only their origi-
nals; rather, the difference between the believer and the knower is that
the knower recognizes both sorts of entities, whereas the believer rec-
ognizes only images. It would obviously appear to follow that one who
understands that images actually are only images of higher realities em-
ploys images in a way that engages the cognitive power of knowledge,
rather than mere belief. Precisely because this use of images character-
izes the mathematician, I count the distinction in book 5 between the
dreamer and the non-dreamer as support for my earlier claim that the
mathematicians use images with knowledge. Their cognitive disadvan-
tage relative to the dialecticians must not, accordingly, be understood
as the disadvantage of those who do not engage the power of knowledge
relative to those who do.
The actual disadvantage between these two groups is explored and
described in the famous Divided Line passage of book 6. The proper
interpretation of this passage is anything but uncontroversial,8 but hap-
pily my argument here does not have to make any significant effort to
interpret this image in detail. Instead, the way in which Plato character-
izes the relationship between the top two subsections of the line and the
lower two is sufficient for my present purposes. After first dividing the
line into two unequal segments, and then subdividing each segment in
the same proportion as the segments of original division, Socrates then
associates the lowest subsection with shadows and reflections, and the
8
NICHOL AS D. SMITH
subsection above that one with the originals of these images. He then
offers his first explanation of the significance of the image/original re-
lation between these two subsections:
Would you, then, be willing to say that in respect of truth and untruth,
the division is in this proportion: As the believable is to the knowable,
so the likeness is to what it is like? (510a8–10)
Now, the relationship between the believables and the knowables Plato
makes in this passage, which is said to correspond to the relationship be-
tween the images and originals in the two lower subsections of the line,
can only refer to the contents of the entire lower main segment (both
of the two lowest subsections, that is), and those of the entire upper seg-
ment (both subsections), respectively. “Believables” (identified in book
5 with the sensibles) surely do not belong (under this description, at any
rate) above the main division of the line, initially said to divide the in-
telligible from the sensible domains. Hence, the “believable/knowable”
distinction cannot be a way to characterize the relationship between the
lower and upper subsections of the upper segment of the line. Similarly,
Plato should not here be understood as comparing one of the lower with
one of the upper subsections of the line, for he has yet to explicate any-
thing about either of the upper subsections. The “believable/knowable”
distinction, accordingly, must be understood as a way to characterize
the first proportion of the two main segments of the line, which the
proportion between the two lowest subsections, which Socrates had just
explained, is supposed to replicate.9
If I am right about what the “believable/knowable” distinction is
supposed to show, however, it follows that even though the mathemati-
cians are contrasted negatively with the dialecticians, they are included
from the very beginning of the line simile in the section associated with
the “knowables.” So on this ground, too, it seems clear enough that
Plato regards the mathematicians as employing the cognitive power of
knowledge (the power naturally related to the “knowables”). There may
be some cognitive deficiency in such studies, accordingly, but that de-
ficiency is not to be characterized as a lack of—so much as a deficient
employment of—knowledge.
What, then, is the deficiency of mathematical method relative
to the dialectical method? Plato answers this question explicitly, and
the explanation in no way denies the possession or use of the power of
knowledge to the mathematicians. Instead, their deficiency, relative to
the dialecticians, is just that they continue to rely on the use of images,
of which the dialecticians have no further need, and they also continue
9
PL ATO’S BOOK OF IMAGES
Socrates as Image-Maker
“What then,” I said, “do you think it is just to speak as having knowl-
edge about things one does not know?”
“Not at all,” he said, “as having knowledge, but one should be will-
ing to speak as his conception what he conceives.”
“What? Haven’t you observed that beliefs without knowledge are all
ugly? The best of these are blind; or do you believe that those who have
some true belief without intelligence are much different from blind
people who go the right way?”
“Not at all.”
“Do you wish, then, to witness ugly, blind, and crooked things, when
you might hear from others what is luminous and fine?” (506c2– d1)
Plato as Image-Maker
By now, it will come as no surprise that I intend to claim that Plato’s own
use of images also reveals the same general method that he attributes
to the mathematicians and that he portrays Socrates as employing with
his interlocutors. Plato’s own use of images, however, begins even before
the use he gives to Socrates, for as I mentioned at the beginning of this
essay, from the opening pages of the Republic the reader is bombarded
with images. It is worth noticing that Plato’s first images are not limited
to the heroic katabasis imagery I mentioned earlier, however. As soon as
the topic of justice is introduced, Plato offers a series of images of the
conception of justice he will have Socrates defend later in the Republic.
Plato first has Cephalus characterize justice as consisting in tell-
ing the truth and paying back debts. Although this characterization is
plainly inadequate, as Socrates quickly shows, its likeness to the concep-
tion Plato later defends—according to which a kallipolis will be ruled
by truth-loving and lie-hating philosopher-rulers (see 382a4– c1) whose
psychic harmony would make them the least likely to fail to repay a debt
(442e4– 443a1)—is unmistakable. After Polemarchus “inherits” the dis-
cussion from his father, he attempts to characterize justice as helping
friends and harming enemies. Socrates soon reveals the inadequacies
of this account, though later we may recall how it resembles Socrates’
own conception, according to which everyone in the state is a friend to
everyone else, whose happiness is to be maximized without unfair or
special advantage to anyone (420b4– 8, 465e4– 466a6), and in which all
Greeks should regard one another as friends, reserving the most devas-
tating acts of war for use only against non-Greeks (469b5– 471c1)—the
barbarians who are “enemies by nature” to the Greeks (470c6). These
same later prescriptions allow us to recall their likeness in Polemarchus’
revision of his view, according to which we must help all good people
and harm only the bad ones. And when Thrasymachus comes in, we
are told that justice is the advantage of the stronger—a claim that re-
mains true in Socrates’ own account, for the reasons I have just stated,
12
NICHOL AS D. SMITH
except that unlike Thrasymachus, Socrates does not regard the advan-
tage, once justice is correctly understood, as belonging exclusively to the
stronger, for it goes to everyone, strong and weak, in the kallipolis. Only
Thrasymachus’ claim that injustice is more advantageous than justice
fails to provide a likeness of Socrates’ later hypotheses.
So we also find that Plato uses images, whose inadequacies are
noted, so that we can move from them to those better conceptions, of
which the former turn out to be mere images. These, too, come to be
revealed as only images as we climb Plato’s ladder of images so as to
approach those realities that are originals only, and not themselves im-
ages. But the Republic never takes us entirely to this point—it is, instead,
a book of images.
This understanding of the Republic has important consequences
for how we are to understand not only Plato’s methodology in present-
ing his ideas to his readers, but also what we should conceive as his
overall purpose for the work. As I noted at the outset, two of the most
widely shared conceptions of the Republic either dismiss its seriousness
altogether or else take its recommendations quite literalistically for pro-
posed political practice. In the view I have presented, neither of these
conceptions is correct. The non-serious reading of the Republic may be
credited at least on some issues with noticing that Plato’s images are dis-
turbingly flawed. Far from showing that Plato was not serious about his
images, however, we can now see that such flaws are inherent to images,
and that the kind of critique of these images we get from such scholars
(and later, in Aristotle’s own critique) is actually an essential part of
the correct use of images—for it is only because such images present
both the characteristic they are intended to present (such as justice) and
the opposite characteristic that they serve well to “awaken thought” as the
kind of provocative images this method requires (523b9– 524d5). But
this does not mean that the presentation of the image is mere play or
humor, for the project of using the image to move to the original of that
image is entirely a serious one.
The flaw in the standard interpretation of the Republic is one that
is equal but the opposite of the one that infects the non-serious view.
For as a book of images, Plato certainly did not intend us to take those
images in the sort of wooden or literalistic way that would harden their
contours into moral or political dogma. The images of justice that Plato
presents, I claim, are intended to serve as methodological “provocatives”
whose proper use takes them seriously as images, which is to say as pro-
vocatively flawed approximations of our real intellectual goals, rather
than as flawless guides to action in and of themselves. The failure of the
traditional interpretation of the Republic is that it takes Plato’s images too
13
PL ATO’S BOOK OF IMAGES
Notes
1. See Charles Segal, “‘The Myth Was Saved’: Reflections on Homer and
the Mythology of Plato’s Republic,” Hermes 106 (1978): 330; Eva Brann, “The
Music of the Republic,” Agon 1 (1967): i–vi, 1–117; Bruce Rosenstock, “Rereading
the Republic,” Arethusa 16 (1983): 25– 46.
2. See Helen Bacon, “Plato and the Greek Literary Tradition,” presidential
address of the American Philological Association, December 1990; George Olaf
Berg, Metaphor and Comparison in the Dialogues of Plato (Berlin: Mayer and Muel-
ler, 1906); Pierre Louis, Les Metaphores de Platon (Paris: Société d’Édition “Les
Belles Lettres,” 1946); Jean-François Mattéi, “The Theater of Myth in Plato,” in
Platonic Writings, Platonic Readings, ed. Charles L. Griswold Jr. (New York and
London: Routledge, 1988): 66– 83; Richard Patterson, “Philosophos Agonistes: Im-
agery and Moral Psychology in Plato’s Republic,” Journal of the History of Philosophy
35 (1997): 327– 54; D. Tarrant, “Imagery in Plato’s Republic,” Classical Quarterly
40 (1946): 27–34.
3. See Plato, The Republic of Plato, trans. Allan Bloom (New York and
London: Basic Books, 1968), 380– 81; Diskin Clay, “Reading the Republic,” in
Griswold, Platonic Writings, 19–33; John H. Randall, Plato: Dramatist of the Life
of Reason (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 167–70; Leo Strauss,
The City and Man (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1964),
50– 62. Such interpretations have, of course, met with heavy resistance. See, for
example, George Klosko, “Implementing the Ideal State,” Journal of Politics 43
(1981): 365– 89; M. F. Burnyeat, “Sphinx Without a Secret,” New York Review of
14
NICHOL AS D. SMITH
Books 32 (May 30, 1985): 30–36, reprinted in Plato: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, ed.
Nicholas D. Smith (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), 333– 48.
4. The Republic was, like most of Plato’s works, lost to the West until me-
dieval times. But if Averroes is any indication, the early Muslims also did not
regard the Republic as jest.
5. Not always as a political work we should admire, however. Plainly, the
Republic is taken very seriously as political philosophy in Karl Popper’s famous
polemical attack (in The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. 1, 5th ed. [Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1966]).
6. I am not the first to propose a connection between the images Plato
disparages and those whose usefulness he recognizes. See, for example, H. J.
Paton, “Plato’s Theory of Eikasia,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 22 (1921–
22): 69–104; S. Ringbom, “Plato on Images,” Theoria 31 (1965): 95– 96; and J.-P.
Vernant, “Image et apparence dans la théorie platonicienne de la mimesis,”
Journal de Psychologie 72 (1975): 136. My own understanding of this connection,
however, is (as far as I know) original. One who disputes this connection is
Elizabeth Belfiore (“A Theory of Imitation,” Transactions of the American Philo-
logical Association 114 [1984]: 121– 46), who argues her case on the basis of the
differences in the terminology Plato uses to talk about images, his criticisms of
image-makers in book 10 of the Republic, and the sorts of images he discusses
in the other books. But Plato compares the philosopher-rulers to visual artists
earlier in the Republic (at 500e2– 501c3) in a way that invites the sort of concern I
address here, so I am disinclined to make too much of shifts in the terminology
of images from the earlier books to book 10.
7. For a particularly clear statement of this sort, see Alvin Plantinga,
Warrant: The Current Debate (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1993), vi.
8. I survey the many different approaches to this famous image and of-
fer my own account of it in “Plato’s Divided Line,” Ancient Philosophy 16 (1996):
25– 46.
9. I provide a far more detailed objection to other interpretations of this
passage in “Plato’s Divided Line,” 29–31.
10. For a complete discussion of Plato’s discussion of knowledge as a power,
see my “Plato on Knowledge as a Power,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 38
(2000): 145– 68.
2
Comparative Readings,
Complementary Methods
15
16
PHIL HOPKINS
part, the use of a broader antilogy than has been recognized, an op-
positional art importantly related to Platonic practice and the vividness
that practice also accomplishes.
In both authors, the vividness their works achieve is not primarily
the result of conventional dramatic techniques. Not all of Plato’s dia-
logues are expressed with the staging detail of the Phaedrus or the Sym-
posium. Thucydides himself warns his readers at 1.22 that they will be
disappointed if they expect dramatic storytelling (muqwvdh~) from him.
The vividness in both authors results primarily from the way their ex-
positional strategies draw readers into a process of carefully balancing
opposed accounts, but not merely those accounts explicitly formulated
as opposing. This process makes of the reader a peculiar kind of wit-
ness. The reader is invited to inhabit each alternative account to see the
world from its perspective, but is hindered from selecting one explana-
tion over another by a careful balancing of the compelling force of each
account. The dissonance created by this strategy plagues the reader as
she inhabits each account in turn such that, even while grasping the
manner in which each in turn serves to explain and make sense of the
world, she is called back into the balancing and is reengaged with the
complexities that prevent any one account from being sufficient and
complete. Socrates frequently cautions his audience explicitly in this
regard: one must continually investigate the matter and previous agree-
ments, lest one unwittingly fall into the error of believing oneself to
know something one does not.
In this essay I build upon the foundation provided by scholars
of Thucydides by focusing on the anticipation of Athenian victory in
book 1 as an example of antilogy beyond the paired speeches, in which
speech and narrative account taken together “speak on both sides of
the argument” in ways that echo the pedagogical and epistemic trajec-
tories of the Platonic dialogues.7 In book 1 of the History, as in Platonic
dialogue, there are many voices at work, each presenting an opinion or
perspective, at times dogmatically, that other voices take up and render
problematic. In both authors, the interplay of voices, balanced against
each other, brings the reader to a sharp crisis of judgment where new
understanding of the matter in question can begin. In both, some of the
most important voices are not explicitly present. They are the ejndovxa, to
borrow a term from Aristotle: what people say or think about the matter,
the biases and prejudices of the reader. My reading involves thinking
through a particular tension not explicitly voiced, as so often is the case
in Plato, around which almost all of the explicit elements of book 1 can
be seen to revolve.
18
PHIL HOPKINS
Donald Kagan noted several decades ago that “there are few arguments
of longer standing in the scholarship on Thucydides than the one con-
cerning the speeches in his History, and none is more important for
understanding it and its author.” 8 Very good work has been done ex-
amining the role of the speeches and their relation, which is generally
recognized to exhibit, as M. I. Finley put it, “diametrical opposition.” 9 In
short, many of the speeches are antilogically paired. In these speeches,
Thucydides seeks to see “both” sides and to tell both tales. Indeed, to
accept one account as an explanation of the real cause or best course of
action, and dismiss the other as serving only to indicate mistaken advice
or an erroneous assessment of events, amounts to a very partial sort of
reading.10 To do so is to intentionally abandon the perspective made
possible from hearing both sides, to ignore the careful composition of
the whole, and to place oneself on one side or the other in the conflict
and at that level, thus curtailing the wisdom sought and made possible
by the historian.11
W. R. Connor has led the way in viewing the speeches as paired to
accomplish larger pedagogical and epistemological goals. In the ten-
sion expressed and created both by the speeches and Thucydides’ nar-
rations, Connor believes something very important about Thucydides’
text comes to the fore. While aiming at an audience that values clev-
erness, intellect, and self-interest, Thucydides’ text does not simply af-
firm and reinforce those values, but rather exploits uncertainties and
ambiguities in the attitudes and values of his readers to challenge and
even subvert their expectations and certainties. Connor concludes: “Ul-
timately, I believe, the work leads the sympathetic reader—ancient or
modern—far beyond the views it seems initially to utilize and affirm.” 12
Thinkers in the latter part of the fifth century were deeply engaged
in a complex and sophisticated investigation into the nature and use
of persuasion, and of the strategies best calculated to bring about the
desired convictions in their auditors. As Connor has noted, Thucydides
applied the fruits of this investigation not to achieve a single response or
specific evaluation of events, but to draw the reader into the attempt to
construct sense, to awaken critical and evaluative faculties to be exer-
cised on the matter itself of which the text is an account in a particular
and even peculiar way.13
Thucydides offers this much remarked-upon qualification early in
book 1 concerning the speeches that constitute so much of his history:
19
“ TO SAY WHAT IS MOST NECESSARY”
I believe the truest reason for the quarrel, though least evident in what
was said at the time, was the growth of Athenian power, which put
fear into the Lacedaemonians and so compelled them into war, while
the explanations both sides gave in public for breaking the Peace and
starting the war are as follows.
“true cause” of the war begins at the very beginning of the History in the
section known as the “Archaeology.” This section, while purporting to
be as careful a recovery of ancient Greek history as is possible, given its
remoteness in time, is largely a discussion of the nature of naval power
and the advantage such power bequeaths.15 This discussion begins with
a description of Minos of Crete, including his efforts to build and exploit
the first naval power (1.4), continues through an essay on naval power in
general (1.13–15), and ends with a discussion of the emergence of Ath-
ens as a “people of sailors” (1.18). Many have noted the inordinate focus
in the “Archaeology” on the nature and distribution of power available
to a seafaring people and the potential for imperialism in those peoples
who possess such power. While such a focus may support the idea of
Athenian imperialism, it may do so only upon the application of a gen-
eralized stereotype to a particular situation. The question of whether
Athens’ particular circumstance aptly falls under the general category
is not explicitly addressed. We will see that this invitation to perform a
kind of reasoning labeled by the Greeks as eijkov~ is quite important to
the larger strategy that concerns us.
With respect to this description of naval power, Thucydides’ early
attention to Minos is both startling and telling. Minos is one of the few to
be named in this section, and someone to whom the majority of Thucy-
dides’ audience would not be pleased to trace the roots of their power,
since, as Herodotus reports, Minos had a well-established reputation
for ruthless imperialism in the Aegean.16 Here, as he often does, Thucy-
dides weaves into his analysis elements that cause cognitive dissonance
in the informed reader. Reference to Minos does indeed serve to raise
the specter of imperialism, and does so in a manner hardly flattering
to Athens, but the allusion is implicit and subversive. With a deft touch,
while ostensibly relating “remote history” in a self-professed objective
fashion, Thucydides plays on his readers’ deeply rooted prejudices.
The “Pentecontaetia” continues the theme, but it does not portray
the growth of Athenian power as explicitly imperial. It speaks of Athens
fortifying herself; of Themistocles urging the defensive wisdom of mak-
ing Athens’ navy as strong as possible; of Ionians seeking Athenian help
against the threat of dictatorship on the part of the treacherous Spartan
general, Pausanias; of Sparta willingly and intentionally turning over
command of the anti-Persian efforts to Athens; of Sparta advancing her
conquests with Athenian help; of Athens putting down revolts within its
alliance; and finally, in a brief account lacking any real detail, of Athens
forming new alliances with Sparta’s enemies.17 In all of the above, the
growth of Athenian power is described, but no detail indicates any clear
imperial intentions on the part of Athens. Such intentions may have
22
PHIL HOPKINS
indeed been very much present, but nothing in the narrative account of-
fered in the History directly indicates that they were. Again, Thucydides
plays upon the prejudices of his audience, both ancient and modern,
in precisely the way that the Corinthian embassy does in its speeches to
Sparta—inviting the reader to simply recognize Athens as an imperial
power because he suspects, or fears, or even “knows” that she was.
In the middle of these two narrative accounts is a section (1.24–
88) that sets out the war’s two main causes discussed at the time: the
Corcyrean dispute and the Potidaean revolt. The Potidaean revolt is
treated succinctly in a narrative of comparative brevity. The Corcyrean
embassy, the first treated, is portrayed largely through paired speeches,
one of the main elements of which is the Corcyrean offer to Athens of an
alliance with their navy. Athens finds herself, after accepting the offer of
alliance, capable of wielding the strongest contemporary naval force in
the world, if only, according to her agreement, defensively. However, if
this detail is intended to further evoke fear of imperial intentions of the
sort that have been implied as typically accompanying such power, then
it must do so, once again, solely by eijkov~ reasoning.
After the brief discussion of these two factors leading to the war,
Thucydides turns to Sparta and to the convention of her allies to which
she has also invited any other states with grievances against Athens. Of
the many embassies to that convention, and out of the many debates
and grievances submitted, Thucydides focuses on the Corinthian em-
bassy and the Athenian response. In the Athenian response, the impor-
tance and preeminence of Athenian naval power is again emphasized,
this time as a good reason for avoiding war. This section is offered in
the form of speeches given in direct discourse between Corinthian and
Athenian envoys and between two of the leaders of Sparta, Archidamus
and Sthenelaidas, over the wisdom of going to war. Sthenelaidas’ speech
urges the immediate inauguration of hostilities. Archidamus, in con-
trast, warns Sparta that Athens holds the upper hand in almost every
respect. He reminds the Spartans that they have been taught that there
is not a great deal of difference between the way they think and the
way others think, and warns that it is impossible to calculate accurately
events determined by chance: “Instead, we think the plans of our neigh-
bors are as good as our own, and we can’t work out whose chances at
war are better in a speech” (1.84). The Spartans ignore this very Thucy-
didean advice, and Sthenelaidas carries the day.
The antilogy of this section is not completed, however, in the
speeches of Archidamus and Sthenelaidas. For the reader of the His-
tory, there is a deeper antilogy that becomes apparent a few pages later,
23
“ TO SAY WHAT IS MOST NECESSARY”
and builds upon the complex assessment of character and naval power
already begun in the narratives. As book 1 closes, Pericles addresses
the Athenians, counseling them concerning the war and the impend-
ing embassy from Sparta. Where Archidamus’ speech is not in the least
matched by Sthenelaidas, it is quite carefully balanced against that of
Pericles.18 The overall assessment of both agrees almost completely in
substance and displays a remarkable symmetry. Pericles virtually re-
states Archidamus’ claims concerning the unpredictability of war, the
likelihood that the war will be long, the fact that Sparta is ill-equipped
to accommodate distant engagements, the disparities of wealth and na-
val power, the tactical imbalance, the lethargy of Spartan deliberation
(although the two differ markedly on the implications of that sluggish-
ness), the pressing need for Sparta to delay the war to build resources,
and the imperative to rely upon sound planning rather than luck. Again,
the likelihood of Athenian victory is stressed, and the agreement upon
this likelihood by the two most respected figures in book 1 further de-
velops the larger antilogy that is our focus.
Perhaps the most striking of the paired speeches in book 1, how-
ever, are the speeches made before the Spartan assembly by the Co-
rinthian and Athenian envoys. These speeches do not primarily ad-
dress grievances, but instead contrast the national characters of Sparta
and Athens (1.70–71 in particular). In the course of this assessment,
the point is driven home that Athens has all the qualities that would
tend to ensure success in war, regardless of whether those qualities are
particularly admirable, and Sparta exhibits but the shell of its former
self, clinging to outmoded traditions and a no longer effective national
character.19
again into the antilogy of analysis and fact presented by the text, invit-
ing and fashioning an ever more complex relation between reader and
author.
The speeches by themselves place the reader in complex relation
to the author. Thucydides presents at length obviously biased, openly
manipulative accounts without authorial comment, after chastising
most people for accepting reports without testing them (1.20). There
are necessarily falsities in these speeches, but Thucydides allows them
to stand “untested” except by each other, the larger narrative frame,
and the reader’s own judgment. A further, and Platonic, complexity is
brought about by the fact that the assessment which so favors Athenian
victory is placed, in large part, into the mouth of the clever and per-
suasive embassy from Corinth, providing some distance between it and
the authoritative voice of the historian. It also invites skepticism on the
part of the reader, due to the fact that Corinth is a biased participant in
the conflict with designs upon Spartan intentions and a long history of
enmity with Athens.
In assigning such a prominent role to the interaction between
Corinth and Athens, and to the Corinthian speeches, Thucydides dis-
plays fairly straightforwardly the grievances and hostilities between
Corinth and Athens as a primary reason for the war.22 Thus, another
level of antilogy develops between this dramatic depiction of the long-
standing hostility between Corinth and Athens as a major cause of the
war and Thucydides’ own offer of the “truest reason.” Thucydides’ se-
lection and arrangement accomplishes this complexity, which prompts
the reader to question not only the assessment of the Corinthians, but
also the larger assessment we have noted building in book 1; if only
because the Corinthian argument is echoed by the analysis of the two
most trustworthy speakers of book 1, Pericles and Archidamus, as well
as the analysis of the “Archaeology” and the “Pentecontaetia,” and even
Thucydides’ own conclusions, presented as the result of careful and dif-
ficult investigation.
The conclusions of these analyses are also played against the nar-
rative unfolding of events reported not long after these various assess-
ments, which refute the Corinthian generalizations and call attention
to their partial nature. One of the first characterizations of Athens,
offered by the Corinthian embassy as evidence of the need for quick
action, is that she is “quick to invent a plan and then to carry it out
in action” (1.70). However, Athenian deliberations concerning the war
are presented as hesitant.23 Many of Pericles’ assessments are also soon
shown to be mistaken, such as the manner in which the relative wealth
of Athens and Sparta would affect the outcome of the war, and which
25
“ TO SAY WHAT IS MOST NECESSARY”
says the same about his own thinking in places, such as in the Theaetetus
(162d), where he remarks that what they discussed earlier seemed good
and true then, but now has suddenly changed to its opposite.
Socrates often works carefully to produce this outcome. When
someone offers fairly reasonable opinions (such as when Critias suggests
that swfrosuvnh is doing what is fine and beneficial, or when Theaetetus
suggests that knowledge is some sort of perception), Socrates often takes
up some earlier and often weaker assertion and brings it into conflict
with the opinion just stated, even when the earlier position has been or
clearly should be abandoned. The results of these arguments demon-
strate that even the more reasonable positions are partial at best. What
Socrates may indeed teach, by his practice, is how and why to make the
weaker argument the stronger, but not in the sophistic sense. Rather, in-
sofar as each logos is already weak and strong at the same time, one must
weaken that logos which seems strong, that is, which is too compelling
and persuasive, and also, at times, even quite eristically if Socrates is to
serve as an example, strengthen the one which is weak so as to maintain
the aporetic balance which can lead to deeper understanding.
Socrates assumes knowledge, as he says in several places, to be a
whole, but accounts, by their very nature, to be partial.31 In the Par-
menides, the source of young Socrates’ error concerning the Forms is
that a single Form cannot be known at all. All knowledge involves a web
of ideas, a sumplokhv of Forms. Inquiry, then, in its most proper form is
inquiry into the organization and structure of this weaving and not of
its individual elements in isolation. Thus, what is perhaps most impor-
tant is the way accounts relate to each other, building a larger picture;
not only where they agree and cohere, but just as much where they con-
tradict and refute.32
In both Thucydides and in Plato, readers are provided with means
to the deepest possible understanding when they are invited to join in
the bad faith of the participants, whether deliberating about the causes
for war or about an account of piety or courage or knowledge. This invi-
tation is as much at the heart of book 1 of the History as it is a central fea-
ture of almost every dialogue. Just as the dialogues invite their readers
to participate in the search for an account along with the interlocutors,
the History invites its readers to entertain the same fears as the partici-
pants, and to come to the same conclusion: that the growth in power of
neighboring states must be feared a danger to self-determination and
requires preemptive war. Indeed, if Thucydides’ intention were merely
to show that, regardless of what others thought, he believed the advan-
tage did indeed lie with Athens in a war with Sparta, but that somehow
that advantage was squandered until the unforeseen and unexpected
29
“ TO SAY WHAT IS MOST NECESSARY”
Antilogical Insight
One might suggest that drama in general offers these benefits, and that
the similarities between Thucydides and Plato are similarities in dra-
matic style; but the dramatic similarities are limited, and much more
than drama connects these authors. The vividness of the History, as of
Plato’s dialogues, is primarily created by means of antilogy, accounts
opposed and presented as exclusive but which, when engaged carefully,
lead, like Platonic dialectic, beyond the antitheses of the original pair-
ing into deeper understanding. The paired speeches call on us to think
carefully about the details of the growth of Athenian power offered
by one side of the discussion and then refuted or reinterpreted by the
30
PHIL HOPKINS
otima and the Symposium as a whole commend, and that Thucydides de-
sires for his readers, a certain oppositional tension must be fostered.37 In
the Sophist, the Eleatic Stranger prompts Theaetetus to see that though
they began their inquiry into Being deeply confused about not-Being,
they have come to the point where they finally recognize that they are
equally confused about Being. At this point, and not before, the Eleatic
Stranger claims that there is hope “precisely because both that which is
and that which is not are involved in equal confusion” (250e). Now they
can push through their inquiry as far as possible toward deeper under-
standing. This tension, both Thucydides and Plato teach, is the basis for
good deliberation and good judgment, judgment which aims to accom-
plish a real understanding of the complexities of the world.
Thucydides makes it clear in the “Archaeology” that he is adept at
constructing straightforwardly propositional accounts of events.38 Since
he is able, when he wishes, to give an argued, discursive interpretation
from evidence in terms that historians still find compelling and sophis-
ticated, regardless of their points of contention with this or that element
of the account, the fact that he does not do so in the vast majority of his
work should prompt his readers to ponder why. Plato makes it clear that
should he have desired to render a more direct and didactic account
of his positions, he certainly could have done so. Both authors choose
instead to offer their readers the opportunity to participate in a kind of
vivid antilogical drama, where the text requires their effort to complete
its work.
Thucydides, like Plato, offers many alternative, even diametrically
opposed, accounts to prompt his readers to enter along with him into
the hard work of coming to understanding that he describes at 1.22, a
work that could not be accomplished if one of the two or several accounts
was simply selected as the “correct” explanation, the “truest reason” for
the events and their outcomes. In crafting his antilogy, Thucydides, like
Plato, demonstrates that even the ability to assess and judge the equality
and the appropriateness of the considerations to each circumstance, as
is required for eijkov~ reasoning to be productive, is never provided once
and for all, and certainly not as propositions, but is instead a matter of
the ability to remain engaged within balancing and balanced antilogy,
carefully selected to assist one in seeing the matter from as many sides
as possible, such that one is thereby able to develop a deeper sense of the
structure of the world, of its particular circumstances, and of the beliefs
and motivations of the people engaged in living their lives within it.
As Socrates says in the Republic (537c), the one who is sunoptikov~
is a dialectician, and the one who is not, is not. Both Thucydides and
Plato suggest that synoptic ability will be found and gained, if at all, in
33
“ TO SAY WHAT IS MOST NECESSARY”
Notes
1. In the past decade, scholarship that attends to Plato’s use of the liter-
ary and dramatic as critically important to understanding the dialogues has
multiplied in both quantity and quality. Indeed, it is now too voluminous to
cite in anything like an exhaustive fashion. However, the following represent
interesting and influential works in this new genre: Charles L. Griswold Jr., ed.,
Platonic Writings, Platonic Readings (New York and London: Routledge, 1988);
J. A. Ariei, Interpreting Plato: The Dialogues as Drama (Lanham: Rowman and
Littlefield, 1991); Gerald Press, ed., Plato’s Dialogues: New Studies and Interpreta-
34
PHIL HOPKINS
tions (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993); Kenneth Sayre, Plato’s Literary
Garden: How to Read a Platonic Dialogue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1995); R. B. Rutherford, The Art of Plato (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1995); Francisco Gonzalez, ed., The Third Way: New Directions in Platonic
Studies (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995); Charles Kahn, Plato and the
Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996); Thomas Szlezák, Reading Plato (New York: Routledge,
1999); Jill Gordon, Turning Toward Philosophy: Literary Device and Dramatic Structure
in Plato’s Dialogues (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999);
Gerald Press, ed., Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity (Lanham:
Rowman and Littlefield, 2000); Harold Tarrant, Plato’s First Interpreters (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2000); Diskin Clay, Platonic Questions: Dialogues with the
Silent Philosopher (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000);
Ann N. Michelini, ed., Plato as Author: The Rhetoric of Philosophy (Cincinnati:
E. J. Brill, 2002); and Ruby Blondell, The Play of Character in Plato’s Dialogue
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
2. W. R. Connor, Thucydides (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984),
opened the door to more philosophical engagement with Thucydides in recent
years. Peter Kosso’s conceptual analysis, “Historical Evidence and Epistemic
Justification: Thucydides as a Case Study,” History and Theory 32 (1993): 1–12,
argues that historical evidence in general serves as an appeal to coherence and
uses Thucydides to make the point that the most credible historical evidence
is that evidence which has passed a number of potentially eliminative tests—
a claim about evidence that strongly evokes Socratic elenchus. Cynthia Farrar,
The Origins of Democratic Thinking (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1988), offers a thorough treatment of Thucydides as a political philosopher.
Touching on the philosophical questions of the relation of form and content,
see J. L. Moles, “Truth and Untruth in Herodotus and Thucydides,” in Lies and
Fiction in the Ancient World, ed. C. Gill and T. P. Wiseman (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1993), 88–121; and Michael C. Leff, “Agency, Performance, and
Interpretation in Thucydides’ Account of the Mytilene Debate,” in Theory, Text,
Context (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 87– 96. Leff, fol-
lowing Gomme, finds the Mytilene debate to be in part a subtle and critically
reflective commentary on the very process of rhetorical debate (89). Indeed,
quite interestingly for our purposes here, his analysis, following Andrewes and
Farrar and contrary to Kagan, interprets Cleon’s speech as directly violating its
own maxims and advice, thus serving Thucydides’ larger didactic purposes. See
also Gregory Crane, Thucydides and the Ancient Simplicity (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1998); Mary F. Williams, Ethics in Thucydides (Lanham: Univer-
sity Press of America, 1998); and especially Timothy Rood, Thucydides: Narrative
and Explanation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). However, questions
concerning the philosophical influence and import of Thucydides’ text predate
Connor’s work. See W. K. C. Guthrie, History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 3 (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), on the phusis-nomos controversy;
Friedrich Solmsen, Intellectual Experiments of the Greek Enlightenment (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1975), on the import of the “new learning”; and J. H.
35
“ TO SAY WHAT IS MOST NECESSARY”
be argued and how in given situations, for example, Thomas Cole and George
Kennedy, The Art of Persuasion in Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1963). For a more recent contribution to the debate along similar lines and one
armed with an admirable, if not fully persuasive, philological analysis of the
difficult language of 1.22, see Thomas Garrity, “Thucydides 1.22.1: Content
and Form in the Speeches,” American Journal of Philology 119 (1998): 361– 84.
A. J. Woodman, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography (Portland: Areopagitica,
1988), 11–14, following closely the arguments of G. E. M. De Ste. Croix, The
Origins of the Peloponnesian War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), argues
with impressive evidence that verbatim speeches in classical history were not
only not a general practice (only Cato includes verbatim speeches and they are
his own), but not even an expectation. His interpretation of the programmatic
statement at 1.22 is that Thucydides claims only to capture the “general gist” of
what was actually said at the time, the equivalent of a thesis statement or sum-
mary. His interesting and unusual conclusion for the presence of so many long
speeches in the History is that they are there to perfect Thucydides’ intentional
rivalry with Homer, since speeches play a significant role in the Iliad. As regards
the paired speeches in particular, there are those who take the speeches to
represent what Thucydides himself thought, in each pair, to be a correct and an
incorrect response to the situation; and those who take the speeches to show, in
the speech of the winning side, what the losing side overlooks or refuses to see,
acting out a kind of bad faith. But there are others, notably Connor, who find in
the mechanism of the paired speeches something more complex that disallows
a clear verdict for one over the other.
9. M. I. Finley, in the introduction to Rex Warner’s translation of the His-
tory of the Peloponnesian War (New York: Penguin Classics, 1972), 25.
10. See Paul Woodruff, On Justice, Power and Human Nature (Indianapolis:
Hackett, 1993).
11. Indeed, the speeches through which these “sides” are related rarely
seem to convince those listening. Thucydides is careful to show that, most of-
ten, the decisions made after speeches urging a given action have already been
determined by the needs, desires, or fears of the actors. I am indebted on this
point and more broadly to Paul Woodruff, both from conversation and from his
paper “Eikos and Bad Faith in the Paired Speeches of Thucydides,” Proceedings
of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 10 (1994): 115–45.
12. Connor, Thucydides, 15. This is an apt observation with respect to Pla-
tonic dialogue as well. Thomas Szlezák in Reading Plato has likened the dia-
logues to a ladder that must eventually be discarded.
13. Connor, Thucydides, 17.
14. The term safhv~ is commonly used to denote the plain, manifest, dis-
tinct reality. See Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. One finds it used
in this way in a number of the fragments of the pre-Socratic philosophers.
15. Connor, Thucydides, emphasizes this aspect of the “Archaeology”; see
24ff.
16. Herodotus, The Histories, 1.171, 173; 3.122; 7.169–71.
17. Thucydides expected his audience to be familiar with the growth of the
37
“ TO SAY WHAT IS MOST NECESSARY”
Delian League, but it is remarkable that the text omits many of the details of
this growth. The only alliance noted is with Corcyra.
18. Thucydides, in his characterizations of these two, notes especially Ar-
chidamus’ e[mpeiro~, or wisdom derived from ample experience (1.80), and the
constancy of Pericles’ gnwvmh, his opinions and judgments (1.140). See Connor,
Thucydides, 50. Plato also frequently completes the balancing of logoi between
interlocutors through discussion with other interlocutors, or with characters
Socrates seems to invent precisely for that purpose.
19. The appeal to Athenian character and disposition is only part of the
account developed in this section, however. The narrative also emphasizes the
role of luck and of the intrigues of other states in bringing Athens to her place
upon the Hellenic stage, for which, therefore, she cannot take sole credit or
blame. Ironically, there is very little in book 1 that depicts Sparta’s historical
importance. Were the reader not familiar with the growth of the Peloponnesian
League and Sparta’s formidable and famous land forces, he might be quite sur-
prised at the suggestion of 1.18 that Sparta stood alongside Athens as the two
preeminent powers at the time of the Persian War.
20. Athens was the winner of what is called the Archidamian War, the first
phase of the war before the peace of Nicias. However, Thucydides portrays that
peace as badly needed by both sides. Furthermore, the peace is related near the
beginning of book 5, after the dark investigation of book 3, which includes the
detailed analysis of the moral failure connected to the civil dispute at Corcyra,
and book 4’s telling depiction of Athenian folly (flirting with disaster in its
rejection of peace) and the puzzling decline of Spartan military power. Ath-
ens’ eventual defeat is mentioned as early as book 2. Such early success throws
her later defeat into sharper relief, even without Thucydides’ depiction of the
largely fortuitous and puzzling character of the early victory.
21. The common wisdom at the time of the outbreak of the war was that
Athens would not be able to last long against Sparta, which Thucydides ac-
knowledges at 7.28.
22. In book 1, Corinth speaks approximately as much as the rest of the
speakers combined.
23. On several occasions the Athenians’ second-guessing, as in the case of
who to send to Syracuse to lead the war effort there, causes them a great deal
of trouble. Of course, some of the Corinthian description is so hyperbolic as
hardly to be credited.
24. See Mitchell Miller, Plato’s Parmenides: The Conversion of the Soul (Univer-
sity Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986), 4– 5.
25. Not all of book 1 invokes Athenian victory so straightforwardly. An al-
ternative, if equivocal, prediction is offered by the Oracle at Delphi who, when
consulted (1.118), pronounces Sparta the ultimate victor if she will “fight with
all her might,” a fact to which Corinth later calls attention at the vote for war.
26. That war is unpredictable is put forward by the participants themselves
upon no less than four major occasions in book 1: Athens, in her address to
Sparta in response to the grievances presented against her (1.78); Archidamus,
in his speech to the Spartans following (1.82); Corinth, in her final address to
38
PHIL HOPKINS
Sparta at the vote to go to war (1.122); and Pericles, in his speech to the Athe-
nians after the Spartan embassy (1.140). Thucydides foreshadows the mistakes
that do indeed contribute to the Athenian loss fairly early in book 1 (1.69),
where, in the first Corinthian address to Sparta, Corinth maintains that it was
Persian mistakes that cost Persia the war and that their own success with Athens
thus far was due mainly to Athenian blunders. That Corinth does so in the
very speech that lays out the Athenian strength of character serves also to call
into question the value of the Corinthian assessment for a prognosis of victory.
Pericles also augurs the outcome when he states that he is much more afraid
of Athenian mistakes than of Spartan schemes and plans (1.144), but he does
so in the very speech in which he eloquently calls the Athenians to prepare for
and welcome war.
27. See, for example, Gorgias, The Apology of Palamedes; Aristotle, Rhetoric
2.24.11; and Aristophanes, Clouds 889–1104. Thucydides’ sophistic training
would have included recognizing and utilizing eijkov~ reasoning.
28. See, for example, Euthydemus 305–7, Phaedrus 272–74, and Gorgias 462–
66. However, in those cases where the matter being investigated is so abstract or
complex as to make the truth difficult or even impossible to attain, or pertains
to divine matters, even Socrates resorts to eijkov~ reasoning, and does so explic-
itly as the best method available under the circumstances. See Phaedrus 246a,
Republic 506ff, and Timaeus (in particular 29b– d, 44c– d, 48d, and 72d).
29. Phaedo 85d.
30. The failure also in this case allows the reader to see that Charmides
does not in fact possess swfrosuvnh, given the relation of swfrosuvnh with
knowledge established later in the dialogue. If swfrosuvnh is related to knowl-
edge, and knowledge is knowledge of opposites, as is suggested at the end of the
dialogue, then the very partiality of Charmides’ answer is an indictment against
his possession of the virtue.
31. Perhaps the clearest expression of this insight is to be found in the
Phaedrus (270c), where Socrates asks, “Do you think one would be able to un-
derstand worthily the nature of the soul from the logos without understand-
ing the nature of the whole?” Also in the Phaedrus (249b– c; see also 259e and
260e), Socrates remarks that “human souls must understand a logos according
to a Form, moving from many perceptions to a unity which has been brought
together by means of reason [logismov~].” See also Laws 965c.
32. In the Meno, Socrates is careful to argue both for the hypothesis and
against the hypothesis that virtue is teachable, even though the positive argu-
ment appears convincing to Meno. In the Phaedo as well, Simmias and Cebes
participate both negatively and positively in the examination of the hypotheses.
Socrates, although arguing for the positive position for the most part with re-
spect to the Forms, and also for the immortality of the soul which is connected
to the hypothesis of the Forms, reminds us at the end that his logos has not con-
vinced him of the truth of his hypotheses. In the Parmenides (135b– c), after sug-
gesting that the power of dialectic depends upon distinguishing Forms for each
of the things that are, Socrates is led on a journey through possible hypotheses
concerning ideas that turn up again in the Sophist as the “Great Kinds.” There
39
“ TO SAY WHAT IS MOST NECESSARY”
is a balanced opposition stressed even in the names of these Forms, but also in
the process of the journey. It is expressly stated that Zeno’s thesis must be tested
so as to examine the consequences for the Many and the One both if there are
many things, and also if there are not many things.
33. As Protarchus puts it in Philebus 20a: “Let us not imagine that the end
of our discussion is a mere puzzling of us all.”
34. Thucydides’ very selection of material reveals bias. Although he details
the Melian affair with care, he only briefly mentions the other Athenian mas-
sacres. It is striking, for instance, that he omits all mention of religious reasons
for the war, such as the conflict over the control of Delphi. It is interesting to
compare Herodotus 7.151 on the Athenians’ relation to the Persians to Thucy-
dides’ account at 1.97. This contrast is important, since Thucydides explicitly
criticizes all previous writers for not covering this period accurately, adequately,
or with chronological precision. He then proceeds to give even briefer com-
pass, with occasional chronological lapses, to several elements—the relation of
Athens to Persia, and her relation to Peloponnesus, particularly for the period
known as the “First Peloponnesian War,” among the foremost. For instance, the
background to the truce mentioned in 1.112 is not explained, nor is the Spartan
treaty with Argos noted until 5.14. Hornblower called attention to Thucydides’
selectivity and posited that Thucydides often explains in detail one particu-
lar event, such as the Melian massacre, or the civil dispute at Corcyra, while
omitting other civil conflicts or massacres, in order to set the chosen event up
as paradigmatic, and in so doing, betrays his concern to explain larger issues
rather than individual events. Finley suggests, in his introduction to Portable
Greek Historians (New York: Penguin, 1977), 13: “One good example was suf-
ficient for his purpose; the rest would be useless repetition.”
Thucydides is less concerned, I would admit, to hinder us from accepting
his moral judgment as that is made apparent in his selection and relation of
particular events. However, he does construct his text so as to call upon us to re-
examine any final conclusions on our part. The Melian Dialogue (5.84–116) is
sharply illuminating in this regard for the very reason that although both sides
could point to good reasons for what they asked, even to claim right on their
side, both sides make decisions that result in disaster. Thucydides’ discussion
of this event is closely followed by his narration of the Sicilian expedition, and
like the juxtaposition of many of the details of his narrative, this suggests that
Thucydides has a judgment himself concerning these events. He does not often
state that judgment explicitly, however; and the fact that his judgment is often
clear is no argument against the equally present fact that he arranges his narra-
tive not only to highlight the failures in justice or moderation that he believes
contribute to disaster, but also in such a manner that the readers are allowed,
if not forced, to judge these matters for themselves. See Connor, Thucydides,
236–37, for a detailed discussion of several instances of the balancing between
the narrative and the speeches surrounding individual characters.
35. Kosso states: “The style of point-counterpoint is indeed an epistemi-
cally informative feature of the text, but it subverts rather than reinforces our
confidence” (“Historical Evidence,” 8).
40
PHIL HOPKINS
36. Plato then has a new character break into the conversation and present
a logos that engages Socrates and Diotima, as well as all the other speakers, in
a stunning disquisition on opposition itself, and which offers Socrates as the
quintessential “in-between” character who combines in himself almost all the
extremes opposed to each other throughout the dialogue.
37. Along these lines, Connor, Thucydides, 233, has this comment to offer:
We can even suspect that Thucydides was sometimes inviting challenge and
reassessment, a historical rereading of his text in which details and reactions
postponed or minimized in his narrative are given a second look and then
seen in a new relationship, with a new weighting. Certainly he knew that
his treatment of almost every major figure, Pericles, Cleon, Demosthenes,
Nicias, Alcibiades, would in his own day be controversial and would cut
against conventional wisdom and judgments. His is sometimes a revisionist,
often a polemical work, designed to provoke rather than suppress dissent.
38. Ironically, in the same passage Thucydides also claims that the truth
of what happened in the past beyond immediate recall is impossible, or at least
very difficult, to determine.
39. Aristotle, Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, 9.1. See also Plant, “Influence of Fo-
rensic Oratory,” 67–71.
3
Medicine, Philosophy,
and Socrates’ Proposals to
Glaucon About Gumnastikhv
in Republic 403c– 412b
Mark Moes
41
42
MARK MOES
classifies the types of discourse and the types of soul, and the various
ways in which souls are affected, suggesting the type of speech appro-
43
MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCR ATES’ PROPOSALS
priate to each type of soul, and showing what kind of speech can be
relied on to create belief in one soul and disbelief in another, and why.
(Hackforth)
Socrates tells Phaedo that there is no greater evil one can suffer than to
hate lovgo~.6 A person who hates lovgo~ (oJ misovlogo~) is like a person who
hates other people (oJ misa;nqrwpo~). The misanthrope is someone who
lacks skill (a[neu tevcnh~) in human affairs and so, betrayed by persons he
naively held to be completely truthful, trustworthy, and healthy (uJgih`),
comes to hate all men and to believe that no one is healthy (uvgie;~) in
any way at all. The misovlogo~ is someone who lacks skill in discourses
(a[neu th`~ peri; tou;~ lovgou~ tevcnh~) and so, disappointed when many
discourses that initially seemed promising and convincing turn out to
be unsatisfactory, comes to believe there is no health (oujde;n uJgie;~) or
reliability in any object or argument. Socrates says it is pitiable when
such a person does not blame himself or his own lack of skill but rather,
because of his distress, shifts the blame away from himself to lovgo~ and
spends the rest of his life deprived of knowledge and truth. The belief
that no logoi are healthy is a dangerous one. More correct is to believe
that we are not healthy (uJgiw`~ e[comen) and must take courage and be
eager to achieve soundness (uJgiw`~ e[cein).
According to this Socratic account, both the hatred of arguments
and the hatred of persons arise from false hopes based on unrealistic
standards of what human nature and human lovgo~ can accomplish. The
best remedy for such hatreds is to gain a more realistic understanding
of the capacities of the human soul and of the functions, strengths, and
weaknesses of various kinds of lovgo~. It is to develop a skill for judging
character so as to withhold complete trust from less than healthy per-
sons, and to develop an ability for conducting discourse with dialectical
skill.7 We find here clear echoes of Socrates’ account of true “medicinal”
dialectical rhetoric at Phaedrus 268a–272b and of his introduction of a
medical model for the care of the soul at Gorgias 462b– 465e. In all three
accounts Socrates calls for a skillful understanding of human nature
and a skillful use of lovgo~, and characterizes both persons and lovgoi
as sometimes healthy and sometimes unhealthy.8 He implies that the
skilled practitioner diagnoses situations very carefully and makes use of
lovgoi accordingly. From the three accounts it is possible to construct a
view that we might call the medical model of Socratic philosophizing.
The following section further explores some potentially illuminating
implications of this view.
45
MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCR ATES’ PROPOSALS
release and to properly guide the erotic urge. Socrates calls attention to
this urge when in the Symposium he narrates the account of the ascent
of e[rw~ to the vision of Beauty itself. He alludes to it when he speaks of
a power of learning present in everyone that is like an eye that does not
work properly until the whole soul is turned in the right direction (in
the story of the Cave at Republic 518c). He thinks the urge can go awry
when internal or external conditions are unsuitable for its proper func-
tioning. For example, in his account of the false philosophers at Republic
491a– 493d, he suggests that the more vigorous the nature the more cor-
rupt it can become when it lives badly or lives in a bad society.
Socrates in various contexts also suggests that the state of health
at which this urge aims makes possible a certain insight into or vision
of an absolute beauty and goodness.20 We can count this as an eighth
implication of the model. At Symposium 210e–212a, for example, he de-
scribes the experience of the initiate who completes the healing “ascent
of Eros.” The initiate “catches sight of something wonderfully beautiful
in its nature” (210e) and thereupon becomes able “to give birth not to
images of virtue but to true virtue, because he is in touch with true
beauty” (212a). And at Republic 475d– 480a, Socrates contrasts the “lover
of sights and sounds” with the philosopher who “sees both the beauti-
ful itself and the things that participate in it and doesn’t believe that
the participants are it or that it itself is the participants.” Socrates is
showing Glaucon that virtue is the kind of good that Glaucon himself
characterized at 357b– c as “good for its own sake and also for the sake
of what comes from it, such as knowing [fronei`n], for example, and
seeing [oJra`n] and being healthy [uJgiaivnein].” The interchangeability of
health, knowledge, and vision suggested by these passages is convergent
with what scholars have noted about the relationship between knowl-
edge and vision in the Platonic dialogues.21 It also dovetails with the
medieval Scholastic commonplace that intellectual vision (intellectus) is
a higher and healthier activity than that of abstracting forms and mak-
ing laborious inferences (ratio), 22 and that love gives one the means of
seeing.23 A host of Socratic utterances testify to his visionary model of
knowledge and health.24
The connections drawn by Socrates among health and knowledge
and vision suggest a ninth implication of the model. No formal rule-
governed method by itself will be sufficient for imparting right vision to
those who lack it. A Socratic guide will have to exhibit the convergence
of many different sorts of consideration into a coherent pattern in a way
that makes sense for his interlocutor. Lovgoi of many and various kinds
will be instrumental to this exhibition. The Socratic guide will have to
take into account fine differences among persons and situations that
48
MARK MOES
a living organon. . . . [It] is not mere common sense, but the true healthy
action of our ratiocinative powers, an action more subtle and more
comprehensive than the mere application of a syllogistic argument.
(emphases mine) 26
From the point of view of the medical model, many of Socrates’ conver-
sations with Glaucon in the Republic seem to be attempts to provide him
with opportunities for diagnostic self-recognition. Xenophon’s remarks
in the Memorabilia about Socrates checking a twenty-year-old Glaucon
from acting on his naive political ambitions seem to agree with such a
reading.27 The connection drawn in the Charmides between lack of tem-
perance and the misguided political careers of Charmides and Critias
also points in the same direction. For the future tyrannical oligarch Cri-
tias in that dialogue defines justice as “minding one’s own business,” the
phrase used to define justice for Glaucon in book 4 of the Republic. We
49
MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCR ATES’ PROPOSALS
shall now explore a reading of Republic 403c– 412b whose cogency will
hopefully provide some further confirmation that the model we have
been discussing is really at work in the dialogue.
In this passage Socrates elicits Glaucon’s consent to four propos-
als concerning the gumnavstikh to be practiced by the guardians of the
imaginary povli~. To understand the force of the proposals, we must
keep in mind Socrates’ characterization in the Gorgias of lawmaking
(nomoqetikhv) as gumnavstikh for the povli~ and yuchv.28 Socrates’ pur-
pose in making the proposals comes into focus when one refers back to
Republic 368e–372e, where Socrates and the others originally decided
to examine the founding of a povli~. Their guiding idea was that if they
could watch a city coming to be in theory, they could also see justice and
injustice come to be in it (369a). This in turn would facilitate insight
into how justice and injustice come to be in a soul (368e). But at 372e
it was Glaucon’s dissatisfaction with the simple diet and lifestyle of the
inhabitants of the healthy city that prompted a decision to focus their
examinations upon the origins of a luxurious and diseased povli~, and so,
by analogy, upon the origins of a diseased and vicious soul. Hence it is
significant that Socrates directs his questioning concerning gymnastic
training to Glaucon and not (directly) to Adeimantus. Glaucon’s lack
of justice, not to mention his inability to recognize his own bad disposi-
tions, was earlier manifested in his overly eager assent to the project of
building a fevered povli~ ruled by military guardians and enforcing strict
forms of censorship of mousikhv. Now Socrates is attempting to prevent
the twenty-year-old Glaucon from acting on his naive and exaggerated
political ambitions. How then do Socrates’ proposals concerning gym-
nastic education constitute a Socratic strategy for providing Glaucon
with opportunities for diagnostic self-understanding?
live like those sick people who, through licentiousness, aren’t will-
ing to abandon their harmful way of life . . . their medical treatment
achieves nothing, except that their illness becomes worse and more
complicated, and they’re always hoping that someone will recommend
some new medicine to cure them. (425e8– 426a4; trans. Grube)
52
MARK MOES
making use not of their own experiences (oujk ejmpeiriva/ oijkeiva/) but of
knowledge (ejpisthvmh/, 409b8).
The streetwise person who has committed many injustices, on the
other hand, remains ignorant of sound character (ajgnow`n uJgie;~ h\qo~,
409d1) because he has no paradigm (paravdeigma) of it in himself. Yet
because he usually meets other vicious people, he seems to be very clever,
to have a healthy mind and sound judgment, both to himself and oth-
ers, just as many people carry diseases in their bodies of which they
are unaware. Vice never comes to know anything about itself or about
virtue (ponhriva me;n ga;r ajrethvn te kai; auJth;n ou[potΔ a]n gnoivh, 409d7–
8).40 Socrates twice mentions mental paradeivgmata in this section in
order to bring to light the important effects of one’s own experiences
upon one’s intellectual capacities. He says that guileless people are eas-
ily deceived at first because they have in themselves (ejn eJautoi`~, 409b1)
no experiences of doing injustice to serve as paradeivgmata to guide
their dealings with the unjust. And he says that the unjust person is con-
demned to ignorance of healthy character (uJgie;~ h\qo~) because he has
no paravdeigma of this healthy character in himself. Then too, he says
that whereas the guileless person can eventually get an ejpisthvmh that
will enable him to recognize what sort of thing evil is by nature (409b8),
and will also get episthvmh of himself (409d9), the vicious person will
never know anything about virtue or about himself. “Virtue will in the
course of time,” he says, “if natural endowments are improved by educa-
tion, get hold of knowledge [ejpisthvmhn, 409d9] both of herself and of
vice.” Why does Socrates think this?
The key to understanding Socrates here is provided in the pas-
sage in the Phaedo that we discussed in the first section of this paper. In
that passage Socrates drew for Phaedo a connection between the misan-
thrope and the hater of lovgo~. The misanthrope, lacking skill in human
affairs and often betrayed by people, comes to hate and mistrust every-
one, just as the hater of lovgo~, lacking skill in lovgo~ and disappointed by
lovgo~, comes to hate and distrust it. The hater of lovgo~ does not blame
himself or his own lack of skill, but rather shifts the blame to the lovgo~
and spends the rest of his life deprived of knowledge and truth. Unable
to understand his own lack of health, he deprives himself of the means
to become sound again. According to Socrates, the remedy for misan-
thropy is to develop a skill for judging character so as to withhold com-
plete trust from less than healthy persons, and the remedy for hatred
of lovgo~ is to develop an ability to use it with rhetorical and dialectical
skill. But here in the Republic, Socrates is teaching Glaucon that a life
of injustice bars one from availing oneself of either of these remedies.
Doing injustice and experiencing it in oneself makes one distrustful of
56
MARK MOES
good older people at the wrong time (ajpistw`n para; kairo;n, 409c7– d1;
recall that the kairov~ is the appropriate time for medical intervention)
and thereby unable ever to trust a teacher or friend enough to learn
from him. One’s personal interactions become tainted by one’s own in-
justice, and one is barred from the kind of trustful intimacy that only a
pure soul can experience. Just as the state of one’s body conditions the
way one responds to foods and other stimuli, so the state of one’s mind
and will conditions the way one responds to proposals and exhortations
of one’s teachers and friends. Socrates is bringing home to a young and
ambitious Glaucon that virtue is not a constraining disposition that lim-
its an agent’s flourishing, but the proper functioning that is necessary,
among other things, for the activity essential to human nature of learn-
ing from one’s teachers and friends.41
Another clue to a sound understanding of Socrates’ strategy in
this passage was discussed in the second section of this paper—that it is
a part of the concept of virtue that a virtuous person lives well because
he is strongly resistant to vice. As we mentioned earlier, one way in which
one might be resistant to vice is that one might know in advance what
bad influences one must be on guard against. Wise men know the symp-
toms, courses, and causes of the forms of vice. Young people who trust
their elders and their literary traditions can learn these from them with-
out having to live through debilitating periods of vice that, even in the
fortunate cases, at least greatly hinder and slow down their intellectual
and moral development.42 Such seems to be a main lesson of the Myth
of Er.43 This is why Socrates says that “virtue, if natural endowments are
improved by education [ajreth; de; fuvsew~ paideuomevnh~], will in time get
hold of knowledge both of itself and of vice” (409d8–10).
People are not born virtuous. So what could Socrates mean by the
natural endowments that need to be educated? He must be referring,
among other things, to that e[rw~ or will to truth and goodness men-
tioned earlier, that e[rw~ that when properly guided leads to the gesta-
tion of true virtue at the core of the personality, but that often goes
awry when internal or external conditions are unsuitable for its proper
formation and expression. We noted earlier that Socrates draws con-
nections among e[rw~ and health, knowledge, and vision. These connec-
tions are also relevant to understanding Socrates’ way with Glaucon in
the passage now under consideration. For there is in a man a structure
of desire and interest that directs the attention of his intellect to some
aspects of things and away from other aspects of things which he does
not wish to see or is unable to see. Both intellectual and moral virtues in-
volve right apprehension of value or the good, and this apprehension is
only possible for someone with well-formed desires and interests. Mere
argument by itself is not necessarily sufficient for imparting vision of
57
MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCR ATES’ PROPOSALS
value to those who lack the right dispositions. But these dispositions
are formed to a significant degree by one’s customary behavior. Hence,
no one can become a good judge of good and evil, justice and injustice,
unless he lives in a certain way. And this is precisely the point Socrates
is making in this section.
The third proposal is meant to provide Glaucon with another op-
portunity for self-recognition and self-diagnosis and another opportu-
nity to recognize the errors in the project to which he has been assent-
ing since 372c. Socrates wants him to question himself as to whether he
may not be a poor judge of character, his own and that of others, and
this not only because of his own character defects and his own lifestyle,
but also simply because of his youth. Yet he apparently has not yet lost all
capacity to learn from Socrates. Later on, after Socrates has described
the development and nature of the various degenerate character types
(571a– 576b), Glaucon takes over from Adeimantus the role of chief in-
terlocutor. Socrates says to him: “Come, then, and like the judge [krites]
who makes the final decision, tell me who among the five—the king,
the timocrat, the oligarch, the democrat, and the tyrant—is the first in
happiness, who the second, and so on in order” (580a). And Glaucon
answers: “The best, the most just and happy, is the one who rules like a
king over himself” (580b). And in 582d Socrates gets Glaucon to admit
that the lover of wisdom judges (krivnei) best concerning the value of
various types of life.
te kai; gumnastikh;n ejpi; to; qumoeide;~ kai to; filovsofon, 411e5– 6). They
make it possible for these powers to be blended (412a4– 5) into harmony
with one another, each being stretched and relaxed to the appropri-
ate degree (411e4– 412a2), as the strings of a lyre must be stretched or
relaxed if they are to be attuned to each other. Only the soul that has
harmonized the love of wisdom with the aggressive instincts becomes
at once both healthy-minded and courageous (swvfrwn te kai; ajndreiva,
411a1). Its aggressive instincts are moderated and guided by wisdom,45
and its other pursuits (including its intellectual pursuits and not only
its athletic and gymnastic pursuits) are strenuously disciplined, tough-
minded, and fueled by spiritedness in their execution.46 The overseer
(ejpistavto~, 412b1) of a povli~ must have a soul of this kind, if the way of
life of the povli~ (its politeiva) is to be preserved.
A corollary of this view of the coordinate roles of mousikhv and
gumnastikhv, and of the correlative unity of various virtues, is that ei-
ther discipline practiced excessively and to the exclusion of the other
can produce an unbalanced and unhealthy personality. A person who
practices lifelong gumnastikhv unaccompanied by training in mousikhv
disposes his mind toward savagery and toughness, toward raw physical
courage not moderated by wisdom. Any love of learning there might
have been in his soul becomes feeble and deaf and blind.47 One reason
Socrates gives for this enfeeblement of the philosophic power in the ath-
lete who is “unmusical” is that he never tastes of any learning or inquiry
or partakes in any discussion (lovgou) or in any of the rest of mousikhv
(411d2–3). Another is that his spirited power is neither awakened nor
cultivated (ejgeirovmenon, 411d4) nor nurtured (trefovmenon, 411d5)
properly, because his perceptions are never cleansed (diakaqairomevnwn
tw`n aijsqhvsewn aujtou', 411d5).48 Socrates even says that the person who
practices gumnastikhv without mousikhv becomes a misovlogo~ (411d7), a
hater of lovgo~, and unmusical (a[mouso~, 411d7). Such a person never
makes use of persuasion by means of discourses but always savagely bulls
his way through life like an animal, living in ignorance and stupidity
without either rhythm or grace.49
On the other hand, a person who practices lifelong mousikhv with-
out gumnastikhv disposes his mind toward softness and tameness. Even
the philosophic part of his nature, instead of becoming well nurtured,
rightly cultivated, and orderly, is relaxed too far and becomes softer
than it should (410e1–3). He exercises his wisdom-loving capacities in
too relaxed, soft-minded, and undisciplined a way, without the aggres-
siveness which prevents him from being too easily persuaded, too easily
intellectually satisfied, too mindlessly a partisan or ideologue, or too ob-
sequious a student or disciple.50 He separates his mind from his aggres-
59
MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCR ATES’ PROPOSALS
sive emotions and even represses, forgets, and hides from them, so that
they express themselves in more or less pathological forms of irascibility
and irritability instead of in healthy aggressiveness and hard intellectual
work. He melts away and cuts out of his soul his spiritedness (ejkthvxh/ to;n
qumo;n kai; ejktevmh/ . . . ejk th`~ yuch`~, 411b3) and becomes a “faint-hearted
warrior” (or “limp spearman”; malqako;n aijcmhthvn, 411b4).51 If by nature
the person had a weak spirit, he does this quickly. If he had a strongly
spirited nature, he makes his spirit weak and unstable, flaring up at tri-
fles and extinguished just as easily, becoming not only irascible and ir-
ritable but also filled with discontent, rather than spirited (411b7–10).52
Let us notice that Socrates’ explications of the fourth proposal
show Glaucon that there was something wrong with his assent to pro-
posals Socrates had earlier made concerning musical education. Ear-
lier Glaucon had agreed to ban from the povli~ the use of dirges and
lamentations and of any but the Dorian and Phrygian musical modes
in educating the guardians, and to exclude from use the multi-stringed
instruments (accompaniment to epic recitations) and flutes (accompa-
niment to tragic performances) (398d–399e). But in 411a Socrates says
that the music of the flute and of the sorrowful modes is capable, when
used properly, of softening qumov~ and making it useful:
in order to become a truly good statesman and a truly wise and coura-
geous person. Socrates implies that in order to become a true guardian
of himself and of others, Glaucon will have to pursue literature and
philosophy with the kind of aggressive eagerness with which he is now
tempted to pursue coercive political power. When Socrates articulated
for Adeimantus the program of censoring scandalous and offensive
passages from Homer and Hesiod, Glaucon raised no objection. His
apparently premature assent to this program manifested his extreme
crassness and superficiality as an interpreter of myths, his lack of appre-
ciation of their edifying power. For cutting out from the myths all depic-
tions of unjust deeds and characters would deprive would-be guardians
with unjust characters of manifold opportunities for self-diagnosis and
self-recognition. It would constitute a highly questionable form of both
political and psychological repression or censorship, perhaps an expres-
sion of the sort of self-censorship and self-deception that, according to
some Freudian and post-Freudian theorists, is intrinsic to or symptom-
atic of a variety of psychopathologies.53 Glaucon’s assent to the program
was another expression of what Socrates had warned him against ear-
lier—the mixing of gumnastikhv with iatrikhÛv. Socrates has already sug-
gested that such practice makes one pursue an exhausting project of
avoiding what is required for a real approach toward health of soul,
and of hiding from the real causes of one’s behavioral-psychological
problems.
There is a natural tendency to presume that what is philosophical
or rational is either painless or at least minimizes pain. But especially
painful is the process of thinking about shameful aspects of oneself
or about painful experiences. What we find “unthinkable” may often
be only what we find too painful to contemplate, and the world comes
with no assurance that the truth is always pretty and pleasant. Gain-
ing the capacity to think painful thoughts may be among the prerequi-
sites for becoming a wise person. Recall Er’s vision of the souls making
bad choices because they had participated in virtue through habit but
without philosophy and had been “untrained in suffering” (619c– d). 54
Socrates is showing Glaucon that gymnastic of the body trains one to
endure and even despise physical suffering, and that this carries over
to other kinds of pain as well, such as the pain of grasping truths hid-
den in products of mousikhv. Later in the dialogue Glaucon shows his
disdain for those persons he calls the “lovers of sights and hearing,” who
although they are unwilling to attend a discussion “run around to every
chorus at the Dionysia, just as though they had hired out their ears for
hearing” (475d). Glaucon apparently dislikes tragedy and does not run
to every chorus at the Dionysia. Tragedy reveals men’s weakness, their
inability to control their situation, and their vulnerability. 55
61
MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCR ATES’ PROPOSALS
471c. In the section running from 471c to the end of book 7, philosophic
rule is contrasted with the delusory order of the totalitarian, coercive,
and cavelike povli~ of books 2– 5. Books 8 and 9 show how the supposedly
just “aristocratic” regime will anyway self-destruct and transform from
a hidden tyranny into a manifest one; by implication an “aristocratic”
soul, in which reason, split off from passion, has failed to bring desires
into harmonious relation, will self-destruct as well. Socrates’ objective
all along is to show the impossibility of conserving and hiding forever
the deceptions and self-deceptions in sick “aristocracies” or in falsely
“aristocratic” souls.87
If this is Socrates’ strategy with Glaucon, Thrasymachus comes off
as having more integrity than Glaucon, not less. For whereas he acts
consistently with his views, Glaucon is torn between the life of Thra-
symachus and the life of Socrates. If he is to get anywhere with Glau-
con, Socrates must not merely argue that the just life is superior to other
lives.88 He must bring Glaucon to a deeper self-encounter. Failing this,
Glaucon will accept the argument on the level of notional apprehen-
sion, but then go on to rationalize his own grabs for coercive power
over others in the name of justice, because his subterranean desires will
not have been exposed and transformed. Socrates cannot just bluntly
accuse Glaucon of being an ignorant young idealist with “impracti-
cal expectations.” (See Socrates’ questions to Adeimantus at 494c– d.)
Socrates must proceed by indirection, not for logical reasons, but for
psychological and pedagogical reasons. He must use not only dialecti-
cal, but also non-dialectical, techniques of rhetoric.89 Glaucon says that
he does not espouse Thrasymachus’ accounts of justice and excellence,
and he is no doubt sincere. But sincerely to avow adherence to certain
values is one thing, and to live in a way consistent with such an avowal is
another. For there can be an apprehension of value that is merely verbal
or notional but which falls short of a real and effectual apprehension. In
the early parts of the Republic, Plato diagnoses for us the divided condi-
tion of Glaucon’s soul. Then he shows us how Socrates healed him, or at
least set him on the path toward healing.
Notes
Soul (New York: Peter Lang, 2000), especially chap. 2. Two scholars who have
worked on the role of medical ideas in Plato’s dialogues are Joel Warren Lidz
and Mario Vegetti. See Joel Warren Lidz, “Medicine as Metaphor in Plato,” Jour-
nal of Medicine and Philosophy 20 (1995): 527– 41. Lidz discusses some of the rele-
vant historical antecedents to medical themes in Plato as well as the ethical and
philosophical significance of some of the medical terms and metaphors em-
ployed in the dialogues. See also Mario Vegetti, La Medicina en Platone (Venice:
Il Cardo Editore, 1995). Vegetti examines the role of medical ideas in the “So-
cratic dialogues,” and also in the Gorgias, Symposium, Phaedo, Republic, and Phae-
drus. See also the references listed at the end of my article “Plato’s Conception
of the Relations Between Moral Philosophy and Medicine,” Perspectives in Biology
and Medicine 44 (Summer 2001): 3. G. E. R. Lloyd’s In the Grip of Disease: Studies
in the Greek Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) surveys some
interactions among philosophy, religion, and medicine from the Archaic to the
Hellenistic period, focusing especially upon views of selfhood, causality and
responsibility, authority, catharsis, evil, and diseases of the soul and of society.
2. If non-dialectical rhetorical techniques (for example, those employed
in poetry) work to transform an auditor’s emotions, and if emotions possess
some cognitive potential, then the use of non-dialectical techniques may be as
important as the use of dialectical ones in the project of communicating truths.
On the other hand, if emotions have a cognitive component, then the use of
dialectical techniques may have an important influence upon the emotions.
3. At Phaedrus 270c and again at 273e Socrates maintains that one cannot
achieve serious understanding of the nature of the soul without understanding
the nature of the kosmos as a whole (270c), without dividing everything according
to kinds (273e). In the discourse of the Divided Line in the Republic, Socrates
provides a schematic division of (1) kinds of being in the kovsmo~, (2) active and
passive powers of the yuchv, and (3) kinds of lovgo~. It would be interesting to
explore in greater depth the interrelations between Socrates’ image of the Di-
vided Line and his discussion of dialectical rhetoric in the Phaedrus and of the
tecnh of lovgo~ in the Phaedo. See notes 58 and 59.
4. We need not impute to Plato any crude dualistic metaphysical concep-
tion of the nature of soul and body. See Paul Stern, “Socrates’ Final Teaching,”
chap. 5 of Socratic Rationalism and Political Philosophy: An Interpretation of Plato’s
Phaedo (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993).
5. It is worth emphasizing here that a craft, though it can explain its own
procedure, is to an important extent a non-propositional and non-theoretical
sort of knowledge how. Craft knowledge is more than knowledge of the truth of
propositions and more than observational knowledge. It is akin to an agent’s
non-observational “feel” for his own skilled performances. Jaeger says that a
tecnh is “that knowledge of the nature of an object, which aims at benefiting
man, and which is therefore incomplete as knowledge until it is put in practice.”
See Jaeger, Paideia, 3:21.
6. It ought to be kept in mind while reading this passage that lovgo~ in
Greek can denote words, sentences, stories, myths, discussions, arguments, re-
lations, proportions, and even the power of reason itself.
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MARK MOES
7. Here one should remember that in the Phaedrus dialectical rhetoric is con-
nected with Hippocratic medicine. Charles Kahn discusses the meaning of “dialec-
tic” in “The Emergence of Dialectic,” chap. 10 of Plato and the Socratic Dialogue
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). An interesting suggestion on
this can be found in Mitchell Miller, The Philosopher in Plato’s Statesman (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980), ix–xix. Socrates often criticizes a thesis in such
a way as to preserve its partial truth while at the same time showing how and in
what respects it is erroneous.
8. In its application to persons “health” denotes good order in body
and soul. In its application to lovgoi it is used analogously or paronymously
to mean “causing or inducing health in a soul,” or “produced or caused by a
healthy soul.”
9. I have discussed many of the points made in this section in more detail
in “Plato’s Conception of the Relations Between Moral Philosophy and Medi-
cine.” Joel Lidz’s discussion of what he calls “medical metaphors in Plato’s eth-
ics” in his “Medicine as Metaphor in Plato” treats from a different perspective
some of the issues I am concerned with in this section.
10. See Lidz, “Medicine as Metaphor,” 531.
11. Lidz writes: “A successful moral upbringing produces a character which
is resistant to bad influences (Rep 367a), just as ‘a man in health and strength
can drink any water that is at hand without distinction’ (Airs, Waters, and Places,
ch. 7). In short, our moral sense . . . requires constant attention from child-
hood. No moral theory offered to adults can substitute for that ongoing atten-
tion.” See Lidz, “Medicine as Metaphor,” 530.
12. See R. B. Rutherford, The Art of Plato (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1995), 11–12. Rutherford says that a Platonic portrayal of an exchange
between Socrates and an interlocutor captures “both the delicacy of tactful
exploration of another’s painful thoughts or experiences, and the rapidity of an
interrogator’s reactions when seeking out weakness, pursuing guilt, or hunting
down error.” It would be interesting to explore the relation between Socrates’
conversational strategies, on the one hand, and the theories concerning conver-
sational implicature explored by Paul Grice and his students. See Kenneth Taylor,
“Language and Action,” chap. 6 of Truth and Meaning: An Introduction to the Phi-
losophy of Language (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998).
13. Lidz discusses how difficult it may be to call a corrupt person toward
moral change. He writes: “Such a state of corruption is produced by training
and practice which result in an inferior character and is difficult to correct,
since it is a corruption of the very faculties which would be needed to correct it”
(Lidz, “Medicine as Metaphor,” 535).
14. From our twentieth-century perspective, it seems as if Socrates fore-
shadows the practice of psychoanalysts such as Heinz Kohut, who purposely
cultivated transference relationships with interlocutors in such a way as to mir-
ror back to them, and so give them an opportunity for recognizing, their own
psychological conditions. Another perspective on the theme of helping an audi-
tor achieve self-recognition is offered by H. W. Rankin in “A Modest Proposal
About the Republic,” Apeiron 2, no. 1 (November 1967): 20–22. Rankin defends
71
MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCR ATES’ PROPOSALS
the view that Plato was a writer of mime and should be read like a satirist try-
ing to get his audience to see its own foibles and flaws. Jokes are not merely
expressions of the unconscious, but also ways of influencing and bringing un-
conscious factors to light.
15. One might in this connection think of Socrates covering himself with a
veil while delivering his first speech in the Phaedrus. One thinks in this connec-
tion of the way in which, according to Socrates at Republic 393d, the poet-author
of “narrative with imitation” hides himself.
16. In the Republic there are many passages in which either Glaucon or
Adeimantus asks Socrates for a quick answer to some deep philosophical ques-
tion which he does not want to think through for himself. Socrates always ex-
horts him to think for himself. See 358d, 367a– e, 427d– e, 434d– 435a, 435c– d,
449c– 450c, 451a–b, 457c– e, 472a, 506b– d. An excellent discussion of this as-
pect of the philosopher-interlocutor relationship as depicted in the Platonic di-
alogues can be found in Miller, Philosopher in Plato’s Statesman, ix–xix. On page
xiii Miller says that there is an important sense in which each man must “make
the philosophic ascent for himself.” See also Mitchell Miller, Plato’s Parmenides:
The Conversion of the Soul (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 3–12.
17. The Athenian Stranger in Laws 720b– e seems to indicate this when he
says that the free medical practitioner does not give prescriptions until he has
won the patient’s support. Lidz, “Medicine as Metaphor,” 530, cites P. Carrick in
support of the view that “for Plato the responsibility for carrying out a program
of mental and physical hygiene rests squarely with each person.” See P. Carrick,
Medical Ethics in Antiquity (Boston: D. Reidel, 1985), 27ff.
18. Jaeger says that the principal axiom in Hippocrates’ doctrine of sick-
ness is that healing is initiated by the body itself, and all the doctor need do is to
watch for the point where he can step in to help the natural urge to self-healing.
See Jaeger, Paideia, 3:28.
19. An interesting discussion of the interrelation of cognitive and affective
factors in what Socrates considers to be the highest kind of knowledge can be
found in Emile de Strycker, “The Unity of Knowledge and Love in Socrates’
Conception of Virtue,” International Philosophical Quarterly 6 (1966): 428– 44.
20. According to Strycker, good vision of the whole is like good vision of
the material world to the extent that there is always more observation to be
done. Good vision of value expresses itself in more appropriate and consistent
deeds and utterances, just as good physical vision enables one to function bet-
ter in the physical environment.
21. See, for example, Gerald Press, “Knowledge as Vision in Plato’s Dia-
logues,” Journal of Neoplatonic Studies 3, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 61– 89. Kenneth Sayre
attempts to show that one never knows propositions but always states of affairs.
Knowledge for Sayre is a cognitive access to a state of affairs, whereas belief and
many other cognitive states are intentional attitudes to propositions. See Ken-
neth Sayre, “A Surface Map of Cognitive Attitudes,” chap. 1 of Belief and Knowl-
edge: Mapping the Cognitive Landscape (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997).
22. See the brief summary of the Thomistic theory of knowledge in Fulton
Sheen, “Critical Appreciation of the Modern Objections Against Intelligence,”
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MARK MOES
pt. 2, chap. 3 of God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy: A Critical Study in the
Light of the Philosophy of Saint Thomas (New York: Longman’s, Green, 1938).
23. The dictum of Richard of St. Victor is “ubi amor, ibi oculus.” Quoted in
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences, 3.d.35.1.21.
24. For example, there is Socrates’ reference to “keen eyesight” at Republic
368c– d and his description at Phaedrus 247a of the soul’s journey at the edge of
the universe in terms suggestive of viewing a theatrical spectacle (qewriva can
mean being a spectator at the games or theater). Then there is his mention
of the descent from divine qewriva to that of human beings at Republic 517d,
and his mention of the contemplation (qewriva) of all time and existence at
Republic 486a (see also 500b– c). See Press, “Knowledge as Vision.” This under-
standing of knowledge as vision does not necessarily fall prey to Heidegger’s
objection that it is bound up with the “metaphysics of presence.” For the soul
in Phaedrus 247 is moving around the rim of the inner universe, and seeing the
Forms therefore from different “angles” and “distances.” This soul will have to
synthesize its apprehensions, retentions, and protentions of the Forms, and this
will be an endless task.
25. See note 16 above.
26. John Henry Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (Garden
City, N. Y.: Image Books, 1955), 251. See all of chaps. 8 and 9. On p. 268 New-
man quotes Aristotle’s mention of an “eye of experience” in a discussion of
frovnhsi~ at Nichomachean Ethics, bk. 6, chap. 11 (1143b13).
27. Xenophon’s brief depiction of a conversation between Socrates and
Glaucon indicates that Glaucon was as a youth highly ambitious and quite ig-
norant. See Xenophon, “Memoirs of Socrates,” 3.6 in Xenophon, Conversations
of Socrates (London: Penguin, 1990), 152– 56. See also Nalin Ranasinghe, The
Soul of Socrates (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000), 2–3, 4– 6, 15–16. On
Ranasinghe’s reading, Glaucon believes that injustice is natural and that he, a
member of the natural aristocracy, is born to rule. He is driven by a fierce ambi-
tion to wield power, and thinks one must reform first the city and only then the
soul. Socrates thinks that a desire to rule others is indicative of a disordered
soul that does not know itself, and is trying to make Glaucon aware of the ab-
surdity of his political ambitions without publicly shaming him.
28. Perhaps the Laws may be read as a depiction of the Athenian Stranger’s
prescribing a gymnastic regimen for a particular povli~, intended to maintain it
in health once it is founded. (There is a poem by the great Attic legislator Solon,
the kinsman of Plato’s maternal great-great grandfather, in which Solon speaks
of the povli~ as an organism susceptible to disease, whose health is maintained
by following a regimen contained in a good code of laws.) But it does not go
without saying that Plato endorses the regimen in every respect. See note 39.
29. See note 14. Socrates hides, so to speak, his deepest communicative
intentions beneath the surface of the conversation. Mark Gifford has a good
discussion of the difference between the dramatic irony “internal” to a Platonic
dialogue and “external” dramatic irony that refers to a character’s behavior
outside a dialogue but known to Plato’s audience. See Mark Gifford, “Dramatic
Dialectic in Republic Book 1,” in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 20 (2001):
73
MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCR ATES’ PROPOSALS
37– 52. For attempts at classifying types of irony, see Wayne Booth, Rhetoric of
Irony (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), especially chaps. 8 and 9. See
also D. C. Muecke, The Compass of Irony (London: Methuen, 1969).
30. Perhaps the contrast lies not in that the members of the healthy society
never feast or enjoy luxuries, but that they do so on special occasions and for
the enhancement of family life, whereas the guardian class of the aristocracy
pursues a decadent lifestyle of constant feasting and luxuriousness. Rankin (see
note 14) draws attention to the parallel between the Republic and Cynic-Stoic
politeivai. He says that these were modeled on comedy and mime, and that
family life was a favorite subject. He says the Cynic-Stoic works were satirical
sermons striking at the basic assumptions of contemporary society in favor of
something that they claimed was more simple and natural. We need to keep in
mind the distinction between the picture of felicitous family relations in the
paradise and the proposals for abolishing the family in book 5 of the Republic.
31. See also the phrase used in 407b1: nosotrofiva tektonikh`/.
32. The term dikavstai refers mainly to members of a jury. Athenian juries
decided questions of guilt and of penalty, combining functions we divide be-
tween jury and judge.
33. The radical program outlined in book 5 calls for the abolition among
the guardians of natural family relations and parenthood, for the recruitment
of sufficiently “spirited” women as guardians, and for the eugenic breeding of
men and women guardians. This program can be read, on one level at least, as
both a parody of Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazusae and a parody of the u{bri~ of ideal-
istic political reformers drunk on power. See Ranasinghe, Soul of Socrates, 15–18.
Yet on another level, the inclusion of both men and women in the guardian
class of the povli~ might symbolize the marriage of “masculine” political ability
with “feminine” philosophy in the perfectly actualized soul. This view suggests
interesting relationships between the early parts of book 5 and Socrates’ char-
acterization of philosophy as “spiritual pregnancy” in the Diotima speech in
the Symposium and at Republic 490a–b (see also Republic 495b– 496a). See Leon
Harold Craig, “The Portrait of a Lady,” chap. 6 of The War Lover: A Study of Plato’s
Republic (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994).
34. In terms made familiar by John Henry Newman, Glaucon’s assent is
“notional” but not “real.”
35. The censorship of literature and music can play a role in avoidance
behavior and self-deception, as we shall suggest below.
36. Asclepius was of course a mortal who was deified as a god of healing.
He brought the art to perfection and is said to have raised Hippolytus from
the dead, the only one ever to raise a mortal from death. In this passage he is
invoked as the healer showing the way toward the revivification of Athens.
37. My remarks here on the soul-state analogy in the Republic dovetail nicely
with those of Diskin Clay, “Reading the Republic,” in Platonic Writings, Platonic
Readings, ed. Charles L. Griswold Jr. (New York and London: Routledge, 1988),
24–33.
38. The rhetoric of this whole section is, like that of the previous section,
accommodated to Glaucon’s elitist self-conception, appealing frequently to his
74
MARK MOES
sense of shame, for example, at 405a6, 405b1, 405b6, and 405d4. At 410b1–3
Socrates appeals to Glaucon’s self-conception as someone who is already well
educated when he says that the mousikov~ will make no use of iatrikhÛv that is not
absolutely necessary.
39. Even if Plato’s Socrates (or Plato) endorsed the radical political policies
of book 5, he would not necessarily endorse that they be implemented and re-
quired by law. The feminist policies aired by the Athenian Stranger in the Laws
do not clinch the matter of Plato’s view on this, for their status is also unclear.
Clay points out that the status of the utopian proposals in the Republic and Laws
is connected, in his “Reading the Republic,” 29 and n24. Also see Clay on the
way “the closure of positions taken by the speakers within the dialogue is chal-
lenged by a dialogue that refuses to conclude,” 21–24. Myles Burnyeat, in an
emotional discussion of Leo Strauss’s view of the Republic, writes that Strauss’s
“crowning insult to the critical intellect” is his insinuation that “ the just city is
against nature because the equality of the sexes and absolute communism is
against nature.” Burnyeat says this insinuation is completely opposed to “what
Plato wrote and Aristotle criticized.” See Burnyeat, “Sphinx Without a Secret,”
in Plato: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, ed. Nicholas D. Smith (New York and Lon-
don: Routledge, 1998), 341– 43. Burnyeat has also argued that Plato presents
his “best city in speech” as a practical political teaching in “The Practicability
of Plato’s Ideally Just City,” in On Justice, ed. K. Boudouris (Athens: Hellēnikē
Philosophikē Hetaireia, 1989), 94–105. Burnyeat, to my mind, not only wrongly
assumes that Aristotle’s cursory allusions to Plato must always be taken as good
evidence for Plato’s authorial intentions in the dialogues, but reads the Republic
in such a way as to miss frequent indications in the text that practical realiza-
tion is not Socrates’ concern. There is also a need to interpret the significance
of the Athenian Stranger’s repeated indications in the Laws (for example, 739c,
740a, 773b) that radical communism is contrary to human nature.
40. So the vicious person is unable to take his own prejudices or conflicts of
interest into account and to compensate for them in his judgments.
41. In Thrasymachus we see an example of a man who has become totally
incapable of granting that anyone might be truly virtuous, and has come to be-
lieve that human goodness lies in manipulative and coercive power alone. He is
unable to benefit from Socrates’ refutations of his views, even though Socrates
treats him as a friend (see 498c– d). In the moral scheme of Thomas Aquinas
there are two virtues that perfect the will, justice and friendship (Summa theo-
logica 1–2.ae.57.1).
42. There seems to be a critical backward reference here to the earlier pro-
posal to censor out of the literary education of guardians any depictions of un-
just deeds and characters. If episthvmh is of Forms, then knowledge of injustice
must involve awareness of various Forms of both virtue and vice. Compare the
reference to “forms of vice” in 445c and throughout the tale of the decline of
the polities in books 8– 9. Note also the depictions of vice and folly in the Myth
of Er. Compare Socrates’ remarks at 402c. The Republic and the other dialogues
are in great part examinations of forms of virtue and vice.
43. See the mention of the Myth of Er in note 56 below.
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MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCR ATES’ PROPOSALS
posium 174c. Presumably Plato enjoyed the phrase’s punning between cowardice
and sexual impotence.
52. There may be a nod again here to Thrasymachus, and Socrates may be
trying to show Glaucon that he will end up like Thrasymachus if he is not care-
ful in the future to balance his pursuits.
53. To me it seems plausible that in the censorship discussions, Plato is
indeed depicting Glaucon’s eagerness to hide from the grim realities depicted
in Homer and Hesiod and the tragedians, but to dress up his denial as an exer-
cise in righteousness. Modern students of Greek culture see pervasive psycho-
analytic themes in Greek theogonies and mythologies. See, for example, Rich-
ard Caldwell, “The Psychology of the Succession Myth,” an interpretive essay
in Hesiod’s Theogony (Newburyport: Focus Classical Library, 1987), 87–103; and
Philip Slater, The Glory of Hera: Greek Mythology and the Greek Family (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1968). See also Bennett Simon, Mind and Madness in
Ancient Greece: The Classical Roots of Modern Psychiatry (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1978), 215–16; Anthony Kenny, “Mental Health in Plato’s Republic,” in The
Anatomy of the Soul: Historical Essays in the Philosophy of Mind (New York: Barnes
and Noble, 1973); and Pedro Lain Entralgo, The Therapy of the Word in Classi-
cal Antiquity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), especially chaps. 1–2.
54. See Craig, The War Lover, 74.
55. See Mary P. Nichols, “Spiritedness and Philosophy in Plato’s Repub-
lic,” in Understanding the Political Spirit: Philosophical Investigations from Socrates to
Nietzsche, ed. Catherine Zuckert (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 58.
See also her remarks about Glaucon’s character in “Glaucon’s Adaptation of
the Story of Gyges and Its Implications for Plato’s Political Teaching,” Polity 17,
no. 1 (Fall 1984): 34–36.
56. See notes 2 and 6. The dialectical discussion of poetry in book 10 be-
gins with the case against poetry’s value to the povli~, but then in the Myth of Er
shows that the study of the right kind of poetry is necessary in a healthy povli~.
The Republic itself, while violating all the strictures against poetry in the sick
povli~, is an instance of poetry “not only pleasant but beneficial to regimes and
human life” (607d). See my “Mimetic Irony and Plato’s Defense of Poetry in the
Republic,” Journal of Neoplatonic Studies 5, no. 1 (Fall 1996): 43–74. For a discus-
sion of a number of very different approaches to reading the Republic over the
centuries, see Gerald Press, “Continuities and Discontinuities in the History
of Republic Interpretation,” International Studies in Philosophy 28, no. 4 (1996):
61–78.
57. For further remarks about Glaucon’s character, see Allan Bloom, “In-
terpretive Essay,” in Plato, The Republic of Plato (New York and London: Basic
Books, 1968), 337– 40, 342, 345– 46, 401, 412, 415, 423.
58. It might be argued that one of Socrates’ reasons for articulating the
image of the Divided Line at the end of book 6 is a desire to emphasize the
harmonious relationships among various rational powers in a healthy soul. On
this reading, the line shows that a human comes to understand and exemplify
goodness only when his rational powers function together harmoniously, as the
segments of the line corresponding to the powers are interrelated according
77
MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCR ATES’ PROPOSALS
to ordered mathematical ratios. It also suggests that the rational powers of the
soul are both cognitive and affective (because on each level they are ordered
toward images of the Good). See notes 2 and 3. The discussions in books 7–10
of the Republic seem aimed stepwise at the four powers of the soul distinguished
in the Divided Line: book 7 at nou'~ and diavnoia, books 8– 9 at pivsti~, and book
10 at eikasiva (including the poetic power).
59. It is noteworthy that the argument about the soul’s immortality at
608c– 612a culminates in a portrayal of the soul in its pure state as simple and
not differing from itself as the divided soul was represented as doing in book 4.
“We must not think that the soul in its truest nature . . . differs with itself. . . .
What we’ve said about the soul [in book 4] is true of it as it appears at pres-
ent . . . that is why we have to look somewhere else in order to discover its true
nature . . . to its love of wisdom. . . . Then we would see what its true nature is,
and be able to determine whether it has many parts or just one” (611c– 612a).
Of course, Socrates “divided” the soul into powers in the image of the Divided
Line. But the soul can be divided in two ways. First, it can become disintegrated
when its powers do not work in unison as they should. Second, it can also be
divided conceptually into its various powers by a mind trying to understand it.
See note 3. When Socrates discusses conceptual division for the sake of under-
standing in Phaedrus 263b–266b and 270c–274a, he speaks of being able to cut
things along their natural joints and not to splinter any part like a bad butcher
might do (265e).
60. The fact that some dialogues are narrated and some are direct, and
that there are nestings of direct dialogues within narrated dialogues and nest-
ings of narrated dialogues within direct ones is of course important. See David
Halperin, “Plato and the Erotics of Narrativity,” in Methods of Interpreting Plato
and His Dialogues, ed. James C. Klagge and Nicholas D. Smith, Oxford Studies in
Ancient Philosophy supplementary volume (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), 93–130.
61. See Michael Frede, “Plato’s Arguments and the Dialogue Form,” in
Klagge and Smith, eds., Methods of Interpreting Plato, 201–19. See especially
Frede’s discussion of “gymnastic dialectic” at 213–14. See also David Roochnik,
Beautiful City: The Dialectical Character of Plato’s Republic (Ithaca: Cornell Univer-
sity Press, 2003).
62. I am sympathetic with some of the points Griswold makes in his ironic
reading of the critique of writing in the Phaedrus. See Charles L. Griswold Jr.,
Self-Knowledge in Plato’s Phaedrus (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), espe-
cially chap. 6 and the epilogue. See also Ruby Blondell, The Play of Character in
Plato’s Dialogues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002): 110–11. Yet,
in my judgment, Plato’s critique of writing in the Phaedrus is meant to be taken
seriously.
63. See the discussion of knowledge as vision in the section entitled “Impli-
cations of the Medical Model” above.
64. See Kenneth Sayre, “A Maieutic View of Five Late Dialogues,” in Klagge
and Smith, eds., Methods of Interpreting Plato, 221– 43, esp. 230–37.
65. Rutherford, Art of Plato, 66– 68. Note especially the remarkable par-
allel between Thucydides’ stasis chapters (3.82– 83) and Republic 560– 61, and
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MARK MOES
the parallel analyses in the two writers of the connection between Athenian
imperial expansion and political-moral decline. Note also parallel ideologies
of power in Callicles and Thrasymachus, on the one hand, and the Athenians
at Sparta and Melos in Thucydides, on the other. There are also parallel em-
phases in both on the intellectual element of statesmanship, and parallel adap-
tations and deepenings of the sophistic concept of the rhetorical virtuoso. An
axiom of Thucydides’ political thought, according to Werner Jaeger, was that
human nature consists in the constant ascendance of passion and the will to
power over intellect. Plato seems to want to parry this view. See Jaeger, Paideia,
vol. 1, chap. 6, n21. David Grene compared and contrasted Plato and Thucy-
dides in Man in His Pride: A Study of the Political Philosophies of Thucydides and Plato
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950).
66. See Charles N. Cochrane, Thucydides and the Science of History (New York:
Russell and Russell, 1965). This work was first published at Oxford in 1929. See
also Werner Jaeger, “Thucydides: Political Philosopher,” chap. 6 of vol. 1 of Pai-
deia; and Jaeger, “Greek Medicine as Paideia,” chap. 1 of vol. 3 of Paideia.
67. Fifth-century medical thinkers arrived at the conception of types (eji dv h)
of human nature, of bodily structure, of disposition, of illness, and so forth.
A. E. Taylor in his Varia Socratica studied the frequent occurrence of the terms
ei\do~ and ijdeva in the Hippocratic writings. See Jaeger, Paideia 3:296n45. Jaeger
says that Plato transferred these concepts to the realm of ethics and from there
to his entire ontology. See Jaeger, Paideia 3:24.
68. See Cochrane, Thucydides, 30–31.
69. Cochrane thought Plato was doing therapeutics in a regrettable way. See
Cochrane, Thucydides, 91, 102, 105. Popper, of course, thought that the “spell of
Plato” was the partial inspiration of many enemies of the “open society.”
70. See note 18 above.
71. This suggestion is in keeping with the views of Mitchell Miller about
why Plato remains anonymous. See note 16. I would add that the “freeborn
physician” (Laws 720b– e) aims to bring a client (a reader) to understand his
own diseases (by seeing them mirrored in those of the interlocutors depicted).
And he aims at the reader’s cooperation in his own therapy (by experiencing
the “kindling” of philosophic understanding through careful and persistent
study of the dialogues). Plato cannot know in advance what particular needs his
reader will have, and if he gives his reader some “empirical injunction with an
air of finished knowledge, in the brusque fashion of a dictator,” he becomes but
a slave doctor treating slaves (Laws 720c).
72. Ruby Blondell makes the important point that Plato’s choice of inter-
locutors for Socrates mirrors the norms of Platonic Athens, as viewed from a
“public,” elite male, “upper class” perspective. In my terms, Socrates diagnoses
those who exhibit symptoms most typical of important contributors to Athens’
problems. See Blondell, Play of Character, 66.
73. See, for example, Socrates’ remarks at Gorgias 448d– e, 451d– e, 461d,
462c– d, 466b– c; Protagoras 334a–336b; Theaetetus 150c– d, 167d–168b; Cratylus
390c; and Parmenides’ remarks at Parmenides 136c–137b. On the importance of
paying attention to the philosophic differences among the philosophic masters
79
MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCR ATES’ PROPOSALS
Ethics Without Politics in the Republic,” chap. 4 of Platonic Ethics, Old and New
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), 72– 95; see also 1–7.
87. On book 10, see notes 56 and 58. For partial readings of the Repub-
lic compatible with this reading, see Nalin Ranasinghe, “Glaucon’s Republic,”
chap. 1 of Soul of Socrates. See also Rutherford, Art of Plato, 218–27; and Clay,
“Reading the Republic,” 24–33.
88. A medical model of Socratic (and Platonic) practice need not imply
that Socratic or Platonic arguments found in either diagnostic or therapeutic
segments of dialogue are unimportant. It need only emphasize that all four of
the segments of the Divided Line, including the segments corresponding to
nou'~ and to pivsti~ and eijkasiva, represent aspects of human rationality. See
notes 58 and 59.
89. See Frede, “Plato’s Arguments and the Dialogue Form,” 216–19.
4
Know Thyself:
Socrates as Storyteller
Anne-Marie Bowery
82
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KNOW THYSELF
gests that at least some ancient Greeks read silently, the general point
about ancient textual oral performance still obtains.8
Scholars actively debate the textual practices surrounding the cre-
ation and dissemination of the Platonic dialogues. In Harold Tarrant’s
view, the dialogues were generally performed inside the Academy. Typi-
cally, Plato or another teacher would read or “narrate” the dialogue to
the students. The narrator might supply additional information as the
“text” was performed. Tarrant suggests that Plato allowed the dialogues
with narrative frames to be disseminated publicly. In this more public
context, the narrator/author could not always be present. As a result,
the narrative frame serves the narrator/author function. The narrative
frame gives the new audience necessary information about how to enact
and interpret the dialogues.9 Borrowing Umberto Eco’s terminology,
Victorino Tejera suggests that the narrative dimensions of the dialogues
function as “self-focusing devices” that allow the text itself to guide its
own interpretation.10 They reveal philosophically important dimensions
of the dialogue to the audience.
How exactly do these narrative markers function? Consider the
opening of the Phaedo. The outer frame is set in Phlius. Some Pythago-
reans took refuge there after the uprisings in Croton. By setting the
dialogue in this Pythagorean enclave, Plato places the entire dialogue
in a Pythagorean context. Furthermore, there are numerous references
to words and images associated with Pythagoreanism.11 Simply put, the
Pythagorean setting of the narrative frame and the repetition of words
and images associated with Pythagoreanism tell the audience to attend
to other Pythagorean allusions that occur throughout the dialogue. If
these narrative frames and markers do indeed function as self-focusing
devices that guide the dialogic audience, then once that preliminary
attunement is accomplished, the audience has been provided with what
Thomas Szlezák sees as a hermeneutic key to unlock the philosophi-
cal meaning of the dialogue.12 Because of these “narrative precautions”
that “guide the audience,” the audience has learned what to listen and
look for as the dialogue progresses.13 While these narrative markers may
have originally helped an audience hear the philosophical complexity in
an oral performance, they can still function in a similar manner in our
age of silent, private, rapid reading if we take time to consider them.
Many important philosophical themes emerge when we consider
the narrative dimensions of dialogues. Elsewhere, I offer a comprehen-
sive analysis of these themes.14 Here, I examine Socrates’ role as a narra-
tor in the five dialogues he narrates: Lysis, Republic, Charmides, Protagoras,
and Euthydemus.15 In these dialogues, Plato presents a dual depiction of
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ANNE-MARIE BOWERY
to pleasure and the good (348c–362a). Unlike the Euthydemus, the Pro-
tagoras has no enacted conversation at its end. As a result, the audience
cannot see the effect that Socrates’ narrative has on his friend.
Socrates presents himself as a trustworthy narrator.31 Though
Socrates’ narrative commentary tapers off after 348c, prior to that
point, he offers even more narrative commentary than he has offered in
the preceding dialogues. He describes the setting of the narrated events
and the characters within the dialogue. Socrates reports on his state of
mind as he does in the preceding dialogues (328d, 331e, 335d– e, 339e).
He also tells how Protagoras responds to him and how the people pres-
ent at Callias’ house respond to each speaker.32 As a narrator, Socrates
calls attention to the interactive dimensions of listening to an oral per-
formance like a sophistic speech or a philosophical narrative. He implic-
itly asks his narrative audience to become conscious of their responses
to his narrative. In this way, Plato uses Socrates’ role as a narrator to call
our attention to the narrative process itself. This increased commentary
on the performative dimensions of the characters’ speeches within the
dialogue adds to the Protagoras’ narrative complexity.
The Euthydemus’ narrative structure is elaborately crafted. The
dialogue begins with an enacted conversation between Socrates and a
friend. This time, the friend is named; he is Crito.33 As in the Protagoras,
the dialogue begins with the friend asking Socrates a question about a
recent encounter (271a–272d). Though we do not know where or when
their conversation takes place, we know it occurs the day after the events
he will soon narrate (271a). We also know that the narrated events take
place in the Lyceum in Athens, probably in the 430s. Socrates’ narrative
commentary remains a consistent presence throughout the dialogue.
Socrates appears confident in his narrative ability. He tells Crito, “I can’t
pretend that I did not pay attention for I certainly did” (272d), and he
underscores his confidence soon after: “I remember it well and will try
to tell you the whole story from the beginning” (283a).34 The dialogue’s
intricately nested structure, the fact that it shifts between the temporal-
ity of the conversation between Crito and Socrates and the temporality
of Socrates’ narrative, calls continuous attention to Socrates’ narrative
activity.
Socrates begins: “I was sitting by myself in the undressing room
just where you saw me and was already thinking of leaving. But when I
got up, my customary divine sign put in an appearance, so I sat down
again” (272e). He then narrates his encounter with Euthydemus, Dio-
nysodorus, Clinias, and Ctesippus: “The entire company of men pres-
ent in the Lyceum besought the pair to demonstrate the power of their
wisdom” (274d). Socrates carefully recounts the sophistic exchange. He
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Socrates tells. Though Crito still does not know how to educate his sons,
his behavior in the enacted frame helps the dialogic audience recognize
the pedagogical motivation of Socrates’ narrative performance.
both a lover and a beloved” (204c). Socrates also includes many details
about Lysis’ beauty and how he and the characters respond to it in his
narrative (207a–b).
Socrates’ narrative in the Charmides also focuses the audience’s at-
tention on the appearance of a beautiful youth and the intense erotic
response to that beauty. He tells his friend: “All the company seemed
to be enamored of him. Amazement and confusion reigned when he
entered, and a second troop of lovers followed behind him. That grown
men like ourselves should have been affected in this way was not surpris-
ing, but I observed the boys and saw that all of them, down to the very
smallest, turned and looked at him as if he had been a statue” (154b).
The entire narrative of the Protagoras occurs in response to the
friend’s relentless query about Socrates’ and Alcibiades’ relationship
(309a– c). Socrates the narrator reinforces that interest by mentioning
the erotic relationship between Pausanias and Agathon (315e) and re-
ferring to how Alcibiades intercedes on his behalf (336c– e). The ap-
pearance of Hippocrates in Socrates’ bedroom early in the dialogue
also adds to the erotic framing of his narrative (310b). Indeed, when
Hippocrates bursts into Socrates’ bedroom and asks, “Socrates, are you
asleep or awake” (310b), he asks the very same question that Alcibiades
claims to have asked Socrates in his attempt to seduce him (Symposium
218c).
The Euthydemus is also filled with erotic overtones. For example,
Socrates mentions the lovers of Clinias (273b, 274d) and Ctesippus’
desire to look at Clinias (274c) at the very beginning of his narrative
and Ctesippus’ anger on his behalf later (283e). While not absent from
the dramatic context of the Republic, eros is considered in more general
philosophic and political terms in that dialogue. Nonetheless, Socrates
does mention Glaucon’s lover (368a), sexual relations between the citi-
zens (372a and throughout book 5), and all the kisses awarded to the
valorous guardians (468c).
As a narrator, Socrates interlaces his narratives with these erotic
details. He wants his audience to hear about the philosophical conversa-
tions that occur with the erotic allegiances of the characters in mind.
These references to eros give an emotional shading to Socrates’ narra-
tive portrayal of his practice of philosophy. What philosophical purpose
might their inclusion serve? Perhaps Plato wishes to suggest that Socrates
sees an emotion, like eros, as key to understanding both his own sense
of self-knowledge and the importance that emotions play in human in-
teraction. At the very least, the prevalence of erotic themes in his narra-
tive frame should direct our attention to the other emotional responses
that Socrates includes in his narratives: blushing and laughter.
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Critias heard me say this, and saw that I was in a difficulty, and as one
person when another yawns in his presence catches the infection of
yawning from him, so did he seem to be driven into a difficulty by my
difficulty. But as he had a reputation to maintain, he was ashamed
to admit before the company that he could not answer my challenge
or determine the question at issue, and he made an unintelligible
attempt to hide his perplexity. In order that the argument might pro-
ceed, I said to him, “Well then Critias.” (Charmides 169c)
mind are often fairly mundane, it is still important for the audience to
see that Socrates does begin his narratives by reporting his thoughts. By
constructing these Socratic narratives in this manner, Plato may be sug-
gesting to the audience of the dialogue that they should notice other in-
dications of Socrates describing his patterns of thought. For example, in
the Lysis, Socrates relates the nuances of a complicated social situation:
Since Socrates also includes his own response to the social situation in
his narrative, the audience can see how he responds to the situation in a
way that the other dramatic characters in the dialogue do not. Socrates’
narrative commentary provides information to the auditors that none
of the characters receive.
Another example occurs in the Charmides: “I am convinced of the
truth of the suspicion which I entertained at the time, that it was from
Critias that Charmides had heard this answer about temperance (162c).
Consider the Protagoras as well:
son why they jested and did not take it seriously. So I told them still
more earnestly that we were really serious about it” (283c). Crito and
the audience of the dialogue might sense the irony in Socrates’ remark,
but the characters within the reported action of the Euthydemus do not.
And consider the Republic, where Socrates addresses his narrative audi-
ence: “I too was at a loss, and looking back over what had gone before,
I said, ‘It is just, my friend, that we’re at a loss, for we’ve abandoned
the image we proposed’” (375d). These examples of Socrates’ narrative
commentary let the audience of the dialogue follow Socrates’ thought
processes throughout the entire dialogue.49 The audience understands
more of Socrates’ thoughts and experiences than do the characters in
the dialogues.
The enacted dialogues contain numerous moments where Socrates
the character becomes a narrator. In these instances, the audience can
see Socrates’ thoughts quite clearly, just as they do in the dialogues nar-
rated by Socrates. For example, in the Apology the character Socrates,
on trial for his life, narrates how he received his reputation for human
wisdom; he tells of Chaerephon’s trip to the Delphic oracle (21a–23a).
Similarly, in the Crito, an enacted dialogue, Socrates the character nar-
rates an imagined conversation between himself and the Athenian laws
that gives Crito, his immediate audience, and the dialogic audience
deeper insight into Socrates’ acceptance of the punishment of the Athe-
nian court (50c– 54c). Socrates the character also becomes a narrator
in the dialogues narrated by other narrators. In the Phaedo, Socrates
the character narrates his intellectual autobiography to give his dra-
matic audience insight into why he distrusts natural philosophy and
comes “to take refuge in discussion and investigate the truth of things
by means of words” (97c–99e). Similarly, in the Symposium, Socrates the
character narrates his encounters with Diotima to his fellow symposiasts
(201d–202c).
These passages reveal that Socrates does not present himself as
the all-knowing philosopher with complete knowledge of the narrated
events. Rather, he struggles through an arduous process of finding
knowledge through human interaction. Furthermore, he regularly ad-
mits his aporetic moments of thought and displays an ongoing commit-
ment to move beyond them. He continually reassesses what he thought
to be the case. In doing so, he reassesses his previously held values, be-
liefs, and assumptions. By describing his pattern of thinking as he nar-
rates, Socrates the narrator teaches his narrative audience to regard
these impasses as part of philosophy. The narrative dimensions of these
texts show Socrates in the process of thinking. As a result, the thoughts
and words and deeds of Socrates the character are easier to emulate.
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concerned, Crito, when I had fallen into this difficulty, I began to ex-
claim at the top of my lungs and to call upon the two strangers as though
they were the Heavenly Twins” (293a). Also, consider the Charmides: “I
caught a sight of the inside of his garment, and took flame. Then I could
no longer contain myself. I thought how well Cydias understood the
nature of love, when in speaking of a fair youth, he warns someone ‘not
to bring the fawn in the sight of the lion to be devoured by him,’ for I
felt that I had been overcome by a sort of wild-beast appetite” (155c).
And consider another example previously mentioned from the Protago-
ras: Socrates is overwhelmed when “Protagoras got a noisy round of ap-
plause for this speech. At first I felt as if I had been hit by a good boxer.
Everything went black and I was reeling from Protagoras’ oratory and
the others’ clamor” (339e). Similarly, in the Republic, “I was astounded
when I heard him, and looking at him, I was frightened. I think that
if I had not seen him before he saw me, I would have been speechless”
(336d). An example from the Lysis differs somewhat in that Socrates
has an initially positive emotional response to their philosophical argu-
ment, followed by a sudden reassessment. Socrates comments, “[I had]
the satisfied feeling of a successful hunter and was basking in it, when a
very strange suspicion, from where I don’t know, came over me” (218c).
In these instances, Socrates the narrator describes his extreme
emotional response and how quickly it overcame him. But Socrates does
not simply report his emotions: his fear, astonishment, satisfaction, de-
sire. After each instance, he reports how he responds to these emotions.
Immediately after gazing beneath Charmides’ cloak, Socrates reports,
“When he asked me if I knew the cure for the headache, I answered,
though with an effort, that I did know” (Charmides 155c) and explains
how “his approving answers reassured me, and I began by degrees to re-
gain confidence and my natural heat returned to me” (156d). Similarly,
though astounded by Dionysodorus’ sophistic display, Socrates tells
Crito, “The result was that even I myself, Crito, was finally compelled, out
of sheer disbelief, to ask whether Dionysodorus even knew how to dance,
to which he replied that he certainly did” (Euthydemus 294d). Though as-
tonished by Protagoras’ account, Socrates manages to respond, “Then,
to tell you the truth, to stall for time to consider what the poet meant, I
turned to Prodicus” (Protagoras 339e). Though frightened by Thrasyma-
chus, Socrates can respond calmly: “I had looked at him first, so that I
was able to answer him; and with just a trace of a tremor, I said, ‘Thrasy-
machus don’t be too hard on us.’ ” Yet Socrates does not stop there. He
appeals to his “friend” Thrasymachus not to give up the pursuit of their
argument (Republic 336d). Though stunned by the strange suspicion
that overcomes him in the Lysis, Socrates can still think clearly: “Maybe
what we had all agreed to wasn’t true after all.” This calm reflection
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Notes
I would like to thank the Baylor University College of Arts and Sciences for sab-
batical leave, which supported my work on this chapter. I also thank Gary Scott
and Phil Hopkins for their careful reading of early versions of this essay, the
Baylor University Philosophy Colloquium members for helpful comments on
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the penultimate draft, and the students in my 2004 and 2005 Plato seminars for
their individual insights and collective philosophical eros.
1. There are some exceptions. See Leo Strauss, On Plato’s Symposium, ed. Seth
Benardete (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); Ruby Blondell, The Play
of Character in Plato’s Dialogues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002);
Thomas Szlezák, Reading Plato (New York: Routledge, 1999); Harold Tarrant,
“Chronology and Narrative Apparatus in Plato’s Dialogues,” Electronic Antiquity
1, no. 8 (1994), and “Orality and Plato’s Narrative Dialogues,” in Voice into Text,
ed. I. Worthington (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 129– 47. Some scholars have explored
the importance of narrative with respect to individual dialogues. See David
Halperin, “Plato and the Erotics of Narrativity,” in Methods of Interpreting Plato
and His Dialogues, ed. James C. Klagge and Nicholas D. Smith, Oxford Stud-
ies in Ancient Philosophy supplementary volume (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992),
93–129; Kenneth Dorter, Plato’s Phaedo: An Interpretation (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1982); Patrick Coby, Socrates and the Sophistic Enlightenment: A
Commentary on Plato’s Protagoras (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1987);
Mitchell Miller, Plato’s Parmenides: The Conversion of the Soul (University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991); Catherine Zuckert, “Plato’s Par-
menides: A Dramatic Reading,” Review of Metaphysics 51 (1998): 875– 906; Alfred
Geier, Plato’s Erotic Thought: The Tree of the Unknown (Rochester: University of
Rochester Press, 2002); Allan Bloom, Love and Friendship (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1993); Thomas Chance, Plato’s Euthydemus: An Analysis of What Is and
What Is Not Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); Claudia
Baracchi, Of Myth and Life and War in Plato’s Republic (Bloomington and India-
napolis: Indiana University Press, 2002); and Jacob Howland, The Republic: The
Odyssey of Philosophy (New York: Twayne, 1993). However, there is no full-scale
study of Plato’s use of narrative techniques.
2. Harold Tarrant tells us that “an introduction to Plato known to us from
a papyrus, Oxyrhynchus Papyrus no. 3219 . . . apparently distinguishes ‘nar-
rated’ from ‘dramatic’ dialogues, and investigates origins of the ‘purely dra-
matic’ dialogue in fr. 1, accepting that Sophron the mimographer was a literary
model, but denying that Alexamenos was” (Harold Tarrant, Plato’s First Interpret-
ers [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000], 6).
3. “Of the thirty-five Platonic dialogues, twenty-five are performed. We can
say that is the normal case. There is one intermediate case in which we almost
see a narrated dialogue transformed into a performed one, and that is the The-
aetetus. Nine are simply narrated” (Strauss, On Plato’s Symposium, 13).
4. According to Malcolm Parkes, “Isidore of Seville (c. 560– 636) could state
a preference for silent reading which subsequently became established as the
norm” (Malcolm Parkes, Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctua-
tion in the West [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993], 1).
5. Paul Saenger, Spaces Between Words (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1997), 9.
6. Jocelyn Small, Wax Tablets of the Mind (London and New York: Routledge,
1997), 19.
7. H. Gregory Snyder, Teachers and Texts in the Ancient World: Philosophers,
Jews, Christians (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 2.
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15. I use the following translations: Lysis, trans. Stanley Lombardo, in Plato:
Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), 687–707;
Charmides, ed. Rosamond Kent Sprague, in Plato: Complete Works, 639– 63; The
Republic of Plato, 2nd ed., trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1991);
Protagoras, trans. Stanley Lombardo and Karen Bell, in Plato: Complete Works,
746– 90; Euthydemus, trans. Rosamond Kent Sprague, in Plato: Complete Works,
708– 45. I leave out a consideration of the Menexenus and the Rival Lovers due to
space considerations and to the contested authenticity of these dialogues.
16. Anne-Marie Frosolono makes a similar distinction with respect to Au-
gustine’s dual role in the Confessions, “Thus Spoke Augustine: An Analysis of
the Relationship Between Language and Spirituality in the Confessions,” Con-
temporary Philosophy 15, no. 1 (1993): 4–7. My sense of “Socrates the character”
includes the various Socratic characters, the elenctic Socrates and the construc-
tive Socrates, that Ruby Blondell (2002) masterfully analyzes. In the narrated
dialogues, each of these Socratic characters is filtered through the lens of
“Socrates the narrator.”
17. On Plato’s Lysis, see Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Logos and Ergon in Pla-
to’s Lysis,” in Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato, trans.
P. Christopher Smith (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980),
1–20; James Haden, “Friendship in Plato’s Lysis,” Review of Metaphysics 37 (1983):
327– 56; Aristide Tessitore, “Plato’s Lysis: An Introduction to Philosophic Friend-
ship,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 28 (1990): 115–32; Francisco Gonzalez, “Pla-
to’s Lysis: An Enactment of Philosophical Kinship,” Ancient Philosophy 15 (1995):
69– 90; G. Scott, Plato’s Socrates as Educator (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2000); Geier, Plato’s Erotic Thought.
18. Ronna Burger writes: “There can be in principle, it seems, no such
thing as a reliable narrator: a reliable narrator, like a perfect image, would
become so superfluous that his narrative report would be indistinguishable
from the original event and therefore no reconstruction at all” (Ronna Burger,
“Plato’s Non-Socratic Narrations of Socratic Conversation,” in Hart and Tejera,
eds., Plato’s Dialogues: The Dialogical Approach, 127). See also Wayne Booth, The
Rhetoric of Fiction, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983).
19. See, in contrast, Apollodorus’ characterization of Aristodemus’ narra-
tive ability (Symposium 173b and 223d).
20. Kenneth Moors, “The Argument Against a Dramatic Date for Plato’s
Republic,” Polis 7 (1987): 6–31.
21. On Plato’s Republic, see Ruby Blondell, “Letting Plato Speak for Him-
self,” in Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, ed. Gerald Press (Lan-
ham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000); Allan Bloom, “Interpretive Essay,” in The
Republic of Plato, 2nd ed., trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1991);
Leon Craig, The War Lover (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996); How-
land, The Republic; and Claudia Baracchi, Of Myth and Life and War in Plato’s
Republic (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002).
22. See Dorrit Cohn, “The Poetics of Plato’s Republic: A Modern Perspective,”
Philosophy and Literature 24 (2000): 34– 48; and David Roochnik, Beautiful City:
The Dialectical Character of Plato’s Republic (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003).
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23. The narrative dimensions of the Republic may help ascertain whether or
not there was an early proto-Republic and if book 1 were originally an indepen-
dent dialogue, the “Thrasymachus.” See, for example, Holger Thesleff, “The
Early Version of Plato’s Republic,” Arctos 31 (1997): 149–74.
24. Howland, The Republic, 4.
25. On Plato’s Charmides, see Drew Hyland, The Virtue of Philosophy: An In-
terpretation of Plato’s Charmides (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1981); Thomas
Schmid, Plato’s Charmides and the Socratic Ideal of Rationality (Albany: State Uni-
versity of New York Press, 1998); and Christopher Planeaux, “Socrates, Alcibi-
ades, and Plato’s Ta Poteideia: Does the Charmides Have an Historical Setting?”
Mnemosyne 52 (1998): 72–77.
26. See Schmid, Plato’s Charmides, 171n2; and Hyland, Virtue of Philoso-
phy, 27.
27. N. Van Der Ben suggests that a good deal of time has elapsed between
the dramatic events and the narrative retelling. See N. Van Der Ben, The Char-
mides of Plato: Problems and Interpretations (Amsterdam: B. R. Grüner, 1985), 84.
28. On Plato’s Protagoras, see David Roochnick, Of Art and Wisdom: Plato’s
Understanding of Techne (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
1996); and Coby, Socrates and the Sophistic Enlightenment.
29. Though most scholars assign a dramatic date somewhere in the
late 430s.
30. An audience of more than one is also clearly indicated at Phaedo 58d
and Protagoras 310a.
31. Socrates does make two very minor qualifications about his narrative
memory. He “thinks” it was Critias who spoke after Alcibiades (336e), and he
begins to ask questions “something like this” (338e), but these brief remarks do
not detract from his overall display of narrative prowess.
32. See Protagoras 317d, 317e, 320c, 333d, 333e, 334d, 335b, 337c, 338b,
338e, 339e, 340d, 348c.
33. Throughout the dialogues, Crito’s emotional allegiance to Socrates is
unrivaled by any other character. Indeed, aside from Socrates, Crito appears in
more dialogues than any other character. In the Apology, Crito offers to pay a
fine on Socrates’ behalf (38c). In the dialogue named after him, we learn that
Crito visits Socrates in prison each day, content to sit quietly by his side and
watch him sleep (43b). Crito attempts to arrange for his escape from prison
(Crito 45b). Crito attends to the details associated with Socrates’ last day and
death sentence (Phaedo 60b, 63d, 115b–118a). Socrates even directs his last
words to Crito, asking him to pay the debt he owes to Asclepius and not to for-
get it. Crito closes Socrates’ mouth and eyes the moment after he dies (Phaedo
118a). In this dialogue, Socrates’ ongoing discussion of his emotional state and
thought process suggests that the intimacy between them is reciprocal.
34. Despite this display of narrative confidence, Socrates does allude to
his inability to remember (Euthydemus 290e). On this point, Szlezák remarks:
“In order to highlight the importance of recognizing that mathematics is sub-
ordinate to dialectic, Plato interrupts the narrative of the dialogue and makes
Crito ask whether the young Clinias said such a clever thing (290e). . . . To our
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amazement Socrates is not willing to guarantee that it was Clinias; it might also
have been Ctesippus” (Szlezák, Reading Plato, 88).
35. The Phaedo ends with Echecrates making a summation (118a). The last
line of the Protagoras has elements of a summation: “Our conversation was over
so we left” (362a). However, there is no extended final conversation in the exter-
nal frame of any other dialogue.
36. Steven Dubner, “Calculating the Irrational in Economics,” New York
Times (online), June 28, 2003. See also Antonio Damasio, Descartes’ Error: Emo-
tion, Reason, and the Human Brain (New York: Avon Books, 1994).
37. See Robert Solomon, “The Joy of Philosophy: Thinking Thin Versus
the Passionate Life,” Review of Metaphysics 55 (2002): 876–78; and “Reasons for
Love,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 32 (2002): 115– 44; Robert Rob-
erts, The Schooled Heart (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Martha
Nussbaum, “Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions,” Graduate
Faculty Philosophy Journal 23 (2002): 235– 38; Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination
and Public Life (Boston: Beacon Hill, 1995); and Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philos-
ophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); Steven Toulmin,
Return to Reason (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); and Genevieve
Lloyd, Man of Reason: Male and Female in Western Philosophy (Minneapolis: Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press, 1984).
38. Despite the fact that she argues strongly for the affective dimension
of human experience throughout her now extensive corpus, Nussbaum’s view
of Socrates remains problematic. For a critique of her view of Socrates, see Mi-
chael Beaty and Anne-Marie Bowery, “Cultivating Christian Citizenship: Mar-
tha Nussbaum’s Socrates, Augustine’s Confessions, and the Modern University,”
Christian Scholar’s Review 31 (2003): 21– 52; and also Bruce S. Thornton, “Culti-
vating Sophistry,” Arion 6, no. 2 (1998): 180–204.
39. In what does the Socratic ideal consist? According to Nussbaum in Cul-
tivating Humanity, it
means a life that accepts no belief as authoritative simply because it has
been handed down by tradition or become familiar through habit, a life
that questions all beliefs and accepts only those that survive reason’s de-
mand for consistency and for justification. Training this capacity requires
developing the capacity to reason logically, to test what one reads or says
for consistency of reasoning, correctness of fact, and accuracy of judgment.
(Martha Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity [Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1997], 17–18)
40. This interpretation of Socrates is famously presented by Friedrich
Nietzsche. I mention only one example:
If one needs to make a tyrant of reason, as Socrates did, then there must
exist no little danger of something else playing the tyrant. Rationality was at
that time divined as a saviour; neither Socrates nor his “invalids” were free
to be rational or not, as they wished—it was de rigueur, it was their last expe-
dient. The fanaticism with which the whole of Greek thought throws itself at
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rationality betrays a state of emergency: one was in peril, one had only one
choice: either to perish or—be absurdly rational. . . . The moralism of the
Greek philosophers from Plato downwards is pathologically conditioned:
likewise their estimation of dialectics. Reason ⫽ virtue ⫽ happiness means
merely: one must imitate Socrates and counter the dark desires by produc-
ing a permanent daylight—the daylight of reason. One must be prudent,
clear, bright at any cost: every yielding to the instincts, to the unconscious,
leads downwards. (Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-
Christ, trans. R. J. Hollingdale [London: Penguin Books, 1990], 43)
41. There are also numerous references to wildness, anger, and agitation
throughout these dialogues. See Euthydemus 272e–273c, 294d, 295d– e; Republic
336b– c; Charmides 153b, 162c; Protagoras 310b, 314c, 333e.
42. Geier, Plato’s Erotic Thought, 74–75.
43. Burger, Plato’s Dialogues, 140n10.
44. See Charmides 169d.
45. Miller, Plato’s Parmenides, 6. The Eleatic Stranger offers an excellent
articulation of the positive dimensions of aporia: “Then we’ve now given a com-
plete statement of our confusion. But there’s now hope, precisely because both
that which is and that which is not are involved in equal confusion. That is, in
so far as one of them is clarified, either brightly or dimly, the other will be too.
And if we can’t see either of them, then anyway we’ll push our account of both
of them forward as well as we can” (Sophist 251a).
46. See also Protagoras 335b.
47. Howland, The Republic, 33–34, makes this point quite forcefully with
respect to the Republic.
48. In the Lysis, Socrates simply begins by reporting on his actions, rather
than his state of mind: “I was walking straight from the Academy to the Lyceum,
by the road which skirts the outside of the walls, and had reached the little
gate where is the source of the Panops, when I fell in with Hippothales, the son
of Hieronymus, Ctesippus the Paeanian, and some more young men, stand-
ing together in a group” (203a). He soon turns toward a reflection of his own
state of mind: “He answered only with a blush. So I added, Hippothales, son of
Hieronymus, there is no longer any need for you to tell me whether you are in
love or not, since I am sure you are not only in love, but pretty far gone in it
too by this time. For though in most matters I am a poor useless creature, yet
by some means or other I have received from heaven the gift of being able to
detect at a glance both a lover and a beloved” (204b).
49. See also Euthydemus 295e; Republic 329e and 357a.
50. See Gary Scott, Does Socrates Have a Method? Rethinking the Elenchus in Pla-
to’s Dialogues and Beyond (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
2002), 6.
51. Tom Brickhouse and Nicholas Smith, “The Socratic Elenchos?” in Scott,
Does Socrates Have a Method? 145– 57.
52. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. David Ross, rev. J. L. Ackrill and
J. O. Urmson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 35.
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53. Alexander Nehamas explains how such a seduction might well occur.
“For in the process of producing in us a disdain for Socrates’ interlocutors, the
dialogues turn us into characters just like them. In observing Euthyphro de-
ceive himself in Plato’s fiction, we deceive ourselves in our own life” (Alexander
Nehamas, The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault [Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998], 44). Nehamas’s distinction between Pla-
tonic and Socratic irony does not take into account the distinction between
Socrates the character and Socrates the narrator, but when this distinction is
taken into account, Platonic irony becomes even more complex.
54. Nehamas, Art of Living, 44.
5
Homeric Mevqodo~ in
Plato’s Socratic Dialogues
Bernard Freydberg
Does Socrates have a method? Does Plato have a method in the deploy-
ment of his “Socrates become beautiful and new”? 1 These are urgent
questions not only to those of us who are concerned about how the
names of these founders of our philosophical enterprise have become
misapplied, used in a context they clearly would have found appalling—
in training lawyers, for instance. “The Socratic method” has become a
cliché that refers to hard-hitting question-and-answer exchanges quite
apart from the concerns with truth and justice that animated Socrates.
Further, even the elenctic activity of Socrates comprised only one of
the ways he practiced philosophy, and often not the predominant one.
For example, the Republic, although it recounts a conversation in which
there occurred much question and answer, is a very long narration cul-
minating in a great myth. For another, the Theaetetus includes many long
speeches. Further, the Parmenides finds Socrates on the other end of the
exchanges. Surely not least, the Timaeus and the Sophist find Socrates
making significant remarks at the beginning, then falling silent.
Can any of these properly be called “methods” in the modern
sense of the word? In other words, does the very word “method” do vio-
lence to both the letter and the spirit of the dialogues? Indeed, Socrates
uses the word mevqodo~ on very few occasions and never, or perhaps only
obliquely, in reference to his own practice. ‘Elegco~ is never called a
mevqodo~. There are, however, many casual references: at Phaedrus 269d6–
8 Socrates says, “But insofar as there is an art of rhetoric, it does seems
apparent to me that the mevqodo~ for acquiring it is not to be found in
the manner that Lysias and Thrasymachus have pursued it.” The only
mevqodo~ by which the art of rhetoric can be genuinely acquired is that
by which one comes to know “the nature of the whole” (270c2), whereby
both the souls and the bodies of others would be known.2 This knowl-
edge is impressive indeed:
111
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BERNARD FREYDBERG
Isn’t this the way to think [dianoei`sqai] about the nature of anything?
First, it is necessary for us to consider whether the object regarding
which we would become experts [tecnikoi;] and capable of transmit-
ting our expertise is simple [aÔploun] or complex [polqeidev~]. Then,
if it is simple, we must investigate its power: What things does it have
what natural power of acting upon? By what things does it have what
natural disposition to be acted upon? If, on the other hand, it has
many forms [ei[dh], we must enumerate them all and, as we did in the
simple case, investigate how each is naturally able to act upon what
and how it has a natural disposition to be acted on by what. (Phaedrus
270c10– d7)
The Homeric citation beginning “suvn te duv’” (two together) will serve as
the paradigm for my treatment of the Plato-Homer philosophical rela-
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tion. The entire line declares, in the dialogues, that two going together
can see better than one alone. This “seeing together,” I will strive to
show, applies not only to the dialogical interplay between interlocutors;
it applies also to the mutually nurturing relation between philosophy
and poetry.
In the Iliad, the passage “suvn te duv’ ercomevnw, kaiv te pro; o} tou'
e;novhsen” (“when two go together, one perceives before the other”) oc-
curs in the context of the nocturnal deliberations of the demoralized
Achaians, who were beaten back by Hector and the Trojans on the previ-
ous day.6 Upon Nestor’s entreaty for someone to sneak into the camp of
the Trojans, either to capture one or to overhear their plans, “Diomedes
of the great war cry” volunteers at once, but adds:
In Homer, then, “two going together” shows forth two virtues si-
multaneously: greater courage (that is, greater comfort and confidence)
and greater insight. Interestingly, unlike ei\do~, which refers in Homer
only to outward appearance, nou'~ can suggest the perceived look of
something or can suggest the deliberating intellect.7 The warriors’ jour-
ney turns out to be successful: Diomedes and Odysseus capture the Tro-
jan Dolon who, after supplying a wealth of information out of fear for
his life, is beheaded. Socrates will, of course, adapt this traditional (and
brutal) image for its philosophical yield.
Symposium 174d2–3 reads: “Suvn te duv’, e[fh, ‘ejrcomevnw pro; ojdou’
bouleusovmeqa o{ti ejrou'men.” (“ ‘When two,’ he said, ‘going on the path
together, we can deliberate about what to say.’ ”)
Protagoras 348c7– 9 reads: “hJgou'mai ga;r pavnu levgein ti to;n ”Omhron
to;— suvn te duv’ ejrcomevnw, kai; te pro; o} ejnovhsen.” (“I think that Homer
said it all in the line—when two go together, one perceives before the
other.”)
In the Protagoras, the citation is an exact reproduction of book 10,
line 224, of the Iliad. The setting in the Protagoras in which the Homeric
passage occurs could not, it seems, be more different. The interplay be-
tween Socrates and Protagoras is tense. Protagoras neither wishes to be
the questioner nor the respondent in a question-and-answer exchange
on virtue with Socrates. Only when shamed by Alcibiades does he reluc-
tantly agree to be the respondent. Socrates declares his own confusion
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HOMERIC M ev q o do ~ IN PL ATO’S SOCR ATIC DIALOGUES
of e[rw~ as finite coheres with Aristophanes’ speech (as the latter was
quick to note; 212c5). And (3) the orientation of e[rw~ toward goodness
coheres with the speech of Agathon. The incorporation of the key ele-
ments of both poetic speeches in that of Socrates, together with the dis-
tancing of himself from the source of his inspiration just as do Homer,
Aristophanes, and Agathon, suggests that the two—poetry and philoso-
phy—go together and feed one another. One might say that the comic
traveling along the pathway by Aristodemus and Socrates that led to the
house of Agathon imaged the kindred and more fundamental “going
together” of philosophy and poetry that issued from the Symposium.
In one of the most telling but seldom cited passages in the Republic,
Socrates alludes significantly to the “underlying sense” (uJpovnoia) be-
longing to poetry, a deeper sense that will play a major role in the life
of the philosopher. This uJpovnoia respects the divine inspiration of the
poet praised so unconditionally by Socrates in the Ion. There, he affirms
that the poet in his “sane” state is quite ordinary, but under the sway of
divine madness has many true and useful things to convey to human-
kind.10 The censorship of the poets spoken of in the building of the “city
in speech” issues from precisely such “sanity,” precisely such calculation.
The inspired person, in fact, is banned from this city, however wonder-
ful his or her inspiration proved to be.11 Let us consider a discussion of
censorship and uJpovnoia in the Republic:
But Hera’s binding by her son, and Hephaestus’ being cast out by his
father who was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods Homer
made, must not be accepted in the city, whether they are made with an
underlying sense or without an underlying sense. A young thing can-
not judge what is an underlying sense and what is not. (378d3– 8) 12
The principle guiding the censorship of poetry in the city has only to do
with the shaping of the young souls of its guardians. As I have argued
elsewhere, this “principle” leads to features from the questionable to the
absurd.13
For one, the young guardians-in-training are selected for their ca-
pacity to be vicious to others yet gentle to their own, a paraphrase of
Polemarchus’ earlier refuted notion of justice as helping one’s friends
and harming one’s enemies. For another, these most spirited youths are
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to be fed poetic pabulum, and in the course of this feeding to have virtu-
ally every human emotion with any taint of darkness purged from their
souls.14 Finally, the good, for these guardians, is equated with the opin-
ion of the rulers of what is good for the city. On the way to securing this
opinion in their souls, they would have to be told many lies—including
the ultimate whopper known as the “noble lie,” from which they are sup-
posed to believe that this rigorous education was like a dream, when in
reality they were being fashioned under the earth.
However one interprets the Platonic city in speech, it is incontro-
vertible that the education of the guardians has little in common with
the education of the philosopher as the latter is imaged in the Republic.
So too will poetry play a vastly different role. Most convincingly, while
the guardians are educated to regard goodness as the opinion of what is
best for the city, for the philosopher the Good is far beyond the reach
of opinion, even (Socrates says) “beyond being.” In an equally incon-
trovertible manner, the first poetic line that occurs to the one who has
been liberated from the realm of the shadows of the cave and into the
light (516d5–7) is the very same first line banned first of all from the edu-
cation of the guardians—the famous Achilles in Hades passage, where
the dead hero says:
sense receives praise. For example, for the training of the guardians,
Socrates would ban Odyssey 10.444– 45:
Socrates calls this passage and others like it “neither true nor ben-
eficial to the men who are to be fighters” (386c7; emphasis mine). Since these
men are the ones to be reared so as to help friends and harm enemies,
to be inculcated with the opinion of what is best for the city and to
do battle fearlessly, any passage that would present death as miserable
would seem to harm this rearing. But even this view, according to which
the young souls are shaped entirely by the non-hyponoetic, literal mean-
ing of the poems they hear, and according to which their natural con-
cern with death could be completely excised along with the excising of a
few selected passages from Homer and other poets, presupposes a mal-
leability of the spirited human soul that is highly questionable at best.
Nevertheless, even granting this malleability and granting the ef-
ficacy as well as the (however remote) possibility of training soldiers by
means of such censorship, an affirmative philosophical use of this same
passage is found at the conclusion of another dialogue, the Meno. After
demonstrating to his obtuse interlocutor that there are no teachers of
virtue of the kind Meno supposed (since the wisest statesmen could not
pass their virtue on to their sons), Socrates concludes that virtue comes
from divine dispensation to the virtuous, but without their understand-
ing it. That is why there are no teachers nor will any be found “unless
there is someone among our statesmen who can make another into a
statesman. If there were one, he could be said to be among the living
what Tiresias was said to be among the dead, namely that ‘he alone re-
tained his intelligence while the others are flitting shadows.’ In the same
manner such a man would, as far as virtue is concerned, here also be the
only true thing compared with shadows” (100a1–7).
Here the philosophical uJpovnoia is exposed precisely through the
Homeric image. No longer at war, Odysseus has just left the house of
Circe after many swinelike years with her directions to an encounter
with the prophet Tiresias. After making the required sacrifices and
entering Hades, the encounter begins. Tiresias knows that Odysseus is
seeking his return to Ithaca and informs him that this journey will be
most difficult, will cost him all of his men, but that it can be accom-
plished if he takes certain precautions and adheres to them rigorously.
He must “contain his own spirit [qumov~]” (Odyssey 11.105) and that of his
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The suitor Antinoös has just struck the “vagabond” who he and his col-
leagues do not know is Odysseus, and the suitors scold Antinoös, since
the vagabond may turn out to be a god in disguise and so wreak ven-
geance upon them.
This passage would be expunged from the poetry intended for
the education of the young soldiers, because it is useful to the city for
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HOMERIC M ev q o do ~ IN PL ATO’S SOCR ATIC DIALOGUES
them to believe that the gods, as well as being always good, are constant
and always the same.16 But at the beginning of the Sophist Socrates uses
this same passage, where it functions both as his introductory, playful
challenge to Theodorus and to the Eleatic Stranger, and as his bridge
to the central philosophical issue that will drive the dialogue. When
Theodorus and the Stranger, who is “a companion of the people around
Parmenides and Zeno” (216a3), arrive for their appointment, Socrates
asks Theodorus whether he realizes that he has brought some god (tina
qeo;n): “Beside the other gods the god of strangers especially becomes
a companion to those men who participate in just reverence,” and he
“looks down on both outrages and lawful conduct” (216b1–2).
The ironic play consists of Socrates’ denigrating his own skill in
lovgo~ without having heard a word from the Stranger. Here the pre-
viously banned passage is readmitted as a philosophical provocation,
a stimulant to the activity of lovgo~ and the determination of its mea-
sure. Theodorus’ answer, that the Stranger is not a god (qeo;~) but god-
like (qei`o~) as all philosophers are, meets with Socrates’ approval. The
genuine uJpovnoia of the poetic image, however, is the matter of the self-
concealment of the true being of a human being, in this case the ap-
pearance of the philosopher and of the sophist in the city. In the case of
the philosopher in the city, his or her true being appears in three guises,
stated a bit differently on two early occasions: statesman, sophist, and
madman; statesman, sophist, and philosopher.
Thus, just as one must take great care not to abuse a god who
might be appearing in a transformed human shape lest one be the ob-
ject of divine retribution, one must also be most mindful if one wishes
to distinguish a genuine philosopher from one of the misleading ap-
pearances of philosophy in the city and in order to protect one’s soul
from bad rearing. Since “philosopher” is one of the appearances, but
there are also “artificial [plastw`~] . . . philosophers” (216c6) (just as
there are madmen who are entirely non-philosophical), the task of dis-
tinguishing “being” from “appearance” can be a daunting one.
This paper clearly does not call for an extended interpretation of
the Sophist. My opinion is that despite many epochal insights, many blind
alleys, and many suggestive pathways that deserve further exploration
on their own, the effort to distinguish the philosopher from the soph-
ist fails ultimately because the silence of Socrates after the dialogue’s
opening leaves the Stranger and young Theaetetus not as “two going
together” so that two minds are better than one, as the Homeric image
sings. Rather, the terms dictated by the Stranger—either an uninter-
rupted long speech or, best of all, a conversation with someone “unir-
ritating and compliant” (a;luvpw~ te kai; eujhnivw~), restrict the outcome
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to the limits of the Stranger’s vision. In light of the Homeric image, one
wonders: What sort of being is the Stranger an appearance of?
In all three cases treated in this section, the inspired Homeric im-
age is used to open up a philosophical vista, a vista that is explored in
questioning lovgo~.
They would have carried it out if they had come to their primes,
but the son of Zeus whom Leto with ordered hair had borne him,
Apollo, killed them both, before the down gathered
below their temples, or on their chins the beard had blossomed.
(11.317–20)
Many of us who have our home on Olympos endure things from men
when ourselves we inflict hard pain on each other. (Iliad 5.383– 84)
tryon. He struck [Hera] beside her right breast with a tri-barbed arrow,
so that the pain (a[lgo~) he gave her could not be quieted (5.393– 94).
He also struck [Hades] among the dead men at Pylos, and gave him to
agony (ojduvnh/sin) (5.397).
At Odyssey 17.566– 67, after commenting on the u{bri~ of the suitors,
his fear of their large numbers and of their hostility, Odysseus laments
the beating he endured from Antinoös, saying: 19
Socrates calls his great myth in the Phaedrus an ajpovdeixi~ that the clever
(deinoi`~) will not trust (a[pisto~), but that the wise (sofoi`~) will trust
(pisthv) (245c1–2; emphasis mine). ΔApovdeixi~ is usually translated
straightforwardly as “proof,” both in general and in translations of
Plato.20 However, as John Sallis has observed in a matter of highest im-
portance for the reading of Plato, “ΔApovdeixi~ means a showing forth, an
exhibiting of something about something, a making manifest of some-
thing so that it can be seen in its manifestness. Thus, for the Greeks a
proof was anything but a technique of a sort that could be employed in
almost total detachment from the content and that could serve as an
appropriate insight into the matter itself in its manifestness.” 21 In the
conclusion of this paper I will venture my own translation, inspired by
that of Sallis, and suggested by Plato’s use of Homeric imagery.
During the great myth, Socrates speaks of the charioteer’s bring-
ing the hubristic, unruly horse to order:
He violently yanks the bit back out of the teeth of the insolent
[uJbristou' horse, only harder this time, so that he bloodies its foul-
speaking tongue and jaws, sets its legs and haunches firmly on the
earth [pro;~ th;n gh`n] and gives it over to pain [ojduvnai~]. (Phaedrus
254e2– 5)
The literal poetic connection, clearly, is between u{bri~ and pain. The
pain inflicted by mortals upon immortals, and upon those mortals like
Odysseus who are under special divine guidance, has enormous punish-
ment or death to the perpetrator as its consequence.22 Plato’s use of this
allusion in the Phaedrus is of particular interest for several reasons. First
of all, the Platonic-Socratic mythical charioteer directing two horses,
one “beautiful and good and from stock of the same sort” (246b), while
the other is the opposite and has the opposite sort of bloodline (246b),
functions as an image of a human soul having many lives (an immor-
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HOMERIC M ev q o do ~ IN PL ATO’S SOCR ATIC DIALOGUES
Neither ajpodeivknu'mi nor its noun form, ajpovdeixi~, are Homeric words.
Both occur first of all in the classical age of Greece.23 Literally, ajpodei-
knu'mi means “show from.” Lexical definitions include “exhibit,” “point
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BERNARD FREYDBERG
Notes
Platonic writing; and (2) because it places the Socrates of the dialogues first of
all as a philosophical creation, rather than as primarily a historical personage.
The argument does not depend on its authenticity at all.
2. The Greek is “th`~ tou' o{lou fuvsew~”; Cobb has “the nature of the whole
in a general sense.” Both readings are possible, but the one I gave, which
more resembles Nehamas’ and Woodruff’s, seems more in accord with the
Platonic text.
3. Gorgias 463b4. Donald Zeyl translates tribhv as “routine,” but it seems
clear to me that Socrates intends the more biting meaning as primary.
4. The Cooper edition seems to prefer “way of inquiry,” which preserves the
oJdov~ but suggests more than one Greek word. It’s a difficult call. I’ve decided to
leave mevqodo~ untranslated.
5. Diomedes the Achaian and Glaukos the Trojan confront each other on
the battlefield, but discover that they were the very best of friends in childhood.
Enthralled by their accidental reunion, they exchange their armor as a sign of
their mutual delight (Iliad 6.119–233), “but Zeus stole away the wits of Glaukos /
whom exchanged with Diomedes the son of Tydeus armor / of gold for bronze,
for nine oxen’s worth the worth of a hundred” (6.234–36).
6. Iliad 10.224.
7. As I demonstrated in The Play of the Platonic Dialogues, ei\do~ always oc-
curs not merely as a visible quality but as belonging first and foremost to the
self-presentation of what shows itself. And what shows itself in the manner of eidos
in the Homeric epics is always a human being or a god. The only exception is
a trivial one, occurring in book 18 where Odysseus uses a derivative of ei\do~ to
describe Argos, Eumaios’ dog.
8. Aristophanic comedy presents many such leaps. The best known to
philosophers is in Clouds, which finds Socrates swinging in a basket from the
sky. Peace has its hero, the farmer Trugaios, ascend to Mount Olympos on a
dung beetle. Birds has its “heroes” Euelpides and Peistetairos build a city called
Nefelokokkugivan (“Cloudcuckooland” in Jeffrey Henderson’s translation) and
also has them grow wings. But Aristophanes’ comedies are inspired and rich,
unlike Agathon’s encomium to e[rw~.
9. See the Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony
Spawforth (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 919, 1119.
10. See especially Ion 533c9– 535a2, and in particular 533c7– d4: “That is
why the god takes [the poets’] intellect [nou'~] away from them when he uses
them as his servants, as he does prophets and holy diviners, so that we who hear
should know that they are not the ones who speak those verses that are of such
high value, for their intellect is not in them.”
11. Before such a gifted person, Socrates says, we would fall on our knees,
but “we would say that there is no such man among us in our city, nor is it lawful
for such a man to be born there” (!) (Republic 368a5– 6).
12. I translate the uJpov- as “underlying” because it suggests that the genuine
sense of Homeric poetry in Plato, as will be shown, is its underlying or “deeper”
sense.
13. In “Mythos and Logos in Platonic Politeiai,” in History of European Ideas
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BERNARD FREYDBERG
16, nos. 4– 6: 607–12, I attempt to show that the excision of the exploits of epic
heroes would both alienate the souls of the young who need to be educated
and would also “carve whole pieces out of the Greek soul” (608). This matter
is treated more generally in chapter 7 of The Play of the Platonic Dialogues (New
York: Peter Lang, 1997).
14. Among the passions and emotions to be purged are the following: (1)
strife (among the gods and elsewhere; Republic 378b8ff.); (2) violation of oaths
(379e2–3); (3) causing evil (380a2– 4); (4) lying (382a1ff., 389b2ff.); (5) fear of
death (386a7ff.); (6) crying and lamenting (in general, and for lost loved ones;
387d4ff.); (7) and laughing (388e5ff.). There are many others, including—al-
beit obliquely—e[rw~! (396d2).
15. In chapter 3 of The Play of the Platonic Dialogues, I attempt to show that
there is never any claim in any of the dialogues that an original, an ei\do~, has
been noetically sighted, despite the many gestures in that direction that the
text makes. Rather, every time it appears that such an ascent to such a sighting
might occur, Socrates either breaks off the discourse, either with some words
of disclaimer (for example, “as it seems to me,” or “a god knows if it happens to
be so”) or else with a remark on the need for a longer path, another method, a
more well-prepared interlocutor. I interpret these dodges as playful in the high-
est sense, that is, as reminding us of what we cannot see in order that we hold
ourselves within the limits of what we can.
16. Book 2 of the Republic, 380d1ff.
17. The Homeric images I treat in this section were all gleaned from sug-
gestions in Cooper’s notes.
18. I have not been able to determine why there are three different myths
of the lineage of Otos and Ephialtes. All three have their hubristic challenge to
the gods as their theme, but I have not been able to discover, either in the litera-
ture or through my own study, why Poseidon, Apollo, and Zeus are called their
father in three different contexts. I would welcome any insight on this matter.
19. See note 15 above.
20. Regarding the Phaedrus in particular, this is the translation of Ne-
hamas and Woodruff in the Cooper volume. Helmbold and Rabinowitz also
have “proof,” as do Hackforth (in the Hamilton and Cairns volume) and Jowett.
There are exceptions, but while they are better, they are not particularly ex-
pansive. On page 50 of her Plato’s Phaedrus: A Defense of Philosophical Writing
(Birmingham: University of Alabama Press, 1980), Burger renders it as the less
loaded “demonstration,” as does Cobb in The Symposium and the Phaedrus: Plato’s
Erotic Dialogues (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993).
21. John Sallis, Being and Logos: Reading the Platonic Dialogues, 3rd ed.
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 135–36.
22. “Enormous punishment”; for example, Diomedes’ wounding by “limp
spearman” Paris after his earlier attack on Aphrodite. Once Odysseus removed
Paris’ arrow from Diomedes’ foot, the latter experienced “hard pain” and had
his charioteer “drive him back to the hollow ships, since his heart was heavy”
(Iliad 11.368– 400).
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HOMERIC M ev q o do ~ IN PL ATO’S SOCR ATIC DIALOGUES
Of Psychic Maieutics
and Dialogical Bondage
in Plato’s Theaetetus
Benjamin J. Grazzini
130
131
OF PSYCHIC MAIEUTICS AND DIALOGIC AL BONDAGE IN PL ATO’S
THEAETETUS
ist and Statesman toward the Apology, and concerns the relationship be-
tween the image of Socrates, psychic maieute, and his trial. I will only be
able to gesture toward how the issues that arise in the Theaetetus inform
the latter. My aim here is to show how it makes sense, in this particular
conversation, for the image of Socrates as a midwife of the soul to be
at issue. To that end, I will follow as closely as possible the implications
of how psychic maieutics appears in the Theaetetus, the extent to which
Socrates’ account of psychic maieutics appears to be at odds with itself,
and how psychic maieutics relates to the conversation it makes possible.
Throughout, I will be primarily concerned with the tension between
the apparent familiarity of Socrates, psychic maieute, and the extent to
which that familiarity is called into question by the Theaetetus.3
* * *
Perhaps the most striking thing about Socrates’ account of psychic ma-
ieutics is how familiar it appears. Socrates introduces psychic maieu-
tics in order to explain certain things that Theaetetus has heard about
Socrates, namely, that Socrates is “very strange” and makes people per-
plexed (149a8–10). These facts are not disputed, only that those who
assert them know why Socrates is so strange. That is, Socrates does not
offer to correct a misunderstanding, but to explain the cause or rea-
son (aition; 149b2) for an apparently common understanding. Indeed,
Socrates later affirms that those who say that he questions others but gives
no answers of his own because he has no wisdom speak truly (150c4–7).
Throughout his conversation with Theaetetus and Theodorus, Socrates
denies that he has any wisdom of his own, that he is contributing any-
thing to the conversation other than helping to bring to light and test
Theaetetus’ offspring, and that he has any more than the little knowl-
edge needed to “take a speech” (161b4) from another.4 This denial of
wisdom is perhaps the most recognizable aspect of Socrates’ character,
calling to mind the “human wisdom” Socrates admits in the Apology,
namely, that he does not think that he knows when he does not know.5
Another familiar aspect of Socrates’ account of psychic maieutics
is that Socrates denies that his interlocutors learn anything from him.
Rather, “they have found many beautiful things within themselves, and
given birth to them” (150d6– 8). As in the Apology, on this basis Socrates
denies responsibility for the subsequent actions of his patients. Some
leave too soon, either because they think that they are the cause of their
success, or because they are persuaded by others (150e1– 4). And it is
not Socrates, but his daimon, that determines which of those who want
to return to Socrates are allowed to do so. The link between Socrates’
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BENJAMIN J. GR AZZINI
denial of being a teacher and his denial of being responsible for the
subsequent actions of his associates closely echoes Apology 33b3– 6: “And
whether one of these becomes an upright man or not, I would not be
justly held responsible, since I have never promised or taught any in-
struction to any of them.” 6
The emphasis on his interlocutors bringing forth from within
themselves also seems to invoke the notion of recollection as it is devel-
oped in the Meno and Phaedo: that learning is a matter of recollecting
knowledge attained by the soul prior to a human being’s birth. Here,
too, Socrates’ patients are said not to gain knowledge from him, but—if
at all—from their own experience of conceiving and giving birth to
psychic offspring.7 The other point I want to highlight is what Socrates
marks out as “the greatest part” of his art of psychic maieutics: his capac-
ity to test the psychic offspring of others and distinguish between the
true and the false, between fruitful offspring and images (150b9– c3).
Although Socrates does not tell Theaetetus just how this testing is ac-
complished, the invocation of the elenchus, the process of examina-
tion and refutation by questioning that is the hallmark of “Socratic”
method, seems unmistakable.8 That is, the picture of Socrates, psychic
maieute, is a picture of Socrates as one who claims no wisdom of his own
and who spends his time talking with others, questioning them and try-
ing to show them where their opinions are at odds with one another.
This is the Socrates who claims to have devoted his life to this prac-
tice in the service of the god, and who is occasionally prevented from
certain actions by a daimon. It may even be the Socrates who claims
that learning is really a matter of recollecting knowledge grasped by the
soul prior to birth. In short, this is the Socrates we have all heard about
since the time we were children (or at least undergraduates). Socrates,
psychic maieute, appears to be as familiar to us as those facts psychic
maieutics is supposed to explain are to Theaetetus. As R. G. Wengert
puts it: “Everyone is familiar with the image of Socrates as a spiritual
midwife.” 9
It is all the more puzzling, then, that upon further reflection the
picture of Socrates that emerges from his account of psychic maieutics
becomes less and less familiar. In the first place, it is Plato’s Socrates who
is so easily recognized therein. I do not emphasize this point in order
to enter into speculation about what in Plato’s texts can be marked out
as historically “Socratic” and what “Platonic.” It is not clear what would
count as criteria for such a distinction—but even if there were grounds
for making it, Socrates, psychic maieute, is evidently a piece of Platonic
fiction. Some have suggested that a reference to the miscarriage of an
idea in Aristophanes’ Clouds (137) supports the claim that the image of
midwifery was historically associated with Socrates, but as Myles Burn-
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yeat has argued, there is no reason to think that this is the case. “It
must, then, be the power of the image, its striking one as so absolutely
the ‘right’ representation of what Socrates does, that blinds people to
Plato’s explicit sign-posting” to the contrary.10 Again, it is primarily on
the basis of the Platonic corpus that the image of Socrates as a midwife
of the soul appears so familiar to us. I emphasize the ease with which
Socrates is recognizable in that image because it seems that in the The-
aetetus Plato deliberately engages with a caricature of Socrates.11
Although I focus almost exclusively on the Theaetetus in this essay,
it is worth keeping in mind that in the Sophist and Statesman, too—which
along with the Theaetetus constitute a sort of trilogy—Plato can be seen
to draw on a picture of Socrates that Plato himself helped to create.12 I
refer to the Eleatic Stranger’s definition of the noble-born sophist (Soph-
ist 230b4–231b8), and his discussion of how the city cannot tolerate any
transgression of its laws (Statesman 297d3– e6; 299b2–300c3).13 The for-
mer reads like an entry on Socrates in an encyclopedia of philosophy,
and the latter like a summary of Socrates’ trial and execution. I can-
not fully defend this claim here, but arguably the trilogy as a whole is
informed by a concern both with the way in which Socrates appears to
others and with the problem of accounting for knowledge in the face
of conflicting appearances. Insofar as the trilogy is dramatically set on
the day of and the day following Socrates’ indictment, those concerns
take shape in light of Socrates’ trial and death.14 That is, it seems that
these images of Socrates both allow Plato to show how easy it is for the
Athenians to recognize Socrates in the charges brought against him,
and how the more explicitly epistemological and ontological problems
at stake in these dialogues are intimately related to the more explicitly
political problems surrounding them.15
* * *
ried. It is not clear, however, why Socrates needs to keep Theaetetus talk-
ing, nor why he offers the account of psychic maieutics in order to do
so. As Scott Hemmenway puts it: “In its particular place in the dialogue
. . . the very richness of the description seems at first sight to be incom-
mensurate with the immediate needs of the conversation.” 17
Or rather, there are reasons for Socrates to keep Theaetetus in-
volved in the conversation, and for Socrates to be concerned with his
ability to account for himself. The problem is that those reasons appear
to be at odds with the principles of psychic maieutics. At the beginning
of the dialogue, Eucleides notes that the conversation he has recorded
took place “a little before” (142c6) Socrates’ death. At the end of the
dialogue, Socrates says that he must go to be indicted on the charges
brought against him by Meletus (210d1–3). In this light, it is no surprise
that Socrates is concerned with how he appears to others. It seems that
the discrepancy between Socrates’ self-understanding and the Athe-
nians’ understanding of him brings Socrates to trial and ultimately con-
victs him. Recall the “first charges” recounted by Socrates in the Apology:
“There is a certain Socrates, a wise man, a thinker on the things aloft,
who has investigated all the things under the earth, and who makes the
weaker argument the stronger.” 18 Thus, it also makes sense that Socrates
would be concerned with the issue of knowledge on this of all days.
For, presumably, if he can account for knowledge, for the possibility of
knowledge in the face of conflicting appearances, then he would be in
a better position to account for himself before the jury—or at least to
understand why he is bound to be condemned.19
It is also odd that, although Socrates’ account of psychic maieutics
appears to be offered with an eye toward his upcoming trial, he insists
that Theaetetus “not tell on [him] to the others” (149a6–7), that is, to
keep this explanation of Socratic philosophizing a secret. Why, if this is
supposed to be a genuine account of what Socrates does and why, should
it be kept secret? This aspect of the account of psychic maieutics also ap-
pears less than familiar in light of Socrates’ claim in the Apology that if
someone says that “he has ever learned from me or heard privately any-
thing that everyone else did not, know well that he does not speak the
truth” (33b6– 8). Socrates does not tell anyone else about his career as
a psychic maieute, and he asks Theaetetus not to tell anyone else; the ac-
count of psychic maieutics is something that is not heard by everyone.
What is more, these are Socrates’ concerns, not Theaetetus’. One
of the essential features of midwifery is that midwives are those who
are past the age of childbearing. Midwives must once have been fertile,
insofar as their ability to serve as midwives depends on that experience,
“human nature being too weak to acquire art with respect to things of
which it has no experience” (149c1–2). Yet midwives cannot at the same
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time bear children of their own, because their care for their own would
interfere with their care for others. Thus, it seems that serious concerns
underlie Socrates’ apparently playful interest in seeing himself reflected
in the less than handsome face of Theaetetus.20 Insofar as this is the
motivation for Socrates’ account, however, it seems to run counter to the
principles of psychic maieutics.
Yet it is not simply the case that the action and context of the
dialogue contradict the account of psychic maieutics. Socrates’ initial
response to Theodorus’ enthusiastic description of Theaetetus, and
his initial attitude toward Theaetetus, set up and deepen the image of
midwifery. After Theodorus speaks so highly of Theaetetus, Socrates’
first question is: “Which of the citizens is his father?” (144b7). Socrates
begins his conversation with Theaetetus by asking about the sorts of
things the boy is learning from Theodorus. And after Theaetetus has
come out with “it appears that knowledge is nothing other than per-
ception,” Socrates suggests that Protagoras used to say the same thing,
only differently, when he said that a human being is the measure of all
things. “You’ve read that?” Socrates asks Theaetetus. “Yes, many times”
(152a4– 5). At least initially, then, Socrates’ concern for the boy takes
the form of an interest in his social and intellectual background. Or, to
stay with the language of conception and birth, Socrates wants to know
about Theaetetus’ parentage.
The issue of parentage runs throughout the discussion of The-
aetetus’ “knowledge is perception” and Protagoras’ “a human being
is the measure of all things.” In part, this follows from the account of
psychic maieutics. As Socrates is concerned with Theaetetus’ offspring,
he is also concerned with Theaetetus as the offspring of various teach-
ers and experiences. This also leads to the language of orphaned logoi,
which appears when Socrates asks Theodorus to take responsibility for
the Protagorean hypothesis—Protagoras himself being dead and un-
able to defend his offspring.21 To be sure, there is quite a bit of play in
these passages, but there also seems to be something very serious at
stake in the way in which psychic maieutics is bound up with concerns
about how the present bears the weight of the past.
In the first place, allowing that Socrates’ art of psychic maieutics
proceeds on the basis of some knowledge of or familiarity with its pa-
tients makes much more sense than thinking that Socrates knows in ad-
vance which patients will need to undergo a more or less painful labor,
which “drugs and incantations” (149c9– d1) to use, and so on.22 Perhaps
more significantly, however, there is a connection between this aspect
of psychic maieutics and the concerns Socrates brings with him to this
conversation. The charges to which Socrates responds in the Apology—
both the “first charges” and the charges of Meletus’ indictment—can
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BENJAMIN J. GR AZZINI
* * *
THEAETETUS
* * *
THEAETETUS
for himself (even if this does not mean pursuing philosophy) takes pre-
cedence. But this indication comes only after the conversation. When
Theaetetus first hears about psychic maieutics, it is not clear where his
responsibilities lie.
The dialogical bond is articulated along three axes: Socrates, the
inquiry, and Theaetetus.32 Socrates, too, is thus bound. As we have seen,
Socrates brings to bear on this conversation certain issues concerning
his indictment and trial, namely his ability to account for himself, and
his ability to account for the discrepancy between the various ways in
which he might appear to himself and others. When those issues were
first brought to light, it was not clear how to understand the apparent
tension between the extent to which Socrates is bound to his personal
concerns, and the extent to which the terms of the conversation en-
tail that those concerns must be set aside for the sake of Theaetetus’
pregnancy.
Insofar as these two sets of concerns cannot be separated, how-
ever, it seems that they must in some way be commensurate with one
another. As indicated earlier, I take it that the significance of emphasiz-
ing the physical resemblance between Socrates and Theaetetus is that
on this, of all days, Socrates needs to be concerned with how he appears
to others.33 And the possibility of accounting for how there can be con-
flicting appearances of what would seem to be one and the same is at the
heart of the problem of knowledge as it is addressed in the Theaetetus.
The destruction of the hypothesis that a human being is the measure
of all things shows how it cannot be the case that whatever someone
might say about Socrates is simply the truth of Socrates. It also shows
that whatever Socrates might say about himself cannot be the end of
the story either. Similarly, this issue can be seen to underlie Socrates’
worry about the possibility of accounting for false opinion. For, if he
cannot say how false opinion is possible, how could he say that Meletus,
or the jury, is wrong to think that he corrupts the young and is guilty of
impiety? Socrates’ concern for Theaetetus and Theaetetus’ offspring is
at the same time (though in a different respect) a concern for his own
situation. And insofar as Socrates’ primary concern seems to be with
how he appears to others, he cannot address that problem except by tak-
ing it up through an engagement with others. Socrates needs to look at
Theaetetus in order to see what he himself looks like. Socrates is bound
to himself through Theaetetus, and the conversation they share. This,
however, is only to say that the connection between Socrates’ desire for
self-knowledge and Theaetetus’ effort to say what knowledge itself is
cannot be ruled out in advance. If the two concerns are incommensu-
rable, this cannot be determined in advance, but only on the basis of
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what Socrates and Theaetetus actually say and do. Just as there is no way
to rule out the possibility of Socrates learning about himself by serving
as psychic maieute, there is no way to guarantee that the relationship will
not become abusive.
This point seems to be acknowledged at least twice in the text.
The first is the speech Socrates makes in the voice of, and on behalf
of, Protagoras (165e8–168b5). Socrates here brings against himself two
charges. Insofar as Socrates seems to have been arguing against a carica-
ture of the Protagorean position, he has not done justice to the Protago-
rean hypothesis. “Whenever you examine something of mine through
questioning, if, answering as I would answer, the one being questioned
falls, then I am refuted—but if he answers otherwise, the one being
questioned is himself refuted” (166a8–b1). And insofar as Socrates ap-
pears to have taken advantage of Theaetetus’ youth and impressionable
character in order to frighten the boy into agreeing with him, Socrates
accuses himself of corrupting this youth (166a2– 6).34
The other moment that is crucial in this respect, and indeed, de-
cisive for the conversation as a whole, is when Socrates defers the dis-
cussion of Parmenides that should have followed the discussion of the
Protagorean-Heraclitean position (183b7–184b1). Two aspects of this
moment are particularly significant. On the one hand, it is an indication
of how Theaetetus understands the relationship to which he is bound.
Theaetetus challenges Theodorus and Socrates to follow through on
their proposal to examine first “the flowing ones,” that is, those who
say that everything is in motion, and then “the partisans of the whole,”
that is, the Eleatics (181a4–b1).35 He thus appears to place more weight
on the bond between the interlocutors and their shared inquiry than
on the bond among the interlocutors themselves. Socrates defers this
responsibility, however, because he is afraid that he will not understand
what Parmenides said, let alone meant, and because to take seriously
the words of old father Parmenides would “take so long as to do away
with the discussion of knowledge” (184a8– 9). For the sake of Theaete-
tus and Theaetetus’ pregnancy, then, Socrates puts aside the issues that
have been rising up like a flood since they broached the question of
knowledge—issues of motion and rest, the political issues surrounding
Socrates’ trial, and his relationship to the philosophical tradition he
inherits.
Socrates, no less than Theaetetus, is bound to the task of saying
what knowledge itself is. In the first place, if Socrates is to make good
on his account of psychic maieutics, he must see Theaetetus’ pregnancy
and birth through to the end. And if Socrates is to learn anything
about himself by looking at Theaetetus, he is bound to their shared
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THEAETETUS
above, Socrates’ concern for Theaetetus and his interest in pursuing his
own self-knowledge need not be at odds with one another. And insofar
as Socrates gives more consideration to Theaetetus at crucial moments
in the conversation, it seems that in this case he does make good on the
promise of psychic maieutics. The more significant point, I take it, is
that there is no way to guarantee this. Socrates’ practice of psychic ma-
ieutics can only be defended on the basis of what he actually does in this
conversation with Theaetetus. Socrates’ twin denials of being a teacher
and being responsible entail an ambiguity inherent in his character. On
his own terms, Socrates cannot say in advance how dialogical bondage
will play out in a given situation, that is, whether he will appear to be a
virtuous midwife, or guilty of malpractice.38 If Socrates insists that he is
not responsible for his patients, he opens himself to the charge of being
a tyrant. If Socrates accepts responsibility, then he opens himself to the
charge of reneging on his obligations. This follows from the account of
psychic maieutics, as well as from the indication Socrates gives at the
end of the dialogue of what he might be able to provide his patients.
If Theaetetus conceives again, he will conceive better things in virtue
of what he has experienced with Socrates, and if he does not, at least
he will be less harsh with his associates, and not suppose that he knows
that which he does not. This much, and nothing more, Socrates’ art of
psychic maieutics can do (210b11– c5). Socrates has no exchange-value,
nor can he force his interlocutors to take him seriously. That is, it seems
that there is no way to say in advance whether Socrates will appear to be
a philosopher, a sophist, or a tyrant—or simply foolish.
* * *
But, my friend, it is not clear if we are running past what is right. For
it is likely that he, being older, is wiser than us. And if, for example,
he were to pop up right here, just up to the neck, after charging me
with saying a lot of nonsense and you with agreeing with me, he would,
as is likely, slip down and run off. But I suppose it is necessary for us
to make do ourselves, such as we are, and always say what we believe.
(171c10– d5)
That is, if there were some other standard to which they could appeal,
Socrates, Theaetetus, and Theodorus might be better able to say what
knowledge is—but there is no other standard. They show how it can-
not be simply the case that a human being is the measure of all things.
On the Protagorean hypothesis, the self-identity of beings is dissolved
in the flow of coming-to-be and passing-away. There is no thing that
subsists about which we could speak, nor anything we could say about it.
The flowing ones have, “according to their own hypothesis, no words”
(183b3– 4). When we say that a human being is the measure of all things,
we render ourselves unable to say anything at all.
Socrates and Theaetetus also show how it cannot be simply the
case that things have their own measures, to which knowledge must cor-
respond. To adequately address this issue would take so long as to do
away with the present discussion, but I take this to be the hypothesis un-
derlying the discussions of right opinion and right opinion with logos. In
both discussions, things are taken as being what they are independent
of their being known, and knowledge as right opinion (as opposed to
false opinion) would correspond to the correct belief or judgment about
those things.39 Now, the fact that I opine or judge that such and such
is the case cannot determine the truth or falsity of my opinion.40 Some
other standard must be brought to bear on my opinions. Knowledge is
supposed throughout these sections of the Theaetetus to be that which
would bridge the gap between this indeterminacy of opinion and the
world. But insofar as knowledge itself is being treated in terms of opin-
ion, that gap can never be closed. And this, I take it, is why Socrates and
Theaetetus are unable within this framework to say how false opinion is
impossible. For if there is no way to say how my opinions relate to that
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which they are opinions of, that is, no way to test them, then there is
no way to know that I am right. This has the striking consequence that
I also cannot ever be wrong—but this is just to say that knowledge is
impossible.
Thus Socrates, Theodorus, and Theaetetus must come to an agree-
ment among themselves, such as they are. Dialogical bondage seems to
allow for an alternative to the two failed hypotheses explicitly treated in
the Theaetetus. It also allows for a dialectical or dialogical understanding
of measure. Recall Socrates’ interest in Theaetetus’ heritage. It is on the
basis of what he learns about Theaetetus through their conversation that
Socrates can serve as the measure of Theaetetus’ labor. The measure,
then, is neither simply in Theaetetus, nor simply in Socrates—both are
measured against their shared attempt to say what knowledge is, and it is
the determinacy that emerges from the dynamic of dialogical bondage
that allows Theaetetus’ offspring to be tested.41 This does not, however,
do away with the contingency or vulnerability of that agreement. In fact,
it has the crucial consequence that Socrates will not be able to define
himself or his practices in such a way as to eliminate the possibility of
conflicting appearances.
I have said that with the account of psychic maieutics Plato can
be seen to engage with a caricature of Socrates. That caricature allows
for a critical engagement with Socrates’ practice of philosophy (and
philosophical practice more generally). Plato thus sets in motion two
distinct—though not unrelated—series of questions. On the one hand,
insofar as Socrates, psychic maieute, must assume the status of the mea-
sure of the soul and its conceptions, that caricature lays the ground for
the basic question underlying the ensuing conversation: How can we
attain and account for measured knowledge? It seems that the maieutic
relationship, understood in terms of what I have called dialogical bond-
age, provides an alternative to the assumption that the measure must lie
either in the knower or in the known. But insofar as it follows from this
that knowledge is a matter of a reciprocal relationship of measuring and
being measured among those who participate in dialogue, this means
knowledge is not something to be attained once and for all.
On the other hand, insofar as Socrates is so easily recognized in
that caricature, it begins to make clear how easily the Athenians could
recognize Socrates in the charges brought against him. Indeed, insofar
as one of the consequences of the Theaetetus is that Socrates cannot de-
fine himself or his practices in advance so as to distinguish himself from
that public image, it becomes unclear how Socrates could account for
himself so as to refute the charges brought against him. The distinction
between Socrates as one who cares for the youth of the city and Socrates
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BENJAMIN J. GR AZZINI
as one who corrupts the youth of the city will not be a matter of method,
but a matter of how particular relationships play out and are understood
in light of their consequences.42
Notes
1. See Theaetetus, 147c7– d2, 148b6– c1, and 148e1– 6. Unless otherwise
noted, all translations are my own, following Plato, Platonis Opera, vol. 1, ed.
E. A. Duke, W. F. Hicken, et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
2. I use the language of psychic maieutics and its derivatives (for example,
“psychic maieute” in reference to Socrates) throughout. “Maieute” is not one of
Plato’s words, but is the most straightforward English name for a practitioner
of the maieutike technē. While I acknowledge the risk of obscurity, this is not a
stubborn insistence on an idiosyncratic vocabulary. Insofar as one of the main
themes of this essay is that it is the differences between Socrates’ description of
his mother’s art of midwifery and his own art of psychic maieutics that implicitly
call into question the image of Socrates as a midwife of the soul, it is neces-
sary to avoid conflating those differences by using the language of midwifery
equivocally. Moreover, given the problematic status of Socrates’ claims to and
simultaneous denials of knowledge, the somewhat suspect connotations that
come with attaching the word “psychic” to any activity in contemporary (Ameri-
can) English idiom works in our favor as critical readers of Plato’s texts.
3. I am by no means the first to take a more critical stance toward the
issue of psychic maieutics. See, for example, Seth Benardete, The Being of the
Beautiful (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984); and “Plato’s Theaetetus:
On the Way of the Logos,” Review of Metaphysics 51, no. 1 (1997): 25– 53; and
Joan C. Harrison, “Plato’s Prologue: Theaetetus 142a–143c,” Tulane Studies in Phi-
losophy 27 (1978): 103–23. For a different response to the question of what Plato
is doing in engaging this caricature of Socrates, see David Sedley, The Midwife
of Platonism: Text and Subtext in Plato’s Theaetetus (Oxford: Clarendon, 2004). As
his title indicates, Sedley reads the Theaetetus as Plato’s account of how Socrates
made Plato’s own conceptions possible, and helped bring them to light.
4. Theaetetus 150d6– 8, 157c7– d2, 161a7–b6.
5. Apology 20d8, 21b1– e1. I take the fact that I could as well appeal to the so-
called early or Socratic dialogues, or indeed almost any member of the Platonic
corpus, to strengthen the sense of familiarity about the picture of Socrates,
psychic maieute.
6. Translations of the Apology are from Plato and Aristophanes, Four Texts
on Socrates, trans. Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West (Ithaca: Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 1984). For an extended analysis of this passage and Socrates’ re-
lationship with the paid professional teachers of his time, see Gary Alan Scott,
Plato’s Socrates as Educator (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000),
13– 49.
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you’ (479 f.), and ‘snapping up’ a problem (489 f.), are not known in the fourth
century Socratic tradition.”
The problem is that Burnyeat appeals to the power of the image in or-
der to argue against the association of psychic maieutics with the historical
Socrates. The concern with the distinction between Plato and the historical
Socrates seems to blind Burnyeat to the distinction between Plato and his char-
acters. While Burnyeat limits the image of psychic maieutics to the Theaetetus,
he goes on to claim that that image “signals a return to the aporetic style of
those early dialogues and to the Socratic method which is the substance of
that style” (55)—although he sees that “return” as being qualified by the ten-
tative or “more modest” (57) epistemological stance of the Theaetetus vis-à-vis
the Meno. It is the all-too-easy acceptance of psychic maieutics as a generalized
method that I find most problematic. The singularity—emphasized by Burnyeat
himself—of psychic maieutics seems to me to indicate that we cannot even take
psychic maieutics as obviously Platonic, let alone as a Platonic appropriation of
Socrates, without qualification.
11. See Rachel Rue, “The Philosopher in Flight: The Digression (172c–
177c) in Plato’s Theaetetus,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 11 (1993): 71–100.
Rue’s insightful article shows how the “philosopher” of the digression is also
a caricature of Socrates, or of the image of the philosopher more generally.
More significantly, she articulates how Plato uses that caricature to criticize
“a general tendency in philosophy—especially Platonic philosophy—to look to
essences and eternal truth, to flee distraction by the senses and the accidental
features of particular things and events” (91).
12. See A. A. Long, “Plato’s Apologies and Socrates in the Theaetetus,” in
Method in Ancient Philosophy, ed. Jyl Gentzler (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), 113–36.
While I agree with Long that there is a sense in which Plato “never stops rewrit-
ing the Apology” (119), I do not agree that the transition from the Theaetetus to
the Sophist marks a turning point for Plato away from a more “Socratic” to a more
“scientific” mode of philosophizing (let alone to what Long calls an “unambigu-
ously elitist” philosophy, “separate from practical life” [132]). Plato’s critical
engagement with the practice of philosophy appears consistent throughout his
writings, whether the figure of Socrates plays a primary role therein or not.
13. One might also compare the remark in Plato’s Second Letter about the
dialogues being the work of “a Socrates made young and beautiful” (314c).
14. Theaetetus 210d2– 5; Sophist 216a1–2; Statesman 257a1–2.
15. This political dimension of the Theaetetus, along with the Sophist and
Statesman, though still largely underexplored, has been taken up in terms of
a “philosophical trial” preceding Socrates’ trial before the jury court. See, for
example, Mitchell H. Miller, The Philosopher in Plato’s Statesman (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1980); Stanley Rosen, Plato’s Sophist: The Drama of Original and
Image (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983); and Plato’s Statesman: The Web
of Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995); and Benardete, Being of the
Beautiful.
16. Wengert, “Paradox of the Midwife,” offers the following statistics: The
word “midwife” (he maia) and cognates appear twenty-six times in the Platonic
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corpus. Of those, only two do not occur in the Theaetetus, and neither of those
(Cratylus 421a5 and Statesman 268b1) is concerned with Socrates’ practice of
philosophy. In addition, all but six of the twenty-four occurrences of the lan-
guage of midwifery in the Theaetetus are found in the three Stephanus pages
comprising Socrates’ initial account of his art of psychic maieutics. See also
Leonard Brandwood, A Word Index to Plato (Leeds: W. S. Maney, 1976).
17. Hemmenway, “Philosophical Apology,” 326.
18. Apology 18b7– c1.
19. In light of Socrates’ remarks in the Apology (for example, 31d–32a, 37b)
about the impossibility of teaching a multitude in a short time, and of a mul-
titude as such becoming philosophic—though not only in that light—there is
something a little odd about thinking that a philosophical account of knowl-
edge would really be much help in the courtroom.
20. Theaetetus 144d8– e1.
21. Theaetetus 164e2–165a3. Theodorus (who at 145b10– c2 is said not to be
the sort of man to joke around) refuses to take responsibility for Protagoras’
orphaned logos, saying that Callias the son of Hipponicus has already been ap-
pointed guardian of Protagoras’ children. See also Phaedrus 275e4– 6.
22. The issue of the knowledge implied or assumed by Socrates’ account of
psychic maieutics will be dealt with in more detail below.
23. Apology 20e6–21a9. The hesitation with which Socrates says that he un-
dertook his examination of the oracle’s pronouncement seems to be echoed by
the language of force and necessity in Socrates’ account of psychic maieutics,
for example, 150c7– 8: “The god compels me to practice maieutics” (maieuesthai
me ho theos anankazei).
24. This phrase in particular, ou panu ti sophos, has been at the center of the
interpretive debate surrounding Socrates’ denials of being wise and the knowl-
edge his art of psychic maieutics must presuppose. For a summary of the debate
about how to translate the phrase, see Sedley, “Three Platonist Interpretations,”
esp. 98–101. The basic question is whether to take this as meaning that Socrates
is “not at all” wise, or (as Sedley, following the anonymous commentary, renders
it) “not completely” wise. The qualified sense of the latter—which Sedley argues
is more grammatically accurate—allows both for the human wisdom Socrates
claims for himself in the Apology and for an interpretation of the Theaetetus that
does not have to conclude that Socrates’ account of psychic maieutics is simply
contradictory or paradoxical.
25. For example, Wengert, “Paradox of the Midwife,” argues that Socrates’
account leads to an unresolvable paradox. Benardete, “On the Way of the
Logos,” argues that Socrates does identify himself with the god in this pas-
sage, and that “there is nothing to” Socrates’ art of psychic maieutics (28). The
anonymous commentator is perhaps the most sympathetic reader of psychic
maieutics, although insofar as he takes the Theaetetus as a whole to be a maieutic
argument for the model of knowledge he finds in the Meno, he limits his ability
to reckon with the Theaetetus on its own terms.
26. For more on the knowledge evidently presupposed in Socrates’ ac-
count, see Sedley, Midwife of Platonism, 33–35. No less problematically, Socrates
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BENJAMIN J. GR AZZINI
THEAETETUS
152
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PL ATO’S DIFFERENT DEVICE
The special importance of the Philebus lies precisely in the fact that
the dialectic discussed in it becomes aware of itself in the actual
conduct of the Socratic dialogue. The theory of dialectic must be
grasped on the basis of the concrete situation of coming to a shared
understanding.2
this case the discursive powers of repetition serve only to distance the
two sides further from each other, the ideal one from the actual many,
or else to erase the distinction altogether. This situation culminates in
the extraordinarily dense, difficult paradoxes enumerated at length by
Parmenides.
By contrast, in the Philebus Plato introduces a more flexible method
to navigate the middle way between extremes. The dialogue begins with
some assumed polarities of its own, but through the concrete use of the
classifying scheme and the fourfold ontology, they become harmonized
with each other by the end. While one cannot simply collapse the dis-
tinctions between intelligence and pleasure, the determinant and the
indeterminate, the one and the many, the dialogue shows us that we
cannot leave them in stark opposition either. The dialogue still leaves
basic ontological and linguistic problems unresolved, ending as it does
on a note of indeterminacy. But it goes a long way toward reconciling
the one and the many, being and becoming.
As in the Parmenides and other Platonic dialogues, then, style in
the Philebus contributes to substance. Theoretical problems cannot be
separated from their concrete expression: the eventual reconciliation
of abstract polarities is inseparably bound up with the actual practice,
by the interlocutors, of repeating, differentiating, and classifying.5 Only
through the right sort of repetition, which is not redundant, can the
speakers and the subjects agree.
The resulting language of reconciliation depends upon the ontol-
ogy of the mixture, which provides the basis for overcoming stark dual-
isms. As the best life in the end proves to be a well-harmonized mixture,
so too the success of the Philebus itself belongs to the mixed category,
in both language and thought. In the concluding discussion, Socrates
speaks of discovering “a road [oJdo;n] that leads to the Good” (61a),
which resides in proportionate mixtures. If the Good dwells in such a
mixture, and the dialogue is itself a kind of mixture, then the dialogue
demonstrates the path toward the Good while analyzing it. As Seth
Benardete claims: “The peculiarity of the Philebus thus seems to lie in
the reconstruction of the Good within itself. It works up the Good while
exhibiting the Good.” 6 As I hope to show, Plato’s dialectical-methodical
concerns prove to be connected to the search for the Good as the mixed
life. The dialogue “mixes” dialectics and ethics through the practice
of repeating, revising, and reconciling; in brief, the dialogue practices
what it preaches.
To anyone familiar with the dialogue or its commentators, such
praise may come as a surprise. This work in particular has long received
criticism for its difficult themes and messy form: George Grote set the
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PL ATO’S DIFFERENT DEVICE
tone in 1865 by writing, “It is neither clear, nor orderly, nor comparable
in animation to the expository books of the Republic. . . . Every commen-
tator of Plato, from Galen onwards, has complained of the obscurity
of the Philebus.” 7 Robert Bury concurred in 1897 by characterizing the
Philebus as “harsh and rugged in style” and likening it to “a gnarled and
knotted old oak tree.” 8 Crombie calls it “obscure” and “a very precari-
ous dialogue to interpret,” 9 while Gadamer notes the “famous problem”
of its difficult transitions.10 Guthrie comments that it is “on the whole
lacking in dramatic interest” and calls it “a ‘weary’ dialogue” that tries
readers with its “untidiness” and unclarity.11 Davidson goes so far as to
call it “one of Plato’s oddest dialogues.” 12
However, the Philebus has always had its share of admirers. In the
fifteenth century, Marsilio Ficino praised the dialogue as nothing less
than “Plato’s book on man’s highest good,” and had it read to his patron
Cosimo de Medici on his deathbed.13 In the nineteenth century, Schlei-
ermacher wrote: “From the earliest times to the present, the Philebus has
been regarded as one of the most important of the works of Plato, and
also, as one of the most difficult.” 14 More recently, Cynthia Hampton has
defended Plato against charges of obscurity here by asserting “there is
method in his (apparent) madness”; 15 she also finds in this work a model
of non-dichotomous thinking of great interest to current feminist think-
ers.16 Rosemary Desjardins goes so far as to call the Philebus “one of the
most exhilarating . . . and important of Plato’s dialogues.” 17
I acknowledge both sides of the debate: the Philebus is indeed often
frustratingly dense and obscure. It lacks the wit and the dramatic force
of many other dialogues. As readers we often feel lost in the twists and
turns of the argument. But the Philebus has an often overlooked discur-
sive strength, which lies in its determinant way of addressing plurality.
This feature enacts the new methods and demonstrates the benefits of
dialectical revision and stylistic repetition (as distinguished from mere
repetitiveness), which together make possible the reconciliation between
the one and the many, the limit and the unlimited. While many prob-
lems remain, the dialogue is not as hopelessly disjointed as it may at first
appear. By paying attention to the dialogue form itself, the movements
back and forth of the conversation, we allow the form and the content to
illuminate each other. A close reading of the opening sections foreshad-
ows the challenges and methods of the whole, highlights the contrasts
with the Parmenides, and suggests connections with Aristotle.
From the start, the language of the Parmenides lacks a certain de-
terminacy: no one questions or further defines Zeno’s opening hypoth-
esis that if things are many, they must be both like and unlike (127e).
Socrates, whom Plato here presents as young and naive, quickly sees
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MARTHA KENDAL WOODRUFF
that by showing the impossibility of plurality Zeno allies himself with his
teacher Parmenides, but he fails to ask in what sense Zeno means the
terms “things,” “many,” “like,” and “unlike.” Socrates does, however, im-
mediately distinguish between the plurality of things and the oneness
of forms: “What he is proving is that something is many and one, not that
unity is many or that plurality is one” (129d).18 But it is this very distinc-
tion that gets him into trouble, because he cannot adequately revise it.
An absence of careful revisions leads to a polarization of the positions.
When questioned by Parmenides, Socrates asserts he is certain that
there is a form of beauty and goodness; “puzzled” about whether there is
a form of man, fire, or water, and then about “hair or mud or dirt or any
other trivial and undignified objects” (130c), he says at first a form for
them would be absurd, but then wonders whether “what is true in one
case may not be true in all” (130d). Socrates continues: “Then, when
I have reached that point, I am driven to retreat, for fear of tumbling
into a bottomless pit of nonsense” (130d). Parmenides replies that this
is “because you are still young . . . and philosophy has not yet taken hold
of you so firmly as I believe it will someday” (130e). Socrates obviously
cannot reconcile “just the things we see” with the forms we know, the
many with the one, the particular with the universal. His uncertainty
shows in his language itself: he does not know what to say and fears the
possibility of saying nothing at all.
Socrates does not challenge Parmenides on the “part theory” of
how the many things share in the one form (131a–b), on the appropri-
ateness of the analogy between the day and the sail (131b– c), or on the
“third man” argument. If one looks at largeness itself and the many
large things “in the same way in your mind’s eye, will not yet another
unity make its appearance—a largeness by virtue of which they all ap-
pear large?” (132a). Both the problem of divisibility and that of the in-
finite regress result from thinking of the forms as like sensible objects;
yet thinking of them in the opposite way, as completely abstract and
removed, proves even worse. Socrates accepts, again without question,
that “no such real being exists in our world,” since “how could it then be
just by itself?” (133c). As illustrated by the example about “mastership
itself” and “slavery itself,” in contrast to any particular master or slave
(133e), the forms of that “other world” of the gods have no significance
for ours, and we cannot know the gods’ world nor they ours.
As a result of these difficulties, “the hearer is perplexed,” left in a
state of utter ajporiva (135a). Socrates notes the strangeness of an argu-
ment denying the gods knowledge, yet makes no move to criticize it
(134e). Parmenides does not insist on the truth of this argument, but
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PL ATO’S DIFFERENT DEVICE
stresses that only “a man of wide experience and natural ability” will-
ing to work through “a long and remote train of argument” could real-
ize the intelligibility and relevance of the forms, and only a “still more
remarkable” person could lead someone else to this view (135b). Yet
without the stable being of the forms, there is no language or thought:
as Parmenides explains, someone who has “nothing on which to fix his
thought” will in the end “completely destroy the significance of all dis-
course” (135c). When confronted with the question, “What are you go-
ing to do about philosophy then?” the baffled Socrates can only say: “I
can see no way out at the present moment” (135c).
This moment of ajporiva results from both too many and too few
repetitions: too many broad oppositions made quickly, and too few pre-
cise distinctions made carefully. The more theoretical, abstract side
of this problem and the more concrete, discursive side reinforce each
other: one does not know what to think because one lacks the terms, and
one does not know what to say because one lacks the concepts. The dis-
course rushes on at a bewildering pace. To borrow the language of the
Philebus, we could describe this dialogue as an unhappy, ill-harmonized
mixture. The Parmenides differentiates the one and the many at first
insufficiently, so that the forms become things, then too extremely, so
that the world splits in two. The distinctions here range between the
determinant or the limited (pevra`~) and the indeterminate or the un-
limited (a[peirovn), but they do not show any middle path between them:
they are distinct enough to show the problem but too vague to show its
solution. Just as we do not know the metaphysical status of the one and
the many, so too we do not know their discursive status: How should
we bring these many conflicting, ill-defined terms into an intelligible
harmony, a real dialogue? At this point we may feel some of Socrates’
confusion at the relation of the one and the many, and thus his “fear of
tumbling into a bottomless pit of nonsense.”
Parmenides, noting something “noble and inspired” in Socrates’
love of argument, advises him to submit himself “to a severer training in
what the world calls idle talk and condemns as useless” (135d). The lan-
guage of ontology is necessarily difficult and unconventional, and not
meant for everyone.19 Parmenides then recommends Zeno’s example of
supposing that everything that is equally is not. In our supposing, for in-
stance, first that there is, then that there is not, a plurality, the language
itself takes on the most basic plurality, that of being and non-being, and
then considers the consequences. But this method does not stop to con-
sider a middle way between being and non-being (that is, becoming),
or to examine the different senses of “is” and “is not.” 20 This language,
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MARTHA KENDAL WOODRUFF
It seems that, whether there is or is not a one, both that one and the
others alike are and are not, and appear and do not appear to be, all
manner of things in all manner of ways, with respect to themselves
and to one another. (166b)
Yet at the same time we learn, “If there is no one, there is nothing
at all” (166b). We are left blocked in a state of ajporiva when the dialogue
concludes simply, “Most true.” One is tempted to say that since there is
no coherence to the discourse, there is no coherence to the meaning
either. Of course, that may be exactly the point, intended to provoke the
reader to take the problem further. At any rate, this enigmatic language
never questions the stark binary oppositions between “is” and “is not,”
between the one and the many, and never investigates a middle way
between them. The Parmenides as a whole discusses and demonstrates
both the one and the many but without any revisions that might promise
to reconcile them.
With the Philebus, the reader feels in surer hands from the start.
Socrates is reassuringly back in control, here in his familiar role of
older, wiser mentor of younger participants.22 Strikingly, this is the only
dialogue typically regarded as late in which Plato casts Socrates in the
leading role; the dialogue thus yokes together the Socratic search for
a specifically human good with the Platonic interest in dialectics, on-
tology, and methodology. Yet the dialogue that ends in agreement be-
gins with competition: starting from a preestablished rivalry between
intelligence and pleasure as the good, Socrates repeatedly cautions and
chastises Protarchus. Socrates himself sets up the opposition by saying
that “knowledge [frovnhsi~] wins over pleasure, and pleasure loses” if
he can prove his point (12a), and that he will need “different armament”
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PL ATO’S DIFFERENT DEVICE
makes them join the ranks of “the most incompetent and at the same
time newcomers in such discussions” for attempting to prove that “the
most unlike thing is of all things most like the most unlike” (13d). Plato
thus recollects for the reader Zeno’s first hypothesis in the Parmenides.
But whereas the Parmenides ends in utter ajporiva, the Philebus seeks a
complex solution to the one/many problem. Socrates now accepts that
“all together, the branches of knowledge will seem to be a plurality, and
some will seem quite unlike others” (13e9–10). If he excluded this pos-
sibility, he would not be “a worthy partner in a discussion” (14a1). Plural-
ity, both in word and thought, must be fully acknowledged. Significantly,
the speakers here for the first time agree on something: to examine all
the variations of each candidate (14b). The turn toward the plurality
within each unity anticipates the new methods to come.
Now turning full-face to the “amazing” or “wondrous” (qaumasto;n;
14c9), even “monstrous” (tevrata; 14e) statement that the many is one
or the one many, Socrates again stresses, as he did at the start of the
Parmenides, that to say a produced thing is both many and one does not
raise problems, but to say so of a non-perishable thing does: “Zealous
concern with divisions of these unities and the like gives rise to con-
troversy” (15a6–7). Socrates here gives man, ox, beauty, and the good
as examples of this constant category of the forms, whereas the young
Socrates of the Parmenides had doubts whether to assert forms for the
first two. Perhaps this shift evidences Parmenides’ prediction that when
philosophy takes hold of Socrates, he “will not despise any of these ob-
jects then” (Parmenides 130e). As we will see, Plato in the Philebus shows
Socrates the pathway home, toward the oijkov~, “downwards” from the
ideal One to the world of plurality in which we dwell.
The Philebus runs right into the tangle of problems presented
in the Parmenides: How can each unit remain firmly itself while being
found in an indeterminate number of particulars? Does each unit re-
main “always one and the same” but become “dispersed and multiplied,”
or does it somehow stay whole but become “entirely separated from it-
self” (15b– c)? Yet the same problem receives a different treatment here:
“It is these problems of the one and the many . . . that cause all sorts of
difficulties [ajporiva, literally “blocked passage”] if they are not prop-
erly settled, but promise progress [eujporiva, “good passage”] if they
are” (15c).30 The reader again hears Plato’s implicit criticism of, and
improvement upon, the method of Zeno and Parmenides. As Dorothea
Frede says, “The Socrates of the Philebus has clearly profited from the
lesson he was taught by old Parmenides.” 31 The approach here differs in
the interlocutors’ explicitness about the problem, their patience in enu-
162
MARTHA KENDAL WOODRUFF
For it seems that, in the battle about the second prize for reason, a dif-
ferent device [a[llh~ mhcanh`~] will be needed, different armament, as
it were, from that used in our previous discussion, though it may partly
be the same. (23b5–9)
The Good is the unity of pevra`~ and a[peirovn. This unity can only be
the fortunate coincidence of the two principles in which form retains
its harmonious proportions in the midst of becoming, and the ephem-
eral nature of becoming comes to anchor in form (94).41
Intelligence, as the cause of the mixture, grants the proportion that the
mixture needs to become stable. The new discursive methods of recon-
ciling the one and the many allow the mixed class, and the mixed life,
to come into focus as the good.
Despite the more flexible language, there are still many difficult
moments in the complex arguments. The different senses of pleasure
are not always clear, as for instance when Socrates switches between
Philebus’ coarse physical pleasures and those of learning. We have not,
of course, delved into the detailed analyses of pleasure and pain, or true
and false pleasures. Yet even after recognizing the problems, we still may
conclude that the method of repetition contributes to the reconciliation
that the dialogue eventually achieves. As Socrates reminds us just before
the mixing of thought and pleasure, “the proverb fits well here that says
that good things deserve repeating ‘twice or even thrice’” (60a).42 The
speakers repeat not only phrases but equally methods, enacting both
the divine gift of classification and the fourfold ontological scheme. In
this way all the many different kinds of pleasure—true and false, intel-
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MARTHA KENDAL WOODRUFF
ment of his dialogues? Or did Plato show Aristotle a new method toward
a measured plurality? To what extent is Aristotle still fundamentally Pla-
tonic in his orientation to ethics? While a full discussion of such ques-
tions goes beyond the scope of this paper, let us stress that Aristotle does
acknowledge his debt to his mentor and build upon his work. In the
Nicomachean Ethics, for instance, Aristotle says that with the turn away
from a single, transcendent Good to a plurality of human goods, “the
argument has by a different course reached the same point” (1097a24).
Then Aristotle’s real target would not be Plato per se (at least not the
Plato of the Philebus), but rather certain misinterpretations of the good
as transcendent and “otherworldly,” misinterpretations which Plato him-
self has anticipated. Perhaps this explains why Aristotle hesitates before
launching his critique and does not name Plato directly, but rather the
“Platonists” or “friends of the forms.” 51
In its emphasis on practice, the Philebus anticipates the Aristote-
lian “golden mean” in the motif of the harmonious mixture of two ele-
ments. As Robert Dostal notes:
This notion of the “mix” in the Philebus also serves . . . as the basis for
defending Plato against Aristotle’s critique concerning the unity of the
good in the Nicomachean Ethics. The mix requires measure. From this
it is a short step to Aristotle’s virtuous mean. (294)52
Notes
The epigraph for this chapter is taken from Plato, Philebus, trans. Dorothea
Frede, in Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett,
1997), 398– 456.
1. As Gadamer writes: “The interpretive method that is appropriate to the
philosopher Plato is not that of clinging fast to his definitions of concepts and
developing his ‘doctrine’ into a uniform system . . . instead, it is to retrace,
as a questioner, the course of questioning that the dialogue presents and to
describe the direction in which Plato, without following it, only points” (Hans-
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PL ATO’S DIFFERENT DEVICE
tural mastery displayed in the Phaedo and the Republic; on the other hand, the
formlessness of the work has often been exaggerated” (R. Hackforth, Plato’s Ex-
amination of Pleasure [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945], 10). Mark
Moes, following Robert Brumbaugh’s interpretation of the Republic, suggests
that the Philebus has a symmetrical structure: ABCDE—EDCBA (Mark Moes,
Plato’s Dialogue Form and the Care of the Soul [New York: Peter Lang, 2000], 125).
13. The Philebus Commentary, ed. and trans. Michael Allen (Tempe: Center
for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2000), 72 and 1.
14. Introductions to the Dialogues of Plato, trans. William Dobson (New York:
Arno, 1973), 309.
15. Cynthia Hampton, Pleasure, Knowledge, and Being: An Analysis of Plato’s
Philebus (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 12.
16. Cynthia Hampton, “Overcoming Dualism: The Importance of the
Intermediate in Plato’s Philebus,” in Feminist Interpretations of Plato, ed. Nancy
Tuana (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 225n27.
17. Rosemary Desjardins, Plato and the Good (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 17.
18. Translated by Cornford, in Cooper, ed., Plato: Complete Works.
19. When Heidegger writes of the “harshness” (die Härte) of any language
that poses the question of being, he turns to Plato’s Parmenides as a classic ex-
ample (Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward
Robinson [New York: Harper and Row, 1962], 34; Sein und Zeit [Tübingen: Max
Niemeyer, 1953], 39).
20. Guthrie calls this duality Parmenides’ “familiar weapon, the ‘either-or’
dilemma” (History of Greek Philosophy, 50), and notes that without this ambiguity
in the key terms, the contradictions would not result (55).
21. Of course, this language still has value as “a series of dialectical ex-
ercises” to train the young philosopher, as Guthrie suggests (History of Greek
Philosophy, 53).
22. As Benardete puts it, what seems “peculiarly Socratic” in this dialogue
is “the subordination of all cosmological speculation to the issue of the hu-
man good”; but he also rightly notes “the strangeness of the Philebus’s Socrates”
(Tragedy and Comedy of Life, 89– 90).
23. Benardete suggests that Protarchus’ request to repeat points “again
and again [eij~ au\qiv~ te kai; au\qi~]” (24e, the passage quoted at the beginning
of this paper) dramatically combines limit and unlimited: “Without their pres-
ent ‘dissonance,’ there would have been no dialogue. . . . Protarchus chose dis-
sonance when he did not choose mind. He now proposes an unlimited number
of repetitions; he means, presumably, repetitions mixed with rephrasings and
fresh examples” (Tragedy and Comedy of Life, 147).
24. As Guthrie writes: “By this dramatic device of a dialogue before the dia-
logue Plato shows plainly that he has no intention of treating us to yet another
refutation of the naive hedonistic equation of pleasure and the good. . . . With
the question ‘what place can be assigned to pleasure in the good life, and what
sorts of pleasures can there find admission?’ he breaks new ground” (History of
Greek Philosophy, 202).
25. For an overview of such critiques (in Protagoras, Gorgias, Phaedo, and
Republic), see Dorothea Frede, “Disintegration and Restoration: Pleasure and
171
PL ATO’S DIFFERENT DEVICE
Pain in Plato’s Philebus,” in The Cambridge Companion to Plato, ed. Richard Kraut
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 425– 63.
26. Benardete renders the name as “Lover of Youth” (Tragedy and Comedy
of Life, 1); Gosling understands it as “an invention of Plato’s, translatable as
‘Loveboy’ ” (Philebus, trans. J. C. B. Gosling [London: Oxford University Press,
1975], x).
27. As Frede notes, “one cannot reform a Callicles or a Philebus, so it is bet-
ter not to try. But one can get far with those who, like Protarchus, are ready to
listen” (“Introductory Essay” to the Philebus, lxxi). Sayre renders the name Pro-
tarchus as “priority of principle” (Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved [Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1983], 118). Moes suggests that Plato presents
the two characters “as personified powers or components of a typical self,” with
Philebus as the appetitive part of the soul and Protarchus as the spirited part,
open to reasoning (Plato’s Dialogue Form, 156).
28. Guthrie suspects that with this assumption, “Protarchus has given away
his case from the start, and one can imagine a satirical smile on the face of the
listening Philebus” (History of Greek Philosophy, 215).
29. Later, Socrates will assert against Philebus that Aphrodite “imposes law
and order and limit” on our excessive, boundless pleasures (26b– c).
30. Gadamer describes the Parmenides as the aporia of the mixture of the
one and the many, and the Philebus as the euporia of this mixture (Plato’s Dialecti-
cal Ethics, 118–19).
31. “Introductory Essay” to the Philebus, trans. Frede, lxx.
32. Frede describes “immortal and ageless” as a customary epithet of the
gods and cites Homer, Iliad, 8.539 (Philebus 5d8n1).
33. As Frede notes, “the repetitions indicate not only that Protarchus is
not much used to such debates, but that the distinction itself is a novel one”
(Philebus 31c– dn1).
34. For more on the gift in Greek philosophy, see Gary Alan Scott’s
“Socrates as Student: The Contrast Between a Market and a Gift Economy” in
his Plato’s Socrates as Educator (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000).
See also my essay “The Ethics of Generosity and Friendship: Aristotle’s Gift to
Nietzsche?” in The Question of the Gift, ed. Mark Osteen (New York: Routledge,
2002), 118–31.
35. The sophists and rhetoricians of the time seized upon the ambiguities
of language without defining the terms in between the one and the many. Since
Protarchus was interested in Gorgias, this influence is probably a target of this
passage.
36. The mention of the Egyptian god Theuth in this passage (18b– d)
invites comparison with the passage on Theuth as the inventor of writing in
the Phaedrus (274c ff.), the occasion for Plato’s famous (and ironic) critique of
writing.
37. As Gadamer discusses, this notion of mixture is meant metaphorically,
not literally as a recipe or technē of living (Idea of the Good, 110–11). Crombie notes
the odd sense of blending here: intelligence seems to be both an ingredient in
the mixture, and the measure of it (Examination of Plato’s Doctrines, 1:254).
38. For more on the relation between these two methodological passages,
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MARTHA KENDAL WOODRUFF
see the studies by Frede cited above, as well as Constance Meinwald, “Pro-
metheus’s Bounds: Peras and Apeiron in Plato’s Philebus,” in Method in Ancient Phi-
losophy, ed. Jyl Gentzler (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), 165– 80; and Gisela Striker,
Peras und Apeiron: Das Problem der Formen in Platons Philebos (Göttingen: Vanden-
hoeck and Ruprecht, 1970).
39. There is a strong Pythagorean influence on Plato’s understanding of
limit and the unlimited. However, while the Pythagoreans leave such pairs
contrasted in their Table of Opposites (one/many, odd/even, right/left, male/
female), Plato seeks to overcome such dichotomies through the intermediary.
As Cynthia Hampton writes, the divine method of the Philebus “provides a non-
dualistic model for how ultimate reality is related to sensibles,” one of interest to
feminist readers who seek to challenge the gender bias typically found in pairs
of opposites (“Overcoming Dualism,” 225). Hampton reminds us that in the
Symposium Plato has Diotima teach the lesson of the intermediate, and that it is
not accidental that she is a woman (“Overcoming Dualism,” 223–24).
40. Frede translates this as “a coming-into-being”; Benardete, as “genesis
into being”; Crombie, as “process leading to stability”(Examination of Plato’s Doc-
trines, 2:432); Gadamer, as “Werden zum Sein” (Dialectical Ethics, 138).
41. Günter Figal, “The Idea and Mixture of the Good,” in Retracing the Pla-
tonic Text, ed. John Russon and John Sallis (Evanston: Northwestern University
Press, 2000), 85– 95.
42. For the other places Plato repeats this proverb on repetition, see Ben-
ardete (Tragedy and Comedy of Life, 75). Plato’s word ejpanapolei`n (Philebus 60a),
“to repeat yet again,” invites comparison with the related word ajnapolhvsh, “to
turn up the ground again, repeat, revise, reconsider” (Philebus 34c). See also
the word ejpanalambavnwn, “to take up again, resume, repeat,” at Gorgias 488b,
Phaedrus 228a, and Theaetetus 169e.
43. As Guthrie summarizes, “The crude question: ‘Is pleasure good or
bad?’ is unreal until one has answered the further questions: ‘What sort of
pleasure?’ and ‘Pleasure in what?’ ” (History of Greek Philosophy, 200).
44. The movement from “a clear-cut either-or” to a balance of the two sides
“makes human practice the theme,” as Gadamer explains (Idea of the Good, 30).
45. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Stud-
ies on Plato, trans. P. Christopher Smith (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1980), 155.
46. Smith, “(De)construction of Irrefutable Argument,” 216.
47. This last point reveals a movement in the dialogues traditionally re-
garded as late. Crombie explains this shift as one in which “genesis or becom-
ing can develop into ousia or being,” and the transient can become stable and
permanent (Examination of Plato’s Doctrines, 2:422). Guthrie also concludes that
while the difference still holds, in the “late” dialogues “it seems to be a question
less of contrasting Being with Becoming than of distinguishing grades of Be-
ing” (History of Greek Philosophy, 232).
48. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W. D. Ross, in The Complete Works
of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
173
PL ATO’S DIFFERENT DEVICE
174
175
IS THERE METHOD IN THIS MADNESS?
The Symposium
he has made it his “concern to know each day what he [Socrates] says
and does” (172c). Socrates speaks in his own voice; Apollodorus only
mimics the words of others.
The claim to know precisely the words and actions of Socrates gives
the account that Apollodorus will present the aura of verisimilitude.
This aura is reinforced first by the assertion that Apollodorus heard
it directly from Aristodemus, who was there, and second, by the claim
that Apollodorus questioned Socrates and received his agreement about
some of the things he heard from Aristodemus (173b1– 5). Yet what Plato
offers with one hand, he takes away with the other. For precisely which
of the things he heard received the Socratic imprimatur and exactly
how far Aristodemus is to be trusted remains unclear. Indeed, Plato has
Apollodorus tell us specifically that Aristodemus, who went around, like
Socrates, barefoot, was one of the most devoted lovers of Socrates at the
time. This suggests, however, that perhaps the accounts heard here are
somehow tainted by the erotic madness of the fanatic and ought not to
be received without a certain skepticism.
Our critical awareness of the dubious provenance of the lovgoi
we are about to be presented is further reinforced by the personality
Apollodorus exhibits in his initial exchange with the group of unnamed
businessmen who ask him to relate the speeches. He has all the haugh-
tiness of the dogmatist confident in the path he has chosen, and his
contempt for the “rich men of business” is surpassed only by his own
self-loathing. As Benardete puts it, “he knows he is despicable along with
everyone else, and only Socrates is exempt from reproach.” 12 Although
he is clearly eager to relate the story they request, Apollodorus feigns
being somewhat put upon to repeat it—“If it is necessary to tell you as
well, then that is what I must do” (173c; see also Republic 328b3)—in
order to afford himself the opportunity to belittle their wretched mode
of existence. His unnamed companion remains somewhat above this
rude treatment, exhibiting a degree of self-restraint and an erotic de-
sire for the philosophical account worthy of Socrates himself. He claims
that Apollodorus is always calling everyone, including himself, miser-
able, everyone, of course, save Socrates. He goes on to add: “Where
you caught this nickname ‘maniac,’ I do not know. However, you are
always like this in your speeches, angry at yourself and at others, except
Socrates” (173d).13 Apollodorus then attempts to draw his companion
into a Socratic discussion by asking if he is so crazy and out of his mind
to criticize his own life and the lives of all who do not adequately pursue
philosophy. The companion, however, does not want to engage Apol-
lodorus on this level, preferring to hear the speeches of others recited
from memory. Apollodorus does not resist, and one has the sense that
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IS THERE METHOD IN THIS MADNESS?
political legacy of Aristophanes, his comic poetry was held in part re-
sponsible for the accusations against Socrates that led ultimately to his
death sentence at the hands of the Athenian democracy.18 By bringing
figures with such histories together in the Symposium, Plato implicitly
enjoins us to consider the relationship between eros and politics. This
becomes strikingly obvious when the speech given by Diotima through
Socrates is brought into relation to that offered by Alcibiades. A con-
sideration of these two speeches and their relation to one another not
only lends insight into the methodological significance of Alcibiades’
political background, it also illustrates the sophisticated way in which
Plato brings the distancing and grounding strategies together to signifi-
cant demonstrative effect: it at once shows something important about
Plato’s method and illustrates the substantive philosophical stance Plato
seeks to establish.
If Leo Strauss is correct in characterizing the comical as that which
treats the impossible as possible, then the speech Diotima gives through
Socrates on eros is high comedy indeed.19 It represents nothing less than
the impossible possibility that a human being could come to possess a
“pure, clear and unmixed” vision of the beautiful itself and become, as
Diotima puts it herself, “a friend of the gods” (212a). The comedy is,
however, tragic as well, for it represents human beings as divine, thus
transgressing the fundamental Delphic principle to “know thyself,” that
is, to know one’s position as a mortal and not madly to presume pure ac-
cess to things divine. However, the tragicomic dimensions of the speech
are eclipsed if the distancing and grounding strategies Plato deploys in
presenting it are not recognized and the speech is taken as straightfor-
ward Platonic doctrine. In fact, Plato distances himself from the speech
in two ways, first by putting it into the mouth of Socrates and second by
having him insist that it is received from a priestess, Diotima. The reli-
gious aura of the speech is reinforced by Socrates’ own purified figure:
he has arrived at Agathon’s fresh from a sort of inspired trance, beauti-
fied and wearing socks (174a–175c).20 This complex, multilayered dis-
tancing strategy has a twofold effect. It at once disassociates Plato from
the ideas presented in the speech and implicitly alerts the audience to
be on guard against its mystical, nonrational, and perhaps even hyper-
bolic dimensions. If these textual clues are not heeded, the authoritative
aura of the speech could give rise to a profoundly unphilosophical sort
of erotic madness that is incapable of recognizing its own finitude—the
height of tragic hubris.
Precisely this danger is embodied in the figure of Alcibiades, who
appears suddenly after Diotima’s speech. He is drunk and crowned
with a wreath of ivy and violets—symbols of both Dionysus and Ath-
181
IS THERE METHOD IN THIS MADNESS?
This would have the effect of placing him and Socrates equidistant from
the most beautiful man at the party, the man whose name evokes the
good itself. Alcibiades’ hubris drives his proposal, for he believes him-
self justified in claiming equal access to the good with Socrates. To this
Socrates responds: “But that is impossible” (222e). And although the
reason Socrates explicitly gives for this is that it would mean that Ag-
athon would have to praise him again, the deeper implication is that
Alcibiades, having rejected philosophy and turned to popular politics,
is unprepared for such close proximity to the good. In contrast to Alcibi-
ades’ proposal, Socrates suggests that Agathon recline on the other side
of him, thus setting up the following positions:
Here Socrates would not only have to praise Agathon, but also, like
Eros himself, he would be situated between the human and the divine,
between the politician addicted to the unhealthy eros associated with
narcissistic popularity and the divinely inspired, beautiful tragic poet.
Yet even this configuration is not actualized in the dialogue; for just as
Agathon moves to recline by Socrates, a crowd of revelers interrupts
him and the party descends into erotic chaos. The anarchy of human
eros literally disrupts Socrates’ attempt to establish a fixed relationship
with the good and to situate himself firmly between it and the political
(223b). Once the chaos subsides and the upsurge of erotic energy gives
way to the peaceful predawn rising of the morning light, a new constel-
lation emerges:
After the others have gone home, these three remain “drinking from a
large bowl, from left to right” with Socrates trying to convince them that
the same person could write both tragedy and comedy (223c).23 Here
Aristophanes replaces Socrates as the mediating figure, and the comic
recognition of human finitude is made to stand between Socrates and
the good. If Agathon symbolizes not only the good itself, but also the
very search for wholeness expressed in tragic poetry, the seating order
would then show what Plato himself cannot explicitly say: seek the good,
but beware of the delusion that you possess it. The erotic search for the
good that animates human life must always be tempered by a humble,
indeed a comic, recognition of human finitude. The darkness of this
latter recognition gives way at the end of the dialogue to the hope that
perhaps even through comedy something of the good may be weaved
into the fabric of human community.
183
IS THERE METHOD IN THIS MADNESS?
The Republic
these cities win their rational stability only as they are systematically
purged of eros.
At the start of book 5, coercion drives the discussion to its most
perverse extremes. In a scene that echoes that of the opening passages
of the dialogue, Polemarchus takes hold of Adeimantus’ cloak and asks
if they should let Socrates go (449b– c). They then proceed to insist
upon a more detailed account of the economy of eros Socrates means to
impose upon the citizens of the just city.30 The passage is rife with the
authoritative vocabulary of political coercion. Adeimantus says: “That
which you heard has been resolved by us [devdoktai hJmin]: not to re-
lease you until you have gone through all these things just like the rest”
(449d– 450a). Glaucon adds his “vote” and Thrasymachus claims it is a
“resolution” they all support. To this Socrates responds: “What a thing
you have done by arresting me” (450a5). This detention forces Socrates
to discuss not only the manner in which eros is to be thoroughly regu-
lated in the imagined city, but also to introduce the most radical and
hubristic suggestions of the entire dialogue. Chief among these is the
proposal that there will be no perfect justice until “either philosophers
rule in the cities or those now called kings are able to philosophize
genuinely and adequately, and political power and philosophy coincide
in the same place” (473d). The claim is that cities will succumb to the
vagaries of human eros so long as their leaders remain determined by
eros. The solution is to replace erotic leaders with purely rational phi-
losophers, beings who are “able to grasp what is always the same in all
respects” (484b). This, of course, is the height of hubris. To ascribe such
godlike capacities to mere human beings is to fail to “know thyself,” a
failure, according to the Philebus, worthy of laughter.31
Indeed, Socrates offers this, the so-called third wave, “even if, just
like an uproarious wave, it is going to drown me in laughter and ill-repute”
(473c6–7). This is not simply a dramatic flourish. It serves, rather, an
important methodological function: to force those who hear what fol-
lows to be on guard against the speech about to be offered.32 Laughter,
which appears throughout the Republic despite its being banned from
the just cities established in speech (388e5ff.), is present even at the
highest and most striking moment of the dialogue, when Socrates intro-
duces the “good beyond being.” Socrates reports that to this “Glaucon
quite ridiculously [mavla geloivw~] said, ‘Apollo, what a demonic excess.’”
To which Socrates himself responds: “You are responsible for compel-
ling me to tell my opinions about it” (509b– c). Of those present, only
Glaucon is capable of laughing with, as opposed to at, Socrates. Thus,
it is with Glaucon that Socrates introduces the most radical and ridicu-
lous suggestions of the Republic, suggestions that he is willing to present
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C H R I S T O P H E R P. L O N G
musical.36 Music, however, links the rational and the erotic in a way that
is inherently dangerous to a city founded exclusively on principles of
rational order. Because Glaucon alone of those present is capable of
reflectively joining together the rational and the erotic, he emerges as
the interlocutor with whom Socrates speaks when the most important
themes of the dialogue are introduced.
Glaucon becomes the central figure of the dialogue only after
proving himself capable of a kind of philosophical play that tempers the
serious business of rational argumentation with an erotic desire that
prevents reason from calcifying into dogma. Unlike Adeimantus, who
seeks unequivocal answers in rational order, Glaucon is satisfied with
no dogma; unlike both Apollodorus and Aristodemus in the Symposium,
Glaucon is no fanatical disciple. Rather, he sees the play of Socrates’
approach and seeks to join with him in it. This is demonstrated not
only by Glaucon’s ability to laugh with Socrates, but also by Socrates’
decision to focus his pedagogy firmly on Glaucon during the discus-
sion of the Divided Line, the allegory of the Cave, and the “song of
dialectic” (532a). By directing his educational efforts toward Glaucon
and introducing him to this “song” which must proceed hypothetically
rather than dogmatically, Socrates is able to force Glaucon to recognize
both his own erotic desire to know and its limitations. Glaucon, like
Socrates, finds himself in the erotic position of the philosopher who ap-
preciates at once how hard it is to accept Socrates’ assertion that there
is, in fact, the good, the just, and the beautiful, and how difficult it is
not to accept these things (532d). He has in some sense recognized the
profound philosophical importance of positing the good, the just, and
the beautiful as erotic principles that drive human beings to pursue a
better, more just, and beautiful embodied existence.
Here Plato’s grounding strategy dovetails with the demonstrative
strategy to profound philosophical effect. As Eva Brann has suggested,
the only city founded in deed as opposed to merely in speech in the
Republic is the community established between Socrates and Glaucon.37
The establishment of this community is demonstrated by the very action
of the dialogue, which is directed throughout toward the conversion
of Glaucon’s soul by Socrates. This is the political core of the Republic,
established in book 1, when Socrates breaks off his taming of Thrasy-
machus to focus Glaucon’s attention on the profound choice he must
make—to live a just or unjust life (347e)—and reinforced by the Myth
of Er in book 10, when Socrates calls out Glaucon by name (618b9ff.,
621b9ff.) as he tells the fate of those who fail to choose the life of justice.
Thus the Republic, like the Symposium, shows what it cannot argue for in
exclusively rational terms: the just life is spent attempting to weave a vi-
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C H R I S T O P H E R P. L O N G
sion of the good, the beautiful, and the just into the human community
by engaging in dialogue with others. Here philosophy emerges not as
an abstract obsession with a set of metaphysical problems divorced from
the human world, but as a fundamentally political activity that seeks to
nudge this world in the direction of the good by combining the demand
for rational responsibility with an erotic passion for truth and justice.
The methodological approach operating in the Symposium and
Republic itself supports this substantive vision of philosophy. The dis-
tancing strategy provokes critical reflection and the heightened pres-
ence of mind such a conception of philosophy requires. The grounding
strategy anchors philosophy firmly in the contingent world of human
community and mitigates against the tendency to divorce ideas from
the concrete contexts in which they arise. For its part, the demonstra-
tive strategy models the complex process by which the good, the beau-
tiful, and the just are translated into this world without falling into a
dangerous, unreflective dogmatism. And although we have only traced
this method in two dialogues, its path is discernible throughout Plato’s
writings. In the Phaedo, for example, the distancing strategy appears in
the way the dialogue is received through the voice of Phaedo as he tells
it to Echecrates, in its use of myth, and in the Pythagorean atmosphere
in which it is situated; the grounding strategy is found in the decisive po-
litical and human context that surrounds the death of Socrates; and the
demonstrative strategy is manifest in the way the failures of the rational
arguments for the immortality of the soul are themselves negated by the
earthly immortality that the spirit of Socrates wins in the telling and re-
telling of the story itself. To one degree or another these strategies can
be seen operating in all the dialogues; for they are part of a method that
substantively determines the philosophical stance Plato seeks to inspire.
Method for Plato is not, as it is for the moderns, designed to divorce phi-
losophy from the very real contingencies of human existence so as to set
it on the pure path of science. Rather, it embraces madness by allowing
this contingency to animate the very life of philosophy. Though this be
method, yet there is madness in it.
Notes
man Discourse, Eros, and Madness in Plato’s Republic,” Review of Metaphysics 55,
no. 2 (2001).
2. The division of the dialogues into three periods—early, middle, and
late—is as well known as it is problematic. For a thorough discussion of the
trends of the last two hundred years of scholarship on Plato, including this de-
velopmentalist position, see Gerald A. Press, “The State of the Question in the
Study of Plato,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 34, no. 4 (1996). For an excellent,
convincing critique of all attempts to definitively establish the precise chronol-
ogy of the dialogues, see Jacob Howland, “Re-Reading Plato: The Problem of
Platonic Chronology,” Phoenix 45, no. 3 (1991). For a strong statement of the
position that the “middle” dialogues, including the Republic (books 2–10) and
the Symposium, expresses truly Platonic as opposed to Socratic philosophical
doctrines, see Gregory Vlastos, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1991).
3. See Charles L. Griswold Jr., “Plato’s Metaphilosophy: Why Plato Wrote
Dialogues,” in Platonic Writings, Platonic Readings, ed. Charles L. Griswold Jr.
(New York and London: Routledge, 1988).
4. Griswold, “Plato’s Metaphilosophy,” 149.
5. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (London and New
York: Routledge, 1981), prop. 4.1212.
6. The Theaetetus recovers something of its authority in the written word set
down by Euclides immediately after hearing the story from Socrates, and more,
when Euclides edits the text with corrections garnered from Socrates himself.
The Parmenides is more subject to the vagaries of human memory than the Sym-
posium, for not two, but three narrators stand between us and the original con-
versation. See Theaetetus 143a; Parmenides 126a–127a; Symposium 172a–174a.
7. In the term “fanatic” resonates the Latin fanum, “temple.” It is used here
to evoke the degree to which both Aristodemus and Apollodorus are possessed
by a sort of deity or demon, indeed, the demonic character of Socrates.
8. R. G. Bury, Symposium of Plato (Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, 1973),
xvi. For the position that the accounts of the two fanatics render the text less
reliable, see Stanley Rosen, Plato’s Symposium, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1987), 10–11.
9. Republic 327b1; Symposium 172a3. The Greek text for the Republic is from
Plato, Platonis Opera, vol. 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). For the
Symposium, see Bury, The Symposium of Plato. While translations are my own, I
have consulted Bloom in translating passages from the Republic and Cobb and
Benardete in translating those from the Symposium: Plato, The Republic of Plato,
2nd ed., trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1991); William S. Cobb,
The Symposium and the Phaedrus: Plato’s Erotic Dialogues (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1993); and Plato, Plato’s Symposium, trans. Seth Benardete,
with commentary by Allan Bloom and Seth Benardete (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2001).
10. There is some debate concerning the nature of this joke. For various
suggestions, see Bury, Symposium of Plato, 1–2. Cobb suggests that it plays on the
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C H R I S T O P H E R P. L O N G
formal mode of address normally used in the courts; not unlike the pseudo-
civility practiced in the U.S. Congress when speaking of the “gentleman from
Pennsylvania.” See Cobb, The Symposium and the Phaedrus, 179.
11. Rosen emphasizes the importance of restraint here; Rosen, Plato’s Sym-
posium, 12–13n30.
12. Plato, Plato’s Symposium, 180.
13. There is considerable controversy as to whether the nickname is
malakov~ (softy, gentle one) or manikov~ (madman, maniac). Bury reads the lat-
ter, Benardete and Cobb, the former. While Cobb is correct to point out that
the play between gentleness and violence is at work in the dialogue, this of itself
does not necessarily justify malakov~. However, malakov~ does seem appropriate
for Apollodorus, given his incessant crying in the Phaedo; see 59a8 and 117d5.
This latter reference speaks not only of Apollodorus’ weeping, but of his being
vexed or angry (ajganaktw`n). Being “soft” and being “mad” in the sense of hav-
ing lost rational control of oneself would have been closely linked in the Greek
psyche. Bury’s case for manikov~ draws on Apollodorus’ response to the compan-
ion in which iterations of both maivnesqai (to be mad) and paraivein (to wander
from one’s senses) occur. He claims that the thought is: “Though I do not know
exactly why you got the nickname ‘fanatic’—yet in your speeches at any rate you
do something to justify the title.” See Bury, Symposium of Plato, 6.
14. For a discussion of Platonic irony as “noble dissembling,” see Leo
Strauss, On Plato’s Symposium (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 33.
The distinction between Platonic and Socratic irony is made clear by Drew Hy-
land: Socratic irony occurs where the dissembling words and intentions are
attributable to the figure of Socrates; Platonic irony, on the other hand, occurs
in the action, structure, or setting of the dialogues Socrates could not control.
See Drew A. Hyland, Finitude and Transcendence in the Platonic Dialogues (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1995), 91.
15. Gary Scott has recognized the importance of the “general lack of care
for handling the narration” these characters embody. See Gary Alan Scott,
Plato’s Socrates as Educator (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000),
181n.
16. Plato tells us the exact date of the drama of the dialogue by having
Apollodorus report that the symposium took place when Agathon won the
prize with his first tragedy (173a). This sort of explicit dating is part of the
grounding strategy as well.
17. See Debra Nails, The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other
Socratics (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002), 9.
18. See Apology 18a ff.
19. Leo Strauss, The City and Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1964), 62. For a detailed discussion of the comic dimensions of this speech, see
Richard Rojcewicz, “Platonic Love: Dasein’s Urge Toward Being,” Research in
Phenomenology 27 (1997): 108–12.
20. For a discussion of the ritualistic dimensions of Socrates’ outfit, see
Rojcewicz, “Platonic Love,” 109.
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IS THERE METHOD IN THIS MADNESS?
21. For the recognition that the wreath of ivy and violets represents both
Dionysus and Athens, see Rojcewicz, “Platonic Love,” 111.
22. Scott recognizes the grounding function of Alcibiades’ speech when he
writes: “It makes concrete and particular the Eros that had become quite ab-
stract in Diotima’s speech, and it returns the conversation to the everyday world
of human concerns.” See Scott, Plato’s Socrates as Educator, 120–21.
23. Rosen contends: “The phrase ‘from left to right’ suggests that Aris-
tophanes is now between Agathon and Socrates.” See Rosen, Plato’s Sympo-
sium, 325.
24. The deep and complex relationship between the Republic and Sym-
posium has been recognized by Strauss. See Strauss, On Plato’s Symposium, 19.
His student, Stanley Rosen, further determines the nature of this relationship
along the lines outlined here. See Stanley Rosen, “The Role of Eros in Plato’s
Republic,” Review of Metaphysics 18 (1965): 452–75.
25. Because the dramatic date of the Republic is ambiguous, it remains un-
clear whether the “Glaucon” referred to in the Symposium is Plato’s brother who
appears in the Republic. Friedländer recognizes that the name “Glaucon,” even
if it is not Plato’s brother, calls the Republic to mind. He claims: “The scene at
the beginning of the Republic is reminiscent of the Symposium in its very words.”
See Paul Friedländer, Plato: The Dialogues, Second and Third Periods, vol. 3 (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 6.
26. There is a long history of interpretations that fail to recognize the func-
tion of the playfulness of the Republic. One of the best expressions of this tradi-
tion is found in Popper’s Open Society and Its Enemies, which sees the philosopher
king of the Republic as “Plato himself, and the Republic is Plato’s own claim for
kingly power.” Popper goes on to assert that the Republic is “meant by its author
not so much as a theoretical treatise, but as topical political manifesto.” See
Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1943), 153. The presumption that the Republic is a political treatise
in the modern sense, or, more radically, a manifesto, are anachronisms that fail
to recognize the ambiguities Plato wrote into the text itself.
27. These words: “ΔAllΔ eij dokei`, . . . ou{tw crh; poiei`n” are parroted in the
Symposium by Apollodorus’: “eij ou\n dei` kai; uJmi'n dihghvsasqai, tau'ta crh; poiei`n”
(173c).
28. Plato, Republic of Plato, 441.
29. John Sallis recognizes that Socrates establishes a community by turn-
ing force into persuasion. See John Sallis, Being and Logos: Reading the Platonic
Dialogues, 3rd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 322.
30. Recognizing the importance of coercion at the start of book 5, Jacob
Howland suggests that Adeimantus and Polemarchus envision themselves as
the noble guardians who will receive the full pleasure of erotic procreation
in the city Socrates establishes in speech. See Jacob Howland, “The Republic’s
Third Wave and the Paradox of Political Philosophy,” Review of Metaphysics 51,
no. 3 (1998): 646.
31. Philebus 48a– e.
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C H R I S T O P H E R P. L O N G
193
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GER ARD KUPERUS
forms), and both are dealing with these eternal truths within a world
that is characterized by change or flux. In relating philosophy and navi-
gation, the guiding question will be: What exactly is the similarity be-
tween navigating through the sea and navigating through a dialogue?
The metaphor of the labyrinth refers to difficulties in finding a
way.4 The labyrinth appears implicitly in the Phaedo in a reference to
the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. As I argue, the labyrinth is a
symbol for philosophical issues discussed in the dialogue. The archi-
tectural structure of the labyrinth is (re)constructed by different argu-
ments and gestures made by the participants of the dialogue, as well
as by the narrative structure. We, as readers of the Platonic dialogue,
enter this labyrinth of ways and non-ways, through which we somehow
have to find our way. In discussing this second metaphor I will provide a
brief account of some of the arguments of the Phaedo, focusing upon the
methodological proceedings. As I will argue, the construction and re-
construction (through the reader) of a dialogue is similar to building a
labyrinth. Likewise, finding a way through the arguments of a dialogue
is comparable to finding a way through a labyrinth.
first things Protagoras tells them is that he himself does “not conform to
the method” many other sophists make use of.6 Others often “disguise”
their art (tevcnh) by making use of other arts—such as poetry, mystic
rites, music, or even athletics—as outer coverings. Protagoras does not
cover the art of sophistry, since “the multitude, of course, perceive prac-
tically nothing, but merely echo this or that pronouncement of their
leader.” 7 The great sophist is concerned here with the fact that most
people simply repeat what their teacher tells them, without perceiving
the art or technique (technē) that was used to get to such a pronounce-
ment. To cover up the art of sophistry with other technai involves the
danger of making this process even harder to perceive. Protagoras, in-
stead, wants to make the method as transparent as possible. This “open
method” is a civic science (politikhvn tevcnhn) with which he teaches
virtue, or assists others in order to become good.8
Socrates, on the other hand, does not think that it is possible to
teach others to become good, and thus Protagoras has to defend his
technē. He does so by giving a couple of long discourses, which—in the
middle of the dialogue—makes Socrates say: “If someone addresses
me at length I forget the subject on which he is talking.” 9 This remark
about Socrates’ bad memory is the beginning of a discussion on which
method to use. Socrates questions Protagoras’ description of his “open
method”—his art without outer coverings. Socrates implicitly claims that
Protagoras’ sophistry is not transparent at all, since his speeches are so
long that his audience simply forgets what he is even talking about. Pro-
tagoras replies by stating that if he would “argue simply in the way my
opponent demanded, I should not be held superior to anyone nor would
Protagoras have made a name among the Greeks.” 10 The two face a real
crisis here, in which Socrates even attempts to leave the scene. The inter-
vention of Callias, Alcibiades, Critias, Prodicus, and Hippias is needed
to keep Socrates and Protagoras in dialogue, or rather to get them into
a true Socratic dialogue. Alcibiades states the dilemma and the solution
as follows: “If Protagoras confesses himself inferior to Socrates in argu-
mentation [dialecqe`nai], Socrates has no more to ask: but if he chal-
lenges him, let him discuss [dialegevstw] by question and answer; not
spinning out a lecture on each question—beating off the arguments,
refusing to give a reason, and so dilating until most of his hearers have
forgotten the point at issue.” 11 Protagoras is here characterized as the
person who gives long speeches and Socrates as the person who is good
in argumentation. The transition to the Socratic method is then a tran-
sition to dialectic, or dialogue, a transition to question and answer.
The dialectical method is enforced in the second half of the dia-
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After the interlocutors in the Protagoras have decided to use the Socratic
method—a crucial point in the dialogue—an important image comes
to the fore when Hippias, who is also a sophist, advises Socrates and Pro-
tagoras, and says to Protagoras that he must not “let out full sail, as you
run before the breeze, and so escape into the ocean of speech leaving
the land nowhere in sight.” 15 Protagoras should shorten his speeches so
that his listeners do not get lost in his ocean of speech. Protagoras’ “es-
cape into the ocean” is again an indication that his method is not open
or transparent. The listeners lose sight of land, the starting point of the
discussion, and get lost in the ocean, the long speech. This image of
philosophy as a voyage through the sea is one of the many references to
the sea and navigation within the Platonic corpus. This might appear to
be insignificant in the works of someone who lived close to the sea, but
its occurrence at this point in the dialogue is striking: Plato here makes
a reference to sailing and the possibility of being lost in the ocean of
speech at a decisive point in the dialogue where the way how to proceed
is decided. Is there a similarity between sailing a ship through the sea
and making one’s way through a dialogue? Is doing dialectic an art of
navigation? In the following I will discuss this metaphor in more detail
by looking into some other remarkable uses of the imagery of sailing
and navigation within the Platonic corpus.
In book 6 of the Republic we do find one of the most concrete refer-
ences to navigation 16 when Socrates likens the government of a city to
that of a ship.17 This “allegory of the ship”—as I will call it—describes
the situation of the captain of a ship who does not have a decent knowl-
edge of navigation to begin with. When a sailor persuades the captain
to turn over the helm to him, the situation on the ship becomes even
worse, since the sailors do not know “that for the true pilot it is neces-
sary to pay careful attention to year, seasons, heaven, stars, winds and
everything that’s proper to the art.” 18 Additionally, the sailors do not
consider navigation to be something learnable. Instead, they consider
that person most knowledgeable who is able to persuade the captain
to turn over the helm, and thus gain control of the ship. From this per-
spective the true pilot—the one who actually pays careful attention to
the year, seasons, heaven, stars, and winds—is thought to be a mere
stargazer.
This allegory symbolizes how people in the city think about philos-
ophers: similar to navigators, philosophers deal with intangible objects.
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point in the dialogue, when the method with which to proceed was be-
ing determined. This metaphor is also used in the Phaedo when Socrates
narrates his educational “autobiography,” and turns to his famous “sec-
ond sailing.” 26 In the prelude to this journey Simmias introduces the
idea of finding the strongest vessel, that is, logos, to travel with. This idea
appears in the context of the discussion of the immortality of the soul.
Simmias admits that it is “either impossible or very difficult to acquire
clear knowledge about these matters in this life.” 27 What we can do in-
stead, when we cannot find the truth—in this case the truth concerning
the immortality of the soul—is to find the human logos that is “best and
hardest to disprove.” 28 One has to embark upon this logos “as upon a raft,
sail upon it through life in the midst of dangers, unless he can sail upon
a stronger vessel, some divine revelation [lovgou qeivou], and make his voy-
age more safely and securely.” 29 Sarah Kofman discusses the crossing of
a sea as a path that has to be found each time as if for the first time: “The
sea is the endless realm of pure movement, the most mobile, changeable
and polymorphous of all spaces, a space where any way that has been
traced is immediately obliterated, which transforms any journey into a
voyage of exploration which is always unprecedented, dangerous and
uncertain.” 30 It is this unprecedented, dangerous, and uncertain voyage
we are making with Socrates in the Phaedo. In Socrates’ characterization
of this voyage he reiterates Simmias’ idea of finding the best possible
logos: “I put down as hypothesis whatever account [lovgon] I judge to be
mightiest.” 31 One could say then that the best possible or the mightiest
logos has to serve as a vessel with which we can travel through the sea,
that “mobile, changeable and polymorphous” space in which each way
is immediately erased. There is not one way to go through the dialogue
or the sea; there is, rather, a manifold of possibilities. These ways are
not established, but are rather ways that still have to be found, or even
still need to be created. This idea of a plurality of possible ways and the
creation of these ways is emphasized in Socrates’ “autobiography” (96a–
102a) that leads into the second sailing.32 Just like Protagoras, Socrates
now tells us that he does not use the method of others. Instead, he has
“randomly smushed together [ei;kh' fuvrw] another way [trovpon].” 33
This way is then introduced as the “second sailing,” a nautical term re-
ferring to the use of oars due to a lack of wind. The wind, possibly a
metaphor for a divine truth, is failing for Socrates, and he has randomly
smushed together another method while crossing through the sea. The
strongest vessel he can find to make this voyage is the theory of the
forms. The journey itself, that is, the dialogue, can make this vessel even
stronger.
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In the last part of this paper I discuss the dialogue, or voyage, in more
detail by focusing on another metaphor, namely the labyrinth. This im-
age is evoked in the beginning of the dialogue when Phaedo starts his
narration of the circumstances surrounding Socrates’ death, by men-
tioning “a vow” the Athenians made to Apollo “to send a mission every
year to Delos” if the fourteen youths and maidens were saved. 34 Phaedo
refers here to the myth of “Theseus and the Minotaur,” according to
which the Minotaur (the bull of Minos, a creature half man, half bull)
is the result of the greed and selfishness of King Minos of Crete. When
he did not sacrifice the most beautiful bull of his herd to the gods, as he
should have done, the gods took revenge by letting his wife, Pasiphae,
fall in love with the bull, and after she mated with the bull, the Mino-
taur was conceived. Minos asked Daedalus (who first helped Pasiphae
to trick the bull, in order to mate with it) to build a labyrinth in which
the beast could be kept. To keep the Minotaur satisfied, Minos ordered
the city-states that were occupied by the Cretans to sacrifice every year
a particular number of young people to the beast. The Athenians were
asked to sacrifice fourteen youths and maidens every year. Fortunately,
Theseus appeared at the right time, and traveled with the fourteen to
Crete. Once there, Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, fell in love with
Theseus and told him how to get out of the labyrinth (according to some
accounts of this myth, she told him to use a thread). With her advice, he
manages, after killing the Minotaur, to find the way out of the labyrinth
and to save the fourteen youths as well as himself.35
Since Theseus had saved the fourteen, the Athenians sent a mis-
sion to Delos every year, as Phaedo tells us. This mission happened to
have started on the day before Socrates’ trial. Since the city had to keep
itself pure, and could not execute anyone during the trip of the ship to
Delos and back, and since this trip sometimes takes a long time “when
contrary winds detain it . . . Socrates passed a long time in prison be-
tween his trial and his death.” 36 Here, right at the outset of the dialogue,
is thus another reference to traveling by boat, and the difficulties such a
journey can involve, such as contrary winds.
After referring to the myth, Phaedo introduces us to fourteen of
Socrates’ friends who are present in the prison. This number of friends—
the twice seven (dis hepta), as Phaedo says 37—is another reference to the
myth in which fourteen youths and maidens are saved by Theseus.38 If we
were to map the myth upon the Phaedo, we could interpret the fourteen
friends as being saved by Socrates, while Ariadne symbolizes Phaedo,
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TR AVELING WITH SOCR ATES
Important here are the words aporos and euporos, the first being a
negation of poros, the second being a confirmation (in the sense of good
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or well) of poros. Poros is a way through or over, a passage, but also a re-
source. Poros is opposed to hodos, a (public) road that is clearly laid out.
A poros is, instead, a way that has to be found. An aporia is the impos-
sibility of finding this way, or a non-way in the labyrinth, here translated
as “being perplexed.” Since poros also means wealth or resource, we can
also understand aporia as a lack of resources. Euporos can then be trans-
lated as having good or better resources, or being better able to find a
way. What is suggested here is, first of all, that the way is still to be found
or even has to be created (no hodos is available). I will return to this sug-
gestion in the conclusion. Second, this passage suggests that together
with Socrates, his two interlocutors will be more resourceful in their
attempt to find a way. In other dialogues Socrates is often presented as
a resource without resources. He is the philosopher who is wise because
he knows he does not know. This lack of resources is precisely his re-
sourcefulness, because this forces his interlocutors—who mostly think
they know—into a dialogue. Here in the Phaedo his method is different:
he presents a theory that is proving the opposite of what it is supposed
to prove, but by doing this he makes the others more resourceful, makes
it possible for them to find ways. Socrates thus lacks resources, but in a
different way than by simply not knowing—as is the case in many other
dialogues—since he at least provides us with a theory, suggesting that he
knows something. 54 Even while he is being questioned himself, Socrates
is nevertheless the guide in the philosophical labyrinth, since he is—as
described above—enticing the others in questioning their own theory;
Socrates thus leads the others through the dialectical process.
After Simmias compares the soul to the tuning of the lyre, Cebes
compares the soul to a weaver who can wear out many cloaks but who will
eventually die himself as well. Cebes’ argument is referring precisely to
the lack of continuity that is provided by the theory of opposites: it only
provides a continuous movement, without the possibility of stability in
this flux. Cebes therefore rightly suggests that the soul might last longer
than the body—as the weaver lasts longer than his cloaks—but at some
point the soul might perish as well. It is interesting that Cebes’ coun-
terargument, as opposed to the easily dismissed argument of Simmias,
is never referred to as an aporia. This might indicate that Cebes’ argu-
ment is in fact not an aporia precisely because it provides a new way, and
shows us that in fact the idea of a circular physics was not the right way; it
blocked the way, or was a dead end. The weaver argument problematizes
the theory of opposites and, as such, is not a blockage, not an aporia.
Instead, the theory of opposites is now considered to be an aporia while
the new theory provides new ways, opens up new possibilities. This new
voyage is Socrates’ “second sailing,” which is first of all Socrates’ own at-
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TR AVELING WITH SOCR ATES
tempt to find “the cause of generation and decay” after Anaxagoras and
others disappointed him. Second, it is a new way within the dialogue to
prove the immortality of the soul, after Cebes has shown that the first
attempt (the theory of opposites) did not lead us anywhere but was—so
to speak—a roadblock. Third, as discussed above, the ideal realm of
forms—Socrates’ own sailing—is the best possible logos for Socrates. Ap-
proximating the divine truth, it is the most secure and safest vessel to
cross the sea, or the best way one can find through the labyrinth.
The development of the above-described arguments shows that
the labyrinth of ways and non-ways is in a constant flux: ways turn out
to be non-ways; non-ways can become ways. The flux of the dialogue
can be intimidating. As discussed in the Republic, the Protagoras, and the
Phaedo, many people develop a fear of dialectic. This is a fear of falling
into a labyrinth like Tartarus, described at the end of the Phaedo.55 Tar-
tarus is a labyrinth in which no progress is possible; no distinction can
be made between better and worse ways, since every way will lead back
to the same point. This is the fear that one can have of philosophy: the
fear of not being able to get anywhere; the fear of not getting out, or the
fear of not finding anything stable, but only a flux in which navigation
is impossible.
Socrates addressed this problem earlier in the Phaedo after Simmias
and Cebes gave their arguments and everyone—including Echecrates,
to whom Phaedo narrates the last day of Socrates’ life—seemed to
be at a loss about the direction that they now had to take. They first
thought Socrates’ arguments were sound and stable, but now Simmias’
and Cebes’ arguments, which dismiss the earlier arguments, are very
convincing as well. Echecrates phrases the fear of a flux in which noth-
ing is stable by asking, “What argument shall we believe henceforth?” 56
Before discussing Simmias’ and Cebes’ arguments, Socrates first—as if
he hears Echecrates’ question in the frame dialogue—discusses with
Phaedo the possibility of misology, hatred of arguments. Socrates wants
to prevent us from thinking that “there is nothing sound and sure in
anything, whether argument or anything else, but all things go up and
down, like the tide in the Euripus, and nothing is stable for any length of
time.” 57 In a dialogue such as the Phaedo we encounter many conflicting
arguments, and consequently we could easily become either relativists
or postmodernists, or—as Socrates fears—misologists, for whom there
is no possibility of a logos that is “true and sure and can be learned.” 58
What we are left with then is dialectic itself, in which one does not ar-
gue in the way “quite uncultured persons” do, who “do not care what
the truth is in the matters they are discussing, but are eager only to
make their own views seem true to their hearers.” 59 Instead of this per-
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Notes
ences, although I have attempted to include all sailing and navigation meta-
phors that refer to method.
4. The term “way” is—I would say—one of the crucial terms in John Sallis,
Being and Logos: Reading the Platonic Dialogues, 3rd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1996). Sallis’s “way” leads out of the city and back into it, up
and down. Although the “way” I describe is not first of all one of logos or—to
or from—“being,” it can indeed be characterized by such a double directional-
ity in the sense that the ways of philosophizing are never stable and can even
change from ways into non-ways.
5. Plato, Protagoras, in Plato II: Laches, Protagoras, Meno, Euthydemus, trans.
W. R. M. Lamb, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1977), 312e (my emphasis).
6. Protagoras, 317a.
7. Protagoras, 317a.
8. Protagoras, 319a.
9. Protagoras, 334d.
10. Protagoras, 335a. This reference to Protagoras’ reputation hints at one of
the problems the two are struggling with in the entire dialogue: Who is giving
the class, or leading the discussion, Protagoras or Socrates? So far, obviously,
Protagoras has been the teacher, since he gives long monologues. A transfor-
mation to the Socratic method is therefore a serious threat to Protagoras, who
might lose control over the discussion, which again might hurt his reputation.
11. Protagoras, 336c– d.
12. Protagoras, 344e.
13. Protagoras, 318b.
14. Protagoras, 361a.
15. Protagoras, 338a.
16. Unfortunately, we do not know exactly what the Greeks knew about
navigation. In Homer’s Odyssey the ships seem to be navigated more by the gods
than anything else. However, we have to take into consideration that the stars
and the winds are not necessarily differentiated from the gods. In the Nicoma-
chean Ethics, Aristotle characterizes navigation, along with ethics and medicine,
as an art that does not have “exact precision” and in which “the agents them-
selves have to consider what is suited to the circumstances on each occasion”
(2.2.4). The passage from the Republic that I discuss here gives us a more con-
crete indication about how they actually navigated.
17. Plato, Republic, in The Republic of Plato, 2nd ed., trans. Allan Bloom (New
York: Basic Books, 1991), 488b– 489a.
18. Republic, 488d.
19. Republic, 485b.
20. Republic, 484b.
21. Republic, 484d.
22. Although this is speculative, we could assume that the metaphor of sail-
ing through the sea refers to Heraclitus’ idea of flux.
23. Republic, 533c.
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the difficulty, or in fact the impossibility, of finding ways that lead to the truth.
In the two dialogues discussed here we can find a similar idea. In the Protagoras
Socrates and Protagoras are at the end of the dialogue still opposed to one an-
other, and in the Phaedo we are left with nothing more than good hopes about
the immortality of the soul.
42. Phaedo, 70e.
43. Phaedo, 71c.
44. Phaedo, 72b.
45. Phaedo, 72c.
46. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies
on Plato (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 25.
47. Phaedo, 72e.
48. Phaedo, 74e.
49. Phaedo, 75c.
50. Phaedo, 74a.
51. Phaedo, 77c.
52. Phaedo, 84b– c (my emphasis).
53. Plato’s Phaedo, 84c– d.
54. It is this peculiar character of Socrates to which Kofman alludes in her
“Beyond Aporia?” when she makes her famous analysis of the figures of poros,
penia, and eros as we find them in Diotima’s speech in the Symposium. Eros is
the child of poros and penia; poros is the father, the resourceful, who has pos-
sibilities to find ways; and penia is the mother, who is poor. The child of these
parents, eros is “[n]either mortal nor immortal, Love is a daemon, an interme-
diary being. Neither wise nor ignorant, he is a philosopher” (Kofman, “Beyond
Aporia?” 26).
55. Phaedo, 111c–114c.
56. Phaedo, 88d.
57. Phaedo, 90c.
58. Phaedo, 90c.
59. Phaedo, 91a.
60. Protagoras, 348d.
61. We can see this, for example, in the Symposium where Socrates is sup-
posed to give a eulogy, but starts off with a short dialogue with Agathon. He
eventually does give a eulogy on love, but in the form of an (imaginary) dia-
logue with Diotima. In order to give an account, to provide a logos, Socrates
thus needs dialectic, possibly even with an imaginary interlocutor. Since his
imaginary eulogy can be seen as a continuation of his dialogue with Agathon,
we find here again a reversal of positions in which Socrates adopts the position
of Agathon, and Diotima adopts Socrates’ position.
10
In Plato’s Image
Jill Gordon
And a wolf is very like a dog, the wildest like the tamest of ani-
mals. But the cautious man must be especially on his guard in
the matter of resemblances, for they are very slippery things.
Sophist 231a
Plato’s images are among the most powerful and alluring ever contrived:
the cave dwellers of the Republic sit in shackles before the shadows cast
on the cave wall, prevented from turning their heads toward the real
source of those images; the unruly, winged horse of the Phaedrus re-
sists the bridled control of the charioteer and therefore fails to ascend
to the heights; Socrates, the midwife in Theaetetus, aids in the birth of
ideas and disposes of those ideas delivered stillborn or unfit; Aristo-
phanes relates the story in the Symposium of our origins as double-sided
humans, two joined as one, cartwheeling around with our other halves
in erotic bliss; philosophy is depicted as medicine for the soul when it is
in ill health; Alcibiades flaunts his striking and seductive beauty; and we
212
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IN PL ATO’S IMAGE
might even say that Socrates flaunts his ugly visage.1 These images form
so integral a part of the dialogues that the philosophical importance of
Plato’s image-making demands investigation.2 And yet several dialogues
contain passages in which interlocutors seem to throw into question the
moral and epistemic value of image-making, and to denigrate what is
visible in comparison to what is purely intelligible. Plato’s own use of
images therefore compels us to reckon with a deeply entrenched view
of “Platonic metaphysics” and to broaden our common conceptions of
Plato’s method.
It is widely accepted that Plato subscribes to some metaphysical sys-
tem that involves two realms or kinds of being which are hierarchically
arranged, and two kinds of apprehension or knowledge that correspond
to the two kinds of being. The superior kind of being comprises things-
in-themselves, or forms, which are real, eternal, and unchanging. Fur-
thermore, the realm of the forms is the invisible realm, and so the forms
cannot be known through the senses. They are known, if they can be
known at all, through reason, independently of the senses, emotions,
or passions. Finally, purely rational knowledge of the forms constitutes
true philosophical enlightenment. Inferior to the forms, in this same
view of “Platonic metaphysics,” are the phenomena of human experi-
ence. We apprehend the phenomena through our senses, and they are
in constant flux. Sensation, passion, and emotion, which necessarily ac-
company human experience since we are embodied creatures, hinder
clear understanding. The phenomena are not wholly real but are imi-
tations or mere images of the forms. When we grasp the phenomena,
therefore, we perceive only images of reality. Our apprehension of these
phenomena or images falls far short, at best, of philosophical wisdom.3
If this two-realm metaphysics is an accurate depiction of Plato’s
metaphysical commitments and of his commitment to philosophy’s re-
siding in the realm of pure reason, then we might question why Plato did
not himself maintain the level of discourse in his philosophical works
by offering only rational argumentation for philosophical positions;
why would he sully his own work with lowly, unphilosophical, or anti-
philosophical images? If to appeal to what is best philosophically is to
appeal to what is purely rational, why didn’t Plato just write arguments?
While the dialogues are consistent with a commitment to the two-
realm metaphysical view, they are not consistent with a view of philoso-
phy as a purely rational enterprise. To the contrary, the dialogues never
fail to appeal to our visual senses, forcing us to see and to create images
in our minds.4 Plato draws repeatedly from the phenomena of human
experience, asking us to understand philosophical ideas through the
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JILL GORDON
finite, mutable objects of our experience. And beyond our sense experi-
ence, Plato relies on the fancy of our imagination to create other worlds
and images. Plato’s use of images and his implicit belief in their poten-
tial for good effect, as evidenced by his pervasive and artful use of them,
compel us to ask why Plato chose to use images as he does and why they
are such an effective tool for his project. I will argue that the dialogues
are, therefore, paradigms of image-making as an avenue for philosophi-
cal insight.
The Phaedo happens to be a major source for passages that seem to deni-
grate the senses in comparison to reason, and is therefore an appro-
priate locus for reopening the investigation of the traditional under-
standing of Plato’s metaphysical commitments, his methods, and just
what role vision and images might actually play in philosophy. While
the Phaedo, on the surface, appears to support the traditional under-
standing of “Platonic metaphysics” and philosophy as a purely rational
enterprise, it actually provides clear evidence that this understanding
needs re-vision.
Set in Socrates’ jail cell only hours before he drinks the hemlock,
Phaedo focuses appropriately on the immortality of the soul. Near the
beginning of the dialogue, Socrates claims that the philosopher tries as
far as is possible to live a life in which body and soul are separate. The
philosopher shuns the so-called pleasures of the body such as eating,
drinking, and sex. Moreover, he thinks little of personal adornment in
clothes, shoes, and the like. In this way, the philosopher lives toward and
desires death insofar as death is the separation of body and soul. “The
philosopher more than other men, separates the soul from communion
with the body” (65a). Socrates then reasons that anyone who shuns the
body would have to shun the senses, since the sense organs are bodily
organs:
Would not that man do this [i.e., separate soul from body] most per-
fectly who approaches each thing, so far as possible, with the reason
alone, not introducing sight into his reasoning nor dragging in any
of the other senses along with his thinking, but who employs pure,
absolute reason in his attempt to search out the pure, absolute essence
of things, and who removes himself, so far as possible, from eyes and
ears, and, in a word, from his whole body, because he feels that its
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IN PL ATO’S IMAGE
At this point in the dialogue Socrates has thus established the threefold
dichotomy: body and soul; senses and reason; objects of human experi-
ence and things-in-themselves. As the traditional view of “Platonic meta-
physics” would have it, these pairs are wholly disjunctive, but when the
story of recollection is introduced, the dichotomies demand a closer
look. The story of recollection reveals remarkable means of connecting
the elements in each pair, ontologically and epistemically. It therefore
contains important clues about the role that images play in linking the
two realms.
The story of recollection tells us that before the soul’s embodi-
ment or birth, it knew the realities. Upon birth it forgets these truths,
and if we are to learn them at all, we must recollect them. Socrates tells
us that various things in our experience can remind us of other things.
For example, seeing the lyre can remind us of the one who plays it; see-
ing the cloak worn by a lover can remind us of our lover; seeing a picture
of Simmias can remind us of Simmias. When we perceive one thing,
it calls to our minds some other thing. The item recalled can be like
and/or unlike the item which stimulated its recall. We are then induced
to analyze the recollection to see what relationship obtains between the
thing recalled and the item that brought it to mind, and we evaluate the
likeness or difference between the two (72e–74a).
“Now see,” said [Socrates], “if this is true. We say there is such a thing
as equality. I do not mean one piece of wood equal to another, or
one stone to another, or anything of that sort, but something beyond
that—equality itself [aujto; to; i[son]. 5 Shall we say there is such a thing,
or not?”
“We shall say that there is,” said Simmias, “most decidedly.”
“And do we know what it is?”
“Certainly,” said he.
“Whence did we derive the knowledge of it? Is it not from the things
we were just speaking of ? Did we not, by seeing equal pieces of wood
or stones or other things, derive from them a knowledge of equality
itself, which is another thing? . . . Then,” said he, “those equals are not
the same as equality itself.”
“Not at all, I should say, Socrates.”
“But from those equals,” said he, “which are not the same as equality
itself, you have nevertheless conceived and acquired knowledge of it?”
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JILL GORDON
What makes this passage remarkable is its claim that we can come
to know the realities from the objects of human experience in the pro-
cess called recollection. By using our senses—in this case, sight—we can
come to know something of things-in-themselves. Socrates even claims
that “it is impossible to gain this knowledge [of reality], except by sight or
touch or some other of the senses” (75a)! By perceiving, we are reminded
of, and we recover, the realities our souls once knew. The objects of our
experience and the things-in-themselves are both like and unlike, so we
glimpse the realities insofar as they are similar to the images before us,
and at the same time we recognize that the images before us are not the
realities themselves, are unlike them in fundamental ways.
Recollection thus provides the link between all three dichotomies:
senses and reason are linked by recollection, since we rely on our senses
in order to grasp what we might later reason about, namely, the reali-
ties; objects of experience and things-in-themselves are linked by rec-
ollection, since we recall the things-in-themselves through the objects
of our experience; and body and soul are linked through recollection,
since the senses and the intelligence necessarily work together in that
activity. This means, incidentally, that recollection is therefore what al-
lows embodied souls to be integrated beings. Most important, what be-
comes clear when we take these aspects of recollection together is that
recollection is what makes philosophy possible. We can have access, and
we can only have access, to the things-in-themselves through our dim
images of them in this realm because of the links recollection makes
possible.
The Phaedo, then, portrays philosophical investigation taking place
between the realms of sense and intellect, and so the exclusivity of the
two realms in the traditional “Platonic” metaphysical dualism needs to
be reexamined. Socrates’ explicit commitment to the study of the ob-
jects of human experience, and to the sensible faculties as a means for
investigating the realities, that is, as a means of philosophical investiga-
tion in the genuine learning process of recollection, remains incongru-
ous with the traditional view. The two realms are necessarily linked,
and philosophical inquiry into the nature of reality must necessarily
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take place within the realm of appearances. The reason why it must take
place there is central to the Phaedo.
There is strong evidence in the Phaedo, and in other dialogues, as
I shall show, that rather than being an escape from this embodied life,
philosophy is a way of coping from within it. That is, philosophy is a way
of directly addressing our human condition with courage and intelli-
gence. The Phaedo, in this way, offers a radically different conception of
philosophy than the traditional “Platonic” interpretation of it as purely
rational activity carried out beyond the human realm. Socrates makes
it clear that the human life is one of embodiment which necessarily
limits the capacities of the soul; and in particular, the body limits the
soul’s access to things-in-themselves. Note the frequency of Socrates’
qualifications in the passages discussed above regarding the philoso-
pher’s limitations: “so far as possible,” “if anyone can,” “so far as he was
able.” The Phaedo offers a conception of philosophy as a human activity
carried out within—and because of—our limitations, and images are a
part of philosophy.
Our first indication that philosophy might be the remedy for hu-
man limitation occurs at a critical juncture in the drama. Socrates speaks
of the immortality of the soul—literally on his deathbed—in response
to Simmias’ and Cebes’ challenge to the fearless manner in which he
faces his fate (63a–b). The young men have objections to Socrates’ argu-
ments, although they are hesitant to make them on account of Socrates’
“present misfortune” (84d); they fear the consequences if philosophy
cannot meet their objections. Simmias nevertheless musters his cour-
age to ask his question, explaining that despite the difficulty of knowing
certain things, one must attempt the discovery nonetheless. Simmias’
brief prologue to his own objection introduces a metaphor: human life
is carried out in rough waters where there is danger all around. We need
beliefs and ideas to help us stay afloat, but it is difficult, if not impos-
sible, to know which of those ideas are to be believed. We should cling to
that vessel which serves us best, that belief which best stands the test of
dialectic and, holding fast to it, make our way the best we can (85b– d).
To question, as Simmias is doing, is to take courage in this difficult
situation, and philosophy is the means by which we test the worthiness
of our own vessels and perhaps leave them behind when we have found
sturdier craft. In any case, our plight is risky and uncertain, and philoso-
phy provides the life raft.6
Properly steeled with philosophy on their side, Simmias and Cebes
make their objections, which appear to present formidable challenges
to Socrates’ arguments. Significantly, their objections each take the
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form of an image. Simmias likens the soul to a harmony and the body
to a lyre, asking whether the soul might be destroyed with the body just
as the harmony is destroyed along with the lyre (85e– 86d). Cebes uses
the image of the old weaver and his cloak, which is left behind after the
weaver’s death. Cebes claims that even though the weaver has had many
cloaks prior to this last one, we cannot infer by its existence that the
weaver, the longer lasting of the two, is still alive because the cloak still
exists (87b– 88b). Plato draws our attention to the self-conscious use of
images when he has Cebes say that, like Simmias, he too is in need of
an image in order to express his objection (87b; eijkovno~ gavr tino~, wJ~
e[oiken, kajgw; w{sper Simmiva~ devomai). The Phaedo thus indicates that im-
ages can play a role in posing formidable philosophical questions.
Just as Simmias faced asking difficult questions, so now Socrates
faces answering difficult questions, and the Phaedo recommends phi-
losophy as the courageous choice in both cases. In fact, Socrates must
assuage some of the anxiety of those who now fear that philosophy is
not a match to meet these formidable objections.7 Socrates’ cure for the
anxiety of the interlocutors amounts to an admonition never to tire of
the pursuit of an argument and, furthermore, when philosophy fails,
never to blame the argument, but to see the failing in ourselves. We
must not become misologists, haters of argument, but we must maintain
trust in philosophical argument, even when it seems to betray us (89c–
91a). One might object that Socrates is saying exactly the opposite of
what I want to establish, since he claims that our faith ought to remain
in argument. Socrates’ view, however, implies that arguments will neces-
sarily fail us. What comes through strongly in these passages is again the
fundamental limitation of human beings. Despite the occasional failure
of argument, we ought not let that deter us from the life of philosophy.
Socrates’ cure for anxiety, while assuring us that we ought to remain
faithful to philosophy, at the same time warns us of our limitations.
And while the participants in this dialogue look to philosophy for
preservation in the seas of uncertainty, philosophy is not, as it is prac-
ticed in the Phaedo, pure argumentation, nor an appeal to reason, sepa-
rate from other faculties. Near the beginning of the dialogue, Socrates
describes his discussion of the soul and the afterlife as telling stories
(muqologei`n, 61e), and he prefaces his defense that he is right not to
grieve at death by saying that he hopes (ejlpivzw) to go to a good fate,
“though I should not dare to assert this positively; but I would assert as
positively as anything about such matters that I am going to gods who
are good masters” (63c). The entire setup for Socrates’ views on the im-
mortality of the soul is therefore couched in non-conclusive, speculative
terms. And after having presented his views on the immortality of the
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soul, Socrates finds it necessary once again to attenuate: “There are still
many subjects for doubt and many points open to attack, if anyone cares
to discuss the matter thoroughly” (84c).
The largest portion of the dialogue contains what might be called
“arguments” for the immortality of the soul and Socrates’ response
to objections to those arguments. But even these arguments are not
enough, ultimately, to convey what Socrates says really lies at the heart
of his belief that the soul is immortal, namely, the necessity of becoming
“as good and wise as possible” (107d). Since the final justice meted out to
good and bad souls appears to be as important, if not more important,
than the mere immortality of the soul, Socrates completes the dialogue
with a description of the journey of the soul in the afterlife and of the
worlds it might come to inhabit (107b–115a). To demonstrate the im-
portance of how we live our lives, the arguments for the immortality of
the soul must be supplemented by more images and stories. Death can
not simply be the separation of body and soul. If only that, death would
be an escape and “a boon to the wicked” (107c). Regarding the truth of
the story Socrates tells about the world and the fate of the soul, his last
words on the subject are again about human risk and uncertainty:
Now it would not be fitting for a man of sense to maintain that all this
is just as I have described it, but that this or something like it is true
concerning our souls and their abodes, since the soul is shown to be
[faivnetai ou\sa] immortal, I think he may properly and worthily ven-
ture to believe; for the venture is well worthwhile. (114d)
That human beings are inherently limited, that philosophy is the ap-
propriate medium for human inquiry due to our limitations, and that
philosophy needs therefore to be carried out to some extent through
images, are pervasive ideas in the Platonic corpus. I do not intend here
to give a full interpretation of any particular dialogue, or to provide an
exhaustive treatment of all discussions about philosophy, human limita-
tion, and the use of images; rather, I mean to present enough evidence
to establish that these ideas appear frequently and consistently in the
dialogues and are fundamental to Plato’s project.8
The Apology provides testimony that human limitation is the bed-
rock of Plato’s project insofar as it sets out in the clearest, most poignant
fashion the meaning of Socratic ignorance. Socrates remains outstand-
ing among other humans because he recognizes his ignorance while
others do not recognize theirs. What makes Socratic ignorance “So-
cratic” therefore is nothing that mitigates the ignorance, but is instead
the open and explicit recognition of the ignorance itself—the laying
claim to that ignorance, which is a necessary propaedeutic for philos-
ophy.9 The two terms, “Socratic” and “ignorance,” when put together,
present both a universal human condition and a particularized human
ideal: Socratic ignorance is emblematic of the universal human condition
since all humans are alike in their ignorance, but Socratic ignorance is
also representative of an ideal for humans who need to recognize and
admit their ignorance and yet aspire to philosophize.
The Symposium addresses the human aspiration to philosophize,
and it can be read as a dialogue that attempts to bridge the gulf be-
tween human ignorance and pure, enlightened wisdom. The language
of Diotima’s speech, for example, is filled with references to mediation,
to finding a middle path, to navigating between two realms, and of the
limited being who wants nonetheless to ascend to truth.10 Our limitation
implies that we cannot achieve pure rationality, nor need we remain
flailing in the depths, but we can aspire to a middle path. Philosophy
guides us in that middle path, steering away from ignorance, navigating
toward wisdom, but forever remaining between the two. In one brief but
telling passage Diotima responds to one of Socrates’ questions:
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“Who then, Diotima,” I asked, “are the lovers of wisdom, if they are
neither the wise nor the ignorant?”
“Why, a child could tell by this time,” she answered, “that they are
the intermediate sort, and amongst these also is Eros. For wisdom has
to do with the fairest things, and Eros is a love directed to what is fair;
so that Eros must needs be a friend of wisdom, and, as such, must be
between wise and ignorant.” (204a–b) 11
Eros, in his capacity as lover of wisdom, that is, in his capacity as phi-
losopher, is of the intermediate type between wisdom and ignorance.
If Socrates is a philosopher, and there is plenty of evidence in this
dialogue (and others) that Socrates loves wisdom and the beautiful
but does not possess them, then we ought to take note that Diotima’s
method of teaching Socrates about eros is through an image: the ladder
of ascent. The language here, however, would seem to preclude reading
Diotima’s speech as simply a method of ascent that was, strictly speak-
ing, recommended and possible for humans. The language is consis-
tent with a view of humans as fundamentally limited, and Diotima puts
forward philosophy as the practice reserved for those who love wisdom
and the beautiful, but who do not possess them. Furthermore, Socrates,
the lover of wisdom, who claims to have learned much from the wisdom
of Diotima, learned first from question and answer and then from the
beautiful image she created for him.12
An even more compelling image in the Symposium is drawn by
Aristophanes, and this image tells the story of human incompleteness
(189c–191d). Long ago, we were beings which we would now consider
“double,” with four legs and four arms, two sets of genitals, and two
faces, joined together back to back. Each such being exhibited great
strength, vigor, and joy. We were, in that state, complete. These beings
had such “lofty notions” that they “conspired against the gods,” schem-
ing to assault them in “high heaven.” So, in anger the gods split these
beings asunder, ensuring that forever they would be doomed to seek
their other halves for completeness. As Drew Hyland describes this sym-
bolic representation of human limitation, we are consequently “bound
to strive to overcome that incompleteness we experience.” 13
Like the Symposium, the Phaedrus also tells the tale of erotic im-
pulses toward wisdom. It is further linked to the Symposium insofar as it
contains a myth that has many similarities to Diotima’s ladder. The story
and image of the charioteer, like Diotima’s ladder, tells the tale of the
lover ascending to the heights. Oddly enough, though, the Phaedrus also
relies on recollection and so has important links to the Phaedo. Socrates
begins his story of the charioteer by saying that he cannot give a direct
account of the nature of the soul, but will instead provide an image.
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He pays particular attention to the manner in which the soul can and
should be discussed, claiming that it should not be through discourse,
but through image:
It is not easy for all souls to gain from earthly things a recollection
of those realities, either for those which had but a brief view of them
at that earlier time, or for those which, after falling to earth, were so
unfortunate as to be turned toward unrighteousness through some
evil communications and to have forgotten the holy sights they once
saw. Few then are left which retain an adequate recollection of them;
but these when they see here any likeness [oJmoivwma] of the things of
that other world, are stricken with amazement and can no longer con-
trol themselves; but they do not understand their condition, because
they do not clearly perceive. Now in the earthly copies of justice and
temperance and the other ideas which are precious to souls there is no
light, but only a few, approaching the images [oJmoiwvmasin] through
the darkling organs of sense, behold in them the nature of that which
they imitate [tou` eijkasqevnto~], and these few do this with difficulty.
(249e–250b) 15
The earthly likenesses are dim compared to the realities, but are dim re-
minders nonetheless. Human access to the realities comes from things
in this world that are images of the realities. What is needed is simply
the right use of the aids of recollection (249c). Furthermore, the phi-
losopher’s vision—a vision of objects of human experience that reveals
dim glimpses of reality, not direct vision of reality—will be difficult and
rare. In this manner the Phaedrus echoes elements of Phaedo in which we
learn that we gain understanding of things-in-themselves (for example,
the equal) from objects of our experience (for example, two sticks of
equal length).
The Sophist also treats images, and eventually points to their role
in philosophical discourse. The Eleatic Stranger and young Theaetetus,
in their complex and at times circuitous conversation, weave together
discussions of images (roughly 235b–236d, 239c– d, 264c ff.) and the
possibility of not-being (roughly 237c, 239d–264b). A formulation of
the ontological status of not-being emerges from their conversation, ex-
plaining how non-being helps render philosophical discourse possible,
and delineating the role of images as part of that discourse.
The Stranger and Theaetetus are confronted with the nature of
negation and falsehood and the puzzle of what-is-not. They are plagued
by the sophistic claim that falsehood is utterly impossible, since not-
being could neither be conceived nor uttered since it has no part of be-
ing and is therefore nothing (236e–237a, 260c– d). The motivation for
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their search lies in the difficulty they face if they claim that the sophist
deals with false discourse or creates false images. Image-making, when
done according to the true proportions of the thing imitated, is simply
called “likeness-making” (eijkastikhvn), and the Stranger and Theaete-
tus accept this kind of image-making as, at the very least, neutral (235d).
But there is another category of image-making which produces appear-
ances, not likenesses, which is called “fantastic art” (fantastikhvn) and
contains an element of falsehood (236c), and this type of image-making
concerns the sophist. (Note that the discussion of the possibility of false
language is rooted first in the possibility of false images. This under-
mines contemporary treatments of this dialogue that cast the problem
of not-being exclusively in terms of language, in terms of how false propo-
sitions can or cannot correspond to the world. Clearly it is not necessarily
or exclusively a problem of language that Plato is concerned with here,
since false images initiate the investigation.) 16
They therefore embark together on a mission the Stranger sets
for himself: “I shall have to . . . contend forcibly that after a fashion
not-being is and on the other hand in a sense being is not” (241d). The
larger aim here is to establish that discourse of all kinds—speech, opin-
ion, conceptualization, and image-making—participates both in being
and not-being. That is, discourse exists (participation in being) and yet
there is such a thing as negative and false discourse (participation in
not-being) which is distinguishable from positive or true assertion of
being. Without that, discourse, at least meaningful discourse, is impos-
sible. So the very existence of philosophical or any other type of mean-
ingful discourse depends on the mixture of being and not-being, and it
depends on the distinction between truth and falsity and the distinction
that parallels it between true likenesses and fantastic appearances.
In establishing that discourse is necessarily a mingling of being
and not being, the Stranger and Theaetetus now allow for the possibil-
ity of falsehood. So the position of the Stranger in the Sophist is consis-
tent with that espoused by Diotima in the Symposium, which places phi-
losophy in the position of medium between two worlds. In the former
case philosophy lies between being and not-being, and in the latter case
between the fullness of divine reality and the poverty of human want.
The possibility of falsehood that comes with the mingling of being and
not-being, while it certainly brings with it the promise of philosophical
discourse, carries with it significant consequences.
Our object was to establish discourse [to;n lovgon] as one of our classes
of being. For if we were deprived of this, we should be deprived of
philosophy, which would be the greatest calamity; moreover, we must
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“So, since we are not clever persons, I think we should employ the
method of search that we should use if we, with not very keen vision,
were bidden to read small letters from a distance, and then someone
had observed that these same letters exist elsewhere larger and on a
larger surface. We should have accounted it a godsend, I fancy, to be
allowed to read those letters first, and then examine the smaller, if
they are the same.”
“Quite so,” said Adeimantus; “but what analogy to this do you detect
in the inquiry about justice?”
“I will tell you,” I said: “there is a justice of one man, we say, and, I
suppose, also of an entire city? . . . Is not the city larger than the man?
. . . Then, perhaps there would be more justice in the larger object and
more easy to apprehend.” (368d– e)
any embodied being, would ever be able to explain the nature of the
realities, and whether the image of the sun is therefore the most philo-
sophically appropriate means for helping the young men understand
the nature of the Good after all.
But images play a more important—even crucial—role in the Re-
public, philosophically speaking. As Socrates reveals in his conversation
with Adeimantus, the primary activity of the philosopher, as depicted in
the Republic, is to imitate noble images!
“For surely, Adeimantus, the man whose mind is truly fi xed on eternal
realities has no leisure to turn his eyes downward upon the petty af-
fairs of men, and so engaging in strife with them to be filled with envy
and hate, but he fi xes his gaze upon the things of the eternal and un-
changing order, and seeing that they neither wrong nor are wronged
by one another, but all abide in harmony as reason bids, he will
endeavor to imitate [mimei`sqai] them and, as far as may be, to fash-
ion himself in their likeness and assimilate himself [ajfomoiou`sqai]
to them.” . . . “If then,” I said, “some compulsion is laid upon him to
practice stamping on the plastic matter of human nature in public and
private patterns that he visions there, and not merely to mold and fash-
ion himself, do you think he will prove a poor craftsman of sobriety
and justice and all forms of ordinary civic virtue?” “By no means,” he
said. “But if the multitude become aware that what we are saying of the
philosopher is true, will they still be harsh with philosophers, and will
they distrust our statement that no city could ever be blessed unless its
lineaments were traced by artists who used the heavenly model?” “They
will not be harsh,” he said, “if they perceive that.” (500b– e)
“I understand,” [Glaucon] said, “You mean [the wise man] will [take
part in politics] in the city whose foundation we have now gone
through, the one that has its place in speeches, since I don’t suppose
it exists anywhere on earth.”
“But in heaven,” I said, “perhaps a pattern [paravdeigma] is laid up
for the man who wants to see [oJra`n] and found a city within himself
on the basis of what he sees. It doesn’t make any difference whether
it is or will be somewhere. For he would mind the things of this city
alone, and of no other.” (592a–b) 25
The image of the just city is that to which the wise person looks when
modeling his or her own soul. We model our souls on the ideals, as those
ideals are represented in and through images. The images’ imaginary
status is irrelevant for Socrates, since as long as there is the ideal image
to gaze at, the wise person’s attention can be fixed and focused, and the
just life can still be glimpsed. Glaucon’s reply—“It is likely” (Eijkov~)—to
Socrates’ claim that the image of the city is a model to look at for the
wise man, is not an insignificant end to book 9. Glaucon’s reply again
links, as did the Timaeus, the need to look to images (eijkwvn) for human
understanding and the epistemological status of human understanding
as merely likely or probable (eijkov~).
The significance of these passages, however, seems to be to help
the young men to avoid confusing reality and image, to avoid being
deceived about which is which. The images themselves are not (meta-
physically) evil or bad, since the philosopher or the wise man need both
original and image to do what they do, and they must see and under-
stand the difference between the two. Instead of condemning images
and image-making, Socrates seems to condemn the individual who mis-
takes images for reality. Deception is foremost on Socrates’ mind:
When anyone reports to us of some one, that he has met a man who
knows all the crafts and everything else that men severally know and
that there is nothing that he does not know more exactly than anybody
else, our tacit rejoinder must be that he is a simple fellow who appar-
ently has met some magician or sleight-of-hand man and imitator and
has been deceived by him into the belief that he is all-wise, because of
his own inability to put to the proof and distinguish knowledge, ignorance and
imitation. (598d, my emphasis) 26
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are not only legitimate and useful, but are a part of the human manner
of proceeding philosophically.
In a consistent way, therefore, many dialogues portray a decided
emphasis on the limitations of humans, yet they urge the interlocutors
and the reader to philosophize and to take up the philosophical life. If
we are to take that urging seriously, there must be an avenue to philo-
sophical insight open to limited beings such as ourselves. What that av-
enue might be lies right before our eyes, exemplified in the dialogues
themselves: not merely arguments to higher truths, but images that at-
tract our gaze and turn us toward philosophy.
When we see images and recognize them as such, we see similarity and
dissimilarity (see Phaedo 76a). It is the image’s very unlikeness to its in-
tended object—its otherness—that stimulates comparison. This makes
it interesting, captivating. We look also for the basic similarity that
makes the image an image of something. We then move dialectically
between the two, seeing further similarities and dissimilarities along
the way. We are moved to consider the qualities of the image, what the
corresponding qualities of the original must be, why there is this dif-
ference, what the significance of the difference is, and how the unlike
could be like. Real learning comes from the deeper exploration of im-
ages (metaphors, analogies, myths) in which the several details of image
and original are compared. Clearer and detailed pictures emerge from
which one can gain complex understanding of both objects under view.
Neither is an image an exact likeness of its original, nor are its differ-
ences from the original plainly obvious. The richness of an image, and
therefore its philosophical value, are appreciated only on reflection. We
must work with the image, turn it over in our minds, see it from many
perspectives—some of them not our usual perspectives—and we must
think about what the image is and what it is not.
Let us look at one example of an image and its original to see how
the phenomenon of examining that image takes place. Late in the Sym-
posium, the drunken Alcibiades relates the tale of his failed seduction
of Socrates. He tells the assembled party that he will create an image of
Socrates in order to praise him (ou{tw~ ejpiceirhvsw, diΔ eijkovnwn, 215a).
in their hands: when their two halves are pulled open, they are found
to contain images of gods. (215a–b)
As Alcibiades draws out the details of this simple image, we see both
similarity and difference. Like the satyr, Socrates has bulging eyes
and a pushed-up nose; but unlike Silenus, Socrates has beauty as well.
Like the satyr, Socrates is a figure who associates himself with erotic
objects—young, beautiful men; but unlike the satyr, as Alcibiades’ fail-
ure to lure him into bed indicates, Socrates’ erotic liaisons are not in-
dulged through sexual activity. Like Marsyas, Socrates has great power
to enchant his listeners, although not with a flute, but rather with his
words. We learn from this image that Socrates’ external appearance be-
lies what is inside, that he is complex. We learn that his grotesque face
contrasts with the beauty of his soul. We learn that the Many can be
deceived if they fail to open him up to see what is inside. And finally, we
learn that opening him up to examine his life and his soul might reveal
glimpses of the divine.
In a brief space, this simple image manages to convey a detailed
and complex picture of Socrates. It is therefore not at all like the image-
making Socrates describes flippantly in the Republic as walking around
holding up a mirror to everything (596d– e). A mirror held up to Socrates
would tell us less than this rich image. Recall that an image has both
likeness and unlikeness. A mirror simply reflects exactly what is put be-
fore it, whereas an image, properly constructed, can induce us to see a
richness in the objects before us and to gain insight into the object and
its original that might not be plainly evident. Is this enough for us to
hold out hope, therefore, that images can lead to truth and philosophi-
cal insight? Yes. Alcibiades says as much, in fact, just before introducing
the image cited above:
act of ignorance, but they are different insofar as Meno’s slave has ad-
mitted his ignorance. They are similar insofar as both are shameful acts
committed by ignorant people, but they are different insofar as the geo-
metrical falsehoods are more easily correctable. In order to correct his
ignorance, Meno must engage in dialectic which is risky and personally
difficult in ways that geometry lessons are not. The reader and Meno
gain important insights into virtue, knowledge, and ignorance by close
examination of the image of the slave’s public lectures and its original
instance in Meno’s lectures on virtue.
If the Platonic dialogues urge the use of images in the service of
good philosophy, then what can be concluded about the traditional
view of “Platonic metaphysics”? That there are two distinct realms—of
things-in-themselves and of the objects of human experience—seems
clear enough. But that pure reason, leading to insight into the forms, is
to be identified with philosophy, is not supported by the texts. Reason
alone as an avenue to enlightenment is not a possibility for humans.
Philosophy, the very tool necessary for limited, embodied persons, me-
diates between the two realms for those beings necessitated to dwell in
one alone but with aspirations to understand the other. In this capacity,
philosophy certainly includes arguments, but it relies as well on images
in the form of myth, analogy, metaphor, and the like. Pure reason is left
to the gods; philosophy is left to humans.
A renewed look at Plato’s metaphysics reveals surprising results.
Even the forms—the eternal, unchanging bearers of reality—and the
disembodied rationality that can grasp the forms are themselves im-
ages.29 It has perhaps escaped our notice that even these stories that
are spun throughout the dialogue are imagistic, and what has tradition-
ally passed for Plato’s metaphysics and his epistemology are themselves
composed of images. We have perhaps neglected to see that even these
things called “forms” take shape in our imagination in ways other than
their ascribed reality. They are meant to have no physical manifestation
and yet they are presented to us and are taken up into our cognition
as shapes, forms, literally “that which is seen.” 30 Furthermore, we must
imagine another world beyond our own, this realm of the things-in-
themselves, this reality which is different from our lived experience and
yet similar, and we must construct it from our fancy or imagination, fur-
nish it with conceptions drawn from our own limited experience. And
Plato expects us truly to have some access to this reality from the images
he creates and from the images he compels us to create for ourselves.
Ultimately, all of Plato’s images are addressed to an audience firmly and
necessarily grounded in human phenomena and are meant to turn us
toward philosophy. Does this imply that ultimately we are only relegated
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Notes
1. This essay is taken from chapter 6 of my book, Turning Toward Philosophy:
Literary Device and Dramatic Structure in Plato’s Dialogues (University Park: Penn-
sylvania State University Press, 1999). Unless noted otherwise, I use the transla-
tions from the Loeb Classical Library.
2. There are many ways to think of images. As the few brief examples cited
in the opening paragraph indicate, some images in the dialogues are what we
call metaphors; some are more properly considered analogies; and some are
woven into the fabric of what we consider myths or allegories. In addition, some
are what we might call “fictional” stories, and in some cases these images take
the form of plastic artifacts. The Platonic texts support the grouping of these
various instances under the single heading “image” insofar as these several de-
vices are referred to as eijkwvn throughout the corpus and denote likenesses of
one kind or another. Plato’s language surrounding the use of images includes,
as well, various cognates of “image” such as ei[dwlon and eijkasiva. I hope to
point to a link between images and the role of vision in Platonic metaphys-
ics by drawing attention to the further connection to “that which is seen” and
“form” (ei\do~). The semantic correlate to “image” would be paravdeigma—the
pattern or model after which a likeness may be produced. I will cite the Greek
terms being used in the many examples that follow in order to underscore the
unity of the semantic field in which these terms are placed by Plato. There are
even further links when one considers the term “mimesis” (mivmhsi~), which de-
scribes the relationship between an image and its original, between eijkwvn and
paravdeigma.
3. For dialogues that are plausible sources for this view, see, for example,
Phaedo 65a– 67b, 79a; Republic 509c– 511e, 514a– 518b, 597e– 603b; Sophist 234b–
236e, 264c–266e.
4. While I have chosen to focus on images and the visual aspects of the dia-
logues, some of the conclusions at which I arrive could apply to the senses more
generally and their role in the Platonic corpus. For example, it can be argued
that the aural is also central to Socratic interactions, that “hearing” is central
to teaching and it makes the “seeing” of images possible. Hence one might pro-
ceed cautiously in privileging seeing or the sense of sight. I am indebted to Gary
Alan Scott for bringing this important point to my attention.
5. Fowler translates this phrase as “equality in the abstract.” I prefer the
more literal translation “equality itself” for my purposes here.
6. Both Socrates and Plato are confronted with the task of urging others
to engage in philosophical inquiry when there is a risk that in this life we might
not find answers to our deepest questions.
7. I have omitted a discussion here of the role of fear in the Phaedo and
the dramatic shift from the jail cell back to the framing conversation between
Phaedo and Echecrates, which occurs just at the point in the dialogue when
that fear over the possible failure of philosophy is most palpable (88c– 89b).
These are discussed in detail in Turning Toward Philosophy.
8. Gadamer makes a similar case regarding the consistent message in the
235
IN PL ATO’S IMAGE
dialogues about human limitation and the role of vision. Gadamer, in Dialogue
and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato, trans. P. Christopher Smith
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 99–100ff., enumerates and explains
four means of communicating a thing, none of which guarantees that the thing
will then be “known”: the word or name of a thing (onoma); the explanation or
conceptual determination of a thing (logos); the appearance, illustrative image,
example, or figure of a thing (eidolon); and the knowledge or insight itself of that
thing. Gadamer is then careful to warn us that we must not see these four ways
as an ordered ascent, culminating in knowledge of the good. All attempts to
see them as such “are completely mistaken” (111). Ultimately, pure knowledge
or the “life of pure theory” is not attainable for humans. Of the third means of
communication, Gadamer says, “Examples, of course, are one of the necessary
media in which true knowledge is presented” (115), and he further argues for
the need for all four types: “For they all serve to make one more ‘dialectical,’
to educate one’s vision for the thing itself” (122). Our human limitations are,
according to Gadamer in another work, “an essential characteristic of man’s
humanity” in light of which “Plato always sees man’s existence . . . which means
that he presents them as defined by the process of going beyond them. Man is
a creature who transcends himself” (Hans-Georg Gadamer, Plato’s Dialectical
Ethics: Phenomenological Interpretations Relating to the Philebus, trans. Robert M.
Wallace [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991], 4– 5). See also Aryeh Kosman,
“Silence and Imitation in the Platonic Dialogues,” in Methods of Interpreting Plato
and His Dialogues, ed. James C. Klagge and Nicholas D. Smith (Oxford: Claren-
don, 1992), which has close links to this section.
9. See also, for example, Meno 84a–b; Theaetetus 210c.
10. This position is argued in detail by Luce Irigiray, “Sorcerer of Love: A
Reading of Plato’s Symposium, Diotima’s Speech,” trans. E. Kuykendall, in Femi-
nist Interpretations of Plato, ed. Nancy Tuana (University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1994), 181– 95.
11. I have translated filosofou`nte~ as “lovers of wisdom” instead of Lamb’s
“followers of wisdom” and I have rendered e[rw~ as “eros” rather than “love.”
12. Socrates claims specifically at Symposium 201e that Diotima questioned
him, and at 203b Diotima embarks on a long story (Makrovteron mevn, e[fh,
dihghvsasqai).
13. Drew Hyland, Finitude and Transcendence in Plato’s Dialogues (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1995), 118. See his full discussion of Aristo-
phanes’ speech at 111–37.
14. Fowler’s translation uses “figure,” but I have used “image” in order to
be consistent with all the translations of the same cognate elsewhere in this
chapter.
15. Charles L. Griswold Jr., Self-Knowledge in Plato’s Phaedrus (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1986), 144: “The gods of this myth do seem to be (among
other things) idealized human types who serve the crucial purpose in the story
of helping articulate the notion that we are imperfect in specific ways.” Gris-
wold also sees in Phaedrus “the possibility of reflection on its own status qua
written work. This is in keeping with the view that the written word is an ‘image’
236
JILL GORDON
of the spoken (276a8– 9) and the assumption that the image is to be understood
relative to its original” (219).
16. As an example of many such propositional treatments of these passages,
see David Wiggins, “Sentence, Meaning, Negation, and Plato’s Problem of Non-
Being,” in Plato I: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. G. Vlastos (Notre Dame: Uni-
versity of Notre Dame Press, 1978); G. E. L. Owen, “Plato and Not-Being,” in
Plato I: A Collection of Critical Essays; and even, in some measure, Stanley Rosen,
Plato’s Sophist: The Drama of Original and Image (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1983). The dialogue contains clear statements that the falsehood under consid-
eration is not only linguistic. See, for example, Sophist 235d ff., 260c.
17. In addition to the passage cited above, see Sophist 235d–f and
264c–267b.
18. The Stranger, unfortunately, never fully addresses the metaphysical sta-
tus of the true images, as Rosen says in Plato’s Sophist, 147, 152– 53.
19. See also Cratylus 423 and 430ff., in which words and language are dis-
cussed as imitations of reality.
20. At least five various forms of these terms occur in the brief passage at
Timaeus 29b– d. See also H. S. Thayer, “Plato on the Morality of Imagination,”
Review of Metaphysics 30 (June 1997): 594– 618, esp. 615–16; and Gadamer, Dia-
logue and Dialectic, 120.
21. Hyland, in Finitude and Transcendence, reads the Republic in its entirety
as a treatment of human limitation and philosophy as the means to transcend
that limitation; he intends for his reading of the Republic to create a perspective
for reading the entire Platonic corpus as well.
22. Paul Shorey translates oJmoiovtato~ ejkeivnw/ as “most nearly made in its
likeness.”
23. The objection that vision and artistic craft are mere metaphors for, re-
spectively, the kind of knowing that the philosopher has of the realities and of
the work he must do to fashion the souls of good citizens, helps to underscore
my point about the need for images. Socrates’ chosen way for expressing the
understanding of the philosopher and the political task before him is through
these images. Philosophy needs the use of images to do its work.
24. See the discussion on the semantic and philosophical significance of
“making” and “doing” in chapter 3 of my Turning Toward Philosophy, 76ff. This is
one more way in which we are made into philosophers.
25. Plato, The Republic of Plato, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books,
1968).
26. See also Republic 598c and 598e regarding Socrates’ concern with de-
ception rather than imitation itself. See also Phaedrus 261e–262d: “Then he who
is to deceive another, and is not to be deceived himself, must know accurately
the similarity and dissimilarity of things” (262a).
27. See Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek
Tragedy and Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 185ff. She
addresses the issue directly of Alcibiades’ claim to tell the truth but, contrary
to my position here, she sees the telling of truth through images as disallowed
by philosophy. Jean-François Mattéi, “The Theater of Myth in Plato,” in Platonic
237
IN PL ATO’S IMAGE
Writings, Platonic Readings, ed. Charles L. Griswold Jr. (University Park: Pennsyl-
vania State University Press, 2002), 66– 83; and Gerald Press, “Knowledge as Vi-
sion in Plato’s Dialogues,” Journal of Neoplatonic Studies 3 (1995): 61– 89, present
views consistent with those I present here. See also my “Eros and Philosophical
Seduction in Alcibiades I,” Ancient Philosophy 23 (2003): 11–30.
28. Gordon, Turning Toward Philosophy.
29. See Aristotle, Metaphysics 1.9.12: “To say that the Forms are patterns,
and that other things participate in them, is to use empty phrases and po-
etical metaphors [to; de; levgein paradeivgmata aujta; ei\nai kai; metevcein aujtw`n
ta\lla kenologei`n ejsti; kai; metafora;~ levgein poihtikav~].” I agree with Aris-
totle wholeheartedly that these are poetical metaphors, but not that they are
empty phrases.
30. H. Liddell and R. Scott, Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon,
1985). Thanks again to Gary Alan Scott for putting the fine point on this.
31. I have been asked on several occasions whether I am making Plato out
to be a postmodern figure. Such a conjecture seems off the mark. To say that
humans must always deal with images is not to say that there are nothing but
images, i.e., that there is no truth or reality. The purpose of images is to help us
to ascend toward some higher reality or truth. There is some reality to which we
aspire and of which we can fall short. Indeed, it is embedded in what it means
to be an image that it is an image of something.
Appendix: Dramatic Dates of Plato’s Dialogues
Lysis
Cratylus
Phaedrus
Laws
Hippias Major
Hippias Minor
Timaeus
Philebus
Primary source: Diskin Clay’s Platonic Questions: Dialogues with the Silent
Philosopher
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254
INDEX
Bernard Freydberg is the author of The Play of the Platonic Dialogues and Pro-
vocative Form in Plato, Kant, Nietzsche (and Others). He has written and lectured
widely on Plato. His essay “Agon in the Platonic Dialogues” appeared in the
journal Iphitos, and “Rewriting Homer and Aristophanes in the Platonic Text”
appeared in Rewriting the Platonic Text. He is professor of philosophy at Slippery
Rock University.
Benjamin J. Grazzini received his Ph.D. from the New School for Social Re-
search. His work focuses on the Platonic and Aristotelian texts and the his-
tory of their reception. His dissertation is an account of the problem of self-
movement as it arises in Aristotle’s physical, psychological, and ethical treatises.
He is working on a study of the image of the wax block in relation to percep-
tion and memory in the Aristotelian tradition and medieval discussions of the
intellect.
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NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS