Review: Plato and SocratesAuthor(s): Christopher RoweSource: Phronesis, Vol. 46, No. 2 (May, 2001), pp. 209-231Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182673Accessed: 26/05/2010 07:55

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Book Notes

Plato and Socrates

CHRISTOPHER ROWE

There is evidently an increasing interest among scholars in ancient perspec- tives on Plato, and on Socrates. On Plato, there are now Julia Annas's 1997 Townsend lectures, given at Cornell,' and Harold Tarrant's Plato's First Interpreters;2 on Socrates, Francesca Alesse's La Stoa e la tradizione socra- tica.3 Tarrant's book has the aim of taking us back to a time when users and interpreters of Plato were less philosophically sophisticated, but still spoke something like the Greek he used, '[t]he ultimate object [being] not to under- stand little known Platonic figures, but to encourage a fresh, almost primitive reading of Plato himself' (vii). This looks like a promise to take us away from the hubbub of modem voices, to a world in which readers were both more innocent than us, and better placed to understand the master; if it is, it is not obviously how things turn out. The ancients, on Tarrant's own account, had their problems with the texts, their own quarrels with each other, and their own habits of reading - habits which are likely to be as much in need of justification as many of our own. But what is certainly true is that an under- standing of the ways in which Plato was once read will give us extra reason for reconsidering the ways in which we do it now; and this is what ultimately matters to Tarrant (as he says towards the end, 'the main aim of this book ... has been to discuss issues of meta-interpretation': 198).

Tarrant by and large compares modern and ancient approaches, though he also sometimes interposes his own voice. Thus, e.g.: 'For [Proclus] all aspects of all parts of a dialogue were relevant to its goal. At times he was too devoted an advocate for Plato's skills, at times too ingenious, but he had the correct overall strategy. The ancients did not eschew the task of saying what they thought was relevant in a dialogue and justifying their position, and nei- ther should we today' (41).4 Julia Annas's strategy has a somewhat different

Julia Annas, Platonic Ethics, Old and New. Pp. viii + 196. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1999. ISBN 0-8014-3518-8 (hbk). No price given.

2 Tarrant, Harold. Plato's First Interpreters. Pp. viii + 263. Duckworth, London, 2000. ISBN 0-7156-2929-8. ?40.00 (hbk).

3 Alesse, Francesca. La Stoa e la tradizione socratica. Pp. 387. Bibliopolis, Naples (Elenchos: Collana di testi e studi sul pensiero antico, 30), 2000. ISBN 88-7088-379- 5. Lire 50,000 (pbk).

4 The implicit strategy of the book seems to be to begin by raising some theoretical

C Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2001 Phronesis XLV112

210 BOOK NOTES

emphasis, using ancient perspectives - bolstered by additional arguments - directly to undermine modem assumptions:5 contrasting ancient tendencies to unitarianism with modem 'developmentalism' (ch. 1), and especially the idea that there is a fundamental shift of ethical position between the 'Socratic', i.e. 'early', dialogues and what comes after these (ch. 2: even late on, Plato is a eudaimonist); exploring the ancient Platonists' emphasis on the concept of 'becoming like god', which we modems have tended to underplay (ch. 3);6 continuing her attack on the treatment of the Republic as a mainly political work (ch. 4) - among other things on the basis of Alcinous' view that the 'sufficiency of virtue' thesis is to be found 'particularly in the whole of the Republic' (Annas, 84); questioning the standard modern view of the differ- ence Platonic metaphysics (i.e. form theory) makes to Platonic ethics (ch. 5: ancient Platonists - Alcinous once more plays a prominent role - (a) are uni- tarians, (b) treat metaphysics separately from ethics, and (c) find agreement in much of Platonic ethics with the Stoa, who emphatically rejected Platonic

questions, with the Middle Platonists (in particular) as guides (Part I), to trace the his- tory of Plato interpretation down to the Neoplatonists (Part 1I), and finally to take a closer look at some ancient treatments of particular dialogues and groups of dialogues (Part III) - where the emphasis, as in the book generally, is on studying 'interpreta- tion largely as interpretation, not as doctrine' (214), and in the context of the corpus as a whole rather than of 'high profile' dialogues (ibid.). ('Interpreters acquire visions, visions fuelled by, but other than, the texts that they interpret... When the vision is imposed upon the text, instead of teased out of it, then interpretation proper gives way to doctrine': 213.) The usefulness of our categories of 'early' and 'middle' dialogues (ch. 8, ch. 10) is one particular target; other 'meta-interpretative' conclusions are less easy to sort out from a somewhat dense presentation of an admittedly highly complex body of material. But there is no doubt that it is a useful book, especially coming - as it does - at a moment when some of our standard assumptions are already look- ing distinctly less secure than they did.

I So the argument is not that the ancients must have got things right, just that as a matter of fact they did (as one can see if one gets a proper view of the issues, unham- pered by newly-manufactured baggage).

6 Cf. David Sedley's 'The ideal of godlikeness', one of the new pieces in Gail Fine's Plato 1 and 2 (see Phronesis 45 (2000), 172 [where '1 and 2' became 'I and ll' by a slip of the finger]), a piece which - as Annas herself recognizes - makes a similar general point, while developing it in a rather different way; cf. also Therbse- Anne Druart, 'The Timaeus revisited', in van Ophuijsen (ed.) (see below); and Katharina Comoth, Vom Grunde der Idee. Konstellationen mit Platon (p. 48. Universitatsverlag C. Winter, Heidelberg, 2000. ISBN 3-8253-0999-1. DM 17,00 (pbk)), the first piece in which briefly discusses "'Homoiosis" bei Platon und Origenes' (originally published elsewhere). The two other tiny pieces - 'Die Seele vom "Gesetz Selbst": Platons Nomoi in kosmologischer Bedeutung', given at the Salamanca con- gress on the Laws (see Lisi, ed., below), and 'HEpt Ti; E'v alcit noXiTerics 8e68to:

Platon, Politeia 608bl' - make some unexpected connections with visual symbols.

BOOK NOTES 211

metaphysics); using Alcinous (again) to construct a unitary picture of Platonic moral psychology, with no break between Socratic intellectualism and Platonic irrationalism (ch. 6); and musing on how much help ancient accounts of Plato's position on pleasure give us in trying to make sense of the rather different things he seems to say about it (ch. 7: not much, the answer seems to be; and an appendix argues strongly that the hedonism of the Protagoras in any case contributes little towards explaining 'Platonic theses outside the Protagoras itself' (171)).

Annas's approach claims a good deal more than Tarrant's, insofar as she proposes that the 'ancient Platonists', as interpreters, deserve our 'confidence': if we find disagreement between Alcinous, on the one hand, and Galen and Plutarch on the other over Plato's moral psychology, this 'obviously should not lead us to lose confidence in the ancient Platonists as interpreters - for here the two different approaches alert us to a tension in Plato's own writings' (162). If the latter two ('unfortunately') were attracted by the 'suppressed- beast' model of the human being (135), that is (Annas implies) understand- able, since it is actually to be found in Plato - alongside the model that attributes parts uncontrolled by reason only to the not-yet-virtuous. Yet (I am inclined to object) no clear grounds are given for preferring Alcinous' account of Plato's (real?) position here over Galen's and Plutarch's, beyond the sug- gestion that the latter involves 'an unattractive and dangerous way of look- ing at myself' (ibid.); in particular, it is not shown that the latter would fail to make sense of those passages on which the Alcinous interpretation relies (whichever these may be). At this point my own 'confidence' in Alcinous as interpreter, at any rate on this issue, is rather small, and it is weakened fur- ther by the knowledge that Aristotle - admittedly not a paid-up Platonist, but still an ex-Academician - gives us repeated reports of the existence of a thorough-going 'intellectualist' position to which Plato would have been ex- posed (if it belonged to Socrates, as Aristotle says it did), and which actually does make sense of certain texts normally considered earlier than the Repub- lic. (These texts will at least include the ones Annas thinks of as containing, not 'Socratic intellectualism', but rather 'simply an understated view, which is not trying to abolish parts of the soul other than the rational, but simply saying nothing about them': 121.)

Here at least 'development' seems to me a good bet (and in line with one branch of ancient Platonist interpretation). Annas makes a good case, on the other hand, for the absence of any sharp changes on pleasure, for saying that Plato was always a eudaimonist, and for claiming that so-called 'middle'-type forms are of little consequence for ethics; and she is surely right that we have paid insufficient attention to the notion of homoiosis theoi in Plato. If so, and insofar as 'the ancient Platonists' ('in particular the Middle [ones]' (p. 1), as with Tarrant) got these things right, her overall claim about the value to us of the ancient interpreters looks plausible enough: in some important respects, they may well have done better than many of us have, so far. The chapter on

212 BOOK NOTES

the Republic, which I found the least convincing,7 is actually one where the Middle Platonists seem to figure rather little; by the end, at any rate, I had formed a rather clearer notion of Annas's view of the dialogue than I had e.g. of Alcinous'.

One of the effects of Annas's approach is frequently to assimilate Platonic and Stoic ethics; for after all the Middle Platonists were thoroughly familiar with Stoic theory, and had in many respects thoroughly absorbed it. Annas, in the event, turns this point to her advantage, or tries to do so: Platonic and Stoic ethics are closely related (e.g., or especially, over the nature of happi- ness), and the main difference is that 'Plato ... has not been forced by debate to sharpen the issues that arise, and as a result he is often unclear or inde- terminate on points where later Stoics had been forced by argument to come to a definite conclusion' (3). Another part of Annas's strategy is to downplay the continuities, as opposed to the apparent discontinuities, between Plato and Aristotle, and between Plato, Aristotle, and Stoicism: thus Aristotle's notion of athanatizein figures only briefly, in a footnote, in ch. 3, and the Platonist understanding of Plato on pleasure is said 'interestingly' to resemble the Stoic idea of pleasure as 'supervention', even though Aristotle 'suggests' the notion, and something like it is supposed to be present at least in the Laws (145-7). (But this, perhaps, has more to do with the rhetoric than the substance of Annas's argument.) From Alesse's perspective (La Stoa e la tradizione socra- tica: see above), the main continuity is between the Stoics and Socrates;8 in an unconscious echo of Annas's argument, the Stoics' Socratic positions are seen as sharpened by the need to respond to Platonic and Aristotelian 'devi- azioni' from, and criticisms of, Socrates himself (p. 23, and Part 2). Part of Alesse's general thesis is that if the Stoics wanted to present themselves as being the intellectual descendants of Socrates, this was not just because of the

7 For one thing, it leaves large chunks of the dialogue unexplained; how much of the apparently political stuff would we really need for the purpose Annas attributes to the author? (No doubt there is an answer to this; if so, I simply record that Annas's own arguments looked unpersuasive to me.)

8 See also Christopher Taylor's shortest of introductions to Socrates (C.C.W. Taylor, Socrates: A Very Short Introduction. Pp. 122. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000. ISBN 0-19-285412-7. ?5.99/$8.95 (pbk)): for Taylor, it is centrally a matter of con- tinuing incoherence (pp. 64-71, 82-3). For a statement of the main issues about Socrates, as these currently stand, this libellus could scarcely be bettered; if nearly everyone is likely to disagree with some part of Taylor's account (especially of Plato's Socrates - though actually this occupies less than a quarter of the volume), it is good to have so clear an overall picture to disagree with. Although it does not say so, the book is a reprint of the 1998 Past Masters Socrates, with nicely chosen (but not par- ticularly well reproduced) illustrations. Jonathan Barnes's Aristotle from the same series has been given the same treatment; R.M. Hare's Plato has not (no Plato appears in the list of Very Short titles) - Hare's well-known conceit of the heavenly twins Pato and Lato was evidently not enough to save it.

BOOK NOTES 213

influence of Socratic epigoni like Crates, 'ma soprattutto per via di una conoscenza diretta e vasta della piiu antica letteratura socratica' (14). A good deal of the Stoics' own writing itself belonged self-consciously to the genre of 'Socratic literature'; they were perpetually in negotiation with other such literature - including literature critical of Socrates - for the soul of Socrates, and for the truth. Part I of the book ('la discendenza della Stoa da Socrate') discusses the biographical and doxographical traditions, chronological prob- lems, the Old Stoa and Socratic literature, and Socrates in Stoic literature; Part 2 ('the defence of Socrates') centres on Stoic criticism of Platonic forms, Chrysippus against Plato, and Aristotle's criticisms of Socrates, while Part 3 tries to get clear about the Stoics' precise relationship to Socratic dialectic and ethics. I have not had time to assess the detailed argument of the book (and there is a lot of detailed, and very specific, argument in it), but to all appearances it takes 'Socratic studies' a step further in a promising direction. Even if 'Socrates' and 'Socratism' are no more than a matter of a Sokrates- dichtung (Gigon), that has no effect on Alesse's argument: 'per quel che riguarda la conoscenza del Socrate storico, non c'e alcuna differenza tra gli Stoici e i modemi, cos'i non ce n'e tra gli Stoici e, poniamo, Aristotele, Diogene di Sinope, Polemone' (22). As for their knowledge of the 'literary' Socrates, the Stoics had access to a body of writing now mostly lost, but plainly exhibit- ing a certain 'difformita', which they recognized, 'superandola talora con soluzioni di compromesso, talora prediligendo un testimone ad un altro'. It took until the imperial era to establish 'in modo piiu definitivo la natura esem- plare ed univoca di Socrate' (ibid.).

Stoic and Socratic, there in the imperial era, meet in Dio Chrysostom, and - more substantially - in Epictetus. 'Socrates provides a privileged inter- pretative key that helps to situate Dio in a philosophical perspective and to account for his peculiar approach to philosophical traditions - Cynicism espe- cially, but also Stoicism - which in ancient culture and doxography were seen as deriving directly from Socrates': so Aldo Brancacci, in a piece ('Dio, Socrates, and Cynicism': 241) in Dio Chrysostom: Politics, Letters, and Philosophy,9 which among other things has some suggestive things to say about some non- Platonic Socrateses.'? In A.A. Long's 'Epictetus as Socratic mentor', in the lat- est Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society," we surprisingly find Epictetus anticipating Gregory Vlastos's interpretation of the Socratic 'elenchus'.

9 Simon Swain (ed.), Dio Chrysostom: Politics, Letters, and Philosophy. Pp. x + 308. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000. ISBN 0-19-924359X. ?50 (hbk).

10 Part Four, on Dio and philosophy, also has Michael Trapp on 'Plato in Dio' (Plato as stylist; Socrates, Plato, and Stoicism), and Frederick E. Brenk on 'Dio on the simple and self-sufficient life'.

11 PCPS 46 (2000). (It is not the business of these Notes to review journal articles; I use this particular article because it particularly struck me, and fits into my narrative.)

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'In Epictetus' account of involuntary error, we have noticed his extraordinar- ily optimistic rationalism: clearly show someone that his or her present behav- iour or set of values is inconsistent with what they really want for themselves - i.e. long-term happiness - and they will recognise their mistake. The cogency of this recommendation rests on the assumption (1) that human beings are natural truth- and consistency-lovers, and (2) that they possess true beliefs or preconceptions concerning their own good which, when brought to light and properly articulated, will cause them to abandon their false and inconsistent beliefs.. . Epictetus has anticipated Gregory Vlastos' interpreta- tion of the Socratic elenchus."2 I wonder whether, in fact, we need this in order to explain Epictetus' Socratic position. Why will it not do just to have something like the following? 'The basis of the [Socratic] theory is the com- bination of the conception of goodness as that property which guarantees overall success in life with the substantive thesis that what in fact guarantees that success is knowledge of what is best for the agent. This in turn rests on a single comprehensive theory of human motivation, namely, that the agent's conception of what is overall best for him- or herself (i.e. what best promotes eudaimonia, overall success in life) is sufficient to motivate action with a view to its own realization. This motivation involves desire as well as belief; Socrates maintains (Meno 77c, 78b) that everyone desires good things, which in context has to be interpreted as the strong thesis that the desire for good is a standing motive, which requires to be focused in one direction or another via a conception of the overall good. Given that focus, desire is locked onto the target which is picked out by the conception, without the possibility of interference by conflicting desires. Hence all that is required for correct con- duct is the correct focus, which has to be a correct conception of the agent's overall good' (C.C.W. Taylor).'3 So far as I can see (at least, given the account Long provides), all that Epictetus is asking for is a method that will be effective in showing people that what they are proposing to do is in conflict with what is really good for them; if Long's (1) and (2) are involved at all, this might be just to the extent that they are implied by the sort of theory described by Taylor, and there is no reason to bring in Vlastos's version of them - the 'twofold assumption: first, that any set of entirely consistent beliefs, beliefs that have withstood constant testing, must be true; and second, that whoever has a false moral belief will always have at the same time true beliefs entailing the negation of that false belief'.'4 Vlastos's version gives Socrates, or is supposed to give him, an avenue to the truth in general; the less extravagant one just gives the agent access to the real good.

12 'Epictetus as Socratic mentor', 91-2; the reference is to Vlastos, Socratic Studies, ed. M.F. Burnyeat (Cambridge, 1994), 1-29, esp. 22-9.

13 Socrates (n. 8 above), 62-3. "4 Long, 'Epictetus as Socratic mentor', 92.

BOOK NOTES 215

In fact, whatever we may want to say about Epictetus, what Vlastos says about Socrates' own view, and use, of 'the elenchus' has surely been shown - e.g. by Hugh Benson'5 - to outrun the (Platonic) evidence. But even Benson does not (in the article cited in the preceding footnote) question one aspect of Vlastos's account which has for some reason become standard in treat- ments of this thing called 'the elenchus', despite (what I claim is) the lack of supporting evidence: the view that what Socrates examines, in 'the elenchus', is people's beliefs. Mary Margaret McCabe is in good company when, at the beginning of her new book, Plato and his Predecessors,'6 she takes this view for granted - or rather, because she is evidently persuaded by those texts that seem to support Vlastos's claim that the rules of 'the elenchus' require that the interlocutor 'say what he believes'.'7 The trouble, as I see it, is that what- ever those texts might appear to imply, what is examined is not typically what the interlocutor believes, or not what the interlocutor believes, at all (so that perhaps we should look for a different explanation of the passages about sin- cerity: might it not be, sometimes, just the demand that people say what they really think about the argument?). Often, Socrates' interlocutors have not properly thought about something, and only some special theory about belief would convert what he eventually gets from them into their beliefs; some- times he is rather examining his own beliefs (as in the Crito - at any rate, he appears to be examining his own more than he is examining Crito's). For sure, what Socrates is supposed to do is to 'examine himself and others'. But this may always be done indirectly as well as directly - being found not to know about something important, or to be confused about it, will ipso facto show that one needs a bit more philosophy in one's life.'8

However, none of these so far flabby generalities would do much damage to McCabe's overall argument. The, or a, standard view is that Plato comes to move away from Socratic 'elenchus' of individual souls or persons, in favour of a greater engagement with impersonal theses. For this simple his- tory, McCabe proposes a more elaborate, and elegant, substitute. Reflection

's See esp. his essay on 'The dissolution of the problem of the elenchus', Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 13 (1995), 45-112; cf. Tarrant in Robinson and Brisson (ed.), n. 52 below.

16 Mary Margaret McCabe, Plato and his Predecessors: The Dramatisation of Reason. Pp. viii + 318. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000. ISBN 0-521-65306-1. ?37.30/$59.95 (hbk). (The book originated as McCabe's 1996 Stanford Lectures.)

'7 'If the sincerity condition claims that we should take what people believe as the starting point of inquiry.. .', McCabe, 29.

18 As one would, especially, given the conflict between (true) 'deep' wants/beliefs and 'shallow' beliefs discussed at McCabe 58-9 in connection with Gorgias 482a ff. (On the other hand, I am not sure how much this passage has to do with the demand for 'sincerity'. The appendix on 'sincerity texts' on pp. 54-9 generally seems to bring together a rather mixed bag of items.)

216 BOOK NOTES

'on the Socratic method' (37 n. 30), a method already problematized by/ through Protagoras in the Theaetetus, leads Plato to ask 'what makes [our] true beliefs true;... what makes us have them; ... what makes us get our other ones wrong' (59),'9 and to the construction of a quasi-Cartesian episte- mology (cf. pp. 281-3): the possibility of philosophy depends on the possibil- ity of other minds, and so on 'the identity, continuity and. . . separateness of persons' (91). Plato sets himself up - in three of McCabe's four target dia- logues: Theaetetus, Sophist, Politicus and Philebus - with opponents (Protagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, earth-born giants, and - possibly - Philebus) who, as she puts it, 'fail to turn up'. That is, they are found to be fictional as well as historical; fictional, because they represent positions that 'cannot be occupied by reasoning persons living lives' (so that 'their theories turn out to threaten their own lives': 90). The Politicus, for its part, suggests that 'philosophy, the inquiring sort, is, at least in the conditions of the golden age, sufficient for happiness; and possibly necessary as well' (230), and by the time we are through with the Philebus, that subtle combination of metaphysics and ethics, we know why this is supposed to be - namely (to put a complex idea crudely) because the telos is figured as the perfectibility of persons, 'and progress is towards personhood by means of intellectual order' (269), where 'personhood' is constituted by the coherence of our epistemic state, and that coherence is measured by the degree to which it mirrors the coherence of the external world. It is dialogue that brings out our ownership of beliefs ('sincerity' again), and 'ensures' their connectedness (270: witness the failure of Pro- tagoras et al.), and the reading of sample dialogues like the ones in question in its turn prompts us, the readers, to a new reflectiveness. Thus we have an explanation both of why 'person-to-person dialectic' matters so much to Plato, and of why he goes on writing dialogues, which (as her subtitle partly sug- gests) is one of the main things that McCabe originally set out to explain. For her, 'the dialogue form not only persists but gains in importance in the late period: especially in my late quartet' (10).20

One does not, I think, have to accept all of McCabe's story about 'persons' and 'personhood', or about 'the elenchus', to find this whole account richly suggestive (as well as bracingly provocative).2' It is also, surely, the best kind

'9 The immediate reference in the context is to our 'deep beliefs' (see preceding n.). These are evidently direct descendants of Vlastosian 'true beliefs entailing the negation of [those] false belief[s]' uncovered by 'the elenchus' (text to n. 14 above), the difference being that on McCabe's account Socrates has rather less than even an implicitly worked-out theory of truth, and needs Plato to help him out.

20 'Central to this, I claim' (McCabe continues), 'is the fact that the drama of the dialogues is fiction; all of these characters, including Socrates himself, are imaginary' (there may be 'some connections between any particular fictional figure and its his- torical counterpart; but those connections should not be taken for granted').

21 Nor, I think, does her general thesis actually require that the cosmos under Cronos in the Politicus myth be going backwards (ch. 5); her defence of this view seems to

BOOK NOTES 217

of response to the continuing complaint that 'analytic' philosophers like McCabe pay too little attention to the dramatic form of the dialogues.22 (Certainly, there is no shortage of treatments of this particular subject: see now also Giovanni Casertano's edited volume La struttura del dialogo platonico.23) No such complaint need be levelled against Angela Hobbs, and her Plato and the

me of a piece with her reading the age of Zeus as a story about self-determination (ch. 8), rather than about the (temporary) victory of human reason over 'innate desire'.

22 See Gerald Press, in Who Speaks for Plato? (Gerald A. Press, Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity. Pp. 237. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2000. ISBN 0-8476-9218-3 (hbk); 0-8476-9219-1 (pbk). No price given), p. 3 n. 12; though Press is actually here complimenting McCabe's and Christopher Gill's Form and Argument in Late Plato (1996), for 'show[ing] an increased interest in dialogue form among "analytic" Plato scholars to whom the volume is limited'. 'Analytic' is presumably intended here to pick out the sort of scholar who typically neglects form in favour of argument, though numbers in this category seem to be falling fast - unless finding philosophical explanations of Plato's use of the dialogue is not to count. On the face of it, the question asked by Press's volume (a copy of which he generously gave me) is a non-question, like the one about whether Homer told the truth. After all, since Plato wrote the parts of all his characters, presumably everything every one of them says ought to be treated in principle as somehow relevant to his overall pur- pose in writing (hence Erik Ostenfeld's 'Who speaks for Plato? Everyone!', ch. 14; also - more colourfully - Ruby Blondell's 'Letting Plato speak for himself: character and method in the Republic', ch. 9, and in a way Holger Thesleff, in ch. 4, 'The philoso- pher conducting dialectic'; Lloyd Gerson is fairly scathing about 'the antimouthpiece theory' as a whole, ch. 13); nevertheless, clearly - absent some theoretical anti-Platon chez Platon, and perhaps even then - there are some characters who don't speak for Plato, or at least as the rational part of him wants him to be heard. The question con- jures up some straw men, and straw Platos; but by and large the volume represents a useful exercise (so maybe after all it was not a non-question). Having read the whole, I would still hold that no one has yet shown that Plato wants to dissociate himself significantly, or finally, from any of his main characters. In this volume, Francisco J. Gonzalez (ch. 11: 'The Eleatic Stranger: His Master's Voice?') finds more reasons for claiming that Plato would have meant to distance himself from the Visitor from Elea - one of these reasons being that the ideal state of the Politicus would itself ex- clude Socrates. But to that I respond that there is the same degree of likelihood that the ideal state might come into existence as there is that Socrates would come to be in a position to claim to have the knowledge that mattered; or alternatively, that the ideal state's coming into existence would depend on Socrates' getting that knowledge.

23 La struttura del dialogo platonico. A cura di Giovanni Casertano. Pp. 331. Lof- fredo Editore, Napoli, 2000 (Collana di testi e studi di filosfia antica, 14). ISBN 88- 8096-720-7. Lire 32,000 (pbk). The range of the contributions is wide: Giovanni Cerri, 'Dalla dialettica all'epos: Platone, Repubblica X, Timeo, Crizia'; Jose Trindade Santos, 'La struttura dialogica del Menone: una lettura retroattiva' (dialogue form allows us to read 'nonsequenzialmente, facendo retroagire le conclusioni delle conversazioni posteriori sulle anteniori', 50); Theodor Ebert, 'Una nuova interpretazione del Fedone platonica' (a Pythagorean Socrates addressing his fellow-Pythagoreans: 'praticate la dialettica');

218 BOOK NOTES

Hero,24 which in large part centres, not on Socrates, but on some of his most colourful interlocutors, especially Callicles, Alcibiades, and Thrasymachus - and on another presence, in the Republic and elsewhere: Achilles.25

In the Republic Plato seems to move beyond the simple opposition that dominates the Gorgias and the Phaedo, between the life of reason and the life of desire: now he has Socrates introduce a third element, in the shape of the thumos. Yet, Hobbs suggests, many of the issues for which the thumos there becomes the focus have already been raised. Modem scholarly litera- ture has tended to play down the thumos - wrongly (Hobbs says), because it is central to Plato's conception of the self, one which in large part he shared with the culture to which he belonged.26 'I wish to claim that the essence of the human thumos is the need to believe that one counts for something, and that central to this need will be a tendency to form an ideal image of oneself in accordance with one's conception of the fine and noble [kalon]. If one's behaviour reveals this cherished image of oneself to be a sham, then anger, self-disgust and shame are likely to be the result. This ideal of oneself also

Mario Vegetti, 'Societa dialogica e strategie argomentative nella Repubblica (e contro la Repubblica)' (partly contra Tubingen: n. 29 below; also contrast Newell, below); Casertano, 'Dal mito al logo al mito: la struttura del Fedone'; Roberto Velardi, 'Scrit- tura e tradizione dei dialoghi di Platone' (which ends on a note of scepticism about the idea of Platonic anonymity: see preceding n.); Stefania Nonvel Pieri, 'II limite della complessita. Sulla struttura dialogica in Platone, a partire da alcuni dialoghi esem- plan'; Maurizio Migliori, 'Tra polifonia e puzzle. Esempi di rilettura del "gioco" filosofico di Platone' ('... un sistema che dev'essere nel contempo chiuso e aperto.. .', 212); Serafina Rotandaro, 'Strutture narrative e argomentative del Carmide'; Lidia Palumbo, 'Struttura narrative e tempo nel Teeteto'; Marco Esposito, 'Esempi di analogia mate- matica come struttura argomentativa in Platone'; Giovanna Cappelletti, 'Simposio e Fedro: variazioni strutturali del discorso d'amore'; Pamela Grisei, 'Visione e conoscenza. 11 "gioco" analogico di Repubblica VI-VII' ('resta l'ipotesi che Platone non abbia voluto scriverne [sc. del Bene]', 296; contrast Vegetti on Rep. 533A on p. 84); Arianna Fermani, 'Eros tra retorica e filosofia. II "gioco" polisemantico del Fedro'.

24 Hobbs, Angela. Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness and the Impersonal Good. Pp. xvii + 280. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000. ISBN 0-521- 41733-3. ?37.50 (hbk). (Hobbs also respects, or means to respect, Platonic 'anony- mity': Plato and the Hero, xiii.)

25 The year 2000 saw the reissue, in paperback, of that staple of the 'new kind of Platonism' identified by Press (Who Speaks for Plato? (n. 22 above), 2), i.e. the kind that takes dramatic form seriously: R.B. Rutherford's The Art of Plato. Duckworth, London, 2000. Pp. xv + 335. ISBN 0-7156-2993-X. ?16.99. This is an exact replica of its hardback predecessor, published in 1995 (even reproducing the old ISBN); its view of the later dialogues ('a difference [i.e. lessening] of pace and vigour', p. 278), themselves treated in a single chapter, contrasts stikingly with McCabe's.

26 Further than that: as parallels in Nietzsche, Adler and Freud tend to show, 'in the thumos Plato has hit upon psychological traits of real importance' (41).

BOOK NOTES 219

needs to be confirmed by social recognition... The obtaining of this recog- nition will require self-assertion and perhaps aggression; and any offence committed to one's self-image by others will prompt anger and a desire to retaliate' (30). The connections of this Hobbsian thumos with Achilles, and with Homer, are evident enough. It constitutes a 'set of motivations and be- havioural characteristics' (34) which is 'part of the living personality, not of the immortal soul' (Republic X, Timaeus: 31-3) - and one, Plato recognizes, that he will need to take into account in proposing his own choice of life: how otherwise to appeal to all those energetic young aristocrats? (Male, of course. Throughout the book, Hobbs is also concerned with issues of gender: how, in particular, does Plato negotiate the tension between the demand for female auxiliaries/philosopher-queens and an ideal - of courage - stated in terms of 'manliness', andreia?)

Laches, Protagoras, Gorgias: all in their different ways show the inade- quacies of a thumos-less psychology - whether an intellectualist one, or one that operates just with reason and desire: the Gorgias leaves us with no idea 'how reason and the desires are supposed to interrelate' (157). Everything then points towards the Republic,27 which will supply the missing piece in the shape of the thumos and its necessary training, made possible by its sensitiv- ity to kala and public opinion. Once trained, the thumos supplies 'the appa- ratus... needed to make transcendence [i.e. the victory of reason over the desires, and of morality over egoism] possible' (161). Callicles can be seen for what he really is, 'thumoeidic', like Thrasymachus: '[t]he egoistic chal- lenge of the thumoeidic Thrasymachus thus leads Socrates in the same direc- tion as that prompted by the egoistic challenge of the thumoeidic Callicles. It is only fitting that the substantive psychology required to combat both char- acters makes explicit acknowledgement of that element of the psuche from which their challenges largely spring' (174). But in fact from the Apology on, Plato has shown himself aware of the power of the role-model: witness Socrates' calm Achilles, standing his ground, replacing the Achilles amok of the Iliad. The theoretical grounds for the shift are provided (so Hobbs claims in her penultimate chapter) by the proposed unification of the Beautiful and the Good, paralleled by the appropriation of the thumos for the goals of logos. ('If the thumos is directed towards the appropriate aesthetic kala,... it will end up promoting a moral kalon which is also the internalization of logos': 230.) The book ends with a brief look at that educational failure, Alcibiades, and a fast-forward to the (perhaps) different worlds of the Politicus and the Laws.

27 Cf. Kahn's more general thesis in Plato and the Socratic Dialogue (1996); what with Harold Tarrant and Julia Annas too voting against ordinary forms of develop- mentalism, can one detect a sea-change in the air? (Cf. also e.g. Trindade Santos, in Casertano (ed.), n. 23 above.)

220 BOOK NOTES

Plato and the Hero was in many ways a book waiting to be written, one that makes connections which, now that Hobbs has made them, look obvious (that is, from the perspective that makes the - unformed - human psyche a battleground between different parts/'motivational sets'; and perhaps, after all, Plato really did always share that perspective, in the way that Hobbs half- suggests).28 In other words, this is a(nother) useful book, which ought to find its way into a number of different debates. So too Kathryn Morgan's Myth and Philosophy from the Presocratics to Plato.29 Morgan begins by defining her approach as 'literary rather than analytic (by analytic I mean a method

28 Compare, however, the rather more generous, less reductively Aristotelian, view of 'Socratic' intellectualism that Taylor manages to derive from 'early' Plato (see above); if this is in the Laches, or the Protagoras, then we should need at least a rather differently constructed argument for the thumos. (And a week after putting Plato and the Hero down, I go back to wondering whether it actually helps to see the thu- mos as part of what makes us human - despite anything Plato, or Nietzsche, Adler, or Freud, may say.)

29 Kathryn Morgan, Myth and Philosophy from the Presocratics to Plato. Pp. viii + 313. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000. ISBN 0-521-62180-1. ?40.00 (hbk). Another, rather different (and somewhat hybrid), book on Plato and myth is Brisson, Luc. Plato the Myth-Maker, translated, edited, and with an introduction by Gerard Naddaf (pp. Iiii + 188. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1998. ISBN 0-26-07518-4. $27.50 (hbk)). What is translated is essentially the second edition of Brisson, Platon, les mots et les mythes: Comment et pourquoi Platon nomma le mythe? (Editions La Decouverte, Paris, 1994), except that the bibliography has been extended (with a French emphasis), and '[t]he first part of the ... translation diverges from the French second edition. It attempts to avoid the technical language at the beginning of the French edition in order to reach out to those less specialized in the area' (p. liv). Given the general nature and origins of Les mots ... ('based on papers given during Pierre Vidal-Naquet's seminars at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.. .'), it is not clear whether that particular goal is achievable by these particular means; and the translator's introduction is rather complementary to than explicative of Brisson's text. All in all, though the volume contains a mass of material, it is not clear for whom it is intended; I suspect that most who might find it useful would be able, and might prefer, to read the French original. Other pieces of Brisson's on Platonic myths are included in the newly published collection of his pieces on Plato (Luc Brisson, Lectures de Platon (Bibliotheque d'Histoire de la Philosophie, nouv. s6rie). Pp. 272. Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, Paris, 2000. ISSN 0249-7980; ISBN 2-7116-1455-7. 150 F (pbk)). Among these pieces is one on the Politicus myth that McCabe criticises, for having the cosmos going in the same direc- tion in the ages of Cronos and Zeus (n. 21 above); also a reworked version of a pair of anti-'esotericist' pieces from 1993. Wilfried Kuhn's new monograph also joins the lists against 'the schools of Tubingen and Milan' (Wilfried Kuhn, La fin du Phedre de Platon. Critique de la rhe'torique et de l'ecriture (Accademia Toscana di Scienze e Lettere 'La Colombaria', Studi, 186). Pp. 137. Leo S. Olschki, Firenze, 2000. ISBN 88-222-4867-8. Lire 28,000 (pbk)), claiming inter alia that the 'esoterists' have been

BOOK NOTES 221

that breaks down a philosophical text into a series of logical arguments)' (8),30 which is likely to be a more useful distinction than that between 'literary' and 'philosophical' - as her book amply demonstrates. Morgan joins a long-stand- ing protest3' against simplistic oppositions between myth (story, fiction) and logos (rational account, argument), and the treatments of philosophical myth- making, or story-telling, to which this gives rise: the honey on the cup treat- ment, and the one that makes myth merely something that expresses what reason cannot.32 Instead we are invited to envisage a 'dynamic interpenetration

too ready to take the end of the Phaedrus as a reflection on the author's own pro- ductions, and that Socrates' real target - as the text shows - is the discourses of others (orators, poets, politicians); as for philosophical writing, so I take Kuhn to say, this is treated merely as 'le reflet ou la copie' (121) of the dialectical process ('l'ecri- ture sur papyrus n'interesse Socrate que dans la mesure oiu elle renvoie a son pretendu archetype, la dialectique orale' (ibid.)). Admitting that this type of criticism has been aired before, Kuhn aims especially to replace the end of the Phaedrus within its pro- per context, i.e. within the argument second half of the dialogue as a whole. (But mustn't there be something self-referential even about the picture of a reformed, knowledgeable rhetoric that precedes the target passage? One can perhaps be broadly sympathetic to Kuhn's strategy without wanting to accept that things, and Plato, are quite as straightforward as this eloquent, and elegant, polemic suggests.) - From within the 'school of Milan', there is now Raffaella Santi's Platone, Hegel e la dialettica (pp. 300. Vita e Pensiero (Collana temi metafisici e problemi del pensiero antico. Studi e testi, 80), 2000. ISBN 88-343-0613-9. L.38.000 (pbk)), which includes a reproduc- tion of C.A. Brandis's De perditis Aristotelis libris De ideis et De bono sive Philo- sophia (1823). 'Si tratta [quil della prima raccolta di testi concernenti le dottrine non scritte di Platone tramandate dai discepoli ... E questa la fonte alla quale Hegel attinse le sue conoscenze in materia' (Giovanni Reale, writing the Preface to Santi, 13-14). (Anne M. Wiles ('Forms and predication in the later dialogues', in van Ophuijsen (ed.): see below) sees the 'synoptic' approach of Tubingen-Milan as the main, and richer, alternative to the 'analytical'; Mitchell Miller ('Dialectical education and Plato's Statesman', in the same volume) is attracted by the idea that we can find the 'unwritten teachings' in the dialogues: see esp. 223 n. 6.)

30 That elusive 'analytic' category again: cf. n. 22 above. 3' Of more recent examples, see e.g. R.G.A. Buxton (ed.), From Myth to Reason?

(1999), discussed by Mansfeld in Phronesis 45 (2000), 341-4; fifty years back there is Edelstein, Journal of the History of Ideas 10 (1949), 463-81 (mentioned by Mansfeld; essentially developing the 'less radical' interpretation of the idea of philo- sophical myth-making described [by Rowel at Buxton 265, which has myth - still, somehow - making up for the limitations of reason). [I and my co-editor apologise whole-heartedly for allowing the mis-spelling of Thomas Johansen's name (as 'Johansson') to slip through on p. 344 of the same set of Book Notes.]

32 Morgan confesses to finding the second 'more congenial' (4); cf. her own treat- ment of the 'middle' dialogues (see following n.), according to which '[t]he philoso- pher's devotion to dialectic ... renders him capable of an intuitive leap to a vision of the soul separated from its body and related to the whole. The mythological vision is

222 BOOK NOTES

of myth and philosophy' (5). Philosophers may attack the poets for their fictions, but that fictional world remains an organic element in both the social culture and (along with poetry herself) the literary context within which they operate. Evidently, then, there is a lot of negotiation to be done, and it will not be surprising if there is fuzziness about just where the fault-line is, if there is one at all. (Plato certainly does his best to bury it, while also perpetually referring to it.) By the end of the book - which, after a chapter on 'theoret- ical issues', one on 'some Presocratics', and another on 'the sophists', devotes most of its attention to 'Platonic myth'33 - we have a complex picture of philosophical myth (or at any rate of Platonic myth) that allows us to see both how philosophy and story-telling might be combined, and how philosophy might even need to tell stories.

Elizabeth Pender, in Images of Persons Unseen,34 takes on part of an even larger subject than Platonic myth: Platonic metaphor, as employed in the con- text of the gods and the soul. The book begins, properly, with discussion of the concept of metaphor, and its role in cognition, then of Plato's own reflections on 'images' and on myths; two chapters each are then accorded to the gods and to soul. The real usefulness of the book, apart from its assem- bling of the material (also summarized in two appendixes), lies in its self- consciously theoretical approach, which draws on a wide range of other treatments of metaphor and related phenomena. If I remain unclear about

a self-qualifying image of the truth expressed in narrative. This intuitive understand- ing cannot stand by itself, however; it arose in the first place from dialectic and must return to dialectic to ground itself' (242).

33 This part begins with two chapters discussing general issues, and culminates in a chapter on 'middle period' myths (where 'middle' is deemed to include the Gorgias as well as Phaedo, Republic and Phaedrus) and one on myth in the late dialogues. The division between 'middle' and 'late' is one of the cornerstones of Morgan's treat- ment - even despite her own argument: 'We have seen that philosophical argumenta- tion can be called mythos in this [late] period' (282), yet p. 194 has already noticed a similar phenomenon in the ('middle') Phaedo (not to mention a related one in the - presumably 'early' - Apology). To point this out is not (just) pedantry, since Morgan appears to claim that 'the use of mythos-vocabulary' - in late dialogues like Timaeus - is one sign of a difference from the 'middle' period works: while in both cases there is a sense of 'the dangers of philosophical overconfidence', in the late dialogues (?) it is a matter of 'continu[ing] to acknowledge that language is imperfect and our task ongoing', whereas in the middle ones 'this awareness was directed at the provision- ality and metaphoric quality of our vision of the metaphysical' (281). But maybe I have misread Morgan here (and the contrast disappears from the Conclusion ten pages later); in any case my main point is about the hold that the 'middle'/'late' distinction has on us, and Morgan is certainly no exception in this.

34 Elizabeth E. Pender, Images of Persons Unseen: Plato's Metaphors for the Gods and the Soul (International Plato Studies 11). Pp. xi + 278. Academia Verlag, Sankt Augustin, 2000. ISBN 3-89665-006-8. 88,00 DM (hbk).

BOOK NOTES 223

some aspects, e.g. where 'metaphors' end and 'myths' begin (ch. 2, ?VI), I suppose that this is not an unhealthy state to be in; at the same time, Pender's systematic approach can sometimes end up understating - even while stating - the slipperiness of her subject. (Not so on the the distinction between the metaphorical and the literal, to which she necessarily keeps returning.) Morgan's looser, more suggestive, style in this respect serves her in good stead; but in any case Pender's aims are different.35

Still with myth and metaphor, Donald Zeyl - in the ample introduction to the self-standing edition of his translation of the Timaeus36 - takes a clear stand on the status of Timaeus' 'likely account/story': it is simply implausi- ble to take the word eicxs as giving support to a 'metaphorical' reading of the account/story, insofar as its chief function, in the context, is to warn us against expecting perfect consistency and accuracy, and after all a metaphor- ical account may be just as consistent and accurate as a literal one. 'Probably what Plato means is that within the constraints in which the story must be told something like this account is the most plausible one can hope for. These constraints - metaphysical, epistemological, and aesthetic - make conflicting demands... The use of the word "likely". . . reflects both the limitations (it is no more than likely) and the validity (it is no less than likely) of the account' (XXXii-XXXiii).37 Zeyl's treatment of the main issues affecting the interpretation of the dialogue is, as a whole, splendidly balanced (so also, e.g., on the 'receptacle' passage, 49A6-5OA4). Anyone looking for an introduction to the Timaeus is hardly likely to find a better one than this. And for a his- tory of the reception of the Timaeus(-Critias) - to put modern interpretations in some kind of perspective - one need look no further than Ada Neschke- Hentschke's edited volume Le Tim6e de Platon/Platos Timaios.38 The effect of this volume is partly the same as that of the three discussed at the start of the present set of Notes, partly different: the same, in that it presents the

3 More 'analytical', on a 'literary' subject? 36 Plato: Timaeus. Translated, with Introduction, by Donald J. Zeyl. Pp. xcv + 94.

Hackett, Indianapolis, 2000. ISBN 0-87220-446-4 (pbk); 0-87220-447-2 (hbk). $10.95 (pbk); $29.95 (hbk). The translation first appeared in the Hackett Plato: Complete Works, 1997.

37 Zeyl's position thus resembles Morgan's: for Morgan, the cosmology is 'a theo- retical mythos [because 'at best an approximation'] which encompasses philosophical discourse about the physical world' (278). Pender (a) talks standardly about 'the cre- ation myth' of the Timaeus (e.g. 100, 101), but (b), like Zeyl (xxxi-xxxii), tends to think of Plato as believing literally in a divine creator (116), while (c) having a quite nuanced view of the metaphors used to describe him and his activity (ch. 3, ?IV).

38 Ada Neschke-Hentschke, (ed.), Le Tim6e de Platon. Contributions a l'histoire de sa reception / Platos Timaios. Beitrage zu seiner Rezeptionsgeschichte (Bibliotheque Philosophique de Louvain, 53). Pp. xliv + 348. Editions de L'Institut Superieur de Philosophie, Louvain La Neuve / Editions Peeters, Louvain-Paris 2000. ISBN 90-429- 0862-2 (Peeters Leuven), 2-87723-493-2 (Peeters France); pbk. No price given.

224 BOOK NOTES

modem reader with alternative interpretative strategies; different, in that it fre- quently suggests that these strategies are culturally or otherwise determined, and that - as Neschke suggests in her opening, orientating, essay - it may yet be possible to establish the original question the ancient text (was) intended to answer. We won't need to read Proclus, or Ficino, or the Cam- bridge Platonists, or... in order to understand Plato; we need to read them because we need to understand the history of philosophy (which of course isn't to say that modems themselves won't, and shouldn't, use Plato, or Aristotle, or ... for their own philosophical purposes). This is Rezeptionsgeschichte of a more familiar kind, and forms a nice complement, or foil, to the other.39 The volume is a sequel to Neschke (ed.), Images de Platon (1997),4 and like it the fruit of a colloquium held in Lausanne.41

Three of the best bits of Plato and Platonism, edited by Johannes van Ophuijsen,41 are also on what came of Plato later: John Rist reflects on 'Moral motivation in Plato, Plotinus, Augustine and ourselves', and takes few hostages;43

39 For another small part of that history in relation to the Timaeus, see also 'Theophrastus' De sensibus and Plato's Timaeus', ch. 4 of Han Baltussen's Theophrastus against the Presocratics & Plato (discussed by Keimpe Algra in the previous issue).

' See Phronesis 44 (1999), 82. 41 Contents: Introduction (Ada Neschke, 'Der platonische Timaios als Manifest der

platonischen Demiurgie', Alexandre Etienne, 'La reception du Timee a travers les siecles: un survol'), bibliography; then: Antiquit6 grecque (Mario Vegetti, 'De caelo in terram. II Timeo in Galeno (De placitis, quod animi)'; Dimitri Nikulin, 'Plotinus on eternity'; Jens Halfwassen, 'Der Demiurg: seine Stellung in der Philosophie Platons und seine Deutung im antiken Platonismus'; Alain Lemold, 'La Divisio textus du Timee dans l'In Timaeum de Proclus (Sur la physique pythagoricienne du Timee selon Proclus)'); Antiquite latine (Enno Rudolph, 'Der neue Timaios "nach" Calcidius'; Walter Mesch, 'Ewigkeit dei Boethius. Ein Beitrag zur Rezeptionsgeschichte der Timaios'); Moyen Age et Renaissance (Zenon Kaluza, 'L'organisation politique de la cite dans un com- mentaire anonyme du Timee de 1363'; Alexandre Etienne, 'Entre interpretation chre- tienne et interpretation neoplatonicienne: Marsile Ficin', Fosca Mariani Zini, 'L'inquietude des mondes: Marulle lecteur de Platon et de Lucrece'); Epoques moderne et contem- poraine (Wolfgang Rod, 'Platonische und neuzeitliche Kosmologie'; Jean-Franqois Pradeau, 'Le poeme politique de Platon. Giuseppe Bartoli: un lecteur moderne du recit atlante (Timee, 17a-27b, et Critias)'; Gabor Betegh, 'The Timaeus of A.N. Whitehead and A.E. Taylor'; Luc Brisson, 'Le role des mathematiques dans le Timee selon les interpr6tations contemporaines'; Karen Gloy, 'Platons Timaios und die Gegenwart').

42 Ophuijsen, Johannes M. Van (ed.). Plato and Platonism (Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, 33). Op. 368. The Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 1999. ISBN 0-8132-0910-2 (hbk). $69.95.

43 But at this point, surely, it is still a moot question where 'moral motivation' comes in, in Plato. Is it really his view, or his Socrates', that what we really want is to become 'morally' better people? Griswold, in the same volume, offers a more cir- cumspect, and more precise, view (but then Rist is in primarily polemical mode); cf. also, and especially, McCabe, above.

BOOK NOTES 225

Dominic O'Meara discusses 'Neoplatonist conceptions of the philosopher-king', and van Ophuijsen himself treats of 'The continuity of Plato's dialectic'." The opening pages of his Introduction, too, have some useful things to say about continuities and discontinuities in Platonism. Other high points are Charles Griswold's 'Platonic liberalism: self-perfection as a foundation of political theory', and Fred Miller's 'Plato on the parts45 of the soul'.46

Next, four books on, or touching on, so-called 'Socratic' dialogues. Alexander Tulin's Dike Phonou47 includes a compelling third chapter on Euthyphro 3E7- 5D7, and the case that Euthyphro is supposed to be bringing against his father:

I Accepting something like Vlastos's reconstruction of 'the elenchus' (see above) along the way; the model is pervasive.

45 Contrast Rist (with no cross-reference to Miller): 'First, Plato never refers [in the Republic] to a tripartite soul. Second, Plato's usual word for the divisions of the soul in the Republic is not "parts" but "kinds" . . . But what are kinds of soul? In brief they are primarily lifestyles or potential selves' (266).

46 Also in the volume: Druart (n. 6 above); Wiles, Miller (n. 29 above); R.E. Allen, 'Two arguments in Plato's Protagoras' (among other things opposing hedonism to '[t]he Socratic view', 34); Ronna Burger, 'Making new gods' (on the Euthyphro); Kurt Pritzl, 'The significance of some structural features of Plato's Crito' ('pretheoretical agreements' and Aristotelian endoxa); Daryl McGowan Tress, 'Relations and inter- mediates in Plato's Timaeus', Kenneth Dorter, 'The clash of methodologies in Plato's Statesman' (on hypothesis and division); and Stanley Rosen, 'The problem of sense perception in Plato's Philebus' (mainly on 38C5-39C6). Another mainly unconnected collection of essays - though as in van Ophuijsen, an index locorum is included - is Mark L. McPherran (ed.), Recognition, Remembrance, Reality: New Essays on Plato's Epistemology and Metaphysics. Pp. xi + 157. Academic Printing and Publishing, Kelowna, BC, Canada, 1999 = Apeiron 32/4. ISSN 0003-6390. ISBN 0-920980-74-0 (hbk); 0- 920980-75-9 (pbk). $64.95 (hbk), $24.95 (pbk)). The essays (or six of the eight) were presented at the 4th Annual Arizona Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy: Plato's Epistemology and Metaphysics; beyond that, the editor struggles to make connections. The list is: Lloyd Gerson, 'Knowledge and being in the recollection argument'; Asli Gocer, 'Hesuchia, a metaphysical principle in Plato's moral psychology' (hesuchia<n> echein is not to be conflated with 'minding one's own business'); Mi-Kyoung Mitzi Lee, 'Thinking and perception in Plato's Theaetetus'; Mitchell Miller, 'Figure, ratio, form: Plato's five mathematical studies'; Richard Patterson, 'Forms, fallacies, and the purposes of Plato's Parmenides'; McPherran, 'An argument "too strange": Parmenides 134c4-e8'; Christopher Shields, 'The logos of "logos": the third definition of the Theaetetus' (the arguments against this final definition 'ought not to dissuade its pro- ponents' (122, with reference to McDowell); 'the aporia at the end... seems some- how hollow' (123); why does Plato leave things like this?); Nicholas Smith, 'Images, education, and paradox in Plato's Republic' (usefully raising the question: to which phase of education might Plato have supposed the Republic to belong? - and offering a highly plausible answer, along with a useful perspective on the interpretation of the dialogue as a whole).

47 Alexander Tulin, Dike Phonou. The Right of Prosecution and Attic Homicide Pro- cedure (Beitrage zur Altertumskunde, 76). Pp. 135. B.G. Teubner, Stuttgart und Leipzig,

226 BOOK NOTES

a 'legal impossibility', argues Tulin (chapters 1 and 2, on Draco's code and on Ps.-Demosthenes: the prosecution has to be led by the agnate relatives or master of the victim); given the parallels, previously noticed, with Meletus v. Socrates - 'thus... Plato casts a stunning light on Meletus' prosecution of Socrates through the prism of Euthyphro's attack on his own father, and by highlighting the conceits that underlie Euthyphro's [Tulin's emphasis] prose- cution, Plato leads the reader, with the surest of hands, to doubt the equally specious claims of Meletus . . .' (99- 100).48 Oded Balaban's Plato and Prota- goras. Truth and Relativism in Ancient Greek Philosophy49 sounds as if it is about the Theaetetus, but is actually a monograph on the Protagoras. The book largely defies summary (despite the summary offered by the publisher), but in one way or another it covers most aspects of the dialogue and its con- text, also discussing general principles of interpretation.50 Mark Joyal's The Platonic Theages5' is an altogether different kettle of fish: dealing judiciously with, and finally (almost apologetically) dismissing, the pretensions of the dia- logue to authenticity (the passage on the divine sign is counted as decisive: 131), it is about as full a treatment of the Theages as it could ever have expected to receive. I cannot claim to have read every word of it, but what I have read suggests that it is, as a whole, an admirably meticulous piece of scholarship, which anyone using the Theages (and there are at least one or two who do) will have to take into account. If it is not by Plato, of course, then it becomes interesting as a reading of Plato, and of Socrates - written, Joyal opines, after Plato's death, and probably by a member of the Academy (and not one who was a 'thinker of the first rank', 132). To the volume Plato: Euthydemus, Lysis, Charmides, edited by Tom Robinson and Luc Brisson,52 I

1996 [sent to Phronesis only in 2000]. ISBN 3-519-07625-X (hbk). No price given. 4' On the Crito: see now Josiah Ober, 'Living freely as a slave of the law. Notes

on why Sokrates lives in Athens', in P. Flensted-Jensen, T.H. Nielsen, L. Rubinstein (eds), Polis & Politics. Studies in Ancient Greek History presented to Mogens Herman Hansen on his Sixtieth Birthday, August 20, 2000. Pp. 651. Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, 2000. ISBN 87-7289-628-0. 315,00 DKK.

49 Oded Balaban, Plato and Protagoras. Truth and Relativism in Ancient Greek Philosophy. Pp. xx + 343. Lexington Books, Lanham, MD, 1999. ISBN 0-7391-0075- 0. $75.00 (hbk).

50 But - on the first page of the Introduction - it is, e.g., surely untrue to say that Protagoras' Great Speech 'has been generally ignored or else dismissed', nor does the passage cited from Rutherford, The Art of Plato [n. 25 above] in any way support the statement; generally Balaban's targets (see also Appendix B) are neither well chosen nor well treated.

5' Mark Joyal, The Platonic Theages. An Introduction, Commentary, and Critical Edition. Pp. 335. Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart, 2000. ISBN 3-515-07230-6 (hbk). No price given.

52 Thomas M. Robinson, Luc Brisson (eds), Plato: Euthydemus, Lysis, Charmides. Proceedings of the V Symposium Platonicum, Selected Papers (International Plato Studies,

BOOK NOTES 227

feel too close to be permitted detailed comment; suffice it to say that it contains more than thirty separate, mainly short, pieces on the three target dialogues - too many to list individually, but a greater simultaneous concen- tration of fire-power, of more different types, than the dialogues in question are likely to have experienced before or are likely to experience again. Among the papers that stick in one reader's (and sometimes auditor's) mind, some in the context of some of the themes of these Notes, are: Rosamond Kent Sprague, 'The Euthydemus revisited', Roslyn Weiss, 'When winning is every- thing: Socratic elenchus and Euthydemian eristic' (some useful suggestions about when Socrates might argue fallaciously); Christopher Gill, 'Protreptic and dialectic in Plato's Euthydemus' (the first part on the Stoics and Socrates again); Michel Narcy, 'Le Socrate du Lysis est-il un sophiste?'; Wilfried Kuhn, 'L'examen de l'amour interesse (Lysis 216c-220e)'; Harold Tarrant, 'Naming Socratic interrogation in the Charmides' (a short but effective attack on Vlastos-style notions of 'the elenchus': see above, passim); Matthias Baltes, 'Zum Status der Ideen in Platons friihdialogen Charmides, Euthydemos, Lysis'; and Glen Lesses, 'Socratic friendship and Euthydemean goods'. I ven- ture to propose that, especially because of the brevity imposed on the contrib- utors, this is a particularly suggestive collection.

Plato and politics: the little book Empire and the Ends of Politics, edited by Susan Collins and Devin Stauffer,"3 juxtaposes Pericles' funeral oration with the Menexenus, and comes up with some original questions about the latter, especially from a political/historical point of view; given that there are certain aspects of the dialogue that seem to elude any form of interpretation, it is probably less than a devastating objection to point out that, as the edi- tors are in any case well aware, what they make of it sits uneasily with Plato's approaches to politics and political questions elsewhere. The new Cambridge translation of the Republic,54 which has a short but sparkling introduction by John Ferrari, may well provide a solution to the problems that have, I think, been felt by many about finding good English translations of what will no doubt continue to be the most widely-read of Plato's dialogues.55 Ales

13). Pp. 402. Academia Verlag, Sankt Augustin, 2000. ISBN 3-89665-143-9. 110,00 DM (hbk).

S3 Plato's Menexenus and Pericles' Funeral Oration: Empire and the Ends of Politics. Translation, introduction, and notes (by) Susan Collins and Devin Stauffer. Pp. 54. Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company, 1999 (Focus Philosophical Library). ISBN 0-941051-70-6. $6.96 (pbk).

54 Plato: The Republic, edited by G.R.F. [= John] Ferrari, translated by Tom Griffith. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000 (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought). Pp. xlviii + 382. ISBN 0-521-48173-2 (hbk); 0-521- 48443-X (pbk). ?7.95 (pbk).

ss So far, at any rate, I have found this new version - evidently the product of close collaboration - standing up well, certainly by comparison with most translations since

228 BOOK NOTES

Havlicek (ed.), The Republic and the Laws of Plato56 contains the main con- tributions57 to the First Symposium Platonicum Pragense (1997), which marked the foundation of the Czech Plato Society; this set of Proceedings will shortly be followed by those of the Second Symposium, on the Phaedo. Josep Monserrat Molas's El politic de Plat6,58 in Catalan, consists mainly in a kind of running exposition of the Politicus, with some introductory material and short conclusion. The longest paper in Francisco Lisi (ed.), Plato's Laws and its Historical Significances9 is by Trevor Saunders, on 'Epieikeia: Plato and the controversial virtue of the Greeks'; epieikeia was to be the subject of his next book, a project sadly terminated by his premature death. The publisher

Shorey's. On music in the Republic, see Alessandro Pagliara, 'Musica e politica nella speculazione platonica: considerazioni intorno all'ethos del modo frigio', in SYNAU- LIA (SYNAULIA. Cultura musicale in Grecia e contatti mediterranei. Annali dell'- Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, Dipartimento di Studi del Mondo Classico e del Mediterraneo Antico, Sezione Filologico-Letteraria, Quaderni 5, 2000. Pp. 320. ISSN 1128-7217 (pbk). No price given). Several other pieces in the same collection also promise to throw light, at least tangentially, on music in Plato.

56 Ales Havlfiek, Filip Karfik (eds), The Republic and the Laws of Plato (Proceed- ings of the First Symposium Platonicum Pragense). Pp. 230. OIKOUMENH, Praha, 1998. ISBN 80-86005-74-7. No price given.

57 Norbert Blossner, 'Dialogautor und Dialogfigur: Uberlegungen zum Status sokratis- cher Aussagen in der Politeia'; Theodor Ebert, 'Sind Meinung und Wissen nach Platon Vermogen?'; Ales Havlicek, 'Die Kritik Platons an Glaukons Auffassung des besten Staates im V. Buch der Politeia'; Karel Thein, 'The foundation and decay of Socrates' best city (Republic VI, 499b-c, and Books VIII-IX)'; Milan Mraz, 'Die Kritik an Platons Politeia im II. Buch von Aristoteles' Politik'; Francisco Lisi, 'Die Stellung der Nomoi in Platons Staatslehre: Erwagungen zur Beziehung zwischen Nomoi und Politeia'; Dimitris Papadis, 'Regent und Gesetz in Platons Dialogen Politeia und Nomoi'; A.L. Pierris, 'The metaphysics of politics in the Politeia, Politikos and Nomoi dialogue group'; T.M. Robinson, 'Gender-differentiation and Platonic political theory'; Jean- Frangois Pradeau, 'L'exegete ennuye. Une introduction a la lecture des Lois de Platon'; Luc Brisson, 'Vernunft, Natur und Gesetz im zehnten Buch von Platons Gestezen'; Julius Tomin, 'Joining the beginning to the end'. There are some implicitly linking themes of a general sort (and an index locorum).

58 Josep Monserrat Molas, El politic de Plat6. La gracia de la mesura. Pp. xxiv + 402. Barcelonesa d'Edicions, 1999 (Colleccio Realitats i Tensions, 7). ISBN 84-86887- 49-6. No price given. It is pleasing to discover that a general knowledge of Romance languages appears sufficient for following - some - arguments in Catalan: so far as I have read, and sampled, the book, it is for the most part synthetic in aim (reading Plato in the light of a catholic range of secondary literature), but I shall look forward to returning to it in relation to particular sections of the Politicus.

59 Francisco L. Lisi, Plato's Laws and its Historical Significance. Selected Papers of the 1. International Congress on Ancient Thought, Salamanca, 1998. Pp. 351. Academia Verlag, Sankt Augustin, 2001. ISBN 3-89665-115-3. DM 98,00 (hbk).

BOOK NOTES 229

of the Lisi volume, with the tireless support of Luc Brisson, has also pro- duced the third edition of Saunders's Bibliography on Plato's Laws,60 in time for the Sixth Symposium Platonicum,6' itself on the Laws, in August of this year. The choice of the Laws as topic for the Symposium, and for the Salamanca Congress of which the Lisi volume is the fruit, helps mark the proper emergence of the Laws - so long cherry-picked - as an object of sus- tained study in its own right; that development in Platonic studies, as every- body knows (but why not repeat it here?), owes much to Saunders's devotion to a work which most still find hard to love. The twenty papers in the Lisi volume are a mixed in length, tone, and subject, but none the worse for that; the volume as a whole will provide an invaluable collective overview of the Laws, together with a sense of the status quaestionis on a number of issues.62 The argument of Walter Newell's Ruling Passion63 often seems to converge with that of Hobbs's Plato and the Hero, but has a rather different emphasis. Like Hobbs, Newell is centrally concerned with understanding Plato's con- cept of the thumos (he has a picture of rampant Achilles on the cover of the book), and often his conclusions and Hobbs's echo one another, even if stated in different styles (see e.g. p. 139). But for Newell, as I understand him, and

I Trevor J. Saunderst and Luc Brisson, Bibliography on Plato's Laws (third edi- tion, revised and completed with an additional bibliography on the Epinomis: International Plato Studies, 12). Pp. 141. Academia Verlag, Sankt Augustin, 2000. ISBN 3-89665- 172-2. 48,00 DM (hbk).

61 Organized by the International Plato Society. The Society has just launched its own internet journal, Plato, edited by Christopher Gill (www.ex.ac.uk/plato). Among other things, the first issue of Plato includes a report by Alexander Becker and Wolfgang Detel on a conference on Platonic epistemology held in September 2000 in Frankfurt; that report in turn refers to an important chapter on this same subject in relation to the Symposium in Detel's Macht, Moral, Wissen (Macht, Moral, Wissen. Foucault und die klassische Antike. Pp. 359. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 1362), 1998. ISBN 3-518-28962-4. 24,80 DM (pbk)). Since many Platonists, unless students of Foucault, are likely to miss this well-camouflaged contribution, it is worth mentioning here; but one should be warned that reading this chapter is likely to draw one (as I have been drawn) into reading the others - and this is the weightiest 'pocket-book' I know.

62 Conoscenti are likely to make first for the pieces - on the political philosophy of the dialogue - by Chris Bobonich ('Plato and the birth of classical political phi- losophy') and Andre Laks ('In what sense is the city of the Laws a second best one?'), or those on the reception of the Laws by John Dillon (Neoplatonists) and Ada Neschke ('Loi de la nature, loi de la cite. Le fondement transcendant de l'ordre politique dans les Lois de Platon et chez John Locke').

63 Walter R. Newell, Ruling Passion. The Erotics of Statecraft in Platonic Political Philosophy. Pp. vi + 201. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2000. ISBN 0-8476- 9726-6 (hbk); 0-8476-9727-4 (pbk). $70.00 (hbk), $24.95 (pbk).

230 BOOK NOTES

for his Plato, (Socratic) reason is the problem as much as, or more than, the thumos. 'Thus, as I argue, Socrates practices politics by cultivating friend- ships devoted to philosophy ... But we cannot presuppose that the rarefied politics of this Socratic circle of friends is necessarily in harmony with the actual requirements of statesmanship and civic commitment' (192). Newell finds a 'disjunction between reason and morality' in the Republic, especially insofar as the citizens' possession of moral virtue depends on their education, i.e. the education of their passions (and desires); Socratic rationalism rather has a tendency (as of course the Socrates of the Republic recognizes) to under- mine the effects of such education. Philosophy and 'civic virtue' are in this sense opposed to one another. Yet '[i]t is unlikely that Plato would have writ- ten thirty-five dialogues to serve no purpose other than to demonstrate the impossibility of philosophically guided civic virtue and a love of the noble that might plausibly reconcile statesmanship with the desire for wisdom' (194). (This is a fair example of Newell's style; I hope I am not to blame for finding, here and elsewhere, that it impedes rather than aids a clear understand- ing of his argument. The other problem with the book, in my estimation, is that as an account of Plato it does not establish a relationship with the texts - in play are mainly Gorgias, Symposium and Republic - that is close enough to enable it to be properly tested. Centrally: does Plato put the same value Newell himself evidently does on 'civic virtue', as Newell describes it?'- All the same, the book raises some important questions.65)

Finally, two massive tomes - both emanating from, and one actually pub- lished by, the CNRS in Paris: two tomes which belong to no particular set of Notes, and happen (I am delighted to say) to have found their way to me. The first is the third volume of the invaluable Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques;'6 these volumes appear to sell so quickly that anyone wanting one had better get on to it at once.67 The other is Le Commentaire entre tradition et innovation,/8 an extraordinarily rich collection of forty contributions on the

64 Cf. Tarrant's distinction between interpretation and doctrine (n. 4 above)? 65 Not least about how a Socrates might fit into any practicable city (cf. n. 22 above,

on Gonzalez). 6 Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, publie sous la direction de Richard Goulet,

III: d'Eccelos a Juvdnal. Pp. 1054. CNRS Editions, Paris, 2000. ISBN 2-271-05748- 5. FF 560 (hbk). The admirable neutrality of the editors' conception of a 'philosopher' is shown by the inclusion not only of Glaucon of Athens ('moins pen6trant [sc. le charactere dans la Republique] qu'Adimante', but after all reportedly the author of dia- logues), but of Isocrates. Xenophon, despite all his modem detractors, will evidently also make it (into volume 6).

67 For lists of the names included in volumes I-III, and full details of the volumes, go to: http://callimac.vjf.cnrs.fr/DPhA/DPhA_Main.html

68 Le commentaire: entre tradition et innovation. Actes du colloque international de l'Institut des Traditions Textuelles, Paris et Villejuif, 22-25 septembre, 1999. Publids sous

BOOK NOTES 231

origins and development of the commentary, from classical antiquity to the middle ages. (Hidden in the middle is a piece by Richard Sorabji: 'Is the true self an individual in the Platonist tradition?' We are back once again with homoiosis theoi, but in this case in the context of the evolution of a problem.)

la direction de Marie-Odile Goulet-Caze, avec la collaboration editoriale de Tiziano Dorandi, Richard Goulet, Henri Hugonnard-Roche, Alain Le Boullec, Ezio Ornato. Pp. 583. Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, Paris (Bibliotheque d'Histoire de la Philosophie, nouvelle sdrie), 2000. ISSN 0249-7980; ISBN 2-7116-1445-X. 295 F (pbk).