Platonic Colloquia — JEAITHTOS Introduction
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KOLOKWIA PLATOŃSKIE JEAITHTOS (red.) A. Pacewicz Wrocław 2007 ARTUR PACEWICZ Wroclaw University Platonic Colloquia — JEAITHTOS Introduction The present volume of the Platonic Colloquia series is devoted to Plato’s dia- logue Theaetetus1, which was already rated by the ancient philosophers among the so called tentative (peirastikoÐ) dialogues, as it has been reported by Diogenes Laertius2. Thrasyllos, who has arranged the Plato’s dialogues in the tetralogies, has placed Theaetetus in the second tetralogy — after the Cratylus and before the Sophist and the Politicus — and it was probably him who gave it the subtitle On the Knowledge (perÈ âpist mhc)3. The anonymous commentary to this dialo- gue mentions also that there were some thinkers among the Platonic philosophers who thought that the dialogue concerned the criterion, with which the anonymous author disagreed. The author claims that the dialogue concerns the simple and uncompounded knowledge (perÈ âpist mhc [. ] t¨c pl¨c kaÈ sunjètou). Accor- ding to the anonymous writer there were also other philosophers who thought that the subject of the dialogue was the knowledge itself, but it established what the knowledge was not, by contrast with the next dialogue Sophist, where some positive judgments about âpist mh were made4. The critical attitude and the lack of the 1 The previous volumes: PARMENIDHS;SOFISTHS, M. Manikowski (ed.), Wrocław 2003; Kolokwia Platońskie. TIMAIOS, A. Olejarczyk, M. Manikowski (red.), Wrocław 2004; Kolokwia Platońskie. FILHBOS, A. Pacewicz (red.), Wrocław 2006. It is worth stressing that the The- aetetus was discussed in a separate monograph in Polish: Z. Danek, Myślę więc nie wiem. Próba interpretacji Platońskiego dialogu „Teajtet”, Łódź 2000. 2 Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers III 51, 2-3 (next as DL). 3 Ibid. III 58, 5-8. See also DL II 29, 2. The grammarian Aristophanes divided the dialogues into trilogies and the Theaetetus was placed in the fourth trilogy among the Euthyphro and the Apology. See DL III 62, 3. In the contemporary literature, the following scholars are in favour of the trilogical division: F.M. Cornford (Plato’s Theory of Knowledge, New York 1957, p. 1) and D. Sedley (The Midwife of Platonism. Text und Subtext in Plato’s „Theaetetus”, Oxford 2004, p. 2.). The last one links the Theaetetus with the Sophist and the Politicus. 4 Anonymous, Commentarius in Platonis Theaetetum 2, 11-40. See. Anonymer Kommentar zu Platons Theaetet, (hrsg.) H. Diels, W. Schubart, Berlin 1905. The latest edition: Commentarium 20 A. Pacewicz, Platonic Colloquia — Introduction positive judgments were also the reason why Plato was perceived as an ancestor of the sceptical philosophy, i.e., ‘the Academician’ as the ancient put it5. Theaetetus was also placed in a very interesting way in the other divisions of Plato’s dialogues, which were made by the later ancient literary commentators of the founder of the Academy. Albinus, a representative of the middle-platonism, in his Introduction to Plato’s Philosophy defines the dialogue as lìgoc, which con- sists of the questions and answers, it concerns the political and philosophical issues and it is distinguished by the characters and an artistic style of the prose6. Next, this l’ogoc is divided into what resides in the soul (ândijetoc) and what is uttered (proforikìc)7. This division has its origin exactly in the Theaetetus, in which thin- king (tä dianoeØsjai) is defined as lìgoc, which the soul addresses to itself. When the soul expresses what it has achieved in the course of the deliberations, the belief (dìxa) comes into being8. In the third book of his Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, which is devoted to Plato’s philosophy, Diogenes Laertius proposes to divide the dialogues into the expository and the searching ones. The latter are divided into exercising and competing ones, while the former are further divided into the midwifery and the tentative one. It seems that the Theaetetus is a good candidate to be a mi- dwifery dialogue, but among those were also counted the Alcibiades, the Theages, the Lysis and the Laches, whereas Theaetetus is found, as already said, to be the tentative one9. It is hard to say with absolute certainty why it is done so, but one of the hypothesis says that the whole subdivision of the searching dialogues could be made with the reference to the discussed dialog. Furthermore, every element of the subdivision does not concern the whole work, but only some of its parts or some stages of its discussion10. There are five characters in the dialogue. One of them, Terpsion, is almost unknown to us. We know only that he came from Megara and was Socrates’ friend, who accompanied Socrates in the last moments of his life. Euclides also came from in Platonis Theaetetum, (ed.) G. Bastianini, D. Sedley [in:] Corpus dei Papiri Filosofici, part III: Commentari, Florence 1995. Regarding the interpretation mentioned by Proklos, see the M. Komorowski’s paper, Proclos on Plato’s „Theatetus” in the present volume. 5 Anonymous, Commentarius... 54, 38-43. It is also confirmed by the anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy. See Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy 10, 4-5, L.G. We- sterink (ed.), Amsterdam 1962. 6 Albinus, Introductio in Platonem I 16-19. With regard to more information on Albinus’ philosophy see for example: O. N¨usser, Albins Prolog und die Dialogtheorie des Platonismus, Stuttgard 1991; K. Pawłowski, Filozofia średniego platonizmu w formule Albinusa ze Smyrny, s.l. 1998. 7 Ibid. II 2-3. See also O. N¨usser, Albins Prolog...; A. Głodkowska, Starożytna teoria Platoń- skiego dialogu [w:] W kręgu Platona i jego dialogów, (red.) W. Wróblewski, Toruń 2005, s. 41-53. 8 Plato, Theaetetus 189e 4–190a 4 and 206d 1-5; cf. also Plato, Sophist 206e 3-9. 9 DL III 49, 1-9 and III 51, 1-3. Together with the Theaetetus there were Euthyphro, Meno, Ion and Charmides. 10 The division presented by Diogenes Laertius coincides to great extent with the contents of the III-rd chapter of Albinus’ Introduction. This question is discussed in the following works: O. N¨usser, Albins Prolog..., s. 101-143; H. Tarrant, Thrasyllan Platonism, Ithaca-London 1993, p. 46-57 and J. Mansfeld, Prolegomena. Questions to be settled before the study of an author, or a text, Leiden-New York-K¨oln, p. 74-107. Kolokwia Platońskie — JEAITHTOS 21 Megara and was also a witness of Socrates’ death. He established in his native country the philosophic school called the ‘Megarian’, where a lot of attention was given to eristic and dialectic, which is why the Megarics where also called the ‘Eristics’ or the ‘Dialectics’11. We do not know much about the Euclides’ teaching, as all information is only fragmentary and indirect. Cycero, for example, informs us about Euclides’ view on the good and the bad: „Next, it was Euclides from Megara, a disciple of Socrates, whose successors were called the Megarics, and who said that the only good was what was one, similar and the same”12. Theodoros and Theaetetus were the greatest mathematicians of their times. The former came from Kyrene and was probably a Pythagorean13. Diogenes Laertius mentions that he taught Plato mathematics14. We know from the Theaetetus that he was Protagoras’ diciple and took up not only geometry, but also astronomy, arithmetic, music and other issues15. He extended the range of the discoveries concerning the mathematical incommensurability. The Pythagoreans have only di- scovered the incommensurability of the square root of 2, whereas Theodorus proved it for the numbers from 3 to 17. But he did not presumably formulate any defi- nition of the incommensurable number and he did not prove any general theorem concerning it16. Theaetetus appears in the dialogue as a young man, who looks to that degree like Socrates that the latter could look at him as if he would look at himself17. But this resemblance concerns not only the outward appearance, but also the inter- nal sphere, especially in the intellectual and moral aspects. Similarly to Socrates, he is at the outset nice, willing to collaboration and owns up to have no know- ledge. Likewise, he has good memory and is very precise in the discussion. He is neither afraid nor ashamed to become refuted in his arguments. He uses a typi- cally Socratic motive of ‘hearing from someone’. He is characterized by the same exceptional courage in the battle and similar love to Athens18. Being an excel- 11 G. Reale, Storia della filosofia antica, vol. 1: Dalle origini a Socrate, Milano 1996 (I used the Polish translation of this work: G. Reale, Historia filozofii starożytnej, t. 1: Od początków do Sokratesa, tłum. E.I. Zieliński, Lublin 1993, s. 436). The latest collection of Euclides’ fragments is to be found in Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae, G. Giannantoni (coll.), vol. I, Napoli 1990, p. 377-388 (henceforth as SSR) 12Cycero, Lucullus 129, 13-16 = SSR II A 31 (transl. A.P.). A similar report can be found in Diogenes Laertius (II 106, 9 = SSR II A 30): „He claimed that the good is one and it is described by the many names: it is prudence once, the god, the intellect and something other some other time”. 13 Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life XXXVI 267, 20. 14 DL II 103, 12. It could take place in the course of the Plato’s journey to Egypt or during the Theodoros’ stay in Athens. See T. Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics, vol. I: From Thales to Euclid, Oxford 1921, p. 202. 15 Plato, Theaetetus 145c–d. 16 See T. Heath, A History..., vol. I, p. 203. 17 Plato, Theaetetus 143e–144e. 18 See R. Blondell, The Play of Character in Plato’s Dialogues, Cambridge 2002, p.