Platonic Interpretive Strategies, and the History of Philosophy, with a Comment on Renaud
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As my title moves from species to genus, Platonic Interpretive my paper proceeds in the opposite direction; Strategies, and the thus my contribution to François Renaud’s paper—when I get there—will have been set in History of Philosophy, a broad context. I begin in section I with the with a Comment on very general question of what we historians of philosophy take as our aims and methods, Renaud and what we take ourselves to be doing when we do the history of philosophy. In section II, I provide a derivative account of the extant strands of Platonic interpretation to mini- mize superficial disputes while emphasizing a handful of genuine disagreements about Debra Nails how we should conduct our research efforts. Michigan State University, emerita The review of interpretive strategies serves to [email protected] show how Renaud’s contemporary approach to Plato’s dialogues, section III, represents a sensitive accommodation of the best features of more limited strategies. What he calls the Platonic dialectical requirement that argu- ment and drama be appreciated as operating together provokes me to ask why that is so, and to look for an answer in Plato’s attitude toward music.
ABSTRACT I. DOING HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY François Renaud replies to the question of what principles one ought to employ in the study of I begin with a July, 2015, dialectical ex- Plato by arguing , and demonstrating , that how change—conducted without animus between the argument and the drama operate together two accomplished philosophers whose identities successfully in the . In agreement with Gorgias I will later reveal; the two disagree about the Renaud’s approach, I expose some histori- right way to do history of philosophy. I quote cal roots with a review of Platonic interpretive from near the end of their back-and-forth: strategies of the modern period in the context of history of philosophy more generally. I also My opponent is looking for the single try to show argument and drama operate why key to unlock Plato’s philosophy; I am together, an insight I attribute to Plato’s genius skeptical that you can (or should) bring in relation to music. all of Plato’s philosophy back to some- thing as apparently straightforward as the Keywords: Plato, strategies, history of philosophy, theory of forms. I see Plato as a tangle of music.
https://doi.org/10.14195/2183-4105_16_10 110 | Platonic Interpretive Strategies, and the History of Philosophy, with a Comment on Renaud
interconnected commitments that change concerns us all. Why would anyone devote the and evolve from the Apology to the end, better part of a philosophical lifetime to the realized in different and perhaps incom- study of someone else’s philosophy? For one, patible ways in his different writings. My to satisfy a relentless intellectual curiosity. For opponent wants to penetrate beneath the another, to mine the author for purposes of surface of that tangle and try to find what one’s own philosophizing. For a third, to point connects them together in a rigorous way; out what others have missed or misinterpreted. he wants a kind of doctrinal unity, a kind Maybe, but . . . such generic answers do not of single underlying argument and po- get us very far. There is a vast difference be- sition that pulls things together. I want tween curiosity about the nature of reality and a reading of Plato that is as holistic as truth, or the right way to live, on the one hand, his, but one that preserves the complex and curiosity about what was on the mind of a motivations behind his philosophical dead philosopher and his associates, on the oth- program, and that does not reduce his er. Dan Garber argues that Michael Della Rocca project to a single impulse, indeed, a sin- morphs Spinoza into a superhero, an ideal type, gle impulse that is rigorously metaphysi- who “is not the historical Spinoza who lived cal: working out the consequences of the and worked in the seventeenth-century Dutch theory of forms in all its ramifications. Republic.” Garber calls his own work a “direct This, in a way, is the point of my “super- reading” and avers that Della Rocca “ration- heroes” criticism: taking Plato’s complex ally reconstructs Spinoza’s project”; Della Rocca character and flattening him out, mak- replies that all history of philosophy involves ing his position intelligible by stripping rational reconstruction, a premise with which it of what I see as its depth and complex- I agree, though I will not attempt to defend it ity. Though it might be characterized as separately here1. holistic, my objection is to what strikes The landscape has changed over the last half me as an oversimplified and reductive century. Although I leave entirely aside the re- interpretation. lationship between “History of Philosophy and History of Ideas,” the title of Paul Kristeller’s There may not be an answer to which is 1964 paper2, I’ll repeat from that classic a few the right way of doing the history of phi- methodological points about doing history of losophy. For different figures, the answer philosophy that required a substantial defense might be different; there is no reason why in his time but are no longer controversial: The every philosopher has to be the same. In- historian of philosophy must have (i) “adequate sofar as my opponent and I disagree in training... in philosophy and its basic prob- this case, the disagreement may be over lems”; (ii) the goal of truth, attained only in bits whether one way or the other is the ap- and pieces; and (iii) a “certain amount of philo- propriate way of approaching Plato. logical and scholarly training.” It is necessary (iv) to read the philosophers in their original I start out so very far into the future from languages—not rely on secondary sources or Plato—and in our recent past—because the translations. Kristeller adds a fifth that could problem of the right way to proceed as a his- be discussed further, though I think his inten- torian of philosophy is a living issue that rightly tion is clear: (v) one’s “objective interpretation” DEBRA NAILS | 111
of a thinker should be kept distinct from one’s claimed direct descent from Plato’s Socrates. One “critical analysis,” which relies on one’s own can see in that period the origin of what has come philosophical assumptions and opinions. At to be thought of as a dispute over whether Plato least the first four points are in the background was skeptical, as the Skeptics held, or doctrinal of the Garber-Della Rocca exchange, and taken (with Cynics, Cyrenaics, and Stoics quarreling for granted; part of Garber’s beef, however, is over what the doctrines were). Another of the that Della Rocca’s Spinoza sides with Parme- contemporary preoccupations that was already nides and Plato, and jousts with twenty-first a matter of ancient dispute was whether Plato century metaphysicians. reserved certain doctrines for his closest asso- ciates—that is, whether there was an esoteric doctrine, often associated with Plato’s Pythago- II. SCHOOLS OF PLATONIC3 rean leanings, that was required to elaborate his INTERPRETATION exoteric dialogues. The contemporary stage was set in the late I turn now, however, to big-picture back- eighteenth century in the heyday of German ground considerations: something of a whistle- critical philology, idealism, and romanticism; stop tour of varieties of Platonic interpreta- and in the shadow of Hegel, whose grand and tion, past to present. The reason I consider impenetrable system—a priori and unified— this worth doing is that different schools of was considered the quintessence of greatness interpretation can have strikingly different in philosophy. Plato was the darling of the Ger- assumptions about Plato and — as with the man schoolroom, and everyone read him in branching of the evolutionary tree — can pro- Greek. The question was, How can Plato be the duce skin-deep resemblances or agreements great and systematic philosopher we know him that mask contrary or contradictory presup- to be when the dialogues go this way and that, positions that emerge in the conduct of further taking one position here and another there? research. Just as often, an apparent divergence There were—there are—answers aplenty. Wil- of views, when taken in context, turns out to be helm Gottlieb Tennemann (1794) achieved an nothing more than a semantic squabble easily elegant systematic philosophy by rejecting all resolved. Rosamond Sprague objects to what but a handful of supposedly genuine dialogues; she calls “magpie Platonists” who pick up shiny and he also held that Plato deliberately con- bits from here and there to make a nest that is cealed the connections among his doctrines as a hodgepodge of unreflective claims. Renaud a precaution, offering them only to intimates is no magpie. (Zeller 1876, 87). If the connections were not Starting all the way back with the first schol- obvious, later athetists thought, then perhaps archs in the Academy, there was no sense that Tennemann’s collection was still too large. Au- Plato needed to be interpreted by Speusippus and gust Krohn, by 1876, had whittled the few to Xenocrates, just amplified. That did not last long. one, the Republic. Aristotle raised the question of the relationship of Friedrich Schleiermacher (German 1804, mathematicals to Plato’s forms and to the forms English 1836) presented Plato as a deliberate of the platonists, a controversy with us still. Fa- and painstaking author whose dialogues were mously, after the death of Aristotle, all except written in the very order that perfectly reflect- the Epicureans among the Hellenistic Schools ed his secure, basic principles. Karl Friedrich 112 | Platonic Interpretive Strategies, and the History of Philosophy, with a Comment on Renaud
GERMAN ROMANTICISM, IDEALISM & CRITICAL PHILOLOGY: a priori systematic philosophy Tennemann 1794 athetesis, concealment
Schleiermacher (Ger. 1804, Eng. 1836) dialogues are a Hermann 1839 Plato deliberate, complete series, sums up previous philosophy in order of composition according to his personality & influences beyond authorial control Zeller (Ger. 1846, Eng. 1876): reviews German tradition, Athenian politics, poetics, influence of Socrates
STYLOMETRICIANS Nietzsche 1870s: Grote 1865 Plato aims to Campbell 1867 Plato qua stimulate philosophizing Ritter 1888 interlocutor & adversary; focus on assumptions
Robin 1908: Plato’s system is subject to modifications known through Aristotle & oral tradition
POSITIVISTS non-intellectual causes Heidegger: Plato qua of inconsistencies naïve metaphysician (sociological, psychological, ANCIENT biographical) COMMENTATORS UNITARIANS add essential insights Shorey 1903: a priori, non- systematic, Plato as moral teacher with a distinct worldview
ESOTERICISTS DIALECTICS dialogues were exoteric, for Plato’s initial, constant non-initiates assumptions unfold Cherniss 1945
EVOLUTIONISTS fallacies & inconsistencies medieval Jewish & caused by logic’s infancy Arabic commentators Robinson 1941
ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHERS
(non-developmentalist ) (developmentalist) Vlastos 1973, 1991 PHILOLOGICAL TÜBINGEN SCHOOL POLITICAL THEORY HERMENEUTIC TRADITION 3 theses; 10-part division PLATONISM emphasis on Plato deliberately hid his each dialogue self-contained between Socrates & Plato “unwritten doctrines” views Strauss 1945 Gadamer 1980
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Hermann (1839) opposed Schleiermacher di- and short dialogues could have been written rectly, holding the “genetic view” that qua phi- during the composition of long ones—making losopher, Plato’s secure, basic principles were any linear chronology suspect. deployed variously throughout his lifetime, but The English historian George Grote was that qua author, Plato was subject to external a student of John Stuart Mill and Jeremy factors that accounted for inconsistencies in Bentham who—like Mill—swam against the the dialogues. Schleiermacher’s views won the German methodological tide, though Zeller day, prompting a new and pressing question: often cites Grote’s historical observations. Mill In what order did Plato compose his dialogues? (1887, 22) had said, The earliest answers were two: he wrote in the order easiest-to-most complex; or he composed The title of Platonist belongs by far better the dialogues in the order of Socrates’s life. right to those who have been nourished Soon, however, there were scores of efforts to in, and have endeavoured to practice, Pla- establish the compositional series by literary, to’s mode of investigation, than to those historical, and doctrinal criteria. Eduard Zeller, who are distinguished only by the adop- in Plato and the Older Academy (German 1846, tion of certain dogmatical conclusions, English 1876), made the best case he could, drawn mostly from the least intelligible in 650 pages, reviewing previous scholarship. of his works, and which the character of Widely influential, Zeller agreed in the main his mind and writings makes it uncertain with Schleiermacher, whose clever interpretive whether he himself regarded as anything key was the recognition of how Plato overcame more than poetic fancies, or philosophic the deficiencies of the written word: “Plato conjectures. could make no advance in any dialogue un- less he presumed a certain effect to have been It is not surprising then that Grote denied produced by its predecessor; consequently that Plato had any doctrines and saw the dialogues which formed the conclusion of one must be as empty philosophizing—as skeptics had be- presupposed as the basis and commencement fore him. One can sense Zeller’s frustration of another” (Zeller 1876, 99–100). when he says that Grote “speaks as if Plato . I pause to say that all three major strands . . thought nothing of contradicting himself of Plato interpretation are launched from the in the most glaring manner, even in one and German paradigm, multifarious as it was. the same dialogue” (1876, 79–80). Grote’s view Pursuing first what was to become the ana- might well be associated with some later ex- lytic tradition, stylometricians, hundreds of cesses of the analytic tradition: at worst, pas- them, sought to establish the correct order of sages were ripped out of context and subjected composition by measuring aspects of Plato’s to tests of validity and soundness, sometimes style. The problem of circularity could not be from English translations, an extreme now rare overcome because the only two firm data were in the secondary literature6. that the Republic appeared before the Laws A generation later, the U.S. entered the fray: and the Laws at the end. There was no non unitarians such as Paul Shorey (1903, 82–85) question-begging way to organize pre-Republic were dismissing the credibility of Aristotle dialogues. Besides, there is textual evidence and the augmented tradition more generally. and testimony that Plato revised his dialogues; The authority of Harold Cherniss (1944, 1945), 114 | Platonic Interpretive Strategies, and the History of Philosophy, with a Comment on Renaud
who saw the Platonic corpus as having an or- lenged by Michael Frede (1992, 214): “we have ganic unity, mistrusting any testimony outside to keep in mind that, however committed the Plato’s dialogues, was extensive.7 In opposition fictional questioner or respondent of the dia- to the countercurrent of Léon Robin (see be- logue may be, nothing follows from this about low), Cherniss held that the text always trounc- the commitment of the author of the dialogue.” es the tradition. Receiving much less attention Also new was Vlastos’s ten-point distinction from specialists at the time was John Dewey, between the moral philosopher of Plato’s early who had complained in 1929: period, SocratesE, and the metaphysically- committed philosopher Plato of the middle Nothing could be more helpful to pre- and late periods (1991: 47–49). The details of sent philosophizing than a ‘Back to Plato’ the system did not hold up, though some phi- movement; but it would have to be back to losophers still pick out a Socratic philosophy the dramatic, restless, co-operatively in- supposedly distinct from that of Plato. We
quiring Plato of the Dialogues, trying one would all do better to emphasize VlastosE as mode of attack after another to see what it the model for the analytic tradition, with such might yield; back to the Plato whose high- articles as his “The Third Man Argument in est flight of metaphysics always termi- the Parmenides” (1954), “Degrees of Reality in nated with a social and practical turn, and Plato” (1965), and “Reasons and Causes in the not to the artificial Plato constructed by Phaedo” (1969)—all collected in Vlastos 1973. unimaginative commentators who treat One need not agree with his conclusions to him as the original university professor. admire the clarity. Analytic philosophy at its best makes hidden assumptions explicit and The most influential U.S. Platonist of the provides missing premises that charitably re- twentieth century was Gregory Vlastos who, habilitate abandoned arguments. to his credit, was willing to countenance an It is necessary to return to Zeller to pick Aristotelian contribution to our understand- up the second major strand of interpretation. ing of Plato.8 Vlastos said in a nutshell that, While he had used Aristotle’s testimony in a when Plato was young, he held the philosophi- quite limited way to shore up claims of au- cal views he took to be those of Socrates. As he thenticity for dialogues athetized by others, matured, he developed views of his own, the Léon Robin (1908) went further, arguing that forms most significantly, but he became disen- the coherence of Plato’s systematic philosophy chanted with forms and eschewed them in later requires revision by the testimony of Aristo- life. That gives us three underlying assump- tle and the oral tradition. Robin saw himself tions: (1) Plato’s views developed, accounting as quelling any tendency toward esotericism for dialogues’ inconsistencies and contradic- by emphasizing the Platonic unity achieved tions; (2) we can reliably determine the order through modifications in light of Aristotle and in which the dialogues were written—early, the Greek commentators; and he saw himself middle, late—and map them to the evolution of as deemphasizing biography and history, re- Plato’s views; and (3) Plato puts into the mouth turning to philosophy. If the sociology of phi- of Socrates only what Plato himself believes at losophy is of any interest, one might note that the time he writes each dialogue. This third the French flag was thereby planted against assumption was new, and it was quickly chal- Anglo-American and German positions. Robin DEBRA NAILS | 115
is largely responsible for the lasting marriage agrapha dogmata or ‘unwritten doctrines’. of philosophy with philology, appreciating the There are two sources of our knowledge of essential role of commentators from Aristotle Plato’s philosophy: the direct tradition, that on. I classify Renaud’s work in this tradition. is, the dialogues, and the indirect tradition, Another development in interpretive strate- that is, the Testimonia Platonica. Neither of gies surprisingly compatible with Robin is es- the two branches of the transmission should otericism, still very strong, maintaining that be ignored.”10 one cannot depend solely on Plato’s dialogues The other important esoteric tradition— because, as Plato suggests, the written word but in political theory, not philosophy—can (especially when the author does not speak) be traced from Zeller through Friedrich Ni- is inadequate to the purposes of philosophy; etzsche and Martin Heidegger to Leo Strauss. hence the importance of the commentators, es- As Hayden Ausland (2012: 302) sees it, “The pecially Aristotle, for saying more about Plato’s esotericism integral to Straussian readings of intended meaning. ‘Esotericism’ can have an Plato takes as its model a prudential hermeneu- innocuous meaning: that is, simply reading tics acknowledging several levels of meaning, dialogues will not yield a nuanced understand- as developed in medieval Jewish and Arabic ing of Plato; one needs to go to graduate school, philosophy for the sake of pursuing specula- to take “the longer road” and participate with tion within a society governed by religious law others in dialectical inquiry for a deeper grasp. (Strauss 1945), for which the analogue in Plato’s The ancient platonists, in this inoffensive sense, time will have been the Athenian political con- are co-participants in a rigorous Plato seminar. ditions under which the trial and execution ‘Esotericism’ only begins to sound insidious of Socrates proved possible.” An influential when the same concrete experience of studying Straussian, Catherine Zuckert, explains, “In Plato is described in terms of ‘masters’, ‘secret his dialogues, Plato presents exclusively the doctrines’, and ‘initiates’ instead—with the speeches and deeds of others. The dialogues connotation of mystery cults. must, therefore, be read like dramas in which The Tübingen school, largely neglected in one never identifies the views of the author the U.S.,9 has two chief assumptions in the ac- with any particular character” (2012, 298–99). count of Thomas Szlezák (2012, 303): It “takes Each dialogue reveals a partial truth, and the seriously, unlike the common practice since parts do not altogether form a whole. Dramatic Schleiermacher, clear indications in the dia- elements are essential because—at least in the logues that they are not meant by their author to view of some branches of Straussianism—“the be autarchic, self-sufficient and comprehensive action of a dialogue undermines its apparent accounts of his philosophy. The fact that the surface teaching or ‘argument.’” Plato deliber- dialogues point beyond themselves, not only ately conceals his own views. casually and incidentally, but systematically Contemporary literary contextualists, in and consistently, is essential for their being the wake of Hans-Georg Gadamer, have some understood.” Second, the school’s adherents of the same forebears after Zeller: Nietzsche “reject as methodologically ill-conceived and and Heidegger. Again the dramatic aspects wholly unconvincing the attempt (undertaken are crucial, but equally important is that each by Cherniss 1944) to discard the testimony of dialogue is and must be interpreted as a self- Aristotle and other sources concerning Plato’s contained whole; thus attempts to interpret 116 | Platonic Interpretive Strategies, and the History of Philosophy, with a Comment on Renaud
Plato across the whole corpus are feckless. persuasively with its application to Plato’s Gor- Hermeneutic philosophy at its best permits gias together with descriptions of how the two us to see a dialogue in a whole new way. function together. Only a few quibbles remain. Still relevant is Myles Burnyeat’s (1979) The first (1.1) is terminological: ‘evil’ and précis of what remains a contemporary inter- ‘punishment’ smuggle religious views into the pretive problem: text of the Gorgias that I do not think Plato shared.12 Instead of “the greatest of all evils is The great difficulty in writing about Pla- to commit injustice and not to be punished,” I to is to combine the depth and strength would have us say, “of all bad things, the most of the Platonic vision with the Socratic bad is to commit injustice, but worse if uncor- subtlety of the arguments by which it is rected.” Punishment is retributive and back- conveyed. Plato’s dialogues are a miracu- ward-looking; correction or discipline rectifies lous blend of philosophical imagination and improves the recipient. Although Renaud and logic. The interpreter must somehow has done an excellent job of explaining why respond to both, for if the imaginative Socrates has cause in the Gorgias to respond to vision is cut loose from the arguments it Callicles’s mention of such harsh punishments becomes grandiloquent posturing, and as flogging and execution, I remain sympa- the arguments on their own are arid, the thetic with Rowe 2007, who uses ‘therapy’ to mere skeleton of a philosophy. So it is al- describe the corrective use of dialectic. Con- ready a criticism to say of the books under ventions of punishment change over time and review that Professor Findlay’s work is place. I concede that torturing the body to save all vision, without argument, and that the soul has been a regular religious practice, Professor Irwin’s is all argument with and that corporal punishment—whipping and no vision.11 beating—now considered abusive, has a long history of being used for disciplining chil- The perennial problem for interpretation is dren, in the belief that physical pain would that there are not many human beings who can promote better behavior. Plato’s Socrates did do both well. Renaud concentrates on a single not think physical pain was a good way to dialogue and its dramatic elements—but not train horses or dogs, but I leave that aside without the clarity of argument expected of and simply concede further that execution, an analyst, and not without appreciation for explicit at Gorgias 480d2, could only be re- Aristotle and the commentary tradition. garded as forward-looking and corrective in the sense that it protects others from harm. The execution remark immediately follows the passage that Renaud so rightly identifies III. RENAUD’S INTERPRETIVE as the proper analogy for correction, as it is STRATEGY used in the dialogue: one should not shrink from presenting oneself to a physician for sur- Renaud and I, through an amiable dialecti- gery or cauterization if needed. I would add cal process, have reached close accord about the earlier analogy from 453e2: arithmetic or the mutual operation of argument and drama the arithmetician teaches us about numbers, in the dialogues, a position he illustrates presumably correcting our mistakes so that DEBRA NAILS | 117
we learn what is true. Like the health analogy, him to become (and would have become, arithmetic involves a standard for compari- but for Socrates), an unrealized Plato.14 son.13 Correction or discipline ought to lead one closer to that standard. I am not taking sides about whose view of Second, Renaud remarks in 3.1 that Plato Callicles is more appropriate, just pointing out criticizes the character of Alcibiades and Cal- that two reasonable scholars can understand licles. Leaving aside the mistake of attributing character differently and that we interpreters, to the author, Plato, views gleaned from what therefore, should be careful about ἦθος. other people are made to say in dialogues— Third, we seem to disagree about how which would require a considerable defense the individual’s mind works when reading a to establish—Renaud does not like Callicles Platonic dialogue. Perhaps, as Renaud says at and accuses him of abandoning the principle 3.3, “The reader must constantly move from of frankness (παρρησία), for example. Plato the argument to the drama, that is, from the could affect, but he could not control his au- semantic (or explicit) dimension to the prag- dience’s reaction to the persons represented in matic (or implicit) dimension, and vice-versa.” the dialogues. Another student of the Gorgias, But perhaps that kind of shifting attentiveness E. R. Dodds (1959, 14), developed a different characterizes someone who, like Renaud, seeks impression, saying that Plato’s to dissect Plato’s technique. Plato’s art is more subtle, more successful, when the drama does portrait of Callicles not only has warmth not require the reader’s conscious attention, and vitality but is tinged with a kind of when the drama registers in the preconscious regretful affection. True, the young man while the argument takes the leading role. is insufferably patronizing; true, as the For reasons that will become clearer when I discussion proceeds he becomes unpleas- turn to music below, a unified psyche learns antly rude, and at one stage turns sulky. most readily when it concentrates, not when Yet he likes Socrates, and his repeated ex- it is distracted from one level to another. The pressions of concern for the philosopher’s drama is the medium that carries the argument safety are, I think, quite sincerely meant. along, intensifying the affective dimension and Socrates on his side perceives in him the thereby increasing learning. true touchstone: he praises his honesty in Ultimately, the burden of Renaud’s paper ‘saying frankly what other people think is to demonstrate that argument and drama, but will not say’; he also recognizes him to equally indispensable, work together because be by current standards a cultivated man the objective and the subjective are, he says who, unlike Polus, has acquired some at the end of his paper, “in tension with each tincture of philosophy παιδείας χάριν. other” (3.3). I do not observe the tension, but But what is more significant is the pow- it appears to result from whatever grounds his erful and disturbing eloquence that Plato surprising assertion that “basic philosophical has bestowed on Callicles—an eloquence questions can only be answered in the first per- destined to convince the young Nietzsche, son singular” (conclusion). I do not understand while Socrates’ reasonings left him cold. the claim. It might mean that knowledge is One is tempted to believe that Callicles itself the kind of thing that would not exist if stands for something which Plato had it in there were no intelligent beings. That seems 118 | Platonic Interpretive Strategies, and the History of Philosophy, with a Comment on Renaud
right. There would still be being, reality, the drama: plot, characters, diction, and reasoning; physical universe and its laws, but no grasp- he omits spectacle and song. The easy answer ing of truth, nothing to call ‘knowledge’. Or it might be gleaned from Republic 5: the lovers might mean that humans are hopelessly sub- of sights and sounds, spectacle and song, love jective and cannot achieve formal knowledge, learning; but they are so-called philosophers, mathematics being as high an achievement as distinct from the real philosophers who love is possible. Under this interpretation, for ex- not only learning but truth and wisdom. ample, knowledge of the form of the equal—a The more complicated answer is one that form not limited to mathematical uses—would Stephen Halliwell articulates in a chapter from be impossible for a human being. That seems his 2002 The Aesthetics of Mimesis, picking up wrong—as if omniscience were the standard for where Charlie Segal left off in 1962: the Platonic ἐπιστήμη or νοῦς.15 Further, when Renaud says critique of the man Gorgias is justified insofar that one of Platonic dialectic’s two purposes is as Gorgias lacks any systematic understanding “the attainment of a perfectly self-sufficient or of the psyche as a whole or of the implications absolute object, an entirely impersonal norm” of his views for ethics and psychology—both (3.3), it is the term ‘attainment’ that strikes crucial to genuine learning—but explaining me. I have attained knowledge (not merely true Gorgias’s penchant for having his students beliefs) of the form of the equal and the form of memorize and display. The critique fails, the good, even if I lack omniscience; and from however, in that it misses the historical point, that knowledge, I can deduce further true prop- which, according to Segal, is that Damon,17 ositions. The statements, “No one does harm Gorgias, and Plato represent three stages in willingly” and “Virtue is knowledge” are not the increasing awareness of the undeniable yet first-person singular statements.16 inscrutable connections among words, visual Quibbles aside, I agree with Renaud that, in images, and sounds and their powerful emo- the Gorgias, the drama contributes to our un- tional effects on the psyche.18 Because Plato derstanding because Plato observes two prin- understood the erotic dimension of intellectual ciples—διάνοια and ἦθος—that Aristotle later curiosity, he could write dialogues that brought theorizes in the Poetics. However, Aristotle about both rational and arational effects; the should have said that plot and diction are also dialogues are successful, in part, because they characteristic of sōkratikoi logoi—recalling that are multiply attractive.19 So why not use music plot represents action. There is action in the di- as well? alogues. Unlike tragedy and comedy, however, Socrates mentions music (at Gorgias 474e4–5) the most important part of a sōkratikos logos, in relation to identifying the standards that its soul, is διάνοια as reasoning or argument. govern judgments of sounds as admirable or I want now to plunge deeper into the related shameful. Segal and Halliwell are right to insist question of why Plato observes the particular that Plato realized that music is more than the principles that Aristotle theorizes. There is formal study of harmonics; he knew, perhaps an easy answer and a more complicated one from Damon, that music directly and pro- though both are dependent on the assumption foundly affects the emotions and is thus cen- that the Platonic dialogues educate us, that we tral to human motivation—but it is especially learn from them. Plato, in his sōkratikoi lo- difficult to control. As Halliwell (2002, 238) goi, deploys four of Aristotle’s six parts of the puts it, “Whatever exact ideas were held by the DEBRA NAILS | 119
now shadowy figure of Damon himself, there across different works by the same author and is no serious doubt that he started a system across different stages of a career,” and (3) of theorizing that depended on the attribution the degree to which one draws “connections of ‘character’ (ēthos) to musical works and to and contrasts” with contemporary philosophy. the tunings, scales, and melodic patterns (all of Clearly this is not the road Renaud takes. which can be covered by the Greek term har- By this standard, I occupy an extreme: (1) I moniai) which they employed”. Despite popular have argued elsewhere (2013) that Plato had a attention to the Republic’s artful tripartition, single unhypothetical principle—not the good, Plato knew better than most that the psyche is but something more like the principle of suf- divided in words only.20 It is not just that the ficient reason governing reality, with a deriva- Republic explodes the metaphor in a variety of tive principle of non-contradiction governing ways; the Symposium offers an extended and truth. In so orderly a cosmos, of course no one multifaceted account of the unified psyche. does wrong willingly. (2) A single theme unifies Plato attended seriously to writing philoso- Plato’s works throughout his lifetime: he held the phy with his insight that even words are images, process of philosophical education or learning including words that together form dialogues; paramount, and could—by writing dialogues— and all images are indistinct, seeming, becom- illustrate Socratic efforts to encourage the in- ing—requiring studied attention to their likely tellectual labors of others while compensating psychological effects.21 We are mistaken then to for the deficiencies of the Socratic oral method, imagine that we have identified rigid designa- among which I include the “lack of a shared tors, or that propositional logic can shield us background to guarantee the level of discus- from all error. Just as music enters the psyche sion; inability to introduce large and complex directly with immediate effect, and thus—from philosophical systems for analysis; and inability Plato’s perspective—needs to be harnessed and to produce contributions to philosophical con- carefully used (Republic 2–3), so do the cadenc- tent” (1995, 215). The dialogue form reinforced es and figural language of prose have arational the view that each of us must do our own intel- effects on the psyche. So do remembrances of lectual work and reach our own conclusions— real persons. So do such immortal images as the also argued elsewhere (1995, chapter 12). (3) It is cave, the chariot, and Diotima’s ladder. Plato’s philosophically rewarding to work out Platonic own images in words weave the arational, the passages in relation to contemporary claims. Per- emotional, together with reasoning, and all are haps it is not so obvious but, in all the historical crucial to learning. cases I sailed through in section II, interpreters were making connections and contrasts to the contemporary philosophies of their own times. IV. CONCLUSIONS Doing history of philosophy is doing philosophy; all philosophy is contemporary philosophy. The The Garber-Della Rocca exchange (2015, salient difference among them is the extent to 533) describes the hilly landscape along which which a historian of philosophy recognizes and historians of philosophy have planted their makes explicit those connections and contrasts. variety of flags: (1) the degree to which a single Because some famous historians of philosophy principle structures the author’s thought; (2) object to contemporary references, some Platon- the degree to which there is a “unifying theme ists are ashamed to mention them in public.22 120 | Platonic Interpretive Strategies, and the History of Philosophy, with a Comment on Renaud
Ideally, one should choose the interpre- New York Review of Books, 30 May 1985. tive strategy, the method, that advances phi- Campbell 1867: L. Campbell, The Sophistes and Politi- losophy—but the ‘should’ is aspirational, and cus of Plato, Clarendon, Oxford 1867. ‘choose’ is narrowly circumscribed.23 The Cherniss 1944: H. Cherniss, Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato and the Academy, Johns Hopkins Press texts and teachers who inspire us in our an- 1944. cient philosophical endeavors are mostly not Cherniss 1945: H. Cherniss, The Riddle of the Early up to us because much of our formative edu- Academy, University of California Press, Berke- cation is determined by our school districts. ley 1945. A graduate education, even university, is too Clay 1975: D. Clay, ‘Platonic Studies and the Study of Plato,’ Arion n.s. 2 (1975), 116–32. late for most people to acquire the language Dewey 1930: J. Dewey, ‘From Absolutism to Experi- skills, the expertise at formal reasoning, and mentalism’ in G. P. Adams - W. Pepperell Mon- the literary insight that a full appreciation of tague (ed.), Contemporary American Philosophy: Plato would require. Important philosophical Personal Statements, Russell and Russell, Brasted passages are pointed out to students, said to 1930, 13–27. be worth their time—and the “settled” issues Findlay 1974: J. Findlay, Plato: The Written and Un- written Doctrines, Humanities, London 1974. observed to be appropriate for undergraduate Findlay 1979: J. Findlay, Plato and Platonism: An In- essays, but a waste of time in philosophical troduction, Times Books, New York 1979. adulthood. Some of it sticks. One point about Fink 2012: J. L. Fink, ‘How Did Aristotle Read a Platon- choosing an interpretive approach to Plato is ic Dialogue?’ in J. L. Fink (ed.), The Development that each of us has different talents, different of Dialectic from Plato to Aristotle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2012. backgrounds, and different assumptions—not Frede 1992: M. Frede, ‘Plato’s Arguments and the Dia- to mention different educational opportuni- logue Form’ in J. C. Klagge - N. D. Smith (ed.), ties. Our academic lives are marked by stages Methods of Interpreting Plato and His Dialogues. of choosing dissertation topics, or the subject Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Supple- for a gold-standard, peer-reviewed article, or a mentary Volume, Oxford 1992, 201–19. tenure book. These are not illegitimate matters, Gadamer 1980: H.-G. Gadamer, Dialogue and Dia- lectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato, but they are artifacts of the de-natured twenty- P. Chr. Smith (tr.), Yale University Press, New first century Academy. I commend Renaud for Haven 1980. his ability to combine the strengths of what, Gaiser 1963: K. Gaiser, Platons Ungeschriebene Lehre, in their own time, were considered competing Klett, Stuttgart 1963. interpretive strategies. Garber-Della Rocca 2015: D. Garber - M. Della Rocca, ‘Spinoza, Historiography, and the Principle of Sufficient Reason: An Exchange,’ Journal of the History of Philosophy 53:3 (2015), 507–39; You- BIBLIOGRAPHY Tube, 1 May 2015 at a Yale SEMPY Workshop:
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being subjected to Socrates’s efforts at midwifery. NOTES 17 Damon of Oe, son of Damonides, was a music theo- rist of Pericles’ generation who appears in many inscrip- 1 For the long quotation, see Garber–Della Rocca 2015, tions and texts of the classical period, including a few 538 (where one must substitute ‘Spinoza’, ‘Della Rocca’, Platonic dialogues and accretions of the early Academy, ‘PSR’, and ‘Short Treatise’ appropriately for Garber’s origi- where he is presented in a positive light (Laches, Republic, nal words). Alcibiades I, and Axiochus). See Nails 2002, 121–22, West 2 Kristeller 1964: (i) 4, 6 (ii) 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, (iii) 8, (iv) 1992, 246–53, and Halliwell 2002, 238–40. 6–7, (v) 11; he points out that the Journal of the History of 18 The awareness culminates in Aristotle’s “full-blown Ideas was founded in 1940, the Journal of the History of scientific theory” Poetics( ). Segal’s assessment of Gorgias Philosophy in 1963. is based primarily on the Defense of Helen 12–14 (1962, 3 This soil is well tilled. In addition to the contributors 105). Because, when judging Plato, Segal puts his whole I cite in subsequent notes, see especially Guthrie 1967, emphasis on the tripartite psyche of the Republic, he 1–18; Clay 1975; Berti 1989; Press 1996; and—except for misses Plato’s understanding of these connections, the price—Smith 1998. saddling Plato with a pure, rational attempt to suppress 4 It was generally assumed at the time that Plato began the emotions that greater attention to the Phaedrus and writing dialogues before Socrates was executed. Symposium would have cured. 5 See Nails 2012, 290–91, and additional sources cited 19 Segal says that Damon was “acutely interested in the there. practical ethical and educative values of the psychological 6 The analytic tradition is the one in which I was effect of music” and his “work represents another, perhaps trained, and in which I continue to operate, taking some earlier, phase of the rational systematization and control justification from Aristotle’s treatment of Plato. Fink 2012 of obscure psychic processes. Gorgias continues this kind does a fine job of showing Aristotle’s primary interest in of approach in the area of rhetoric and poetry.” extracting arguments from the dialogues without ignor- 20 I present an argument for the unity of the psyche, ing Plato’s interest in character: “How Did Aristotle Read based on Plato’s Symposium, in Nails 2015. a Platonic Dialogue?” Although I consider the positivists 21 Segal’s logos is an account, and an account might have a manifestation of what has come to be seen as the wider many parts, words, images, and sounds. analytic approach to Plato I elide them here with only the 22 Burnyeat 1985 was right to criticize the injunction to comment that Gilbert Ryle (1966) was an astute critic of “understand the philosopher as he understood himself” as the biography and history of his time. an “illusory goal.” Burnyeat was referring specifically to 7 For an assessment of the damage done by Cherniss’s Strauss’s injunction, but it is not so far from Garber’s de- anti-Aristotle view to the practice of Plato scholarship in sire to know “the historical Spinoza who lived and worked the U.S., see Gerson, 2014. in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic.” 8 Vlastos (1973, introduction) identifies Shorey and 23 Perhaps the wand chooses the wizard. Zeller as his forebears. 9 Vlastos 1973 includes an unfavorable and lopsided review (‘On Plato’s Oral Doctrine’) of Krämer 1959, origi- nally published in Gnomon in 1963. 10 He cites his 1985 and 2004; and he credits Gaiser 1963 and Richard 1986, 243–380 for collecting the agrapha dogmata. Both parts of the quotation are adapted to remove these citations. 11 Burnyeat 1979 on Findlay 1974, 1979 and Irwin 1977. 12 The alien intrusion of a religious sensibility occurs again at the end of Renaud’s paper: “the self, delivered from the body, can finally achieve its full, original uni- ty”—though nothing from the Gorgias is cited to confirm the claim. 13 Dodds’s 1959 comment on 474d4–5 mentions the standard implicit in health and sums. 14 Numerous citations to the text of Gorgias are re- moved from the short quotation. 15 Glaucon in Republic, and Socrates in Symposium are depicted as unable to follow their guides to the highest realm of understanding — but their guides are already there, so one need not give up hope. 16 Such an interpretation also has the advantage of coin- cidence with certain remarks about the value of dialectic: Theaetetus, for example, will make fewer errors after