The Classical Review http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR

Additional services for The Classical Review:

Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here

Shorey's Unity of Plato's Thought The Unity of Plato's Thought. By Paul Shorey. University of Chicago Decennial Publications, 1st Series, Vol. VI. 75 pp. 4to, paper. Net \$1.25. 1903.

R. G. Bury

The Classical Review / Volume 18 / Issue 02 / March 1904, pp 120 - 122 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00209451, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00209451

How to cite this article: R. G. Bury (1904). The Classical Review, 18, pp 120-122 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00209451

Request Permissions : Click here

Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 129.78.139.28 on 05 May 2015 120 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. exceed in absurdity the commas in ix. 15. 1 apparatus readings of Apr. put forward T., concluded to find in erasures and mended letters what that the original reading was xp<6/«vos and you expect to find. Collating the MS. with that the emendation of A2 lacked plausi- Buermann's edition and dominated by his bility, and consequently proposed > xP'"fievos' whi°h I think right. where the scientific record was an asterisk. Thalheim has in the text xpuyxat, in the The area of uncertainty is even wider than note ' xpwiievoi pr., corr. 2.' Two comments I imagined. No^c, ical inefivaor' airurTfivr may be made. (1) In plain passages of the apOpa ravra T5>V ptvmv. codex Crippsianus, where there has been no With regard to the extract from Diony- botching at all, the letters t and s(c) are sius of Halicarnassus, which forms or. xii, sometimes identical in shape, so that the it may be noted that Thalheim has missed reader is kept straight only by his know- Mr. Poynton's paper in the Journal of ledge of the language and the context. (2) 2 Philology xxviii. p. 161 sqq., which shows If in this passage A had not interfered, that the Oxford MS., Misc. Gr. 36, is a and xfMfievoi were perfectly legible, consider- transcript of an ' exemplar Dvditianum' ing the sentence as a whole I should have made by Sir Henry Savile in the early part argued that the scribe had made here the of 1581 while visiting Andreas Dudith at same blunder as in vii. 21. 8, where he put Breslau, and that the marginalia, which vd/ioi for vo/ios (Aldus), and that all criticism contain some good emendations, are also must start from the reading xpa>/*evos. The in Savile's hand. With regard to the melancholy truth is that the structure on fragments I should like to express concur- which the editor has lavished so much rence with Mr. Smyly's acute conjecture labour {non mediocrem operam, praef. p. vii) that Oxy. Pap. iii. n. 415 is a bit of Isaeus' collapses at a touch. The line between speech against Elpagoras and Demophanes. hypotheses and facts of observation has been entirely obliterated. In this critical W. WTSE.

SHOREY'S UNITY OF PLATO'S THOUGHT.

The Unity of Plato's Thought. By PAUL ' consensus' in favour of attributing to- SHOEEY. University of Chicago Decen- Plato a philosophical evolution with very nial Publications, 1st Series, Vol. VI. marked stages, and of arranging and dating 75 pp. 4to, paper. Net $ 1.25. 1903. the dialogues in corresponding groups. Prof. Shorey's dissertation is a protest THE tendency of most of the recent contri- against this tendency. As I myself pro- butions to Platonic literature has been in tested some years ago (./. of Philol. xxiii. the direction of disintegration. In place of p. 201) against ' the creed of a double Plato, a self-consistent body of thought, recent a self-criticising " Dipsycbus " whose old interpreters have been in the fashion of age is at war with his youth,' so Prof. presenting us with a Platonism that is a Shorey protests now against both the 'many-headed multitude' of conflicting methods and the conclusions of 'the in- dogmas. It is true that the champions of a creasing number of investigators who, in ' later Platonism ' are by no means agreed emulation of the triumphs of the statistical as to the precise form which that doctrine method, are endeavouring to confirm, refute, takes—whether an emasculated ' idealism' or correct its results by a study of alleged or a thorough-going ' conceptualising But inconsistencies, contradictions, or develop- none the less, there seems to be a growing ments in Platonic doctrine' (p. 3). In oppo- THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 181 sition to all forms of the 'evolutionary' revision of the theory or by a change of hypothesis, in pointed antagonism to all the terminology, to dispose of these objections would-be Sutdpavovrts of Platonism, Prof. and to fashion an inexpugnable doctrine? Shorey maintains both generally and in Or may we rather suppose that he simply detail ' the unity of Plato's thought.' To looks these aporiae in the face and, with a him, every guise of ' later Platonism' is contemptuous shrug, passes on? Prof. alike ' anathema.' The sacrilegious hand Shorey adopts the latter explanation. The that would rend the tissue of Plato's substance of these objections, he argues, ' is thought he denounces with his wonted in the Republic, not to speak of the Phaedo, vigour; for to his eyes it is a vesture the Enthydemus, the Timaeus, and Philebus. ' without seam, woven from the top through- Their presentation in the Parmenides, then, out.' does not mark a crisis in Plato's thought To attempt to summarise the arguments calling for a review of his chief article of here put forward would be to do an injus- philosophic faith. Plato does not and tice to their author. But one may venture cannot answer them, but he evidently does thus roughly to state some of his main not take them very seriously,...they arise positions. (1) The earlier (' Socratic') from the limitations of our finite minds.' dialogues are intended to lead up to the Those, on the other hand, who hold that ' Republic' and imply, if they do not Plato did take these objections ' seriously' actually express, an ideal theory. (2) The are forced to explain away the ascription of Ideal theory, under whatever varieties of dAAijAow Koivun/Ca to the elSrj in Sep. 476 A, expression, remains the same throughout, which seems an anticipation of the ' later ' from the 'Lysis' to the 'Laws,' and is theory, and the ascription of transcendental never altered in substance, much less sur- being to the etSi; in Tim. 51-2, which is an rendered, by Plato. (3) The criticisms of evident reversion to the doctrine of the the theory in the ' Parmenides,' and the ' middle' period. And we might reasonably expect them to show us further what supposed modifications in the ' Parmenides ' ; and ' Sophist,' are either mere dialectical Plato's metaphysics gained in value by the gymnastics or candid acknowledgments of change. Is the ' later ' conceptualism really the necessary paradox of thought—the in- an advance on the ' earlier ' idealism ? Is herent contradiction of the ' One and Many.' it better philosophising to disbelieve in in- (4) It is absurd to suppose, as Lutoslawski dependent objective realities than to believe does, that in his later writings Plato means in them 1 Is it a mark of more consistent to substitute a system of souls for the thinking to decimate the ranks of the ideas ideas, or to reduce the idea to the level of a until they stand only for ' natural kinds ' mere psychic fact. And equally erroneous (or £<3a) and not for all possible con- is the view which would distinguish between cepts ? aira KOO' avrd and other tlSrj and make of Finally, is it not true that all philosophies the Mater' idealism a theory of specific of the Absolute are open to just the same 'types.' order of objections as Plato produces in With regard to the first of these points, the Parmenides; and is it not true that it may be doubted whether Prof. Shorey these objections are ' unanswerable by any- does not overstate his case. The most body who separates the phenomenal from natural conclusion from the silence about the real' ? ideas in such dialogues as the ' Laches,' Some of the special difficulties in the way ' Lysis,' and ' Charmides ' is, surely, that of the exponents of a ' later' Platonism they represent a period antecedent to the have already been alluded to. One more formation of the ideal theory. The case of may be briefly mentioned. As Shorey the ' Laws ' adduced by Shorey, is scarcely points out (and as I had already pointed parallel; nor is it enough to assert that out, I.e. pp. 196-7) the passage in Hep* ' Plato is not bound to say all he knows in 477 A ff., of which so much was made by every dialogue,' This, however, is a minor Jackson, Lutoslawski, and others as proving point. The kernel of the nut we have to on the part of the ' earlier' Plato ignorance crack really lies in the ' Parmenides.' There of the /jrij-ov doctrine as expounded in the we find Plato himself stating all, or almost 'Sophist,' proves in truth precisely the all, of the conceivable objections which can contrary. For he who talks of a 7rs /ty- be brought against the theory of ideas as ov implies thereby his apprehension of a expounded in the ' Republic' and ' Phaedo.' pi) ov to be otherwise qualified. Further What does he mean by it? Are we to arguments in abundance to explode the infer that he fancied himself able, by a proofs of the supposed ' later ' developments 122 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. of Plato's thought the curious reader will all loyal TWV elStov i\ot will hope, at least, find in Shorey's pages. He is specially that he is wholly right. happy when dealing with the .portentous I have dealt more particularly with 'discoveries' of M. Lutoslawski. E.g., Prof. Shorey's views on Plato's metaphysics, {apropos of Euthyd. 301 A) 'Lutoslawski but he has much that is equally valuable to {p. 212) affirms that Plato "would have say on vexed questions of Platonic Ethics said later iraptori TO KOAAOS (avro Kaff avro)." and psychology. In all he aims at the same He never did say nor could he have said goal—to minimise discrepancies, to explain anything of the kind' (p. 31 n.). away apparent variations and inconsisten- In the last section Prof. Shorey discusses cies, to trace the lines of connexion and the reputed Pythagoreanism of Plato's old unfold the ' unity' underlying the multi- age, and the 'ideal numbers.' 'Ideal plicity ' of Plato's thought.' In all he numbers,' he contends, are simply the ideas endeavours to substitute a ' simple, sane, of numbers, or in other words, the abstract, and natural interpretation of Plato's writ- ' mathematical' numbers, as varjra. and -con- ings ' in place of the erroneous and distorted trasted with the ' concrete numbered things' constructions forced upon them by the mis- which are 'the numbers of the vulgar.'. guided industry of perversely ingenious The apparent multiplicity of the idea of scholars. It is a timely protest against the ' One' is due to the inevitable aXKtjXtov prevailing fashion in Platonic criticism, a •Kowtavta of the ideas—that inherent paradox protest which deserves to be well weighed of the theory, which is specially glaring in by all serious students; and if it effects the case of numbers. In spite of the doubts nothing more, it will at least serve, I trust, •of Dr. Adam (on Rep. 525 D), Prof. Shorey most effectually to explode the pseudo- •assures us that 'that is all there is of it,' Platonism of M. Lutoslawski et hoe genus and that we must not hold Plato responsible omne. I, for one, most cordially welcome for all the 'pitiful scholasticism' of the ' The Unity of Plato's Thought' as an ad- Academic quibblers concerning the numeri- mirable study in what Maguire himself cal ' before and after,' and the ' indefinite (o /xcucaptos) would recognise as genuine Dyad,' and so forth. And herein, surely, Platonism. R. G. BURY.

ANDERSON'S ASIA MINOR.

Asia Minor. By J. G. C. ANDERSON. of new identifications is the exact contouring (Murray's Handy Classical Maps, General of altitudes. The system of shading moun- Editor, G. B. GHUNDY.) Murray, 1903. tain chains, which it replaces, has been, in 2s. cloth, Is. net, paper. the case of Asia Minor, even more rough and ready than in that of most countries. THERE is no part of the Ancient World Indeed the evidence on which such contour- where so much has been done for Geography ing could be based has only now been within the last decade as Asia Minor. A gathered together from a mass of scattered new map was urgently needed, and no fitter monographs, for the purposes of the present man could have been found to execute it map. Several interesting points also than Mr. J. G. C.Anderson, one of the group suggest themselves in regard to the exact •of scholars who have followed in Professor boundaries of the Roman Provinces. Ramsay's steps, and made this branch of Antiocheia Pisidiae is, for instance, placed exploration predominantly a British one. in the Province of Asia both in Kiepert's As might be expected, this map is in Atlas Antiquus and in his special maps advance of any hitherto accessible. There is attached to Mommsen's Provinces of the in the first place a great increase in the Roman Umpire. It is not so here. During number of places identified. The Index the period chosen by Mr. Anderson, A.D. 63 records about 2000 names, and the far to 72, it was contained in what will probably smaller number that we find in our Kieperts strike everyone who has been accustomed to is, in the main, due, not to rejection other maps, as the surprisingly large •consciously made for purposes of simplifica- Province of Galatia. The comparative tion, but to limitation of knowledge. A smallness of the Province of Bithynia and feature only less important than the record Pontus is equally interesting. The difficulty