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The Theaetetus and Philebus of Plato

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The Theaetetus and Philebus of Plato THE THEAETETUS AND PHILEBUS. OF PLATO• » TRANSLATED AND EXPLAINED B y H. F. CARLILL, M.A. FORMERLY SCHOLAR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE Xonfcott SW AN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIM. NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO. 19 0 6 THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH PREFACE I n preparing the following translation and commentary I have had by me the edition of the Theaetetus by Prof. Lewis Campbell (2nd Edition: Oxford, 1883), and that of the Philebus by R. G. Bury (Cambridge, 1897), with Jowett’s translation of both (3rd Edition: Oxford, 1892). Jowett’s translation of Plato has long been deservedly popular; but it bears some marks of haste. It is not, as a rule, close enough to the Greek, and at the same time the level of the style is very uncertain. Where it excels is in the happy rendering of phrases. I have noted such of these as I have ventured to borrow. The main part of the commentary is original; and I believe that the remarks on the structure of the Theaetetus, the exposition of the argument as a con­ nected whole, and the general interpretation of the meta­ physics of the Philebus and its connexion with the “ Theory of Ideas,” are new. H. F. C. CONTENTS PAfrE I ntroduction ....................................................................................ix T h e a e t e t u s ...................................................................................... 1 Excursus on the T h e a e t e t u s and Introduction to the P h i l e b u s ....................................................................... 96 P h i l e b u s ..................................................................................108 Concluding Essay on the Theory of Form in the P h i l e b u s and its place in Science . .181 S h o r t B ibliography ..........................................................197 I n d e x ............................................................................................... 201 vii I I n the present state of Platonic criticism it is, unfortunately, necessary to introduce even the briefest commentary with a statement of one’s attitude towards the general question of the significance of Platonism. The modern study of Plato begins with Schleiermacher, who published translations of all the dialogues (except the Timceus, Critias, and Laws), with introductions, in the years 1804 to 1828. From that time down, at least, to the closing years of the nineteenth century, there existed a definite t traditional interpretation of Platonism, which it was j orthodox to accept and heterodox to reject. It is best ! represented by Zeller’s volume on Plato (Part II., section i. of his Philosophic der Griechen), the first edition of which appeared in 1846, and the fourth in 1889.1 In a sense, this interpretation still holds the field. It has certainly no generally recognised competitor ; the objec­ tions which, year by year, have accumulated against this or that point of the system have not yet resolved themselves into a complete and definite counter-system; and until such a counter-system has been developed the Zellerian tradition must be assumed to stand. But, in fact, its opponents nowadays so far outnumber its adherents that it exists on sufferance only; and it is hardly too much to say that at the present time the sole authoritative exposition of the Platonic philosophy is one in which nobody believes. Everyone can see that the traditional theory is? false, but no one has the courage to cast it entirely aside and) make a fresh beginning. It remains like a religion from! which everything has departed but the ritual. Nothing better illustrates the general bankruptcy of criticism than the fact that the commentators have turned, 1 English translation of the third edition, London, 1876. ix X INTRODUCTION as a last resort, to “ Sprachstatistik,” or, as it is sometimes called in English, “ Stylometry.” A century ago Schleier- macher believed himself to have discovered that the whole series of the Platonic dialogues was constructed on a pre­ conceived plan, and formed one closely-knit and consistent course of metaphysical exposition. The idea was essen­ tially unnatural, and no one has maintained it since; but at least it showed a fine confidence in the possibility of f understanding Plato’s system as he understood it him- I self: whereas nowadays all hope of understanding it : has apparently been abandoned, and it remains to count the occurrences of certain groups of words, and arrange the dialogues in a pattern according to the results obtained. In the University of Laputa Gulliver was shown a frame which was contrived to display, by the turning of various handles, every possible permutation of all the words in the language. Whenever three or four words occurred together in such a way as to make up a part of a sentence, they were transcribed and added to a collection, from which the inventor, a professor of the university, intended to compile “ a complete body of all the arts and sciences.” The method of “ stylometry ” as a device for the investigation of Platonism is on a level with this contrivance. ? The main cause of this fiasco is to be found in the fact that no real attempt has been made to treat Platonism psycho­ logically, to see it as the gradually developing thought of a human brain, starting from certain presuppositions, and proceeding by a reasonable and demonstrable pro­ cess to certain conclusions. Though Schleiermacher’s theory, according to which Plato spent the last fifty years of his life in working out a plan conceived before he was thirty, has found no supporters, the influence of his example is, nevertheless, felt to this day. Zeller and the orthodox commentators in general instinctively try to interpret the dialogues as if they formed a single self-contained system, and resist any attempt to show change and de­ velopment. Dr Jackson is the first who has definitely broken with this tradition, by seeking to distinguish two separate and clearly-marked stages in the progress of INTRODUCTION xi Plato’s thought.2 And this, however one may quarrel with the details of the reconstruction, is in itself a notable advance; for practically all the errors which vitiate the traditional interpretation may be traced back to the false perspective in which the dialogues have been viewed.3 The later and more philosophical works have been mis­ interpreted in order to make them agree with those that are, in fact, early and tentative. The Republic has been taken as the standard of Platonism, and all other works have been measured against it. Now the Republic is a glorious dialogue, written when Plato’s imaginative genius was at its splendid zenith, but its artistic brilliance ought not to blind one to the fact that its philosophy is after all to a great extent a literary philo- . sophy only— a philosophy in which metaphors are apt to' take the place of arguments, and gaps in the thought are bridged by flights of fancy. If, by some magical agency, the Republic could be withdrawn from human ken for a generation, the results to the study of Plato would be anything but harmful. It would be no bad thing, indeed, if we could agree to forget for a moment that Plato was a moralist at all. It seems to me unquestionable that harm has been done by the great stress laid on this side of his philosophy; and I cannot but reflect that Platonism has been expounded chiefly by university pro­ fessors, and that the most ardent lover of truth among professors is not always able to resist the impulse to edify his charges. Another result of the university system is that the professors have seldom or never been equally versed 2 Plato's Later Theory of Ideas, a series of articles in the Journal of Philology, 1882 and later years. 3 An entire misunderstanding of Aristotle’s position towards his master has no doubt contributed to the same end. But if a sincere and unbiassed attempt had been made to construe Plato out of his own mouth it would have been seen at once that Aristotle was not only by nature incapable of comprehending him, but also animated in most of his criticisms by something very like malice. As Natorp has excellently said, the only point in the Platonic philosophy which he professes to accept, the setting of Form above matter, he regards as the discovery of Socrates which Plato merely mishandled (p. 371 of the book mentioned in note below). xii INTKODUCTION in philosophy, in the history of Greek philosophy, and in the Greek language. But Plato will never be thoroughly understood until— to adapt a well-known saying in the Republic— all the commentators are philosophers, and all the philosophers are commentators. Indeed, the philosophers proper have more than once made it clear that the Platonism of the commentators is not what they understand by a philosophical system. Before the modern study of Plato began, Kant had uttered a warning which ought to have spared us whole libraries of misinterpretation. At the beginning of the “ Trans­ cendental Dialectic ” he gives a short vindication of the Platonic Idea, and after remarking that “ Plato fand seine Ideen vorziiglich in allem, was praktisch ist,” he adds, in a note, “ er dehnte seinen Begriff freilich auch auf spekula- tive Erkenntnisse aus . sogar liber die Mathematik. Hierin kann ich ihm nun nicht folgen, so wenig als in der mythischen Deduction dieser Ideen oder den iibertrei- bungen dadurch er sie gleichsam hypostasirte, wiewohl die hohe Sprache, deren er sich in diesem Felde bediente, einer milderen und der Natur der Dinge angemessenen Auslegung ganz wohl fahig ist ” (Kritik der reinen Vernunft,2 p. 371). Yet it is not too much to say that the governing principle of Zeller’s exposition is, that the less a statement approaches to “ the nature of things ” the more Platonic it is.
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