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plato’s philosophers Plato’s Philosophers othe coherence of the dialogues Catherine H. Zuckert t h e u n i v e r s i t y o f c h i c a g o p r e s s c h i c a g o a n d l o n d o n Catherine H. Zuckert is the Nancy Reeves Dreux Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of Postmodern Platos and a coauthor of The Truth about Leo Strauss, both published by the University of Chicago Press. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2009 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2009 Printed in the United States of America 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN-13: 978-0-226-99335-5 (cloth) ISBN-10: 0-226-99335-3 (cloth) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zuckert, Catherine H., 1942– Plato’s philosophers : the coherence of the dialogues / Catherine H. Zuckert. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-226-99335-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-226-99335-3 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Plato. Dialogues. 1. Title. B395.z77 2009 184—dc22 2008043514 a The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. Contents acknowledgments vii Introduction platonic dramatology 1 PART I The Political and Philosophical Problems one Using Pre-Socratic Philosophy to Support Political Reform the athenian stranger 51 two Plato’s Parmenides parmenides’ critique of socrates and plato’s critique of parmenides 147 three Becoming Socrates 180 four Socrates Interrogates His Contemporaries about the Noble and Good 215 PART I I Two Paradigms of Philosophy five Socrates’ Positive Teaching 281 six Timaeus-Critias completing or challenging socratic political philosophy? 420 seven Socratic Practice 482 Conclusion to Part II 586 PART I I I The Trial and Death of Socrates eight The Limits of Human Intelligence 595 nine The Eleatic Challenge 680 ten The Trial and Death of Socrates 736 conclusion Why Plato Made Socrates His Hero 815 bibliography 863 index 881 Acknowledgments “No one takes twelve years to write a book anymore,” a colleague com- mented at a recent political science convention. I did, and I would like to thank the institutions and individuals who made this lengthy study possible. Carleton College, Fordham University, and the University of Notre Dame provided me with both the financial support and teaching oppor- tunities necessary to pursue the project. Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Earhart Foundation gave me un- interrupted time to read and write. As a visiting scholar at the Liberty Fund in Indianapolis, I also had time to work on this book. Earlier versions of some of the arguments to be found in chapters 1, 2, 3, and 9 were published in the Journal of Politics 66 (May 2004): 374–95; Re- view of Metaphysics 51 ( June 1998): 840–71, and 54 (September 2001): 65–97; History of Political Thought 25 (Summer 2004): 189–219; and the Journal of the International Plato Society (Winter 2005). The overlapping sections are published here with permission. I particularly thank the colleagues who read and commented on parts of the manuscript: Mary Nichols, Michael Davis, Mary Sirridge, Laurence Lampert, Gretchen Reydams-Schils, Vittorio Hösle, and Ken Sayre. I also recognize some of the many students who have contributed to my under- standing of the dialogues by reading and discussing them with me: Lisa Vetter, Andrew Hertzoff, Xavier Marquez, Jill Budny, Catherine Borck, Kevin Cherry, Jeffrey Church, Alex Duff, Elizabeth L’Arrivée, and Rebecca McCumbers. I also thank John Tryneski and Rodney Powell for shepherding the man- uscript through the publication process and the anonymous readers for the University of Chicago Press for their suggestions and corrections. Most of all, however, I express my gratitude to my husband, Michael Zuckert. He not merely read, reread, and commented on the many drafts of each and every chapter. His enthusiasm for the project buoyed my spir- its when I became discouraged by its size and complexity. I could not have written this book without his love and support. acknowledgments / v i i i i ntroduct ion Platonic Dramatology Alfred North Whitehead’s quip that all subsequent philosophy is merely a footnote to Plato has often been repeated, but those who repeat it do not seem to have thought much about the difference between the source and the scholarship on it. Whereas all subsequent phi­ losophers have written treatises (even if they have also produced some more literary works), Plato wrote only dialogues.� And in these dialogues he not merely presented various philosophers in conversation with non­ philosophers, but he gave the philosophers and their interlocutors specific individual identities, backgrounds, and views. Plato’s depiction of philoso­ phy is, in other words, neither impersonal nor abstract. The conversations are shown to have occurred at different times and places, and mostly but not always in Athens. The philosophical figure who guides the conversa­ tion in most of the dialogues is Socrates, but he is not Plato’s only philoso­ pher. Plato also presents conversations in which an “Athenian Stranger,” Parmenides, Timaeus, or the Eleatic Stranger takes the lead. Socrates is said to be present at some of these conversations but not all. Sometimes Socrates and another philosopher question the same interlocutors; more often, however, Plato shows them talking to different individuals. Some of these individuals are known historical figures; others are not. As depicted in the Platonic dialogues, then, philosophy is not an activity undertaken by a solitary individual in his or her study, attempting to replicate or ascend to Aristotle’s first principle of thought, thinking itself. Philosophy is an activity �. The authenticity of his letters has often been questioned, and letters are not, in any case, treatises. introduction / � undertaken by a variety of different embodied human beings, coming from different cities and schools, having different views and concerns, talk­ ing in different ways to nonphilosophers.� In this book I investigate the significance of these differences: first, for Plato’s own understanding of the nature of philosophy, and second, for ours. Previous scholars have, of course, noticed that Plato presents more than one philosopher and that there are differences not only among his philosophers but also in his depictions of Socrates. Nineteenth­century commentators may have followed the lead of Friedrich Schleiermacher in trying to understand the dialogues in terms of Plato’s “development,” because they were convinced that the only way the work of any author could or should be understood was to trace the changes in his thought over time.� But many twentieth­century students of Plato adopted the es­ sentially speculative “chronology of composition” rather than the “unitar­ ian” reading championed by Paul Shorey and Hans von Arnim, at least in part because the “chronology” provided an explanation for the differences in the philosophical “spokesmen” whereas the unitarian reading did not.� �. Among other things, I am arguing that not merely Socrates, but Platonic philosophy more generally, is not “impersonal,” that is, not concerned with the individuality of others; pace Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, �986), �65–99; and Gregory Vlastos, “The Individual as an Object of Love in Plato,” in Platonic Studies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, �973), 3–34. 3. C. C. W. Taylor traces the “assumption that the works of Plato (and indeed of any other writer) are to be approached in this most general historical sense” to the “development of seri­ ous critical study in Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century, . . . ultimately to the predominant intellectual and cultural climate of that particular country and epoch, Romanticism, and specifically to the philosophy of Hegel”; Taylor, “The Origins of Our Present Paradigms,” in New Perspectives on Plato, Modern and Ancient, ed. Julia Annas and Christopher Rowe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, �00�), 74. Jacob Howland, “Re­Reading Plato: The Problem of Platonic Chronology,” Phoenix 45 (�99�): �89–��4, quotes A. E. Taylor’s statement about the necessity of knowing the order in which an author wrote his works, from Taylor, Plato: The Man and His Work (Cleveland: World Publishing, �956), �6. This conviction is reflected in the “classic” studies of Plato’s thought as a whole by George Grote, Plato, and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3 vols. (London: J. Murray, �865); W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, vols. 4–5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, �976–78); and Paul Friedländer, Plato, trans. Hans Meyerhoff, �nd ed., 3 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, �969); as well as more recent studies such as that of George Klosko, The Development of Plato’s Political Theory (New York: Methuen, �986). Kenneth Sayre endorses the chronological understanding of the development of Plato’s thought and treats the “late dialogues” as statements of arguments or doctrines much like treatises, but in Plato’s Literary Garden (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, �995) he emphasizes the pedagogical function of the “middle” dialogues. 4. Paul Shorey, The Unity of Plato’s Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, �903); and Hans von Arnim, Platos Jugenddialoge und die Entstehungszeit des Phaidros (Leipzig: G. B. Teubner, �9�4; repr., Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert, �967). As von Arnim notes (iii), Schleiermacher began the attempt to understand Plato in terms of the development of his thought. Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, Über die Philosophie Platons, including Geschichte der Philosophie: Vorlesungen über platonic dramatology / � These scholars agreed that there are “early” dialogues, like the Apology and Crito, in which Plato depicts the historical Socrates refuting his interlocu­ tors; “middle” dialogues, like the Republic and Phaedo, in which Plato attri­ butes his own arguments to Socrates; and “late” dialogues, like the Sophist and Laws, in which Plato generally presents his more mature philosophi­ cal understanding in the mouth of a non­Socratic spokesman.� Building on the pioneering studies by Lewis Cambpell and Wilhelm Dittenberger, scholars undertook “stylometric” computer studies to show regularities and changes in word use to support this “dating.”� Recently, however, serious questions have been raised about the evi­ dence for, and the validity of the assumptions underlying, the “chronology of composition” and the “stylometric” studies used to confirm the “the­ ory.”� “In no ancient source is there ever any suggestion that Plato changed Sokrates und Platon (�8�9–�3) and Die Einleitungen zur Übersetzung des Platon (�804–�8) (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, �996). According to Holger Thesleff, Studies in Platonic Chronology (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, �98�), �, Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann first suggested the study of the dat­ ing of the composition of the various dialogues, in System der Platonischen Philosophie (Leipzig: Barth, �79�), in contrast to studies of the development of Plato’s thought, such as that later under­ taken by Schleiermacher. Thesleff recognizes that the two concerns have often been mixed and were finally merged in many Anglo­American commentaries. E. N. Tigerstedt, Interpreting Plato (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, �977), �3–5�, breaks down the various attempts to interpret Plato even further by individual author—in terms of the development of his thought, the order of the presentation of his thought, the chronology of composition, and his biography (about which, Ti­ gerstedt assures us, after reviewing the scarce ancient sources or gossip and citing one of the most famous “biographical” studies by Ulrich von Wilamowitz in support, that we know very little). 5. The exception is, of course, the Philebus, which most commentators regard as “late,” even though Socrates is the major philosophical spokesman. For a recent claim regarding the “remark­ able . . . degree of consensus that has emerged” concerning Platonic chronology, see David Sedley, Plato’s “Cratylus” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, �003), 6. Debra Nails, Agora, Academy, and the Conduct of Philosophy (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, �995), 55–68, observes, on the contrary, that “there is unanimity about almost nothing across the various methods of order­ ing the dialogues” (55). Nevertheless, Charles H. Kahn, “On Platonic Chronology,” in Annas and Rowe, New Perspectives on Plato, 93–��7, defends the general chronological schema. 6. According to Nails (Agora, �0�–�4), Gerard R. Ledger, Re-Counting Plato (Oxford: Oxford University Press, �989), is the best of the stylometric studies. The varying results of the stylometric analyses are summarized in Leonard Brandwood, The Chronology of Plato’s Dialogues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, �990); and Thesleff, Studies, 65–95. From the nineteenth century on­ ward, stylometric research has shown that the Critias, Laws, Philebus, Statesman, Sophist, and Ti- maeus are characterized by certain linguistic mannerisms absent in other dialogues. Because this group includes the Laws, it is often said to be “late,” although Thesleff, in Studies, points out that the linguistic affinity among these dialogues does not, in fact, prove anything about their date or Plato’s “development,” even though many scholars seem to think it does. 7. Howland, in “Re­Reading Plato,” was the first to bring out and criticize the assumptions underlying the “chronology of composition,” especially concerning the “development” of Plato’s thought. Howland’s critique was soon followed by that of Kenneth Dorter, Form and Good in Pla- to’s Eleatic Dialogues (Berkeley: University of California Press, �994), �–�7; Nails, Agora; Charles H. Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, �996); and the exchange Kahn had with Charles Griswold in Ancient Philosophy introduction / � his views in a radical way,” Kenneth Dorter reminds us. “Aristotle, for ex­ ample, always write[s] as though Plato consistently defended the theory of forms throughout his life. . . . Neither does Diogenes Laertius, that reposi­ tory of anecdotes of every stripe, provide the slightest hint of such an oc­ currence.” In the Politics (�.6.��64b�6–�7), Aristotle says that the Laws was written later than the Republic, and Diogenes Laertius (3.3) reports that “some say that Philip of Opus transcribed the Laws, which were in wax.”� But Aristotle’s remark does not give us any guidance about the order of the rest of the dialogues, and an inference from a centuries­old rumor that Plato must have left the text of the Laws unfinished does not provide a firm basis for determining the order or dates at which the dialogues were writ­ ten.� Reviewing the scant historical evidence for the “chronology of com­ position” in his introduction to Plato: The Complete Works, John M. Cooper “urge[s] readers not to undertake the study of Plato’s works holding in mind the customary chronological groups of ‘early,’ ‘middle,’ and ‘late’ dialogues . . . and to concentrate on the literary and philosophical con­ tent.”�0 The fact is, we do not know when or in what order Plato wrote the individual dialogues. If we want to discover how Plato saw the world or �9 (�999): 36�–97, �0 (�000): �89–93, �95–97, revisited in “Platonic Chronology,” in Annas and Rowe, New Perspectives on Plato, 93–�44. 8. Dorter, Form and Good, 3. As G. E. L. Owen observed, “There is no external or internal evi­ dence which proves that the Laws or even some section of it was later than every other work. . . . Diogenes’ remark that it was left on the wax does not certify even that it occupied Plato to his death”; Owen, “The Place of the Timaeus in Plato’s Dialogues,” Classical Quarterly, n.s., 3 (�953): 79n4, 93n3. Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ report in On Literary Composition, ed. W. Rhys Roberts (London: Macmillan, �9�0), that “Plato did not leave off combing and curling and in every manner replaiting his dialogues, even at eighty years of age” (�5), should also make commentators hesitant to date the dialogues in terms of their composition. Dionysius also relates a story told about the finding of a tablet which showed that Plato had set down the first sentence of the Republic in many different ways. This story lends support to Thesleff ’s contention that the dialogues cannot be dated by stylistic or stylometric evidence, because they were constantly being rewritten. Marks of their early composition were thus cancelled out by traces of later revisions (Thesleff, Studies, 7�). 9. Dorter observes with regard to the stylometric studies attempting to determine the date or order in which the dialogues were composed: “The search was on for measures of stylistic affinity. Candidates that were found included reply formulas (the responses of the interlocutors—useless, however, in the case of a narrative like the Timaeus), clausula rhythms (the ends of periods or colons), avoidance of hiatus (following a word ending in a vowel with one beginning in a vowel), and use of hapax legomena (unique appearances of words) or unusual words. But each of these encounters difficulties in measurement. In measuring reply formulas do we take into account the personality of the interlocutor and the nature of the questions being asked? And do we count slight variations as being the same; or formulas imbedded within longer sentences in the same way as isolated formulas? . . . we must also decide whether to take into account the nature and subject matter of the dialogues. Should we expect to find the same stylistic features in a narrative myth (Timaeus), an exercise in abstract dialectic (Parmenides) . . . , or a set of speeches (Symposium), as in dialogues like the Republic, Theaetetus, or Laws?” (Dorter, Form and Good, 5–6). �0. John M. Cooper, ed., Plato: The Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett, �997), xiv. platonic dramatology / � what he thought, we need to find another way of showing how more than a few dialogues are related to one another by theme or shared characters. We need, in other words, to formulate another account of the character, the organization, and content of Plato’s corpus. I. Taking Account of the Literary Form and Context of the Dialogue Plato did not write treatises, although commentators following Aristotle have tended to present him and his thought as if he had.�� Because Plato himself does not speak in the dialogues, we discover what Plato thinks—or at least what he wants to show his readers—in his selection of the characters, the setting, and the topic to be discussed by these individuals at that time and place, as well as the outcome or effects of the conversation. Socrates is usually but not always the philosopher guiding the conversation. Be­ cause Socrates is not the only philosopher Plato depicts—indeed, in some dialogues (like the Timaeus and Sophist), Socrates mostly sits and listens to another, possibly superior philosopher present his arguments—we cannot assume that Socrates speaks for Plato. Because Socrates is by far the most common philosophic voice, however, we cannot take one of the others— the Ath