An Introduction to the Translations of the Dialogues of Plato by David Horan
There is a story told of old that Socrates had a dream, and in this dream, he saw on his lap a young swan, a cygnet, which all at once put forth full plumage and flew away uttering a loud sweet note. [1] Such was the dream. The next day, Socrates, awake, was introduced to Plato for the first time as a pupil, and he exclaimed, on seeing Plato: ‘This is the swan whom I saw in my dream.’ Plato is Socrates’ Swan. This story holds great appeal to me because it encapsulates much of my own understanding of Socrates, of Plato, the relationship between the two, the subsequent tradition, and the status of the written dialogues of Plato that are translated in these volumes.
There are some very basic questions which we can immediately ask and although they may sound frivolous, I think they may be taken seriously. Why did the swan fly away? Why did it not remain, faithful to its master, and just be with Socrates? Where did it fly to? For how long did it fly? And what was the loud sweet note? Furthermore, is the swan flying still? Does it fly to this very day? There is another question that may also be relevant. This is presented as Socrates’ dream, a dream in which the swan, who turns out to be Plato, is there on his lap, grows to full plumage and flies away. Was that really Socrates’ dream, or was that perhaps Plato’s dream.
The Death of Socrates
I have always been fascinated by the fact that Hegel refers to the death of Socrates as a real tragedy in his own Hegelian sense of the word: a clash of two rights. For Hegel, the death of Socrates exemplifies such a tragedy perfectly. The Athenians, with the best of intentions, wishing to reestablish their democracy on a firm footing after years of turmoil and tyranny, were seriously intent upon stabilising their society, restoring their community, and reestablishing their democracy. Socrates on the other hand was intent upon philosophy and its right, indeed its duty, to challenge preconceived notions, concepts, and ideas. These two universal noble principles collided.[2] The result was that the people of Athens, for various reasons and through historical figures we can name, some of whom had strong vested interests, moved against Socrates to silence him, probably hoping he would go into exile. But they didn’t know the nature of the man they were prosecuting. Perhaps another tragedy. So, Socrates remained, and he faced all of the judicial processes, until, finally, he faced execution. So that is the story of the death of Socrates. He was aged 70. The date was 399 BC. Plato was then aged 25[3]. He was an associate of Socrates and might well have been in his company throughout most of his own formative years.
This series of events and their background must surely have made an enormous impression on Plato. The man whom he had revered, the man with whom he had probably spent so many years, was suddenly taken away under such ghastly circumstances and executed like a common criminal. Plato tells us that he himself was present at that trial of Socrates and that he himself heard all the words spoken by Socrates, words which were so impassioned, so heartfelt, and so powerful. Just imagine the effect that might have made upon a young man of twenty-five-years. Socrates and the powerful words he spoke at his trial were, I suggest, the single most significant influence on Plato’s life and thought. Indeed, in my opinion, all of his philosophising can be traced back in one way or another to various seeds sown by Socrates as he spoke at his trial on that fateful day.
One of Socrates’ injunctions to the jurors was to value wisdom and truth more than money, reputation and honour. In fact, he puts it more strongly. He asks them: ‘Are you not ashamed, citizens of Athens, to be pursuing money, reputation and honour, and placing no value at all upon wisdom and truth, and the care of your souls and ensuring that your souls will be as good as they can be?’[4] These are very, very dramatic words. Then, having spent so much time with Socrates and having observed what was taking place in the city of his birth, and having seen the awful circumstances of Socrates’ death, Plato concluded that politics was not the way to deal with the ills of humanity. Consequently, although he was a high-born Athenian for whom it was quite easy to enter the political arena and seek out a position of power in his own city, he decided that public life was not the right course for him to follow.
Young Plato
In a well-known passage in his Seventh Epistle[5] Plato explains the likely background to his own decision to eschew a political career: ‘So the evils of the human race shall not cease until either the sort of people who engage in philosophy, rightly and truly, come to power in political affairs, or those who exercise power in cities, by some divine portion, actually engage in philosophy.’[6] It follows then that if we want to make our society better, philosophy is necessarily part of the process. And he is presenting philosophy not as an escape from the affairs of the city but as the only way to remedy its ills. He has not turned his back on his city, or its people. He has, rather, reflected long and hard on what it needs, eventually concluding that mere political measures are not the solution. What is needed is philosophy, or the good fortune that those in positions of power be imbued with the spirit of philosophy.
The same conclusion, the pre-eminence of philosophy, is presented, in similar words, in the Republic as what are often called ‘philosopher kings’, although the basic idea is again the primacy of philosophy residing in the breasts of those who govern. This concept remains with him throughout his life and is repeated even in the Laws, his last work: ‘When the greatest power coincides in a person with wisdom and sound-mindedness, then we get the best political systems, and we get the best laws.’[7] This insight determined Plato’s fateful decision at a very early stage in his life, not to enter politics, but instead to devote his life to philosophy as spoken and lived by Socrates. After the death of Socrates, Plato travelled widely to Sicily, and to Southern Italy where Pythagorean schools of philosophy were prominent and, according to Diogenes Laertius, also to Egypt. He then returned to Athens, aged perhaps 40, established the Academy, drew together a cohort of various like-minded people over many years, wrote his various dialogues, and for the most part, lived for the rest of his life in Athens where he died at the age of 80. It is these dialogues, his written works, that I wish to consider here, for these are his most immediate and tangible legacy.
Reading Plato
What is contained in these written works of Plato and how are we to make use of them? Given that Socrates is depicted in most of the dialogues as the main speaker, a further question might be: would Socrates approve? Is this an enactment of Socrates’ dream or Plato’s dream, or is there a difference? I first read Plato when I was in my very early twenties when I bought Plato’s Republic and I found that I could not put it down. For me, Plato’s Republic, was a page turner. But there were a few particular aspects of the work that especially amazed me. First and foremost, there was no dogma. By dogma I mean fixed doctrines which are not open to challenge, question, refinement, or development. I had read other philosophers prior to that, but any other philosopher I had read was effectively telling me, ‘This is what I think, and you should think the same’.
Not alone was there no dogma in Plato but, in Book 1 of the Republic, he presents us with a man, talking about justice, who is insisting that, ‘justice is for losers.’ Compare the just man to the unjust man, he says, and we will see that the just man loses out every time. If they go into business together who is going to make the most money? The just man or the unjust man? Do we even need to ask? This fellow goes on at length arguing trenchantly along such lines. Might is right, the strong rule over and dominate the weak, and such is the natural order. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just trying to plead on behalf of weakness and subvert the order of nature. I was astonished that this aggressive character was given so much space by Plato to speak convincingly, at length, expressing views to which I knew Plato himself could not possibly be committed. Now although Plato could not ever accept such views, he still allowed this man to speak at length and express ideas to which Plato could not possibly be sympathetic. And sure enough, in this same book, Socrates began to respond, and he set about showing where the flaws and inconsistencies were in these views, and in Book 2 of the same work he undertook to defend justice against such slanderous attacks.
Dogmatism and Relativism
So I was amazed at this absence of dogma and the willingness to give voice to views to which one was not in any way committed. And yet, this was not relativism either. With relativism there is no objective truth. As things appear to you, so they are for you, and that is your truth. As things appear to me, so they are for me, and that is my truth. Thus, with relativism, to say that there is such a thing as objective truth is not legitimate. Relativism was not Plato’s position either; on the contrary, he presented us with a Socrates who stood firmly and resolutely for justice in word and in deed. With Plato we are not being told what to think. Rather, as we engage with a dialogue, we are being instructed in how to think, how to go about evaluating whatever philosophic position is placed in front of us without merely drawing upon a set of previously established dogmatic positions of our own. [8]
A common reaction against dogmatism is relativism: to become a relativist. Alan Bloom’s 1987 book[9] captures the prevalence of relativism quite nicely. He was himself a university professor at the time, and he explains at the very beginning of the book that if you walked into any university in the United States and were to say to the students, ‘Truth is relative,’ they would look at you as if you just said, ‘the sky is blue’ or ‘water is wet.’ Why would anyone make such an obvious point? The students’ suspicion would probably be that the questioner is challenging the unquestionable ‘moral postulate’ that ‘truth is relative’.
Plato’s path of abjuring relativism while avoiding dogmatism can be somewhat bewildering for the reader. And so, as Mary Margaret McCabe explains: ‘…after all, what we actually find in the dialogues are not doctrines, but arguments, counterarguments, and puzzles. Many of the arguments are inconclusive or come under attack from another argument. Many of the puzzles remain unsolved. Many of the dialogues end in the impasse of aporia (a puzzle). How, amid all this, are we to determine “what Plato meant”? How are we to discern the doctrines hidden beneath the rampant uncertainty?’[10] John Dillon, in the lecture which he gave in 2010 when he was invited to become a member of the Academy of Athens, said: ‘If we derive doctrines from Plato, it is, so to speak, at our own risk.’ One of his main points is that if we are looking for the origins of Platonic dogmatism, we won’t find it in Plato. We will however find it in his successors who took the risk that Dillon speaks of, and extracted such dogma, but we will not find it in Plato.
Relativists frequently point out that our view of what is true keeps changing from age to age. The understanding of what is right and wrong, just and unjust, has also changed continuously throughout history. In this sense it is all relative. In many ways this is demonstrably the case, and although Plato acknowledges this fact, he is no relativist. In fact, he wrote an entire dialogue, the Theaetetus, much of which is devoted to the refutation of relativism. So somehow or other, Plato in his writing and in presenting his philosophy needed, in some sense, to steer a middle course, whatever that might involve, between dogmatism and relativism. The philosophers are to rule. Philosophy is to reside in the breast of the rulers. Philosophy is to prevail in the society. But the philosophy cannot be dogmatic, for that leads to all sorts of problems born of fixed and unexamined positions. In fact, Bloom points out that the reason why his students are relativists is because they are terrified of the horrors which we know have been perpetrated all through history by dogmatists, people who are convinced that they are in possession of some absolute truth that is not amenable to question, scrutiny or refinement of understanding. So, the students take refuge in relativism.
Plato the Writer
Accordingly, the first challenge for Plato as he embarks on his philosophic career is to avoid dogmatism and avoid relativism. The next question he faces is: ‘do I write, or do I not write?’, particularly since Socrates, his master, wrote nothing. All of his philosophy was conducted through discourse and discussion. Furthermore, based upon Plato’s own testimony, Socrates was quite wary of the written word and foresaw dangers in the rigidity of whatever is committed to writing. Plato however, obviously decided that he should compose written works. Indeed, there is a story that Plato wrote plays in his earlier years, but having met Socrates, he burned all of his plays in front of the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens.[11] But when he came to write philosophy what did he write? Well, we call his works dialogues but, in many respects, they are plays[12]. I have over the years arranged many of them to be performed on stage or as videos, and some scholarly discussion and analysis[13] lends support to the possibility that Plato himself may indeed have arranged such performances within the Academy. In any case, the story goes that, as a young man, influenced by Socrates, he burned all his plays, but we know that, in a sense, he ultimately went back to a form of playwriting by writing his philosophic dialogues. However, in doing so he had already made a decision to break with Socrates in one very significant respect. Although Socrates did not write, Plato decided to write.
The Dialogues of Plato
So what is taking place in these writings of Plato, in these dramatisations of his? I would like to consider a short extract from Plato’s Gorgias by way of illustration. The background is that a man called Archelaus, a contemporary of Socrates, had ruthlessly clawed his way to power in Macedonia. Archelaus wanted power regardless of how he got it. And get it he did, through intrigue, murder and a total disregard for justice. Polus, Socrates’ interlocutor here, apparently envies Archelaus and the point he insists upon to Socrates is that everyone would surely accept that Archelaus is a happy man. He is the most powerful man in Macedonia, he can do what he likes, he can have whatever he wants. Materially he has everything. Surely Archelaus is happy. Polus pleads his case and elaborates upon it, and eventually Socrates replies that he does not know whether people of this sort are happy or not, saying: ‘And I shall be speaking the truth, for I do not know how he stands with regard to justice and education.’ Polus responds incredulously: ‘Come on now. Is all happiness contained in this?’ Socrates replies, ‘Well, that’s what I say anyway, Polus, for I assert that the noble and good men and women are happy while the unjust and degenerate are wretched.’ Polus replies, ‘So by your account, this Archelaus is wretched.’ Socrates says, ‘Yes, my friend, if he is unjust.’ [14]
Here Socrates insists that, ’The noble and good men and women are happy, while the unjust and degenerate are wretched.’ That is where he unequivocally stands and so the absence of dogmatism in Plato should not be understood as excluding the adoption of such positions and the defence of those positions. Socrates is prepared to enter into discussion and seriously entertain counterarguments, but he does have a position, nevertheless. When he is presented by Polus with the idea that Archelaus is actually happy, his response is: ‘Well, fine, I’ll grant you that, provided he is noble and good and just, then I can accept that he is happy.’ This is entirely consistent with Socrates’ words at his trial, when he implored the jurors to value wisdom and truth and the condition of the souls, more than money, reputation and honour. It is consistent too with the overall theme of the Republic that the just person is the happiest person and that there are no disadvantages whatsoever to leading a life of unwavering justice.
The wider question, the more significant question, the more enduring philosophic question is, the extent to which the things of this world are productive of our happiness. Can happiness be attained simply through wisdom, justice, sound-mindedness, and courage? If we are in possession of wisdom, justice, sound-mindedness and courage, will we be happy? Is that all we need regardless of our material prosperity? Or should we perhaps go to the other extreme and believe, with Polus, that we will be happy provided we maximise our pleasures, minimise our pains, and devote ourselves to the acquisition of the things of the world? This is surely a very important question for the age in which we live. Once the idea that material goods will deliver our happiness begins to hold sway, the world moves more and more in the direction of materialism and leaves behind the spiritual and the philosophic.
The materialistic viewpoint would have us believe that once we acquire the money, and the wealth, we may then, if we so wish, look after things of the spirit and turn to wisdom and truth. The alternative unworldly extreme is famously exemplified by a man who was also said to have been inspired by Socrates. This is the renowned Diogenes, the Cynic, who lived in a barrel, and who was no respecter of persons, who spurned Alexander the Great, and believed that no value whatsoever should be attached to worldly goods because the goods of the soul alone mattered. I have simplistically described two extremes, but this is, nevertheless, a cogent issue in philosophy; the role played by material goods in human happiness and the role played by wisdom, justice, sound-mindedness and courage – the goods of the spirit. Remember Socrates’ words to the Athenians at his trial, words which would have been heard in a much more literal way by Diogenes: ‘Are you not ashamed that you care about piling up as much money, reputation and honour as you can while giving no care or thought to wisdom and truth, and how your soul may be as good as it can be?’[15] Those words were, I suggest, always sounding in Plato’s mind. He has Socrates speak something inspired by those words in the Gorgias: ‘…the happy people are those who are noble and good.’ Even in Plato’s last years as he writes the Laws, he insists that, without the higher goods, the wisdom, sound mindedness, justice and courage, the lower material goods such as health and wealth will not be attained and will be used blindly by those who do somehow acquire them.[16] Indeed, he goes on to say, echoing Socrates words at his trial[17], that we will only attain the lesser goods if we attain the higher, for the lower depend upon the higher. So, even if we ignore the extreme example of Diogenes, does Plato intend that our model should be Socrates himself, his deliberate poverty, his humble origins and his disregard for material goods?
Plato’s Position
Where exactly did Plato stand on this question? Did he agree with Diogenes that one should live an utterly austere life, forsaking and despising the things of this world entirely? Surely not. He is reported to have referred to Diogenes as ‘Socrates gone mad’[18]. Did he, then, side with Archelaus, that we should amass as many of the things of this world as we can by any means at our disposal? Certainly not. Did he maintain some quite insipid intermediate position, whereby we need to find a balance between the two extremes? Keep our criminality to a minimum! Steal only as much as we need! In order to discern Plato’s position, it might be instructive to look at the views of those who knew Plato and were closest to him. He was succeeded as head of the Academy by his nephew, Speusippus, the son of his sister Potone. Speusippus was said to have been quite austere, not at the level of Diogenes, but austere nonetheless, veering towards the idea that things of the world are problematic and are not conducive to true happiness and are inimical to the philosophic life. If we really are to care for our soul, we should minimise our concern for the things of this world. But even during Plato’s lifetime, while Speusippus was a member of the Academy, the very school founded by Plato, a man called Eudoxus arrived. He held the view that, in one way or another, philosophically, pleasure is the highest good and we should therefore maximise our pleasures. Nevertheless, Plato, in his later years, accepted Eudoxus into the Academy. He did not exclude him from involvement on the grounds that he held views that were in conflict with the creed of Socrates. Aristotle, also a student in the Academy, knew Eudoxus, and he tells us[19] that Eudoxus was of good character, and this gave more credibility to his hedonistic doctrine which obviously was not contrived merely to justify a degenerate lifestyle.
So this is not now as black and white as one might imagine; the austere Speusippus is side by side in the Academy with Eudoxus who regarded pleasure as the highest good. Indeed, it is speculated[20] that the presence of Eudoxus caused Plato to revisit the relationship between material pleasure and happiness in his later dialogue the Philebus. If this is so, is he still pondering in later life upon Socrates’ injunction to value wisdom and truth more than money, reputation and honour? Is he still working towards a comprehensive and full understanding of the practicality and applicability to human life of this injunction, through a precise understanding of the nature and function of pleasure? Apparently so, but not because he was having second thoughts about Socrates’ injunction, but rather with a view to placing it on a more rigorous philosophic basis which is a characteristic of his later writing. The possibility that Plato, in this later dialogue, was willing to revisit such a fundamental question which had, apparently, been settled in his writings long previously, is surely strong evidence that Plato was no dogmatist even on matters where Socrates had seemed to make such conclusive and definitive pronouncements.
Speusippus was succeeded by Xenocrates, who may, according to some[21], have produced the original collected edition of Plato’s works. He is said to have relaxed the position of his predecessor as to whether or not material goods are necessary for happiness. He in turn was succeeded by Polemon, whose position is not entirely clear, but he seems to have rejected some of Xenocrates’ materialism. Polemon thought his predecessor had gone too far down the road of materialism, and so he retreated a little, dismantling his predecessor’s position to some extent. Now, this is very interesting for one particular reason. All these people knew Plato personally. So why did they not simply go to the master and ask him: ‘Where do we stand in relation to material goods? How important are the things of this world and what importance should we attach to them?’ Perhaps they did just that, but we still find his own followers differing from one another on the significant issue of the role of material goods in human happiness. Therefore, if Plato wished to assert fixed dogma in this area he was doing a poor job, since none of his followers knew what the relevant dogma actually was. What then was the teaching? Well, value wisdom and truth more than money, reputation and honour. That is what Socrates gave them. And I think that is very much what was in Plato’s mind – value wisdom and truth more than money, reputation, and honour. But how is this to be understood in practical terms in framing laws for a city or in living our daily lives?
Plato’s Progress
Now in refusing to set down definitive, unchallengeable doctrines, Socrates’ Swan, Plato, was perhaps being truly faithful to his origins. For Socrates’ disavowal of knowledge and his insistence that he did not know anything surely rules out dogmatism in any of his true followers. In that case, what may the reader reasonably expect to gain or attain from reading such dialogues? What, if anything, are we being taught? The arguments we find in a dialogue such as the Gorgias are intricate and complex. The concluding dialectical exchange with Callicles indicates the incoherence of his insistence that the aim of human life is the pursuit of pleasure and maximal material aggrandisement, with no regard for wisdom, truth, and justice. The characters of the dialogue are vividly depicted, as is the person of Socrates himself. The reasoned arguments unfold dramatically, and we are clear about the fact that all concerned are personally invested in the outcomes. In the end, however, Callicles is uncooperative, and apparently unpersuaded by the reasoning of Socrates.
But why has Callicles not been won over by the persuasive eloquence of Socrates? Plato himself, as a highborn Athenian, would have known people like Callicles and the influence they had on the business of his city and its politics. If it was his wish that philosophers should rule, and that political power and the spirit of philosophy should coincide, then people akin to Callicles would have been the very people he had to win over. What then needs to happen if Socrates’ view is to prevail, and Callicles and people of that sort are to recognise that pleasure is not the chief aim of human life and is not the true key to human happiness? Furthermore, is the Gorgias aimed only at such extreme characters as Callicles with such entrenched and ultimately sinister views? Is the general reader whose views are not so extreme and entrenched excluded from the discussion here? I always believe that the general reader, me included, is most definitely included in the discussion contained in a Platonic dialogue. The fundamental issue in these dialogues is, after all, the aim and purpose of human life. Indeed, Socrates spells this out in Book 1 of the Republic where, although the immediate argument is concerned with the status of justice, and the relative happiness of just and unjust people, Socrates insists that: ‘…this argument is not concerned with any random issue. It concerns the manner in which our lives should be lived.’ [22] Similarly in Book 9, where the immediate topic is the nature of tyranny, Socrates again asserts that: ‘our enquiry is concerned with the most important issue of all: living a good life or a bad one.’[23]
So, if the ultimate issue is the manner in which our lives should be lived, living a good life or a bad one, how does the study and engagement with the dialogues of Plato help us with this? I believe that Plato’s Seventh Epistle, authentic or not, points us in the right direction here.
Now I can say this much about those who have written or shall write claiming to have knowledge of the subjects I take seriously, having learned from myself or from others, or having made the discoveries themselves. They could not in my opinion understand anything about the matter, for there is no writing of mine dealing with these subjects, nor will there ever be. Indeed this cannot be expressed in words like other subjects, but from much engagement with the matter itself, and from living with it, a light is kindled as though from a leaping spark, and once it has arisen in the soul it sustains itself thereafter.[24]
So the process does not involve going to a written work, not even to the dialogues of Plato, to be told what to think or how to act in life. For he says that the subject matter is not expressible in words like other subjects. Now, he does not say flatly that this is not expressible in words at all, but rather that it is not expressible in words in the same way that other subjects can be verbally imparted. In the case of other subjects, we may have a recourse to the written word in order to learn what we need to learn. But when it comes to an enquiry into the manner in which our lives should be lived, a different process is called for. Through ‘engagement’ and through ‘living with’, he tells us that there is some inner transformation. This is expressed poetically in the Seventh Epistle as an inner light kindled by a leaping spark, a spark which perhaps leaps from one soul to another. But this only happens through a process of ‘engagement’ and ‘living with’, and so we should try to understand what is meant by these two activities and the role that the dialogues might play in such a process.
We have heard that those who extract dogma from the dialogues do so at their own risk. If the subject matter concerns the manner in which our lives should be lived, living a good life or a bad one, then any misunderstandings may have very far-reaching consequences for the lives of any readers and interpreters, for those who interact with them, and for any societies in which such misunderstood Platonic notions hold sway or have influence. And yet Plato does not allow us to be dismissive of his written works. For he goes on to say:
And yet I do know this much that what has been written or spoken by myself would be the best formulation, and indeed, what has been badly written would cause me most pain.[25]
How should we understand this claim? Let me make a suggestion. Perhaps he is simply passing on what Socrates might have said on this issue, approaching the matter in the way that Socrates might have approached it, considering it in the manner in which he might have considered it. Thereafter it is, perhaps, up to the readers to take this further. They must apply themselves to the words and arguments, they must initiate their own enquiry, a truly open enquiry after the manner of Socrates. They must look to their own lives and behaviour and actions and the manner in which their lives should be lived, living a good life or a bad one. Engaging in reasoned discourse, always willing to be refuted, endeavouring to live their lives in the spirit of philosophy and heeding the exhortations of Socrates, they may discover, in practice, what it means to kindle within themselves the light that is spoken of by Plato in the Seventh Epistle.
What About Us?
It follows then, that we the readers are to develop this kind of understanding for ourselves. No amount of reading on its own will do that for us. In fact, it can act as an impediment for there is a danger, explained by Plato, that by merely reading a written work: ‘… having heard a great deal without any teaching they will seem to be extremely knowledgeable, when for the most part they are ignorant.’[26] So the readers may seem knowledgeable because they have read a great deal, while in reality they are not at all knowledgeable because the process of ‘engagement with’ and ‘living with’ has not taken place. Yet Plato insists that the best formulation is the one which he has set before us in his own written works. Therefore, he seems to mean that his works are the best formulation for considering what he is asking us to consider, in the way that he is asking us to consider it, which is the Socratic way of considering the matter.
And here, I believe, is where the Socratic and the Platonic coincide. Returning to our earlier image, this interpretation makes Plato, Socrates’ Swan, faithful to his origins in the bosom of Socrates, faithful to his master. And so Plato, the swan, flies away insofar as he is considering issues which the historical Socrates may, in some cases, never actually have discussed at all, or did not ever discuss in this particular way, perhaps because it never occurred to him to do so, or perhaps because he did not encounter a suitable interlocutor who could present the appropriate challenge. So in that sense the swan is indeed flying away, flying to new realms of discourse explored in new ways. And yet what continues is the Socratic spirit of enquiry, of challenging existing ideas, of openness, and of exhortation to live the very best life, the life devoted to wisdom and truth and care of the soul. [27]
And yet, as already mentioned, there is a danger in such engagement with a written text, and the warnings against this occur in many places in the dialogues. That danger is the conceit of wisdom. Socrates speaks of his fear of this potential trap in the Charmides where he refers to his ‘… fear that I might ever, unwittingly, be thinking I know something when I do not know’.[28] Indeed he goes on to say that the purpose of the discourse and enquiry in which he is engaged is to ensure that he does not fall into this very trap of thinking that he knows when he does not know. In the Seventh Epistle too, Plato refers to the possibility of becoming filled up with what he calls parakousmata, literally, things that we have misheard. Bury, in the Loeb edition translates this phrase, dramatically, as being ‘crammed with borrowed doctrines’, surely a most repellent prospect. This caution against the conceit of knowledge persists even in Plato’s last work, the Laws, where he refers to the evil whereby ‘…we who, in a sense, know nothing, imagine that we know everything.’[29]
It is, therefore, an excellent precaution against such an error that the works of Plato are commonly read and discussed in groups with other like-minded persons. This approach can and indeed should act as a safeguard against such mis-hearings or misunderstandings and must surely represent a sincere attempt to engage actively and intellectually, after the manner of Socrates, with what Plato has set before us in the dialogues. Such gatherings are an aspect of the study of Plato all over the world among scholars and non-scholars alike and they are productive of a refinement and depth of understanding and, hopefully, an enthusiasm to live in accordance with a sound practical appreciation of what it really means to value wisdom and truth more than money, reputation and honour.
What is on Offer?
The scholar Christopher Rowe has boldly stated that: ‘The aim, or one chief aim, of Platonic writing itself is to bring us out of the cave.’[30] This is what is on offer. This makes sense to me, when I think back to my first experience with Plato, reading the Republic and encountering the story of the cave in Book 7 of that dialogue. The cave is our shadow world, the shadow world of ideas that have been picked up over the years and through which we view the world. I wholeheartedly endorse Rowe’s view that Plato is inviting us to come out of that cave, to stop mistaking shadows for reality, the insubstantial for the substantial. My memory now, as I think back to that first reading of Plato, is that I was being set free. Plato was setting me free. I realised this was a philosopher who could enable us to think for ourselves, not in some whimsical or capricious sense, but in a substantial sense, to challenge our own fixed and preconceived ideas in a productive and useful manner so that we might develop, and free ourselves from the shackles of the framework of thought we have inherited. I thought that was marvellous, and I still do.
Robin Waterfield has commented that ‘The range of topics Plato addressed, the depth with which he addressed them, and the boldness of his theories are astonishing.’[31] Such is the scale of our inheritance from Plato, and so Ralph Waldo Emerson writes: ‘…out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated among men of thought…. Plato is philosophy, and philosophy, Plato,’[32] The cave story that I mention above is said to describe the human predicament but is also used by Plato to illustrate, in an image, his Theory of Forms, and the distinction between the changing world of continual becoming, and the realm of unchanging being. This distinction is again emphasised in the Timaeus where he gives his magnificent account of the cause of the coming into being of the entire material cosmos and all that it contains, describing this created universe as a ‘blessed god’. Plato’s great myths are another element of this multifarious inheritance. In these he speaks of the next world, the fate and judgement of souls, divine rule of our world, the birth of love, and of course the story of Atlantis which has fired the imagination of so many readers over the millennia, and for which Plato is the sole source. His two magnificent love dialogues are the Phaedrus and, of course, the Symposium which contains Aristophanes’ amazing story of the first humans, the origin of the sexes and of human sexuality. The diversity of other topics in the dialogues include, the rule of states, their politics and their laws, the power of speech for good or ill, the nature of knowledge and its contrast with opinion, the argument that all learning is recollection, human language and the origin of the words we use, the dramatic and poignant story of the death of Socrates and his final day of philosophic discourse with his friends, the ethical issues I have mentioned in the earlier discussion, and the powerful illustrations throughout all the dialogues of Socratic dialectic and its relentless power. Then there is the Parmenides, which has in one way, or another been my consistent study for the past 16 years. Here Plato subjects his own Theory of Forms to intense scrutiny before embarking upon a baffling, lengthy analysis of the nature of unity or The One, which occupies the final two thirds of the dialogue, and which defies scholarly consensus. I hope that this brief survey gives the unfamiliar reader a taste of what is available in the Platonic corpus and whets the appetite for the available feast.
How Far Did the Swan Fly?
The questions, ‘how far did the swan fly and where did it fly to?’, ultimately open up the entire history of Platonism after the death of Plato, and the influence of Socrates himself after his death. Indeed, not everyone understood Socrates and was inspired by Socrates in the same way as Plato. His three immediate successors in the Academy have already been mentioned, the second of whom may have given us our first Complete Works of Plato. We must include the enormous reach of Aristotle, whose early engagement with philosophy for nearly twenty years was through Plato and the Academy. At the same time, we have the Cynics and their quite different appreciation of Socrates, and the Stoics whose founder, Zeno, came to the Academy under Polemon, and eventually founded the philosophy of Stoicism, which had such an enormous influence upon the Roman Empire. With the intervention of Aristotle’s pupil Alexander the Great, Greek language and culture, which included Platonism, was spread widely to very many lands, far beyond what Plato or any of his immediate successors could ever possibly have imagined. Then there are the Middle Platonists including the extraordinary Philo of Alexandria, ‘steeped in Plato’,[33] who was working on his amazing synthesis of Moses with Platonism around the same time as Jesus Christ was preaching in Jerusalem. We then have the majestic Plotinus[34] and the first Greek Church Fathers who were, for the most part, Platonists. Somewhat later the great Latin Church Father, St Augustine, wrote, ‘…why discuss with other philosophers? It is evident that none come nearer to us than the Platonists.’[35] He wrote a chapter in his City of God entitled, ‘How Plato has been able to approach so nearly to Christian knowledge.’[36] Then as the Middle Ages advanced and Platonism receded in Western Europe along with the knowledge of Greek, John Scottus Eriugena appeared in Ireland, a proficient Greek scholar who integrated Platonic philosophy with Christian Theology, translated Pseudo-Dionysius another Platonist, and was part of the Platonic influence upon Aquinas. There is also, of course, a distinguished tradition of Islamic Platonism and there were times in the Middle Ages when these Islamic scholars were studying Plato while their counterparts in Western Europe had little or no access to the relevant texts.
Boethius’ classic Consolation of Philosophy made Platonism available in Europe throughout the Middle Ages in a form that veiled any potential heresies. And then, with the Renaissance and the highly influential visit of Gemistos Plethon to the Council of Florence and Ferrara, and the subsequent translations of the complete works of Plato by Marsilio Ficino, a whole new chapter of influence opened up, as the swan continued its flight. Speaking of the debt owed to Plato by the scientific revolution, Whitehead wrote: ‘The history of the seventeenth century science reads as though it were some vivid dream of Plato or Pythagoras. In this characteristic the seventeenth century was only the forerunner of its successors.’[37] And to this very day the Platonic tradition, venerable and ancient, continues among distinguished scholars, among general readers and anywhere that the works of Plato and the ideas of Plato are considered and studied. And so, the swan is flying still. Long may it continue to fly!
David Horan
16th June 2024
[1] Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, III.5
[2] Hegel, Lectures in the History of Philosophy, Volume 1, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co, 1802,
page 446: “Hence, in what is truly tragic there must be valid moral powers on both the sides which come into collision; this was so with Socrates.”
[3] I accept Debra Nails argument for Plato’s dates in, The People of Plato, Hackett, 2002.
[4] Plato: Apology, 29d-e
[5] I leave aside the question of the authenticity of this letter. I am of the view that, even without relying upon the Seventh Epistle, it is possible to argue for similar conclusions by drawing upon the dialogues themselves.
[6] Plato, Seventh Epistle,326a-b
[7] Laws IV, 711d-712a
[8] Traditionally, in philosophy, the alternative to dogmatism is scepticism, while the alternative to relativism is realism about truth, whereby, there is a truth, irrespective of whether we know it or can know it. However, in this somewhat personal introduction, I am trying to capture the impact of my initial encounter with Plato in the words and language I would have used at the time. I am indebted to Vasilis Politis for this clarification.
[9] Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, Simon & Schuster, 1987
[10] M.M McCabe, Plato’s Individuals, Princeton, 1994, page 18. Bracketed words are mine.
[11] Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, III.5
[12] Of course, in many respects too, they are not plays and quite a number of them are not at all amenable to dramatisation – who would undertake to dramatise the Timaeus? Plays are often entirely fictional, but we should not assume that this is the case with Plato’s dialogues.
[13] For instance, Dorothy Tarrant, Plato as Dramatist, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol 75, 1955.
[14] Plato, Gorgias, 470d-471a
[15] Plato: Apology, 29d-e
[16] Plato, Laws, Book II, 631b-d
[17] Plato, Apology, 30b
[18] Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, VI.54
[19] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1172b 15 – 18
[20] Dorothea Frede, Plato Philebus, Hackett 1993, Introduction pages lxxi – lxxv.
[21] Dillon, Heirs of Plato, Oxford University Press, 2003, page 154, n177. Dillon is the source for all the above reflections on Speusippus, Xenocrates, and Polemon.
[22] Plato, Republic, Book 1, 352d6-7
[23] Plato, Republic, Book 9, 578c
[24] Plato: Seventh Epistle, 341b-d
[25] Plato: Seventh Epistle, 341d
[26] Plato. Phaedrus, 275a-b
[27] Christopher Rowe expresses this more fully as follows: ‘…my Socrates always, or nearly always, fully understands whatever it is that Plato puts in his mouth – even when we might want to protest that it is something the Socrates of the ‘Socratic’ dialogues, or the real Socrates, will never have thought of … That is, from Plato’s perspective (I claim), any amount of extension, even of modification, of the kinds of things Plato might once have got from Socrates he still sees as Socratic – because he sees Socrates, and himself, as having bought into a system of ideas (representing the way things really are), which requires exploration rather than construction. Plato does not see himself, and Socrates, as putting together a theory, but rather as investigating the implications of a set of insights that he takes to be true and fundamental.’
Rowe: Plato and the Art of Philosophical Writing, Cambridge University Press, 2007, page 16, n 47.
[28] Plato, Charmides 165d
[29] Plato, Laws V, 732a
[30] ‘The aim, or one chief aim, of Platonic writing itself is to bring us out of the cave – to make us turn ourselves round ‘to that place … in which is the happiest (part) of what is [ the form of the good], which in every way the soul must see’… And Plato is inviting us in, offering us our freedom; we may go there even now – and not have to wait until death, or some promised future existence….’
Rowe: ibid, p 63
[31] Robin Waterfield, Plato of Athens, Oxford University Press, 2023, Introduction, page xxi. Waterfield also uses the Emerson quote that follows.
[32] Emerson, Representative Men, in The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Modern Library, New York, 1950, page 471. From lectures originally published in 1850.
[33] Dillon, The Middle Platonists, Duckworth, 1997, page 140
[34] I omit the term Neo-Platonism here and include Plotinus and his successors among the Platonists. They did not call themselves Neo-Platonists but Platonists.
[35] St Augustine, The City of God, Book VIII.5, Modern Library edition, 2000, page 248.
[36] ibid page 255. Book VIII.11
[37] A.N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 1925, Pelican Mentor Books 1948, page 34