Plato and His Dialogues

1. Plato and His Dialogues Reading Plato

2. Reading Plato3 Problems • 1. Plato wrote dialogues rather than philosophical monographs. Since Plato himself never appears as a character in these dialogues, this means that he never addresses us directly in his own voice. • 2. We have very little evidence as to when Plato wrote any particular work. So far as one can tell, Plato’s literary career extends over a period of something like fifty years. Thus before attempting an interpretation of Plato we need to muster what evidence we can about the dating of his works and form some view of nature and extent of his philosophical development. • 3. There is an apparent discrepancy between Plato’s philosophy as it appears in the dialogues and the accounts of it we can piece together from ancient sources, chiefly Aristotle. In particular, Aristotle attributes the doctrine of mathematicising of nature to Plato which cannot be traced in Plato’s dialogues.

3. Why Dialogues? • 1. Window dressing The dialogue form is just literary window dressing. The views Plato puts into Socrates’s mouth are Plato’s own views at the time of writing. So we may ignore the dialogue form and read Plato’s words as we would any other philosophical treatise. • 2. The ‘protreptic’ view Plato believed that real philosophy would not be captured in writing. The dialogues are designed to show people what philosophising is like and encourage them to engage in philosophy rather than as philosophical treatise.

4. 3. Dialogic Interpretations The character of participants and the incidents which happen during their conversation are essential to the understanding of the work. Reading Plato may thus become more a matter of noting dramatic and conversational nuance than of grasping philosophical doctrine. 4. A compromise view The dialogue form has advantages mere literary establishment, e.g.: a) It makes clear the connection of philosophy with life and character. b) It enables Plato to ‘distance’ himself from the view he is discussing, i.e. to bring ideas under discussion without committing himself to them.

5. The Problem of Chronology Scholars have tried to establish the chronological order of the dialogues mainly by a close study of the texts themselves using following criteria:

6. 1. Philosophical and literary criteria Most 20th century scholars have supposed that Plato’s dialogues can be divided into 3 groups:

7. A. Socratic/early dialogues Fairly short Vivid characterisation Concerned with moral and ethical matters Usually inconclusive  Socrates refutes his opponent but does not produce positive view of his own. B. Mature/middle period dialogues Mostly fairly long Characterisation still fairly vivid Socrates expounds his own view at length The theory of forms plays a central role C. Critical period dialogues Fairly long Characterisation less vivid Mostly more difficult and technical than dialogue in other groups No explicit reference to theory of forms Interest in ‘method of division’

8. 2. Stylometry The statistical analysis of an author’s style using features such as sentence length and frequency of small words (the Greek equivalents of ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘but’. etc.). It is assumed that works which are stylistically similar will be close in date.

10. The Gorgias as One of the Transitional Dialogues • The transitional dialogues: The Gorgias and The Meno • The reasons: 1) Socrates’s tone in the Gorgias is assertive. 2) The Gorgias makes positive use of a belief in the survival of the soul after death. 3) There is a overlap between the argument of the Gorgias and of the Republic.

11. 4 Ways of Reading Plato 1. The Unitarian Interpretation • The theory of forms is at the heart of Plato’s philosophy which remained unchanged over the years. • Dialogues which do not explicitly refer to the theory of forms are designed to see the need for the theory. 2. The Tubingen Interpretation • Plato did not believe that philosophy could be conveyed in writing. • The dialogues are purely protreptic, i.e. designed to arise interest in philosophy. • Plato’s true philosophy is the ‘unwritten doctrines’ reported by Aristotle and others.

12. A Tentative Reply to the Notion of the “Unwritten Doctrine” • In fact this theory, if correct, would certainly not take any of the point away from an examination of the dialogues: 1) because they are clearly intended as philosophical works, and contain arguments which call for discussion. 2) because what we might learn about the quintessential Plato could well be rather less interesting than we have in the dialogues---especially in the sphere of moral philosophy. 3) Hence the ‘unwritten’ Plato, for the purpose of this lecture, need not concern us.

13. 3. Developmental Interpretation The early period dialogues are designed to give a more-or-less accurate picture of Socrates. Plato gradually moved to a philosophical system of his own based on the metaphysics of forms. Plato in the late period dialogues saw the flaws of theory of forms, and thus abandoned it. 4. A more update interpretation When writing the early dialogues Plato may not have worked out the theory of forms in detail, but he had a good idea of where he was going. Thus the early dialogues must be read as looking forwards to the mature works. Plato never abandoned the theory of Forms. The Parmenides criticises certain misunderstanding of that theory.

14. 5. A Radical Interpretation • Plato might write different dialogues at the same period of time. • Different dialogues serve different educational purposes. • Two types of dialogues: the one adapted for instruction and the other for enquiry. • The dialogues for instruction has two types: the theoretical (including the physical and logical dialogues) and the practical (including ethical and political dialogues). • The dialogues for enquiry has also two types: the one aims at training the mind (including the midwifery art and tentative arguments), and the other aims at victory in controversy (including raising critical objections and being subversive of the main argument).

15. The Sophism and Gorgias of Leontini

16. The Characteristics of the Sophistic Movement • Unlike the philosophers of Nature, the Sophists do not make any attempt to the first causes of things • Its method is empiric-induction • The control of life • The Sophists are itinerant teachers • Subjectivism and relativism

17. Gorgiasof Leontini (c. 483-c. 376 B.C.) • The idea of non-existent 2) The renunciation of philosophy 3) Rhetoric

18. 1) The Idea of Non-existence • Nothing exists. a) Not-Being does not exist. b) Being does not exist. B) If anything exists, it is incomprehensible. • If it is comprehensible, it is incommunicable. (DK B3)

19. (A) • If anything exists, it must be either Being or Not-Being, or both Being and Not-Being • It cannot be Not-Being. • A Mixture of being and Not-Being is impossible. Therefore since Being does not exist, nothing exists. • It cannot be Being, for Being does not exist. If Being exists, it must be either everlasting, or created, or both.

20. (B) • If the concepts of the mind are not realities, reality cannot be thought; …; if the thing thought is non-existent, then non-existence is thought about; this is equivalent to saying that ‘existence, reality, is not thought about, cannot be thought.’

21. (C) • The things which exist are perceptibles; the objects of sight are apprehended by sight, the objects of hearing by hearing, and there is no interchange; so that these sense-perceptions cannot communicate with one another. Further, that with which we communicate is speech, and speech is not the same thing as the things that exist, the perceptibles; so that we communicate not the things which exists, but only speech; ….

22. 2) The Renunciation of Philosophy • If Being does not exist, cannot be comprehended and communicated, then there is no subject matter for philosophy. So it would be better for people get away from philosophy which is lack of content. • Rhetoric

23. Rhetoric: Encomium of Helen • The reasons for Helen’s innocence: 1) It was fated by the gods that she be taken by Paris. 2) She was forced to go to Troy; she was raped ad abducted. 3) She had fallen so madly in love with the handsome Trojan that she lost control of her senses. 4) She was persuaded by logos.

24. Rhetoric: Encomium of Helen • Logos is a powerful master. (8) • How many men have persuaded and do persuade how many men, on how many subjects, by fabricating false speech! For if everyone, on every subject, possessed memory of the past and [understanding] of the present and foreknowledge of the future, speech would be equally [powerful]; but as it is, neither remembering a past event nor investigating a present one nor prophesying a future one is easy, so that on most subjects most men make belief an adviser to their soul. But belief, being fallible and unreliable, brings fallible and unreliable success to those who employ it. (11-12)

25. Rhetoric: Encomium of Helen • To show that persuasion, when added to speech, also moulds the mind in the way it wishes, one should note first the speeches of the astronomers, who substituting belief, demolishing one and establishing another, make the incredible and obscure become clear to the eyes of belief. (13) • The power of speech bears the same relation to the ordering of the mind as the ordering of drugs bears to the constitution of bodies. Just as different drugs expel different humours from the body, and some stop it from being ill but others stop it from living, so too some speeches cause sorrow, some cause pleasure, some cause fear, some give the hearers confidence, some drug and bewitch the mind with an evil persuasion. (14)

26. Plato’s Gorgias

27. The Opening Scene • The dramatic date of the dialogue is uncertain. • Throughout the Peloponnesian war. • Socrates is late for the dinner party held at Callicles’ house (?). • Socrates is asked whether he’d like to listen to Gorgias’ epideixis. (447b) • But Socrates wants to have a dialogue or conversation (dialechthēnai) with Gorgias. (447c)

28. The Reason for Socrates’ Late Coming • Socrates said in the Aoplogy 21a-c: You remember Chaerephon, of course. He was a friend of mine from youth, and also a comrade in your party, who shared your recent exile and restoration. You recall too what sort of man Chaerephon was, how impetuous he was in any undertaking. Well, on one occasion he actually went to the Delphic oracle, and had the audacity to put the following question to it---as I said, please do not make a disturbance, gentlemen---he went and asked if there was anyone wiser than myself; to which the Pythia responded that there was o one. His brother here will testify to the court about the story, since Chaerephon himself is deceased. …. So for a long time I was perplexed about what he could possibly mean. But then, with great reluctance, I proceeded to investigate the matter somewhat as follows. I went to one of the people who had a reputation for wisdom, thinking there, if anywhere, to disprove the oracle’s utterance and declare to it: ‘Here is someone wiser than I am, and yet you said that I was the wisest.’

29. The Preliminary Question • Chaerephon vs. Polus • Who is Gorgias? (447d) • What is rhetoric? • Polus: Many among men are the crafts devised by experience, Chaerephon, the results of experience. Yes, it is experience that causes our age to march along the way of chance. Of these various crafts men partake in various ways, the best men partaking of the best of them. Our Gorgias is indeed in this group; he partakes of the most admirable of the crafts. (448c)

30. Socrates’ Reply to Polus • Socrates: Very much so. No one, however, asked you what Gorgias’ craft is like, but what craft it is, and what one ought to call Gorgias. So, just as when Chaerephon put his earlier questions to you and you answered him in such an admirably brief way, tell us now in that way, too, what his craft is, and what we’re supposed call Gorgias. Or rather, Gorgias, why don’t you tell us yourself what the craft you’re an expert in is, and hence what we’re supposed to call you? (448e-449a)

31. A Question to Think What Kind of Definition is Socrates Looking for: • Descriptive definition 0r 2) Essential definition

32. The Importance of Socratic Definition 1) They are fundamental for knowledge. 1.1) Socrates claims that until you know what a thing is, you can't answer any other questions about it. 1.2) So any inquiry into any moral question presupposes an answer to the relevant "What is X?" question. Not just that there is such an answer, but that the inquirer is in possession of it. 1.3) E.g., in the Meno, Socrates claims that you cannot answer a question about virtue ("Can it be taught?") until you have answered a more fundamental question: "What is it?" 1.4) In general, he thinks that a person's having knowledge involving a concept, X, depends upon his knowing the correct answer to the "What is X?" question.

33. The Importance of Socratic Definition 2)They are fundamental for morality. 2.1) He thinks that the possibility of morality (moral character, moral behaviour) depends on knowledge of definitions. 2.2) Virtue is knowledge: if you know what is right, you will do what is right. Knowing a Socratic definition is thus (apparently) necessary and sufficient for moral behaviour

34. Elenchus in the Gorgias Socrates: Then would you be willing, Gorgias, to continue this present way of discussion, by alternate question and answer, and defer to some other time that lengthy style of speech in which Polus made a beginning? Come, be true to your promise, and consent to answer each question briefly. Gorgias: There are some answers, Socrates, that necessitate a lengthy expression: however, I will try to be as brief as possible; for indeed it is one of my claims that no one could express the same thing in briefer terms than myself. (449b-c)

35. The Interlocutor’s Duty Socrates: aiming at you, but only anxious that we do not fall into a habit of snatching at each other's words with a hasty guess, and that you may complete your own statement in your own way, as the premises may allow. (454c)

36. The Function of Elenchus Socrates: I therefore, if you are a person of the same sort as myself, should be glad to continue questioning you: if not, I can let it drop. Of what sort am I? One of those who would be glad to be refuted if I say anything untrue, and glad to refute anyone else who might speak untruly; but just as glad, mind you, to be refuted as to refute, since I regard the former as the greater benefit, in proportion as it is a greater benefit for oneself to be delivered from the greatest evil than to deliver some one else. For I consider that a man cannot suffer any evil so great as a false opinion on the subjects of our actual argument. (458a)

37. What is ‘Elenchus’? • Elenchus comes from the Greek term ‘elegchos’ which means refutation or examination. • The so-called ‘elenchos’ is the process of cross-examination. • The way of doing it is to go through a series of questions and answers. • Arguments are not allowed.

38. Argument is not Allowed When he had thus spoken, the company acclaimed it as an excellent answer; and then I remarked: Protagoras, I find I am a forgetful sort of person, and if someone addresses me at any length I forget the subject on which he is talking. So, just as you, in entering on a discussion with me, would think fit to speak louder to me than to others if I happened to be hard of hearing, please bear in mind now that you have to deal with a forgetful person, and therefore cut up your answers into shorter pieces, that I may be able to follow you. (The Protagoras 334c-d)

39. The Interlocutor’s Duty • “Heaven forbid!” I said, “don't do that. But in the first place when you have said a thing stand by it, or if you shift your ground change openly and don't try to deceive us. (The Republic 345b-c)

40. The Procedure of Elenchus • Question: What is X? • The interlocutor’s answer: F-ness is G. • Socrates elicits additional beliefs from his interlocutor. • Socrates shows his interlocutor that his view is internally inconsistent. • Socrates’ interlocutor realise that they have endorsed an inconsistent set of propositions and so must give something up. • Socrates professes to share their ignorance and recommends a renewed search for the essence of the moral quality under consideration. (C. Shields, p. 35)

41. Gorgias’s Definitions of Rhetoric • Rhetoric is a skill concerned with speech (449c-450c). • Rhetoric is concerned with the best and the most important interest of human being. (451a-d) • Rhetoric is to persuade the crowd in the assembly. (451d-453a) • Rhetoric deals with what is just and unjust. (453a-454b) • Rhetoric is opinion not knowledge of what is just and unjust. (453a-455a)

42. (1) Socrates: Come then. You claim to be an expert in the craft of oratory and to be able to make someone else an orator, too. With which of the things there are is oratory concerned? Weaving, for example, is concerned with the production of clothes, isn’t it? Gorgias: Yes. Socrates: And so, too, music is concerned with the composition of tunes? (449c-d)

43. A Question to Think • Can you think of any reason why Socrates mentions those two crafts, weaving and music? 1) weaving not of threads but of speeches. rhetoric creates protective “cloaks” (The Protagoras, 316d-e) 2) music moves men’s passions and charms their souls (Encomium of Helen, 8- 11)

44. (1) Socrates: And so you are. Come and answer me then that way about oratory, too. About which, of the things there are, is it expertise? Gorgias: About speeches. Socrates: What sort of speeches, Gorgias? Those that explain how sick people should be treated to get well? Gorgias: No. Socrates: So oratory isn’t concerned with all speeches. Gorgias: Oh, no. Socrates:But it does make people capable of speaking. Gorgias: Yes. Socrates: And to be wise in what they’re speaking about? (449d-e)

45. A Point to Be Noted • The term ‘expertise’ used at 449d is to translate the Greek word ‘epistēmē’. This word has the effect of making a rhetorician who not only practices oratory but also a knower, i.e. someone who knows (phronein) what he says.

46. Questions to Think • Is it really true that what the rhetorician speaks about is the same thing that he knows? • Might it not be the case that while the rhetorician gives speeches about many subjects, what he knows is not so much these subjects themselves as the effects that speeches about them have on listeners’ souls?

47. (1) Socrates: And moreover it is the same, Gorgias, with all the other arts; each of them is concerned with that kind of speech which deals with the subject matter of that particular art. Gorgias: Apparently. Socrates: Then why, pray, do you not give the name “rhetorical” to those other arts, when they are concerned with speech, if you call that “rhetoric” which has to do with speech? Gorgias: Because, Socrates, the skill in those other arts is almost wholly concerned with manual work and similar activities, whereas in rhetoric there is no such manual working, but its whole activity and efficacy is by means of speech. For this reason I claim for the rhetorical art that it is concerned with speech, and it is a correct description, I maintain. (450b-c)

48. A Point to Be Noted • In the above exchange between Socrates and Gorgias about skill (technē), three points come out from it: 1) each skill has its own domain. 2) skills in general is concerned with making things. 3) rhetoric is not deal with making things, but with making speeches.

49. (2) • Besides some skills make things without making use of speeches, or making very little use of speeches, Socrates says: And there are other crafts, the ones that perform their whole task by means of speeches and that call for practically no physical work besides, or very little of it. Take arithmetic or computation, even checkers and many other crafts. (450c-e)

50. (2) Socrates: Come then and do your part, Gorgias: rhetoric is one of those arts, is it not, which carry out their work and achieve their effect by speech. Gorgias: That is so. Socrates: Then tell me what they deal with: what subject is it, of all in the world, that is dealt with by this speech employed by rhetoric? Gorgias: The greatest of human affairs, Socrates, and the best. (451d)