In February of this year (2016) I
offered Dr Jirsa, the Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Religion at
Charles University, two papers: ‘Plato’s defence of Forms in the Parmenides’ and ‘Plato and Dionysius’. He
replied: ‘I thank you for your offer, but I have decided not to use it.’ I asked him to explain his decision, but he has
not replied to my request. These two papers, as well as everything else I have
written on Plato since my arrival at Oxford in 1980, depend on my dating of the
Phaedrus. Could this fact provide an explanation
of his decision?
***
To give substance to this conjecture,
let me quote from Dr Jirsa’s Curriculum
vitae:
2008-2009 - visiting scholar at the
Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge
2006 - PhD degree in Philosophy,
Central European University, Budapest; thesis title: “The Ethics of
Self-Knowledge in Plato’s Dialogues”, supervisors: Gábor Betegh, David Sedley
(viva: July 17, 2006)
2004-2005 - Research stay at the
Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge, Hughes Hall College (supervisor:
David Sedley, Malcolm Schofield)
***
The Daily Telegraph of August 25, 1988, published Barry
O’Brien‘s interview with David Sedley entitled „Philosophers in knots over Dr
Tomin‘s Plato thesis“, from which I quote:
‘A leading
scholar responded yesterday to complaints by Dr Julius Tomin, the Czech
dissident philosopher, that he cannot get his controversial work on Plato
published in Britain. “He holds that the Phaedrus
is Plato’s first dialogue, which is contrary to the beliefs of pretty well all
scholars in the field in this century,“ said Dr David Sedley, editor of Classical Quarterly, and director of
studies in classics at Christ’s College, Cambridge. … “I think people just have
a great difficulty in seeing how it can be right,“ he said. “It means he is
asking people to give up nearly everything else they believe about Plato’s
development.“
***
I never
asked David Sedley or any other Platonic scholar to give up what he or she
believed about Plato. What I have asked them, so far in vain, is to meet me in
a discussion on Plato with Plato’s writings at hand.
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