My paper on the dating of the Phaedrus has two parts. In the first, I shall discuss the late dating, focussing on the role of Cicero. In the second, I shall propose my dating of the dialogue.
I.
According to
the ancient tradition, recorded by Diogenes Laertius, the Phaedrus was
Plato’s first dialogue. Modern Platonic studies began with the rejection of
this dating by Tennemann, inspired by Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.
For Kant believed that he discovered the truth, and that the only thing
remaining for professional philosophers was to discover the history of Pure
Reason, that is the history of thought that led to his discovery. Tennemann
undertook this task, which he began to pursue with his System der platonischen
Philosophie, published in 1792. With the theory of Forms in the Phaedrus
Plato comes the nearest to Kant’s a priori concepts, for Socrates says
in the Palinode that ‘human speech requires understanding according to Forms (dei= ga_r a!nqrwpon sunie/nai
kat’ ei]doj
lego/menon), bringing the influx of perceptions into unity by reasoning
(e0k
pollw~n i0o_n ai0sqh/sewn ei0j e9n
logismw~i sunairou/menon, 249b4-c1)’. Plato must have progressed towards the Phaedrus
through a chain of dialogues, just as the subsequent history of philosophy
progressed towards Kant’ Critique of Pure Reason.
At the
beginning of the nineteenth century Schleiermacher dismissed Tennemann’s dating
of the Phaedrus: ‘Surely everybody who understands the matter and who
has the corresponding personal experience will agree that true philosophy does
not start with separate special points but with anticipation at least of the
whole … The beginnings of almost all Plato’s philosophy are undeniably found in
the Phaedrus, but its undeveloped state can be seen there as well.’
This insight
is valuable; the problem lies in Schleiermacher’s ‘philosophic system’ of
Plato. He divided Plato’s work into three periods. The first contained the Phaedrus,
Protagoras, and Parmenides, which laid down the first principles
of Plato’s philosophy. In the second period these principles were applied to
ethics and physics. Here belonged the Theaetetus, Sophist, Politicus, Phaedo,
and Philebus. The last, so called constructive period, was dominated by
the Republic, and contained Timaeus and Critias. (Let me
note: stylometric investigations proved that the Sophist, Politicus,
and Philebus were written after the Republic.) Schleiermacher
maintained: ‘The necessity of giving the last place to the constructive
dialogues is so great from all points of view that if dependable historical
testimonies were found which would prove that the Republic was written
earlier than any of the preparatory works, we would stand in the most vexing
conflict with our judgment about Plato and we would be thrown into the greatest
perplexity of how to make such a want of reason compatible with his great
intellect.’
But that’s
precisely what happened. In 1822 was published Cicero’s De re publica,
discovered in the Vatican Library by its prefect, Cardinal Angelo Mai, in 1820.
Cicero says in in its first book that Socrates discarded the study of nature,
and so did Plato as long as Socrates lived. After Socrates’ death Plato devoted
himself to it under the influence of the Pythagoreans, whom he joined on his
journey to Italy and Sicily. In his dialogues he then attributed to Socrates
his own thoughts on the subject, ‘as he loved Socrates with singular affection
and wished to give him credit for everything’ (cum Socratem unice dilexisset
eique omnia tribuere voluisset, I. 16). De re publica ends with
‘Scipio’s dream’, in which Plato presents cosmological speculations from the Timaeus.
The ‘Dream’ ends with Cicero’s translation of the proofs of the immortality of
soul from the Phaedrus and the Phaedo. Cicero does not mention
Plato in connection with any of it. In his view it all went back to the
Pythagoreans, and thus to Italy and Sicily.
In the Orator, written a few years after De re publica, Cicero says that Plato wrote the Phaedrus when Isocrates was senior and Plato his aequalis (42). As Stallbaum pointed out, the Romans called seniores men between forty-five and sixty years of age. But after the Orator Cicero changed his mind concerning the dating of the Phaedrus. In the Tusculan Disputations (i.53,54) he reproduces his translation of the proofs of immortality from De re publica, retrospectively acknowledges Plato’s authorship, and insists that those views were Plato’s own, derived from the Delphic ‘Know thyself’ (Nosce te), understood as ‘Know thy soul’ (Nosce animum tuum) (i.52,53). He says that ‘influenced by these and similar reasons Socrates sought out no advocate when on trial for his life, and did not humbly entreat his judges’ (His et talibus rationibus adductus Socrates nec patronum quaesivit ad iudicium capitis nec iudicibus supplex fuit, i.71). This suggests that Cicero received information that Plato conceived his proofs of the immortality of soul during Socrates’ lifetime; his Letters to Atticus provide a clue concerning its source.
In the end of 46 B.C. Cicero wrote to Atticus, an authority on Greek and
Roman antiquities, that he greatly appreciated his finding time to read the Orator
(Letters to Atticus XII, 6a). From Cicero’s letter of May 28, 45 B.C. we learn that Atticus suggested
to him that he ought to read Dicaearchus’ books. Cicero welcomed the suggestion
and asked Atticus to send him the books. He repeated his request in his letter
of May 29, and in a letter of June 3 he acknowledged accepting the books. In
the Tusculan Disputations, written in 45 B.C., Cicero refers to
Dicaearchus repeatedly, invoking Plato and Socrates against his view that ‘the
soul is nothing at all’ (i.24), for ‘Dicaearchus argued most incisively against
this immortality’ (acerrime Dicaearchus contra hanc immortalitatem disseruit,
i.77).
Now we can
turn to Diogenes on the dating of the Phaedrus: lo/goj de_ prw~ton
gra/yai au0to_n to_n Fai=dronˑ kai_ ga_r e1xein meirakiw~de/j ti to_
pro/blhma. Dikai/arxoj de_ kai_ to_n tro/pon th=j grafh=j o3lon e0pime/mfetai w(j
fortiko/n. (III.38). This statement falls into
three parts. Hicks translates the first two parts: ‘There is a story that the Phaedrus
was his first dialogue. For the subject has about it something of the freshness
of youth.’ The first part is based on the second part. As early as 1792 the
element of ‘youthfulness’ was identified by Tennemann with the theme of love.
Diogenes’ source was dismissed as a pedant who could not envisage Plato in his
later years writing on love with passion.
Arguing
against this view, I shall begin by focussing attention on the connective kai_ ga/r. It can occasionally have the force
of the causal ‘for’, but usually introduces a clause that merely corroborates what
was said before. For example, in Apology 34d3-5 Socrates addresses an
imaginary critic: ‘My friend, I have a family, and indeed (kai\ ga/r), as Homer says, I am not “of a tree or of a rock”, I am a
man.’ The connective kai_ ga/r introduces the quotation from Homer to give a special touch to Socrates’
‘I am a man’, but Socrates’ ‘I am a man’ does not depend on the quotation from Homer.
In order to decide which is the function of kai_ ga/r in the given case, we must enquire
into the meaning of meirakiw~de/j ti in the ancient references to the dialogue. Hermias begins
his commentary on the Phaedrus by taking on Plato’s critics who
maintained that Plato in the dialogue argued for and against love ‘like a
juvenile’ (w#sper meira/kion), and that he contended against the
speech of Lysias as a contentious youngster (Hermias 9). Hermias’ testimony is
supported by Themistius who in Oration xxvi addressed philosophy with
the words ‘and you were not afraid that someone might accuse you of juvenile
behaviour (meirakieu/esqai) when you contended against Lysias’. The
ancients did not see the theme of love as a streak of juvenility, but the
contentious manner in which Plato presented it, and in which he argued against
Lysias.
Now we can turn to Dicaearchus’ censure. The word that
Dicaearchus used in criticising the dialogue is fortiko/n. In the Phaedrus this term
signifies contentious ridiculing of one another ‘as the comic writers do’ (to_ tw~n kwmwidw~n
fortiko/n, 236c). In
Hermias the link between meirakiw~de/j ti and fortiko/n is obvious: The ancient critics alleged that like a youngster (w#sper meira/kion) Plato exposed Lysias to comic
ridicule (kwmwidou/ntoj to_n r9h/tora, Hermias 9). The collocation of particles de_ kai/ that links Dicaearchus’ criticism to
the preceding statements concerning its dating and character is not adversative
(‘however’) but assentient and progressive: ‘moreover’, ‘in addition’, ‘and
what is more’. Previous critics censured merely the contentious manner, in
which Plato attacked Lysias and argued for and against love; Dicaearchus
extended this censure to the dialogue in its entirety. Dicaearchus’ testimony
is valuable, for he was a distinguished disciple of Aristotle, and he wrote a Life
of Plato.
The reference
to Dicaearchus in Diogenes was made after he published the books in which he criticised
the Phaedrus. But the ancient tradition concerning the dating of the Phaedrus
goes back to the time of Plato. Xenophon says that ‘Charicles and Critias,
intrusted by the Thirty with drafting laws, inserted a clause that made it
illegal to teach ‘the art of speaking’, i.e. the rhetoric (lo/gwn te/xnhn mh_
dida/skein, Memorabilia
I.ii.31)’. Then they sent for Socrates, showed him the law, and forbade him to
hold conversation with the young. Socrates asked them to fix the age limit
below which a man is to be accounted to be young. “So long,” replied Charicles,
“as he is not permitted to sit in the Council, because as yet he lacks wisdom.
You shall not converse with anyone who is under thirty.” The Thirty thus
forbade Socrates to speak with Plato, who was in his
early twenties.
The incident
hurt Plato. In the Lysis, written after the restoration of democracy, in
403, Socrates enumerates to Lysis all the things he would like to do, but is
forbidden because of his youth – he can visit a newly opened Palaistra, but
only under the guardianship of a paidagwgo/j, a well trusted slave appointed by the boy’s parents
for that role. Then he points to all things his parents enjoy him doing, like
reading and playing a musical instrument. When the boy acknowledges that he is
not allowed to do things he does not know how to do, Socrates gets to the
point: ‘So your father is not waiting for you to come of age to trust
everything to you, but on the day he considers that you know better than
himself, he’ll trust both himself and his property to you … What about the
Athenians? Do you think they’ll trust you with their affairs, as soon as they
realise that you know enough?’ – Lysis replies: ‘I do.’ (209c,d).
In the Republic
Plato turned the tables on the Thirty: ‘If the guardian (o( fu/lac) shall strive for a kind of
happiness that will unmake him as a guardian and shall not be content with the
way of life that is moderate and secure and, as we affirm, the best, but if
some senseless and childish opinion (meirakiw&dhj do/ca) about happiness shall beset him and
impel him to use his power to appropriate everything in the city for himself,
then he will find out that Hesiod was indeed wise, who said that the half was
in some sort more than the whole’ (466b5-c3). This indicates that the
opprobrium of juvenility that beset the Phaedrus preceded Socrates’
incident with Charicles and Critias.
In the Phaedrus, the Forms are divine essentially, god
gets his divinity from his closeness to the Forms (249c6). Written in 405 B.C.,
the Phaedrus was protected by the amnesty issued by the democrats after
their victory over the Thirty. Accused of introducing new divinities, Socrates
expected to be accused of the views ‘he’ expressed in the Phaedrus.
Counting on the widespread characterisation of the Phaedrus as something
juvenile (meirakiw~de/j ti),
he said in his defence: ‘It would not be fitting for one of my age, O men, to
come before you like a youngster making up speeches’ (w#sper meiraki/wi
pla/ttonti lo/gouj, Ap.
17c4-5).
II.
Aristophanes’
comedy, the Frogs, is pivotal for my dating of the Phaedrus. It
was staged about six months after the naval victory of Arginusae, four months
after the death of Euripides, and two months after the death of Sophocles.
Dionysus is journeying to the world below to bring Euripides back to the
Athenian stage. There, a contest between Aeschylus and Euripides is under way.
Dionysus is the judge, but he can’t decide (1411-1413).
Pluto, the
Lord of the underworld, steps in: ‘Then you’ll effect nothing for which you
came?’ – Dionysus: ‘And how, if I decide?’ – Pluto: ‘Then take the winner. So
will your journey not be made in vain’. (1414-1416, tr. Rogers)
Thus
spurred, Dionysus addresses the two contestants: ‘Listen, I came down for a
poet’. – Euripides: ‘To what end?’ – Dionysus: ‘That so the city, saved, may
keep her choral games. Now then, whichever of you two shall best advise the
city, he shall come with me … Let each in turn declare what plan of safety for
the state you’ve got’ … Aeschylus advises: ‘When they shall count the enemy’s
soil their own, and theirs the enemy’s: when they know that ships are their
true wealth, their so-called wealth delusion’ (1417-1465). As the Scholiast
observes, this counsel was given by Pericles at the commencement of the war
(Thucydides i. 140-144)’ (Rogers ad loc.). Dionysus declares Aeschylus the
winner.
Pluto
invites Dionysus and Aeschylus to entertain them before sailing away over the
lake. The actors leave the stage, and the Chorus enter it.
In the strophe, the Chorus sings the praise of a blessed man who has a perfected his
mind. It has been established that he is well disposed towards the City; he is
returning home for the good of the citizens, for the good of his relatives and
friends; for he is wise (1482-1490).
In the
antistrophe, the Chorus finds it delightful not to sit babbling next to
Socrates any more – having thrown away the art, and abandoned what is the
greatest in it, the art of tragedy. Pursuit of solemn arguments, those petty
quibbles, activity in which nothing is done, befits a man who had lost his
reason (1496-1499).
The strophe
describes the man going to save Athens, and the antistrophe presents this man
as one of those around Socrates. Whom among them could Aristophanes see as such
a man, and hope that the audience would applaud him? Only Plato.
Aristophanes
regales the audience with a well-known incident from Plato’s life. ‘When he was
about to compete for the prize with a tragedy, he listened to Socrates in front
of the theatre of Dionysus – Aelian (V,H. ii.30) has pro\ tw~n
Dionusi/wn, “before the
festival of Dionysus.” – and then consigned his poems to the
flames. From that time onward, having reached his twentieth year, he was the
pupil of Socrates (dih/kouse Swkra/touj).’ (Diog. Laert. Iii,5-6).
The Frogs
closes with the Chorus imploring the powers below: ‘give the poet ascending to
light good journey, and good counsels of great benefits to the City,
‘So we at
last shall be freed from the anguish, the fear, and the woe,
Freed from
the onsets of war. Let Cleophon now and his band
Battle if
battle they must, far away in their own fatherland’
(tr. of the three closing lines B.B. Rogers).
Let us
imagine Plato in his early twenties, how must he have felt, sitting there in
the theatre. To see yourself as the leader of the Athenian State in your
imagination, and to be pointed at as such in a packed theatre, the audience
roaring with applause, is very different.
But there
was something wrong with Aristophanes’ presentation; throwing away his
tragedies, Plato was not abandoning art (mousikh/), he was
embracing it. For philosophy is the greatest mousikh/,
to which he invites the reader in the Palinode:
‘The region
above the heavens has never yet been celebrated as it deserves by any earthly
poet, nor will it ever be … This region is occupied by being which really is,
which is without colour or shape, intangible, observable by the steersman of
the soul alone, by intellect, and to which the class of true knowledge relates.’
(247c3-d1).
The second
part, devoted to rhetoric, is dry in comparison. It is therefore introduced
with the myth of cicadas, who announce to Calliope and Ourania those who
philosophy even in the midday heat, when others sleep. These two Muses, ‘having
as their sphere the heavens and discussions both divine and human, give rise to
the most beautiful voice’ (259b-d).’
The third
part is very different, introduced as it is with the myth about two Egyptian
gods, Theuth and Thamus. Theuth invents writing and presents it to Thamus:
“This study, O King, will make the Egyptians wiser and improve their memory;
what I have discovered is an elixir of memory and wisdom.” Thamus replied:
“Your invention will produce forgetfulness in the souls of those who have
learned … through reliance on writing they are reminded from outside by alien
marks, not from inside, themselves by themselves … To your students you give
appearance of wisdom, not the reality of it … they will appear to know much
when for the most part they know nothing.” (274c-275b, tr. Rowe)
A
philosopher writes ‘for amusement (paidia=j xa/rin), laying up a store of reminders
both for himself, if he reaches a forgetful old age, and for anyone who is
following in the same track’ (276d).
If we want
to understand the dialogue, we must take into account the historical
circumstances in which it was written. With anachronism, Plato indicates the
time he finished the dialogue. In his first speech, after describing the
lover’s noxious attentions to the boy, Socrates was to narrate the benefits the
non-lover would bestow on the boy. But he says to Phaedrus ‘Not a word more
shall you have from me; let that be the end of my discourse’ (241d1-3). As he
was about to leave, Phaedrus begged him to stay and discuss what was said. Socrates
stopped: ‘You’ve a superhuman capacity when it comes to speeches, O Phaedrus;
you’re simply amazing. Of the speeches which there have been during your
lifetime, I think, no one has brought more into existence than you … Simmias
the Theban is the one exception (Simmi/an Qhbai=on e0cairw~ lo/gou); the rest you beat by a long way.’
(242a7-b5, tr. C.J. Rowe). At the time of the dramatic staging of the first part of the dialogue
– the Peace of Nicias, signed 421, abandoned 414 B.C. – Simmias was a little
boy. This we can infer from the Phaedo, where we find Simmias and Cebes referred
to as youngsters (neani/skoi, 89a3).
Implicated
in the mutilation of herms, Phaedrus was in exile since 415. This is the latest
possible dramatic date for the Phaedrus.
Simmias
could not come during the war; I believe he came to Athens when ‘the exiles
returned, and the Peloponnesians with great enthusiasm began to tear down the
walls [of Athens and of Piraeus] to the music of flute-girls, thinking that
that day was the beginning of freedom of Greece.’ (Xenophon, Hellenica
II.ii.23, tr. C.L. Brownson). The anachronism implies that Plato finished the Phaedrus
after he witnessed Simmias’ eager questioning of Socrates and everyone around
him.
Apart from
the anachronism, it can be ascertained that Plato finished the first part of the Phaedrus
before the aristocratic revolution. What makes it certain is the Charmides.
Socrates’ main interlocutor is Critias. At the end of the dialogue Socrates
bewails his inability to make a proper investigation; he did his best to
discover what swfrosu/nh
(‘self-control’, ‘self-knowledge’, ‘each person doing their own thing’) was,
and failed. But Charmides waves Socrates’ ignorance aside – ‘I don’t really
believe you at all’ – and expresses his wish to be instructed by Socrates. Critias not only approves, he orders him to let himself be
educated by Socrates. Charmides says: ‘I’d be behaving terribly if I didn’t
obey you, my guardian, and didn’t do what you tell me.’ – Critias: ‘I’m telling
you.’ – Charmides: ‘Well then, I’ll do it, starting today.’ (176b9-c3).
The last
couple of lines, which are of crucial importance for the dating of the Charmides,
are best narrated by Socrates (he narrates the whole dialogue to his noble
friend – ȏ hetaire ‘my friend’ 154b8, ȏ gennada ‘my noble friend’ 155d3):
‘What are
you two plotting to do?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’
said Charmides. ‘We’ve done our plotting.’
‘Are you
going to resort to the use of force, without even giving me a preliminary
hearing in court?’ I asked.
‘I shall use
force,’ he replied, ‘since Critias here orders me to – which is why you should
plot what you’ll do.’
‘But there’s
no time left for plotting,’ I said. ‘Once you’re intent on doing something and
are resorting to the use of force, no man alive will be able to resist you.’
‘Well then,’
he said, ‘don’t resist me either.’
‘Then I
won’t resist you’ (Ou0 toi/nun e0nantiw&somai),’ I said. (Translation Donald
Watt).
Plato must
have written and published these lines before the Thirty summoned Socrates and
four others to the Round Chamber, ordering them to go and fetch Leon of Salamis
for execution. Socrates says in the Apology that the other four went off
to Salamis and arrested Leon, but he went home. (32c4-d7).
Plato
narrates the incident at great length in his Seventh letter, referring
to it as the reason for his disgust with the Thirty and his turning away from
the evils of those days (SL 325a4-5). He returns to it when he speaks of
the democrats, who ‘condemned and executed the very man who would not
participate in the iniquitous arrest of one of the friends of the party then in
exile’ (SL 325c2-5).
Beginning to
write the Phaedrus after Aristophanes’ Frogs, and ending it
before he conceived the Charmides, Plato wrote and published it during
the most difficult months in the life of Athens. This explains its bewildering
complexity and contradictions.
The first
part is written in the aftermath of the victorious naval battle of Arginusae.
Entertaining the reader with its peaceful atmosphere, Plato appeals to the
Athenians: accept the peaceful offer extended to us by Sparta.
The second
part, devoted to rhetoric, which was the main tool of politics, was written
before the defeat and destruction of the Athenian fleet as well, but only after
the readers could read, appreciate and judge the first part. For Socrates
dismisses in it the two speeches, which he had delivered in the first part. He
maintains that they were playfully done just for amusement (paidia=i pepai=sqai,
265c8-9), and that the
only thing worthy of serious attention are the two principles of dialectic,
which they exemplify. On closer look, the two speeches do not exemplify the two
dialectic principles, which Socrates ascribes to them; Plato denigrated the
Palinode with religious fanatics in mind.
The third
part with its uncompromising denunciation of writing was written after the
disastrous battle of Aegospotami, during the months of siege. With the prospect
of an aristocratic revolution in the air, the Phaedrus could harm his
political ambitions. The first two parts had been published, the best thing he
could do was to denigrate them as ‘writing’. From the Seventh Letter we
learn that he wrote the Phaedrus at the time in which he was most eager
to enter politics (SL 324b8-325b1).
If we read
the third part attentively, we find that the dismissal of writing is directed
only against the second part of the dialogue. For after elaborating on the myth
of the invention of writing Socrates says: ‘Then now we can decide those
issues, when we have agreed on these.’ – Phaedrus asks: ‘What issues?’ –
Socrates replies: ‘The ones we wanted to look into, which brought us to this:
how we were to investigate and scrutinize the reproach aimed at Lysias about
the writing of speeches, and speeches themselves, which would be written
scientifically and which not.’ (277a6-b2)
Phaedrus
spoke about the reproach aimed at Lysias just after Socrates ended the
Palinode: ‘For sometimes now I have been amazed at how much finer you managed
to make your speech than the one before; so that I am afraid Lysias will appear
wretched to me in comparison, if he really does consent to put another in
competition with it. Indeed, my fine fellow, just recently one of the
politicians was abusing him with this very charge, and throughout all his abuse
kept calling him a “speech writer”; so perhaps we shall find him refraining
from writing out of concern for his reputation.’ (257c1-7, tr. Rowe) With these
words Phaedrus looks back on the Palinode as Socrates’ spoken word,
characterized in the third part as the living word of philosophy, and opens the
second part, devoted to rhetoric, which is in the third part dubbed as writing,
and dismissed as such. In the third part, the prominence of the Palinode is re-ascertained.
No comments:
Post a Comment