A student emailed me

 

A student emailed me:

“I was at Barbara's [Barbara Day’s] place the other day and we were talking about the interviews she made with you in 1997 for her book The Velvet Philosophers. How did you relate the conversations and Ideas of Greek philosophers to the contemporary situation in Czechoslovakia at the time you were involved with the underground seminars? 

Did you directly or indirectly practice the philosophy of Plato in your real life? If you did, how? If you didn't, why?”

 

I replied:

“I enjoy reading Plato, but in those days, I was not interested in his philosophy, I was interested in Socrates. In 1970-1975 I worked as a turbine operator in 'condensation', under a low-pressure turbine, in the bowels of the ancient 19th century Power Plant. As I was reading, there, Plato's Republic, I found uncanny similarities between Plato's bent on censorship - even the songs were strictly prescribed by the Guardians in his Republic - and the censorship in Czechoslovakia after the Soviet invasion of 1968, with its destruction of all free thinking in the official mass media. A chain of incidents created a situation in which, in the end, I became a Platonic scholar.

It all began with the visit of Dr Anthony Kenny, the Master of Balliol, in my seminar in Prague in April 1980. In the afternoon, my wife Zdena was taking Kenny and his wife sight-seeing. My seminar began at six, Kenny and his wife arrived at half past five. Kenny took Aristotle's Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics out of his bag, showed me a page from the 10th book of the Nicomachean and from the 8th book Eudemian ethics: 'Julius, in my talk I shall refer to these two passages. Would you translate them for your students at the beginning of the seminar?' I looked at the Nicomachean Ethics, I had the passage heavily underlined, with exclamation marks. Aristotle argues there that philosophy is the key to good life, for you can do philosophy as long as you live, even in isolation, with nobody to discuss it with. It can improve your life as long as you live. But I never read the Eudemian Ethics. I told Kenny that I must go into the kitchen and read the Eudemian passage at least once.

 

I just managed to read the last line of the Eudemian passage when my wife came: 'Julius, you must come, the room is full of people.' I went, sat beside Kenny, who turned to me: 'Julius, would you translate these two passages from Aristotle’s Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics, for I shall be referring to them in my talk.' I replied: 'Yes Tony, I shall read aloud each sentence in Ancient Greek and then give my Czech version of it.'

 

It was a long exhibition, which Kenny thus offered to me. I began with the Nicomachean and ended with the Eudemian passage. When I finished the translation, Kenny said that the two Ethics have three books in common, which are printed only in the Nicomachen Ethics; in the Eudemian Ethics they are omitted with an explanation that EE 4-6 = EN 5-7. Against this tradition, as Kenny discovered by computer analysis of style, the three books stylistically belong to the Eudemian Ethics. In his view, the two Ethics differ in the conception of good life. In the Nicomachean passage happiness consists in contemplative activity; philosophy is the key to good life. In the Eudemian Ethics, happiness consists in an ideal functioning of every part of the soul. The Eudemian conception is critical of the Nicomachean conception. The hero of the Nicomachean Ethics, who devotes his life to philosophy, unless he is called for to do so, is not wise but cunning, and turns out, by the standards of the Eudemian Ethics, to be a vicious and ignoble character. Kenny stated that only the Edemian Ethics is Aristotle’s.

 

After translating Kenny, I said that for us the Nicomachean passage was valuable: “We never know when we all end in prison. If this happens, it is good to know that philosophy can make our life better even in prison. I believe that when Aristotle wrote that passage, he had in mind Socrates in the Phaedo; a philosophic discussion with his followers and friends transformed Socrates’ last day into the best day of his life. Kenny riposted: “Julius, wouldn't you agree that Socrates was a good man, but a poor philosopher, whereas Plato was a good philosopher, but a devious man?” I replied: “Tony, I don't agree. Plato is full of Socrates. You obviously draw a dividing line through Plato’s dialogues; dialogues which are below what you consider to be philosophy, it’s Socrates; dialogues in which philosophy begins, it's Plato. I don't make any such dividing line through Plato's dialogues.' – Big banging on the door, the Secret Police marched in; they began by taking away Kenny and his wife. In the night they took them to the border-crossing, and let them go to West Germany on foot.

 

In May, Kathy Wilkes came to spend a week with us. She was eager to hear all about Kenny's visit. As I was trying to explain it to her, I said: 'Diogenes Laertius in his ‘Life of Plato’ says that the Phaedrus was Plato's first dialogue. In all my reading of Plato I found nothing that would force me to reject that ancient tradition.' Kathy exclaimed: 'You can't be serious!' I said: 'We are leaving Prague for Oxford in September. Come in August, for a month, and let us read the Phaedrus together.'

 

She came, we did. August was beautiful, we spent most of the time in Stromovka (a great park, a former hunting ground of the Kings) on a bench. In that joint reading I came upon the first important indication that Plato wrote the Phaedrus before the Thirty Tyrants took power, i.e. some five years prior to Socrates' death.

 

The Palinode ends with Socrates’ prayer to Eros, the god of Love:

“Dear God of Love … If in our earlier speech Phaedrus and I said anything harsh against you, blame Lysias as the instigator of the speech, and make him cease from speeches of that kind, turning him instead, as his brother Polemarchus has been turned, to philosophy, so that his lover here may no longer waver as he does now between the two choices, but may single-mindedly direct his life towards love with the aid of philosophy.”

Polemarchus was put to death by the Thirty Tyrants, because he was the richest man in Athens, and they were eager to get their hands on those riches. Lysias wrote in his speech Against Eratosthenes:

“Polemarchus received from the Thirty their accustomed order to drink hemlock, with no statement made as to the reason for his execution: so far did he come short of being tried and defending himself … they had all that silver and gold, with copper, jewellery, furniture and women’s apparel beyond what they ever expected to get … and yet to what extremes of insatiable greed for gain did they go, in this revelation that they made of their personal character! For some twisted gold earrings, which Polemarchus’ wife chanced to have, were taken out of her ears by Melobius as soon as ever he entered the house.”

How could Plato’s Socrates have urged Lysias to follow the example of his brother Polemarchus, after the latter found his death in the hands of the Thirty Tyrants?