Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Why Symposium in question marks?

In the title of my preceding post, I put Symposium in question marks. Why? My correspondence with Eduard Halper provides the best answer.

On October 12 I wrote:

Dear Professor Halper,

On 5 October we received the program of the Prague Symposium on the Phaedrus. I am intrigued by your Dialectic of the Ladder of Lovers. Is Lysias' 'non-lover' (ouk oid' hontina tropon erótikos (227c4-5) at the bottom of the ladder, and does the haimulos (237b4, 'cunning' Rowe or 'wily' Hackforth) lover of Socrates' first speech come next, and does Plato's lover with his boy, who are not devoted to philosophy but to honour, a coarser way of life (diaitéi phortikóteró te kai aphilosophói, philotimói de chrésóntai, 256b7-c1), who resort to sex 'when they get drunk or in some other moment of carelessness' (en methais é tini alléi ameleiai, 256c1-2), come next?

I'd appreciate it, if you sent me your paper. I am sending you in the Attachment my paper: 'The Phaedrus and the Charmides – Plato in Athens 405-404'.

As you can see, Mr Krása gave me a wrong title in the Programme. I asked, on what basis he did so, without consulting me. And so, he reminded me of the e-mail I sent to him on 22 April, in which I informed him that I just put on my blog a draft of the paper I should like to present at the Symposium, entitled 'Dating of the Phaedrus'. I looked at my post of that date; the title is different: 'A paper on Plato for the XIII Symposium Platonicum Pragense'.

And then it all came to my mind. As soon as I pressed the 'Send' button, two incidents came to my mind.

1/ early in this century, 2002 or 2003) I came to Oxford to protest at Balliol College LET US DISCUSS PLATO. A representative of the student magazine Isis asked classical philosophers why they refused discussing Plato with me. The reply he got was the following: 'We know about his dating of Plato's Phaedrus; He dates the Phaedrus as Plato’s first dialogue: why should we waste our time?’

2/ In the early 1990s I got a letter from the Head of the Philosophy department at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague. The Head, Mr Hejdánek, informed me that I was given a post at the Department, just for a year, during which I was expected to write a Professorial Thesis. In reply I accepted the offer, informed Mr Hejdánek of my views on the Phaedrus, which made my view of Plato radically different from any views accepted by academics, and that I shall go to Prague only after discussing Plato with British classical philosophers. Hejdánek promptly replied that the post was given to someone else.

At the next SAAP (Southern Association for Ancient Philosophy) conference, which took place at Corpus Christi College in Oxford, I asked why I cannot present at the Conference my views on the dating of Plato' Phaedrus. And so, I was invited to give my paper on the dating of the Phaedrus at the next conference, at Cambridge University. Christopher Rowe was entrusted with the opening of the discussion. I sent him my paper several months before the conference, hoping to get his critical response as soon as possible. I waited in wain; Christopher gave me his 'critical response' just before I was to read my paper. He found fault with my reference to Denniston concerning the kai gar in Diogenes Laertius’ dating of the Phaedrus. Mistakenly, he thought that I derived my interpretation of this collocation of particles from Denniston; in fact, on Kenneth Dover's advice, I studied for years the way these particles were used in every text I read, not only Plato. The rest of his lengthy 'response' Rowe devoted to his witty criticism of Schleiermacher's dating of the Phaedrus as Plato's first dialogue.

I look forward to your paper on The Dialectic of the Ladder of Lovers.

Best wishes,

Julius Tomin

PS

I was making slight changes in the letter, and in doing so I incurred a baffling difficulty. In the original I wrote: ‘We know about his dating of Plato’ Phaedrus; why should we waste our time?’ I wanted to correct the quote, for it was simpler, as I began to remember it better, and something important was missing: ‘He dates Plato’s Phaedrus as his first dialogue: why should we waste our time?’ The first two words were fine, but when I came to ‘Plato’s Phaedrus’ it was put on a new line. I went back to ‘He dates’ and pressed the Del button, and I got He dates lato’s Phaedrus’, I corrected it, and ‘Plato’s Phaedrus’ jumped again to the next line. I tried again and again, until finally a message appeared on the screen Other people are editing this document’.

Clearly, someone instructed my computer to interfere if I happened to remember the don’s words better. Anybody who read the quote as I wrote it originally, would think that no Oxford don would say it like that. I wracked my mind, and suddenly it came back. The ‘computer’ did not like that. To fool the computer, I rewrote it, thus making it even more complex and thus more improbable; in PS I could explain what happened and put in the better remembered quote: ‘He dates Plato’s Phaedrus as his first dialogue: why should we waste our time?’ But now I think, it was actually: Tomin dates the Phaedrus as Plato’s first dialogue: why should we waste our time?’

Once upon a time, I saw the classical philosopher’s quote in the Isis’ on-line features, and tried to find it, but when I googled ‘Julius Tomin on Isis’, I got completely unrelated references to Tomin.

***

Professor Halper replied:

Good to hear from you, Julius (if I may).  We met in Brighton in 1988 at a World Congress of Philosophy.  I trust that you are well.  I appreciate having a copy of your paper, especially because the time differences are likely to make it impossible for me to be present while it is being presented.  For the same reason, I will miss most of the conference.  

At this point, my paper has not been written down.  I am tempted to say that I have taken the Phaedrus too seriously, but the real reason is that I have not had time.  I hope to write out a draft before the conference, but I don’t usually read papers when I present them.  I am most interested in the back and forth between lover and beloved at 253-256. 

Best wishes,

Ed

 

Edward Halper

Professor of Philosophy

University of Georgia

Athens, GA 30602

 

 

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