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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