A letter to the President of Humboldt University

Dear Sabine Kunst,

I hope that you will read 'The Phaedrus and the Charmides – Plato in Athens 405-404', which I enclose in the Attachment. 

I hoped against hope that the article would be published in the forthcoming Winter edition of History of Political Thought. My hopes were dashed. On Dec. 20, there appeared an addition at the bottom of the first page of the proofs: HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. ????. No. ?. ?????????.  

The addition with its question-marks is worth seeing against the background of Barry O’Brien’s ‘Philosophers in knots over Dr Tomin’s Plato thesis’ (The Daily Telegraph, August 25, 1988): ‘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 in Cambridge. “He is extremely ingenious in his use of arguments, but he has not yet made out the kind of case that people are going to be able to take seriously.’ 

I believe that no one, who will read 'The Phaedrus and the Charmides – Plato in Athens 405-404', will be able not to take my views on Plato seriously. May I hope to be allowed to present it at Humboldt University? 

With best wishes,

Julius Tomin

PS – for your information

In Prague, in 1997 the first International Plato Symposium took place, and the Czech Plato Society was established. The Symposium was devoted to The Republic and the Laws of Plato.  In my contribution ‘Joining the beginning to the end’ I interpreted the Laws on the basis of the ancient tradition, according to which the Phaedrus was Plato’s first dialogue, written during Socrates’ lifetime. In 1998, at the end of the first Czech Symposium, which was devoted to Plato’s Lysis, the Members of the society decided that the theme of the next but one International Symposium should be the Phaedrus. But in 1999, at the next International Symposium, devoted to Plato’s Phaedo, this decision was overturned.

I was later informed that the international participants confronted the leading Members of the Czech Plato Society with a dilemma: if they persisted in having the Phaedrus as the theme for the next International Symposium, all foreign financial support would be withdrawn from the Czech Plato Society.

In the Preface to Plato’s Phaedo the leading Members of the Czech Plato Society write: ‘We would like to offer our warm thanks to the Deutsch-Tschechischer Zukunftsfonds which take over the sponsorship of the symposium.’

You may ask why ‘I was later informed … ‘? Why did not I ask there and then? But I did ask there and then; but the President, Aleš Havlíček, began to reply in Czech. I interfered: ‘In English, please, so that everybody can understand.’ He began again in Czech. I stopped him again: ‘In English, please!’ He sat down. No explanation was given.