No more protests at Balliol

 

It took me quite a time – if I count it from Aril 12 1980, i.e. from the visit of Dr Kenny, the Master of Balliol, in my seminar - to realise, that when I addressed Oxford Dons with my 'Let us discuss Plato', I was asking an impossibility.

What has helped me to see the light? A sombre re-evaluation of all my life spent with the Greeks, and Plato in particular, seen against the background of my relationship with Oxford.

I just needed a nudge.

I addressed Oxford Dons with a request: ‘I should like to present at the Faculty of Classics 'Dating and interpretation of Plato's Meno'. Would you support my request?’

Professor Coope replied: “I'm sorry. I have no role in decisions in relation to the Classics Faculty. I do have a role in these decisions in the Philosophy Faculty, but I'm afraid we always have a much larger number of suggested speakers than we can invite, so I don't think I'd be able to support such a request in relation to the Philosophy Faculty.”

Professor Coope was one of those whom I informed about Diogenes Laertius ii. 38, a passage that shows that the Meno was written by Plato while Socrates was still alive. Until then, everybody who wanted to study Plato was ‘informed’ that Plato began to write his dialogues only after Socrates died.

Let me quote the passage as it stands in R.D. Hicks’ translation: ‘Socrates would take to task those who thought highly of themselves, proving them to be fools, as to be sure he treated Anytus, according to Plato’s Meno. For Anytus could not endure to be ridiculed by Socrates, and so in the first place stirred up against him Aristophanes and his friends; then afterwards he helped to persuade Meletus to indict him on a charge of impiety and corrupting the youth.’ (Diog. Laert. Ii. 38)

What was the result of my pointing Professor Coope (and sixteen other Oxford Dons) to this passage? The ‘information’ that Plato began to write his dialogues only after Socrates died disappeared from the Wikipedia items on Plato, but without any reference to the passage that shows that Plato wrote the Meno, and presumably other dialogues, while Socrates was still alive. Wikipedia articles on Plato thus present the readers with a very distorted picture of Plato. This is what I would like to talk about in 'Dating and interpretation of Plato's Meno', and until this morning I just did not believe that my request could be ignored or rejected. But then I looked to Professor Coope’s response again: ‘I'm afraid we always have a much larger number of suggested speakers than we can invite, so I don't think I'd be able to support such a request’.

The passage which shows that the Meno was written prior to the accusation of Socrates puts into question everything written under the aegis of ‘Plato began to write dialogues after Socrates died’. Plato must be rethought. There is nobody at Oxford University who could undertake this task, and there is no college division or department that would allow me to present this matter for reflection and discussion.