Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 1

Since we thus find that Plato was unconquerably averse to publication in his own name and with his own responsibility attached to the writing, on grave matters of philosophy — we cannot be surprised that, among the numerous lectures which he must have delivered to his pupils and auditors in the Academy, none were ever published. Probably he may himself have destroyed them, as he exhorts Dionysius to destroy the Epistle which we now read as second, after reading it over frequently. And we may doubt whether he was not displeased with Aristotle and Hestiæus44 for taking extracts from his lectures De Bono, and making them known to the public: just as he was displeased with Dionysius for having published a work purporting to be derived from conversations with Plato.

That Plato would never consent to write for the public in his own name, must be taken as a fact in his character; probably arising from early caution produced by the fate of Sokrates, combined with preference for the Sokratic mode of handling. But to what extent he really kept back his opinions from the public, or whether he kept them back at all, by design — I do not undertake to say. The borrowed names under which he wrote, and the veil of dramatic fiction, gave him greater freedom as to the thoughts enunciated, and were adopted for the express purpose of acquiring greater freedom. How far the lectures which he delivered to his own special auditory differed from the opinions made known in his dialogues to the general reader, or how far his conversation with a few advanced pupils differed from both — are questions which we have no sufficient means of answering. There probably was a considerable difference. Aristotle alludes to various doctrines of Plato which we cannot find in the Platonic writings: but these doctrines are not such as could have given peculiar offence, if published; they are, rather abstruse and hard to understand. It may also be true (as Tennemann says) that Plato had two distinct modes of handling philosophy — a popular and a scientific: but it cannot be true (as the same learned author45 asserts) that his published dialogues contained the popular and not the scientific.

No one surely can regard the Timæus, Parmenidês, Philêbus, Theætêtus, Sophistês, Politikus, &c., as works in which dark or difficult questions are kept out of sight for the purpose of attracting the ordinary reader. Among the dialogues themselves (as I have before remarked) there exist the widest differences; some highly popular and attractive, others altogether the reverse, and many gradations between the two. Though I do not doubt therefore that Plato produced powerful effect both as lecturer to a special audience, and as talker with chosen students — yet in what respect such lectures and conversation differed from what we read in his dialogues, I do not feel that we have any means of knowing.

In judging of Plato, we must confine ourselves to the evidence furnished by one or more of the existing Platonic compositions, adding the testimony of Aristotle and a few others respecting Platonic views not declared in the dialogues. Though little can be predicated respecting the dialogues collectively, I shall say something about the various groups into which they admit of being thrown, before I touch upon them separately and seriatim.

The scheme proposed by Thrasyllus, so far as intended to furnish a symmetrical arrangement of all the Platonic works, is defective, partly because the apportionment of the separate works between the two leading classes is in several cases erroneous — partly because the discrimination of the two leading classes, as well as the sub-division of one of the two, is founded on diversity of Method, while the sub-division of the other class is founded on diversity of Subject. But the scheme is nevertheless useful, as directing our attention to real and important attributes belonging in common to considerable groups of dialogues. It is in this respect preferable to the fanciful dramatic partnership of trilogies and tetralogies, as well as to the mystical interpretation and arrangement suggested by the Neo-platonists. The Dialogues of Exposition — in which one who knows (or professes to know) some truth, announces and developes it to those who do not know it — are contrasted with those of Search or Investigation, in which the element of knowledge and affirmative communication is wanting. All the interlocutors are at once ignorant and eager to know; all of them are jointly engaged in searching for the unknown, though one among them stands prominent both in suggesting where to look and in testing all that is found, whether it be really the thing looked for. Among the expository dialogues, the most marked specimens are Timæus and Epinomis, in neither of which is there any searching or testing debate at all.

Republic, Phædon, Philêbus, exhibit exposition preceded or accompanied by a search. Of the dialogues of pure investigation, the most elaborate specimen is the Theætêtus: Menon, Lachês, Charmidês, Lysis, Euthyphron, &c., are of the like description, yet less worked out. There are also several others. In the Menon, indeed,46 Sokrates goes so far as to deny that there can be any real teaching, and to contend that what appears teaching is only resuscitation of buried or forgotten knowledge.

Of these two classes of Dialogues, the Expository are those which exhibit the distinct attribute — an affirmative result or doctrine, announced and developed by a person professing to know, and proved in a manner more or less satisfactory. The other class — the Searching or Investigative — have little else in common except the absence of this property. We find in them debate, refutation, several points of view canvassed and some shown to be untenable; but there is no affirmative result established, or even announced as established, at the close. Often there is even a confession of disappointment. In other respects, the dialogues of this class are greatly diversified among one another: they have only the one common attribute — much debate, with absence of affirmative result.

2. Dialogues of Exposition) coincides, to a considerable extent, with the two distinct intellectual methods recognised by Aristotle as Dialectic and Demonstrative: Dialectic being handled by Aristotle in the Topica, and Demonstration in the Posterior Analytica. “Dialectic” (says Aristotle) “is tentative, respecting those matters of which philosophy aims at cognizance.” Accordingly, Dialectic (as well as Rhetoric) embraces all matters without exception, but in a tentative and searching way, recognising arguments pro as well as con, and bringing to view the antithesis between the two, without any preliminary assumption or predetermined direction, the questioner being bound to proceed only on the answers given by the respondent: while philosophy comes afterwards, dividing this large field into appropriate compartments, laying down authoritative principia in regard to each, and deducing from them, by logical process, various positive results.47 Plato does not use the term Dialectic exactly in the same sense as Aristotle. He implies by it two things:

2. That the matter investigated shall be general — some general question or proposition: that the premisses shall all be general truths, and that the objects kept before the mind shall be Forms or Species, apart from particulars.48 Here it stands in contrast with Rhetoric, which aims at the determination of some particular case or debated course of conduct, judicial or political, and which is intended to end in some immediate practical verdict or vote. Dialectic, in Plato’s sense, comprises the whole process of philosophy. His Dialogues of Search correspond to Aristotle’s Dialectic, being machinery for generating arguments and for ensuring that every argument shall be subjected to the interrogation of an opponent: his Dialogues of Exposition, wherein some definite result is enunciated and proved (sufficiently or not), correspond to what Aristotle calls Demonstration.

2. Dialogues of Investigation or Search, without an affirmative result — and if we compare the number of Dialogues (out of the thirty-six in all), which he specifies as belonging to each — we shall find twenty-two specified under the former head, and fourteen under the latter. Moreover, among the twenty-two are ranked Republic and Leges: each of them greatly exceeding in bulk any other composition of Plato. It would appear thus that there is a preponderance both in number and bulk on the side of the Expository. But when we analyse the lists of Thrasyllus, we see that he has unduly enlarged that side of the account, and unduly contracted the other. He has enrolled among the Expository —

3. The Phædrus, Symposion, and Kratylus, which are admissible by indulgence, since they do indeed present affirmative exposition, but in small proportion compared to the negative criticism, the rhetorical and poetical ornament: they belong in fact to both classes, but more preponderantly to one.