Recently I came upon some mention of a literary interpretation method by which you can arrive to perceiving Plato's work as ironic criticism of ideals. I am not certain if it was just reverse-reading but something along those lines. Anyone got any info?
There are different schools of thought regarding this, some borrowing from others with certain changes. The ancient skeptical period Academy seems to read Plato this way within certain limits (they assert that Plato was non-dogmatic, and clearly they have the shorter "aporetic" dialogues in mind, but we can infer that they apply this understanding to dialogues like Phaedo or Republic). Cicero sometimes goes back and forth between asserting a Platonic doctrine and implying Plato was a skeptic. The precursor to the Neoplatonists Numenius at least explicitly reads the Euthyphro as ironic ("If Plato, having set out to write about the theology of the Athenians, had felt disgusted at it and started to criticize it for containing internal dissent and parents having sex with their children or eating them, and for praising the punishments in revenge for these acts, exercised on their parents by children and by brothers on brothers and other such things; if Plato thus, having taken on such stories, had criticized them in public, he would, it seems to me, have given the Athenians a reason to show themselves evil again and kill him too as they did Socrates. Because he would not have chosen to live rather than to speak the truth, and because he saw that he could safely reconcile living and speaking the truth, he putEuthyphroforward as the personification of the Athenians, a pretentious man and an idiot, who thinks wrongly about the gods as nobody else, and confronted him with Socrares himself in his usual way of acting in which he used to question everybody with whom he was discussing.").
The Islamic medieval Platonist Al-Farabi is a further touchstone, both never making the least mention of the Forms in his summary of Plato's philosophy, and claiming at the beginning of his summary of the Laws that Plato practiced a kind of deception in his writing.
(Cont.)
In the 20th century, the most thorough-going and foundational interpretation of this type was by Leo Strauss, who, following up on a host of historical claims that philosophers used to regularly practice exoteric writing and esoteric teaching (google "Arthur Melzer appendix"), interpreted Plato as an ironic (but not satirical) writer in his various essays and lectures on Plato (for his writings on exo/esotericism, look up "Persecution and the Art of Writing", "Exotericism", "On a Forgotten Kind of Writing"; for Strauss on Plato, look up his essays on the Republic in "The City and Man", his essays on the Apology and Krito and Euthydemus in "Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy", his lectures on the Symposium). Strauss compared to most of his students was much less willing to to assert overly bold claims beyond what he could find in a text; his students tend to be bolder (often less defensibly so), and tend to disagree with each other, tho they read "in the manner" of Strauss. Among the Straussians that interpret Plato ironically, Stanley Rosen is probably the most reasonable (and his background is all over the place, informed by both continental and analytic philosophy in addition to Strauss), Seth Benardete is the most philologically astute and "out there" (his commentaries are themselves difficult to think through), and Thomas Pangle (who comes pretty close to equating Plato with Nietzsche, ridiculously).
Non-Straussian ironic readings tend to be come from Jacob Klein and his students (his own assertions and justifications are outlined in the introduction to his commentary on the Meno). He reads Plato more like the skeptical Academics: open to metaphysics, but with no certainty. The most noteworthy interpreter like Klein is Eva Brann, who has a book of essays on Plato ("The Music of the Republic"), and a bunch of translations of the dialogues (Sophist, Statesman, Phaedo, Symposium, Meno).
Then there's the "dramatic" readings of Plato, both descending from Strauss and Klein, but either affiliated with different schools of thought (Ferrari tends to be analytic, Gonzalez and Hyland tend to be Heideggerian), or unaffiliated with any school. The best representation of these broader positions can be found in the Gerald Press edited collections of studies on Plato.
(Cont.)
In any case, if you're interested in evaluating these kinds of readings, the best bet is to pick a dialogue and read through an irony-oriented commentary. Obvious areas of criticism are what Aristotle says about Plato, Xenophon's depictions, and the stances of Plato's immediate successors and the later Middle- and Neoplatonist traditions. Most non-affiliated and Kleinian readers run into trouble here, tho Strauss wrote four books on Xenophon and lectured on Aristotle many times (available online). The Neoplatonists are a blind spot of seemingly everone, and Lloyd Gerson's critiques of this kind of reading are particularly withering on this point. On the other hand, the Academic skeptics (which included students present during the end of Plato's life) are a blindspot for Gerson, and Harrold Tarrant's work on Aristotle and the early Academy seems damage both ironic and traditional readings (he takes Plato as a metaphysician, against the Straussians, but not a skeptic, against unaffiliated dramatic readers, and he argues thoroughly that Aristotle's accounts can't be trusted, against the traditionalists).
To give one example, just as a "for instance", a dramatic reader in reading the Republic, would notice that justice, in being defined as "minding one's own business and not being a busybody" conflicts with the demand for a philosopher-king in two ways: 1--justice is discovered as being the same as the principle of "one man, one art", and so a philosopher-king would have two arts, the art of philosophizing and the art of ruling, ergo the philosopher-king is already not abiding by justice, and 2--the city's guardians have to either compel or persuade the philosopher to rule, and so injustice, insofar as they interfere with the philosopher's practice, is involved. Whether you buy that, that's the basic shtick--if you see a contradiction or tension in the dialogue that would strike anyone on their face as such, presume Plato didn't miss it and is saying something indirect.
fantastic effort posts, and well-deserved trips
one last question, what kind of reading of Plato are you partial to, and would you mind going into a bit of detail? the more, the merrier
I tend to like Strauss, Rosen, and Benardete, since they're well-informed and careful, but not really the other Straussians who seem more willful in their readings. Even when I disagree with the three above, following their readings makes me a better reader of Plato in having to account for and pay attention to a lot of details I'd otherwise miss.
is it true that Strauss and company were all atheist nihilists who thought every philosopher was just like them?
>is it true that Strauss and company were all atheist nihilists who thought every philosopher was just like them?
I mean, there are certainly Straussians like that, but there are also Straussians who contest something or other from that characterization (so-called "West Coast Straussians" tend to be religious or deny the atheism of many philosophers). My own suspicions about Strauss himself are: 1) He himself is privately atheist. 2) Usually his claims about the religious persuasion of philosophers is that they're *heterodox*, and not atheist per se, or that they're "legally" atheist according to the laws or customs of the place they philosophize in (but again, not necessarily atheists as such). 3) I take it that Strauss both understands philosophy to be fundamentally zetetic, i.e. constantly inquiring or skeptical, and that he himself is such as well, but that the character of this skepticism isn't to dismiss possibilities such as god or objective morality out of hand.
This is also not to deny that he did think certain thinkers were atheists; Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza he takes as such. If your understanding of god requires that god have a personal interest in us and a hand in our providence, then he takes Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, Al-Farabi, and Maimonides as atheists, but if not, his treatment of them is rather as of heterodox figures and not atheists per se.
Pangles, Lampert, Bloom (and other lesser known Straussians I've personally met) do seem to think Strauss and his Plato are more like Nietzsche. I think they do find interesting correspondences, but tend to take as strong conclusions very tentative or speculative things.
As for more details, I can, but I'm at work atm, if I get a break or something I'll hop back in. Anything in particular you're curious about?
The indeterminate dyad. The evidence for its existence in the Platonic dialogues, its implications, how the Straussians (especially Benardete) utilize the concept, etc.
>The indeterminate dyad. The evidence for its existence in the Platonic dialogues, its implications, how the Straussians (especially Benardete) utilize the concept, etc.
1) So basics first. Aristotle references the Dyad in the Metaphysics and Physics, sometimes calling it "the Great and the Small". He characterizes it in the Metaphysics as being to the One what his own material cause is to his formal cause, and that the Dyad seems to be a principle for generating the "Form Numbers" with the one. It's hard to say what to do with this, since on the one hand Aristotle doesn't go into enough detail, and on the other hand because he's trying to argue that it's absurd. Speussipus, in a fragment, also talks about the Dyad, but seems to say it's a principle related to Good and Evil. Some scholars like John Dillon (look up his book on the Old Academy) take Speussipus to have developed his own doctrine of the Dyad distinct from Plato's, perhaps on the grounds that Speussipus does have disagreements with and different positions from Plato, but, being fragments, I don't think we could be confident any which way on his version, just that, insofar as it differs from Aristotle's account, we may need to be okay with not knowing what the frick is going on here. One concrete suggestion Aristotle makes in the Physics, bk. 4, is identifying it with the receptacle of the Timaeus, which leads to your first question.
(Cont.)
2) On the Dyad and the dialogues. So Aristotle sees it in the Timaeus (though we don't know whether he sees it because Plato or someone else told him or because he inferred it). Some scholars (especially those of the Tubingen school, but also the aforementionedJohn Dillon, and arguably the Neoplatonists in some commentaries) see it in the dialogues as well. One objection might be, "if the Dyad is an unwritten teaching, then we ought not see any evidence of it in the dialogues". But the argument can be saved by the Seventh Letter: "If it seemed to me that these [philosophical] matters could adequately be put down in writing for the many or be said, what could be nobler for us to have done in our lifetime than this, to write what is a great benefit for human beings and to lead nature forth into the light for all? But I do not think such an undertaking concerning these matters would be a good for human beings, unless for some few, **those who are themselves able to discover them through a small indication**; of the rest, it would unsuitably fill some of them with a mistaken contempt, and others with lofty and empty hope as if they had learned awesome matters." (341d-e) So the Dyad could be indicated while not being mentioned or argued for explicitly.
Dillon seems to see the Dyad in the second hypothesis of the Parmenides generating number, and in the passages about measure in the Statesman. The Tubingen school (and forgive me for not doing more with their work, it's been a long time since I've read any of them) seem to locate not just in those two dialogues, but in the Sophist and especially Philebus, with all of the latter's passages about the "unlimited".
Obvs, all of this is speculative and hard to definitively argue one way or another.
(Cont.)
3) On the Dyad's implications. Aristotle calls it one of Plato's principles ("archas"), but the terminology of arche seems to be Aristotle's own, and we're not in a position to discern whether Plato was confident about it or used it as a hypothesis (cf. the Phaedo's discussion of Socrates' second sailing and his turn to hypotheses). The way modern scholars (and the Neoplatonists, who use a lot of Aristotelian nomenclature) discuss it may muddy the matter somewhat; most scholars call the hypotheses of the Parmenides "deductions" as though they were more certain, and not what they are, "hypotheses", suppositions meant to help thinking do what it does.
That would be speaking strictly. But let us grant the Dyad as a principle and assume Plato was convinced of it with certainty. What's striking is that the Forms as broadly portrayed in the dialogues aren't generated by it, if Aristotle's account is true, but rather the Form Numbers. Why it should be the case that one of two primary principles isn't responsible for the rest of the Forms is mysterious, and may imply a greater standing to the Form Numbers than, say, the Form of Couch or the Form of Even. As is, the dialogues ostensibly propose an account (even if many accounts) of how the phenomenal world relates to Being, but that seems to disappear with the Dyad. But again, we know so little of it.
4) Strauss doesn't seem to mention the Dyad anywhere I'm aware of, but his friend Kojeve brings up the Dyad in their correspondence, and though he seems to have only written on Aristotle once (first chapter of The City and Man), he lectured on Aristotle constantly and regularly did private tutorials with students on him, so he's at least aware of it. None of the other Straussians seem to make anything of it either, but this isn't peculiar to them since most Plato scholars make nothing of it. Benardete's students devote a whole chapter to the Dyad in Encounters and Reflections (look it up on b-ok.cc or wherever you download books), and to summarize a little of that chapter, he thinks he started to grasp something of it from the Philebus. His understanding of it is so peculiar though, and doesn't seem to match what Aristotle says (though perhaps might work with Speussipus' account?). He's lectured on Aristotle's Metaphysics and Physics, and a Metaphysics transcriot and recordings of the Physics lectures are available through the Benardete archive online, but I haven't had a chance to devote myself to them yet, but I'm sure he'll have some interesting comments and observations there.
But for Benardete, the Dyad seems to be a principle of thinking wherein a Form that looked to be one splits into two upon investigation, or a two turn out to be one through analysis. His examples would be the two senses of justice in the Republic, the three teachings of Eros in the Symposium, the three speeches in the Phaedrus, and the Limited and Unlimited in the Philebus.
OP here. (The other guy's not me), thanks for the clarification.
Is some section in Plato broadly accepted as ironic?
Probably the conclusions of the Protagoras and Euthydemus? At the end of Protagoras, Socrates breaks off his conversation with Protagoras claiming to have business to attend to, and that business ends up being repeating the entire conversation he just had with an acquaintance; similarly, at the end of Euthydemus, Socrates, having just given a long account of two ridiculous sophists, claims he and Crito should become students of them. I don't think anyone at all contests that Socrates is being ironic in both cases.
Ahh, excellent thing to ponder. Let me ruminate on that for a bit; since it sounds like you're already familiar with Benardete, to put it really simply in his case, he treats it as a principle never explicitly discussed in the dialogues (in line with Aristotle's claim about unwritten doctrines), but still present by indication (in line with the Seventh Letter and Phaedrus), and it seems to require two to three forms having a relationship to each other where they indeterminately appear as one or more as the dialogue continues. One example Benardete points to is the Good in the Gorgias on the one hand comprehending Beauty and Justice, but as the dialogue continues, the Beautiful turns out to contain the Good in it in turn. I'll try to give a better explication when I get off work in a bit.
based poster
Cheers anons, nice to be part of a chill thread.
this thread doesn't deserve to die this early wtf
brap
Fascinating thread.
Is the Seventh Letter really authentic?
Without autographs, it's hard to say. Stylometric analyses (depending, because the standards of what to look for expand and contract from scholar to scholar and have changed over the last century) tend to conclude that it contains stylistic elements of the so-called later dialogues of Plato, but stylometric tests are notorious for not being able to deal with authors like Joyce who can change style from chapter to chapter. Michael Frede and Myles Burnyeat did a set of seminars a decade or two ago (since published as a book), and they attempt to refute its authenticity (and Burnyeat's case, it's an implicit polemical point against Straussians). From my reading, I don't think they make their case; Burnyeat argues from probability that because so many ancient letters seem to be pseudepigraphal, that we can safely guess the Seventh Letter is too, but that's not definitive. He further argues that it lacks properly Platonic philosophical content, but this ignores both the purported circumstance of the letter (Plato's friend Dion has been assassinated by another member of the Academy, and he's addressing mutual friends in Syracuse), and it ignores texts like Menexenus that we know are authentic because Aristotle explicitly refers to it, but which scholars like Burnyeat don't make heads or tails of because it doesn't match the philosophic content they assume should be there. Frede's argument claims to require no presuppositions about how to interpret the dialogues, but at a decisive moment, his dismissal hinges on how the letter talks about politics and his take on that assumes interpretations of both Republic and Laws and their relationship to each other. So I'm personally not convinced of their arguments. Just about every ancient canon of the dialogues regularly reject pseudo dialogues like On Virtue or On Justice or the Definitions but include the letters, so there's at least an ancient precedent for keeping track of these things, and it seems, if not decidingly certain, at least probable that the Academy before it was sacked kept track of authentic versus inauthentic writings.
I'm currently studying Plato's dialogues reading them in Greek while listening to Strauss' lectures in parallel. I enjoy his close readings with this particular eye for details. What other literature/commentaries would you recommend that will assist me in my reading and make me reach a deeper non-superficial understanding of Plato.
Awesome, that's really the best way to make use of Strauss. I'd say look to commentaries like the Adams commentaries on the Republic (I think you should be able to find them via archive.org or in Perseus?). Debra Nails's Prosopography of Plato is indispensable for being able to discover certain dramatic ironies, since it covers every historical figure in all the dialogues (so, e.g., it's helpful to see Phaedrus' comments in the Symposium and his speeches in the Phaedrus in light of the fact that he was among those implicated in blaspheming the Mysteries with Alcibiades, and Thradymachus' claims in the Republic have a different character when you realize he had to act as a diplomat for his home country to protect it from Athens).
Any old Neoplatonic or medieval Arabic (Al-Farabi, Averroes) commentary is worth downloading and reading through. Even when I suspect they're misreading or overstating something, there are heaps of helpful insights, and not just with the dialogues but the broader tradition, and quotations from books and authors we otherwise now lack. Renaissance Platonism, while beautiful to read about, has too much overt Christanizing to make use of, but sometimes they help with arguments.
If you have access to an academic library, see if they have A Word Index to Plato, which carefully tracks the uses in just abput every dialogue of key terms. It helps to compare and contrast, say, how Eros appears everywhere outside of Symposium and Phaedrus or how Thumos appears outside of the Republic.
As above, I really dig Benardete and Rosen, and any books or articles you can find are enormously helpful.
Are there any notable Christian commentaries on The Republic that are translated into English? Any era is fine, whether it is Byzantine, Renaissance, etc.
I think you'd want to look up the collection of Ficino's writings on the political dialogues, including the Republic, "When Philosophers Rule."
And actually, now that I think of them, if you don't mind their being modern, Joseph Pieper has a good commentary on the Phaedrus with a definite Catholic perspective, and the oddball anti-Straussian Straussian William Altman just finished up a series of (I think) five volumes of interpretations of the dialogues that in part try to argue that Plato is consonant with Christianity.
If you don't mind his being ~~*one of God's chosen*~~ instead of Christian, there's the writings of Philo of Alexandria who interprets the bible in light of Plato, and who was somewhat of an influence on early Christian thinkers.
Also, look up the works of Herman scholars like Schliermacher's Introductions to the dialogues, or Paul Friedlander's three volume summary of Plato's thought and the dialogues.
And don't be afraid to read widely. Heidegger's lectures on the Sophist and the Cave myth in the Republic are exciting even if willful as interpretations, and Gadamer's books and essays on Plato (and those of John Sallis) are great phenomenological interpretations making careful sense of the Greek. Even analytic interpretations, while I disagree with them almost top to bottom, are worth reading as a real test of your grasp of the dialogues. There's something very gratifying about being able to read a professional scholar's interpretation and notice that their argument hinges on ignoring something crucial.
>look up the works of Herman scholars
*German, obvs
I read Heidegger's lectures when I was writing something on the Sophist. very good and detailed, but I needed Frede's essay on the more difficult passages to make full sense of them
>if i just ~~*interpret*~~ this the way I want I can come to the conclusions I want to
This is one of the most interesting threads we've had in a while, thanks OP and to all involved!
fantastic thread