Philosophical Review

Plato's Biography: The Seventh Letter Author(s): R. S. Bluck Source: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 58, No. 5 (Sep., 1949), pp. 503-509 Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2182043 . Accessed: 14/09/2011 11:49
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DISCUSSION PLATO'S BIOGRAPHY: THE SEVENTH LETTER

interesting article in the Philosophical Review (LVII, Sept., 439-457), Professor George Boas discusses the sources of our knowledge of Plato's life. I should like to make some remarks by way of a reply, confining myself, for the most part, to his arguments against the authenticity of the Seventh Letter. Professor Boas cites thirty-two "verbal echoes or citations of seventeen different dialogues." Their presence, however, need not surprise us, for there are many parallel passages in the Platonic dialogues; and I would merely refer to Dr. C. Vink, Plato's Eerste Alcibiades (pp. I42 if.), who shows that Book VI of the Republic contains over forty passages that may be compared with others occurring in sixteen of the accepted dialogues. These similarities no more concern "pet phrases" than do the passages cited from the Seventh Letter. Professor Boas objects in particular to the "God wot" in Boeotian dialect at 345a. To me the use of the exclamation in this connection seems natural enough. It may be used, as Burnet suggests,1 simply because the phrase struck Athenian ears as a quaint one,2 and may not be due to any reminiscence of Phaedo 62a. The total number of "verbal echoes" contained in the Letter seems well within the limits of what one might expect.3 A more serious allegation, perhaps, is the charge that the writer of the Letter has on occasion misunderstood passages in the genuine dialogues. Under the heading "Misunderstandings of the Dialogues," Professor Boas instances four passages, with which I will deal one by one.
1I948, 'Edition of the Phaedo, note on 62a8. 2Cf. Aristophanes' A charnians 9ii. 3Republic VI is contained in twenty-eight pages of Stephanus, the Seventh Letter in slightly over twenty-eight. 503

IN AN

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"Whereas 337 C gives fifty as the right number of guards for a city of io,ooo, Laws 753 D, says that thirty-seven guards would be enough for a city of 5,037 householders." In the first place, these words at 337c certainly look like a marginal gloss that has been incorporated (not without damage, and the eventual addition of a connecting particle) into the text.4 But whether they are a gloss or genuinely part of the original text, this body is clearly only a temporary committee, and therefore not comparable with the thirty-seven Law-wardens of the Laws.5 That the number is rather large compared with the ten who are to legislate for the colony at Cnossos at Laws 702C may be due partly to a desire to placate the democratic party and partly to the large size of the citizen body at Syracuse, which must have exceeded io,ooo in number6 (the word often translated " I0,000" can mean simply "populous"7). As for the appropriateness of the comment to the situation in Syracuse, our writer is here making concrete proposals, and that a commentator in a gloss, or even Plato himself in a parenthesis, should suggest the number fifty for the board of commissioners seems to me natural enough. (2) 33gb "echoes Philebus, I2 B, but completely reverses the meaning of it." Now at Philebus I 2b, Philebus, in handing over his part in the argument to Protarchus, "calls the goddess herself" to witness his action, thereby suggesting, as the context shows, an identification of Pleasure with Aphrodite. Socrates then says that they must "begin with the goddess herself, who, according to our friend, is called Aphrodite, though her real name, he tells us, is Pleasure"; and he goes on to express his fear that names given to gods may not please them, and to observe that there are many kinds of pleasure, which, since a god is necessarily of single nature, refutes Philebus' identification.8 At 335b in our Letter we read that the man who is selfish and poor in spirit "shamelessly snatches everywhere whatever
(i)

he supposes .

. will provide him with .

. satisfaction in the form of

that slavish and unlovely pleasure that is wrongly called by the name of the goddess of Love."9 The meaning is surely the same in both
4Cf. Harward, The Platonic Epistles, p. 209. 5Cf. Harward, loc. cit. 6See note in my edition of the Seventh and Eighth Letters on 332c, p. 96. 7So far as I can discover from the appropriate lexica, the word does not occur elsewhere in Plato, or in Xenophon, Thucydides, or any of the orators, and only once each in Aristotle and Isocrates. In Isocrates, Panathenaicus 286e, it certainly means no more than "populous." 8Cf. Hackforth, Plato's Examination of Pleasure, p. 14. 9For this article I have used (with permission) my translation of the Letter in Plato's Life and Thought, just published by Messrs. Routledge and Kegan Paul. 504

DISCUSSION passages: the goddess Aphrodite is sometimes associated, but should not be, with the baser forms of pleasure. (3) 33od-33id is "obviously based" on Republic 425e, but is a "misunderstanding" of it. The Republic passage is concerned with the futility of over-much detailed legislation. Those states which, having a bad form of government, forbid any radical change in the constitution, under penalty of death, but honor those who minister to their whims by proposing a host of petty regulations, are like invalids who try all sorts of ineffective remedies, but "in their depraved condition refuse to give up their unwholesome way of life." In the Letter, our writer describes the principles which have always guided him in the giving of advice, and in particular the giving of advice to "a sick man who leads a life that is incompatible with health." In such circumstances he will give advice only if it is likely to be accepted; similarly he will give advice to a city, but only if he is sure "that his words are not going to fall on deaf ears, and that he is not going to die for his pains" (33 id). The suggestion seems to be that just as a radical change of outlook was required if Dionysius was to become a good king, so also it is needed now if his readers are to achieve peace. In both passages the point being made is that where a fundamental change is needed, whether in the behavior of individuals or in the government of a state, the genuine would-be reformer can achieve nothing if violent opposition is shown to the only sort of reform that could accomplish the required end. The same theme appears at Republic 496c and Apology 3 d-32a (where Plato was probably thinking partly, at least, of his own early ambitions). None of these passages, in my view, shows "misunderstanding" of any of the others. (4) 344C "echoes Phaedrus 277 D, in saying that no serious man would write down his deepest thoughts and thus deliver them over to the mob; but the reasons are not the same in both places." Now in the Letter10 we are told that no man of sense will put his highest thoughts into writing, especially as the written word is unalterable (343a), because sensible objects are always imperfect-what we call "round" always contains a measure of straightness, and vice versaand neither a name nor a definition is really "reliable" (0313aLov); nothing is "really reliably fixed"; names and definitions, as instruments in an attempt to communicate truth, are "not clear" ('abatfs, 343b). They fill everyone "with every kind of bewilderment and perplexity" (a/aaelag, 343c).
10 have tried in my edition to show that the "philosophical digression" is not, as Professor Boas declares, "absurd." See also my translation. 505

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I still believe-despite Professor Tate (Classical Review, LXII, p. I3I; cf. my translation [footnote 9])-that this unreliability of names is meant to be thought of as largely due to the indeterminate nature of the objects to which they refer; for we find that names and definitions, as well as the objects themselves, can be "refuted by the senses" (363c). The Phaedrus draws a sharp distinction between oral guidance which can take into account the psychology of the pupil (277bc, cf. 27 IC-2 72b), and written discourses which resemble paintings in being unable to answer questions (275de). If anyone writes a political treatise "supposing that there is any real reliability (03EIaL06rTra) and clearness (aa$'vELac) in his account," it is disgraceful." The reasons, then, for not trying to express one's highest thoughts in written treatises are, according to bothworks (a) the fixity of written words which prevents them from answering questions, and (b) their lack of "reliability" and "clarity." The main difference between the two passages, to my mind, is that the Letter explains more fully what is meant by lack of reliability, which suggests that the Letter is not slavishly copying the Phaedrus. I find in the Letter, then, no misunderstanding of any of the dialogues. Professor Boas sees a mark of "internal inconsistency" at 34IC fT. Our writer, he thinks, follows up his remark, "I have never written a treatise about them and never shall," by saying in effect, "I shall now begin to expound what I have just said was ineffable." Now, as we have seen, the Phaedrus also suggests that philosophical truth cannot be communicated in a written work (and the same belief is implied in the Laws"2), and yet in several of the accepted dialogues we find dialectical method discussed at least as fully as in this Letter. But to describe the manner in which one should set about attaining knowledge is very different from attempting to put that knowledge itself into words. The matters about which the writer of the Letter claims never to have written a treatise are those which he regards as really important" (repicIw ads 34Ic); they are the truths oYwov tvco, which must be "seriously valued" and reside in the soul (344c),13"the chief and primary facts of nature" (344d). From 344b-c it is clear that he means those truths about the ideas which dialectic (and only
"Because it implies (as in the Letter) "ignorance of the nature of justice and injustice and of good and evil" (277de). "By the admission that that work is a mere "pastime" (685a, 769a). "The "fairest place" he has must be the soul. Cf. Phaedrus 276a: the only "word" of real value is that which is graven in the pupil's soul. 506

DISCUSSION dialectic) can reveal.'4 Plato often describes the function of the Ideas but never tries to communicate their essential nature. This passage explains why the nature of the Good is ineffable, but certainly does not undertake to describe it.5 Professor Boas objects to the use of certain terms as "Aristotelian." T7 rotov rT. If we accent this expression as it is usually accented at 343C (76 wrotv T), we have precedents in Plato, e.g., Republic 438b,e, Cratylus 432b, cf. Philebus 37c. If we write To wroZov Tr, and note that this is contrasted with "the 'what"' (,T rt) at 343c, we must take it as a general expression for the answer to the question, "What sort of thing is it?" But in view of the context it seems natural to translate this not as "qualities" (as opposed to substance),"6 or even as "the thing qualified," but simply as "the vague general likeness." And in this sense the expression is not Aristotelian. It was probably one of many such expressions that originated in the Academy and came to have a special meaning in Aristotle's doctrine, and I can see no reason why the ancients should have remarked on this particular instance. (2) "The discussion of the five elements needed for science is illustrated as in Aristotle (Metaph. 997 B. 35998 A, 4)." Aristotle is saying that if there must be mathematical "intermediates," the objects of astronomy should be "intermediate" as well, for its objects are as exact as those of the geometrician. What more natural than that he should take the mathematical circle as an instance of exactitude? So far as I can see, the passage bears no other resemblance to the Letter. (3) rev w r pXe'q1v, 34Ie (= "thesis"). Our writer seems to be apologizing'7 for the use of the term by adding the word Xeyo~e'v7pv (= "so-called," cf. 335b); but Laws 63 ia and 722d suggest that the word was at least beginning to have a technical sense in Plato's time.
(i)

'4Professor Cherniss (Aristotle's Criticism of Plato and the Academy, p. 245, note) remarks that "the very detail of the catalogue of Ideas" at 342d may "justly arouse suspicion." Certain indications have suggested that in this passage Plato may be using old material, a transcript of an oral lecture (cf. Post, Thirteen Epistles of Plato, pp. 56, 152); but in any case the universal applicability of the doctrine of Ideas is an important link in the argument. '5Hence I cannot agree with Professor Cherniss (The Riddle of the Early Academy, p. 13) that, if this Letter is genuine, Plato has himself borne witness against anything we may write about the real purport of his thought. Christian theology can be described by an unbeliever; so, too, one who has not "seen the Idea of the Good" can describe Plato's beliefs; what we cannot do is communicate Plato's own personal spiritual feeling. '6It is shown, in fact, that language and sensible objects do not give us a clear notion even of qualities (343ab).

"7Cf. the apology for the use of

O LO'T6s

at Theaetetus i82a.

507

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I conclude with a few general remarks. Professor Boas, like Jowett, is impressed by the lack of further testimony to Plato's Sicilian visits. Harward"8has observed that this may be ascribed to the loss of many histories and other works concerned with Sicily at this has shown that Diodorus on the one hand, and period. But Morrow"9 Nepos and Plutarch on the other, almost certainly used Ephorus and Timaeus respectively for their accounts of the banishment of Dion, and that Timaeus must have used Philistus' history as well as the Letter. This at least affords a priori ground for believing that Timaeus found Philistus' account in general agreement with the Letter, for Timaeus was a careful historian, and even Plutarch is prepared to admit a discrepancy in the evidence when he finds one.20For my part, I am convinced of the Letter's authenticity; but even if I were not, I should be inclined to accept it as on the whole biographically accurate. It is one thing to create a legend about, for example, the divine parentage of a famous personality, but quite another to invent, at a date not very long, anyhow, after they are supposed to have occurred, an account of journeys that he never made. As for the absence of mention of these visits in the dialogues, Plato's political ideals (which he never entirely abandoned) were rooted in theory rather than in experience, and it was his practice in any case to refrain from autobiography; but many of the touches in the picture of the "tyrannical man" in Republic IX have reminded commentators of Dionysius,2"in much the same way as at 494c "Plato is portraying the type although Alcibiades sits for the portrait"22; and Post has shown that the early books of the Laws reflect quite clearly Plato's interest in Dionysius and Syracuse.23 Again, if our writer's tone appears "dogmatic," we must remember that Plato nowhere, apart from the Letters, speaks in his own person, and also that dogmatism was in the philosophic tradition. It goes right back to the "inspired" poet-philosopher-seer of early antiquity,24 and is reflected, as I believe, in the authoritarian regimes of the Republic and the Laws. Lastly, if it seems strange that Plato should introduce Critias and Charmides into his dialogues if he regarded them as the Letter would seem to show, it is no less strange that he should introduce Anytus
18The Platonic Epistles, p. 74. 19Studiesin the Platonic Epistles, University of Illinois Bulletin XXXII, 43, 31ff. 20Dion, t 20. 21Cf. Morrow, op. cit., p. 5o; Adam, notes on Republic592b, 499b; Harward, op. cit., p. 13. 22Adam, note ad loc. 23Transactions of the American Philological Association LX (1929), 13ff. 24Cf. Cornford, Journal of Hellenic Studies LXII (1942), 7. 508

DISCUSSION into the Meno despite the part that he had played in the prosecution of Socrates-and that within a decade of writing the Apology. Plato, it seems, could suppress his personal feelings in the creation of a work of art. I have so far confined myself to discussion of the SeventhLetter, but I am tempted to remark on one further point. Professor Boas speaks of "the legend of the Platonic fusion of Pythagoreanism and Socraticism"; and the unreliable nature of Diogenes Laertius' account of Plato's debt to the Heracliteans leads him to declare that "one begins to suspect that the Heracliteanism of Plato is of a piece with his Pythagoreanism and should be relegated to the dustbin of legend." It would appear that he is dismissing the evidence of Aristotle as readily as he dismisses the stories of later writers; but that is surely carrying skepticism too far. R. S. BLUCK Fettes College, Edinburgh

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