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Symbolae Osloenses:
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A preliminary to the study of

Plato
Julius Tomin

Oxford
Published online: 29 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Julius Tomin (1992) A preliminary to the study of Plato,
Symbolae Osloenses: Norwegian Journal of Greek and Latin Studies, 67:1, 80-88,
DOI: 10.1080/00397679208590859
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Symbolae Osloenses Vol. LXVII, 1992, 80-88

A PRELIMINARY TO THE STUDY OF PLATO

JULIUS TOMIN

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Oxford

Derrida noticed links between Plato's Phaedrus and treatises on

sophists written by Isocrates and Alcidamas. He considered Plato
to be the borrower, and he traced the parallels back to Gorgias
as their source. His account is questioned; Isocrates and Alcidamas are found to depend on Plato; the current late dating of the
Phaedrus is revised.

For us, Plato is first and foremost a writer of philosophic works.

Yet in the Phaedrus he maintains that only the spoken word can
convey the truth. Does this mean that he laid special emphasis
on oral teaching in his academy? This might be a plausible
explanation if it were not for the Timaeus (22b-23c), the Politicus
(277c), and especially the Laws (890e-891a, and elsewhere), where
Plato elevates the power of the written word in describing, preserving, and communicating truth.
According to an ancient tradition the Phaedrus was Plato's
first dialogue, written during Socrates' lifetime. This might account for its derogation of the art of writing, for in it it is Socrates
who philosophizes, and as we know, he did not write philosophy.
We may suppose that in his first dialogue Plato wanted to account
for this, especially since he found Socratic discourse congenial to
him. And perhaps, as Schleiermacher surmises, at the beginning
he did not believe that written works could become equal to the
task of communicating philosophy.1
1. Schleiermacher believed that if we date the Phaedrus as Plato's first dialogue,
we can easily understand why he denigrated in it the written word in comparison to true philosophic communication that proceeded orally: he had to justify
why Socrates himself did not write. Full of enthusiasm for the Socratic way
of teaching, he at the beginning despaired of equalling it in his writing, but
afterwards he succeeded in learning it. See F. Schleiermacher, Piatons Werke,
2nd ed., Berlin 1817, vol. i, p. 75.

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81

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The problem would have been particularly acute for Plato since
he himself had arrived at truth through Socrates' philosophic
enquiries conducted through the spoken word.2 We may then
conjecture that in the course of further writing Plato's trust in
the capacity of the written word to convey the truth grew. It is
noticeable that in the Timaeus, in the Politicus, and in the Laws,
where the picture projected in the Phaedrus is corrected and
which all belong to the group of Plato's late dialogues, Socrates
either stands in the background as a receiver of philosophical
truth communicated to him and his friends by strangers, or is
completely absent.
Modern Platonic scholarship in its mainstream has discarded
the ancient tradition and placed the Phaedrus among Plato's
middle or late dialogues. Those who believe in the authenticity
of the Seventh Letter have tried with its help to remove the
apparent discrepancy concerning Plato's views on writing. It is
a late work, and Plato denies in it that writing might be trusted
as a vehicle for communicating the truth, and he does so in terms
evocative of the Phaedrus. But a closer attention to the text
disqualifies it for such purpose. In the Phaedrus Socrates erected
an ontological divide between the spoken and the written word,
which is here missing; in the Seventh Letter Plato found the
spoken word equally incapable of communicating truth (341 cd).
This passing diffidence was understandable: Plato had failed to
convey philosophic truth to Dionysius by oral communication
as well as by his writings.
Instead of explaining away these inconsistencies, Jacques Derrida emphasizes their philosophical relevance. He believes that
widely differing views on writing coexisted in Plato's thought

2. Aristotle in the Metaphysics (987bl-10) writes that in his youth Plato embraced Heracliteanism according to which everything was in constant flux;
Socrates had been preoccupied with searching for definitions of general concepts in the realm of ethics when Plato encountered him; Plato realized that
the Socratic search for definitions pointed to realities that were exempt from
all change, and called such entities Forms (). Aristotle's account implies
that Plato conceived of his theory of Forms under the direct impact of
Socrates' philosophizing, and not after the lapse of some ten or more years
after his death, as the modern dating of Plato would want us to believe.

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JULIUS TOMIN

thanks to the concept of pharmacon with which he in his view

identified the art of writing. Pharmacon can mean both drug and
poison, and it is this conceptual indeterminacy or predeterminacy
which according to Derrida stands in Plato's work as a pivot
upon which his thought glides from one opposite to the other,
from the noxious potency in the Phaedrus, to the beneficial
potential of writing in the Laws?
Derrida bases his interpretation on a passage in the Phaedrus
where the mythical inventor of writing presents his invention to
the king as a.pharmacon: 'my discovery provides a recipe [pharmacon] for memory and wisdom' (274e), says Theuth, the inventor.
The king answers: 'what you have discovered is a recipe [pharmacon] not for memory, but for reminder. And it is not true wisdom
that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance' (275a).4 Derrida contents that in Theuth's mouth the concept of pharmacon preserves its original duplicity, presenting itself ostensibly as remedy,
but preserving its capacity of poison. Derrida cannot find a case of
demonstrable conceptual association of writing with pharmacon in
its indeterminacy as remedy and poison in Plato, and so he capitalizes on the late dating of the Phaedrus by modern scholars who are
compelled to place it later than works of Isocrates and Alcidamas
that contain startling similarities to the Phaedran differentiation

3. This provides the main theme for Derrida's essay La Pharmacie de Platon; in
it he wants to show that Plato identified writing with pharmacon which he
conceives as anti-substance resisting all philosophical concepts, as non-identity, non-essence, non-substance, as the inexhaustible groundless ground of
philosophy. (See esp. pp. 264-265, 334, 347 in the recent edition of the essay
in Platon, Phdre, published by Flammarion, 1989. Derrida's essay is attached
to the dialogue as a philosophical commentary.)
If we pay closer attention to Plato's usage of the term pharmacon in the
Phaedrus itself and throughout the rest of his work, we can see that it fulfils
functions of the concept of 'means' for producing certain ends specified by
the given context. However strange it may sound, the Greek language had no
general concept that would fulfil the functions of our concept of 'means'. In
different contexts its role is supplied by , a 'tool' or 'instrument', or
by , 'resources' or 'ways and means', and by , 'a means of
producing something'. I f this is right then the concept is ill suited for the
function of philosophic substance/anti-substance or groundless ground which
Derrida ascribes to it.
4. Hackforth's translation in Plato's Phaedrus, Cambridge 1952, reprinted 1972.

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between the spoken and the written word. He contends that Plato
derived his armoury against writing from Isocrates and Alcidamas,
and beyond them from Gorgias, in whose Encomium of Helen logos
was compared topharmacon both in its noxious and in its beneficial
potency. When he maintains that Gorgias preempted Plato in contrasting the power of the spoken word to the impotence of writing,5
he errs. Gorgias did not deprecate the written word in the Encomium, on the contrary, he referred to it as an example of great
powers that logos can wield. He says there that 'a single speech
pleases and persuades a large crowd, because written with skill, not
spoken with truth' (13). 6 Derrida's error alerts us to the fact that
the problem of relative dating of the related works of Plato, Isocrates, and Alcidamas has not been solved satisfactorily; Gorgias'
work to which he pointed provides a welcome ground for approaching it.
In the Encomium Gorgias is bent on demonstrating that logos is
a powerful ruler (8), so he refers to the power of poetry, of magic
incantations, and of contradictory theories of cosmologists, and
he does so without distinguishing the spoken from the written word
(9-13). The only instance where he refers exclusively to the spoken
word is when he speaks of philosophical debates. For he says that
the persuasive power of logos is exhibited also in 'conflicts of philosophical speeches ( ), in which it is shown
that quickwittedness too ( ) makes the opinion
which is based on belief changeable' (13). 7 Clearly, in his time philosophy was identified with live debates, and was considered a separate activity from cosmological speculation. We know that Socrates
restricted philosophy to ethical problems and to live scrutiny of
8
opinions proffered by those whom he encountered. It seems that
Gorgias, his contemporary, reflects this Socratic imprint on philosophy. The more remarkable therefore is the fact that the live Socratic discourse did not convince him of any special persuasive power

5.
6.
7.
8.

Derrida, op. cit., pp. 318-322.

Translation MacDowell in Gorgias, Encomium of Helen, 1982.
Tr. MacDowell, op. cit.
Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics 987bl-3, 1078bl7-31; Plato, Phaedo 96a-99e.

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JULIUS TOMIN

of the spoken word, and that he preferred the power of speeches

written with skill.
It is different with Isocrates and Alcidamas; they both speak of
the advantages of the spoken word in terms similar to those of
Socrates in the Phaedrus. They both were disciples of Gorgias, and
the divide that separates them in this from their teacher requires an
explanation. The ancient tradition concerning the dating of Plato
offers one: Socrates' arguments in favour of the spoken word and
against the art of writing had become widely accepted only after
Plato had given them elegance and precision in his dialogue, and
Isocrates and Alcidamas reflected the situation created by it. The
hypothesis according to which it was these two who drew on Plato,
and not vice versa, can be put to the test: a closer attention must be
paid to the texts that exhibit the parallels.
In the Phaedrus the written word is likened to a painted image
of a living being that stands for ever fixed; it looks as if it were
alive, but when you ask it something, it remains in solemn silence.
The spoken word is different, it is alive, it has soul, it can defend
itself, and it knows to whom and when to speak and when to
keep silent (275d-276a). It seems that Isocrates had this passage
in mind when he wrote in Against the Sophists: 'Who does not
know that writings are deprived of movement and remain the
same, so that we continually use the same ones for the same
purposes, while exactly the opposite is true of the spoken word?'
(12). But there is a noticeable difference in the way in which this
imagery is presented in these two cases. Plato presents it as a
novelty; when Socrates asks Phaedrus to point out the legitimate
brother of the written word treated as an illegitimate offspring,
the latter is perplexed: 'What sort of discourse have you now in
mind, and what is its origin! he asks (276a). In marked contrast,
Isocrates presents it as a commonplace,9 and the ancient tradition
gives us enough time for it to have become so: Isocrates wrote
his treatise on the occasion of opening his school of rhetoric
around 390 B.C., some nine years after the death of Socrates.

9. This observation was made by Otto Immisch in: 'Zum gegenwrtigen Stand
der Platonischen Frage', Neue Jahrb. f. d. Kl. Alt., vol. iii, p. 550, n. 3.

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Isocrates in his treatise disparaged philosophers, but he did

not for that matter renounce philosophy. He considered philosophy to be a legitimate pursuit as far as it could be identified
with his own approach to rhetoric, and confined in principle
to the following: obtaining knowledge of the forms ( )
out of which speeches are composed, choosing appropriate
forms of speech for each subject, joining and arranging them
properly, and paying proper attention to concrete situations in
which they were to be used (16-18). This sounds like the programm of philosophical rhetoric taken from the Phaedrus
(269d-272b, 273de), reduced to technical basics, and stripped
of the metaphysical, ethical, and epistemological considerations
grounded in dialectic. This can hardly be fortuitous. Isocrates
had good reasons for presenting his own programm of teaching rhetoric as true philosophy, and to do so in terms that
would remind his readers of the Phaedrus. For in it Socrates
expressed a high opinion of his accomplishment in the art of
rhetoric and of his natural talent for philosophy (279a). It was
an excellent advertisment, he only had to disassociate himself
from the radical commitment to knowledge and truth that pervaded the dialogue. Socrates insisted there that an expert in
philosophical rhetoric would be guided by a higher goal than
the selfish aims of everyday politics, and that in its service a
man should be prepared to suffer, if necessary (274ab). With
that a teacher of rhetoric would not have wanted himself to
be associated, especially since such commitment had cost Socrates his life. And so he criticised philosophers for their pretending to search for truth, while in fact they deceived their
followers straightway at the beginning of their professions
(9 ' pxfj ; 1-3).
Plato's Phaedrus is vulnerable to this criticism. In it those who
would devote themselves to philosophy were promised a blessed
life on earth (256ab), the most happy life that men can live
(277a), yet as an example of a man devoted to the pursuit of
philosophy was chosen Polemarchus (257b). As long as he lived
amidst his wealth, as a friend of Socrates he was very well suited
to be quoted as an example of happiness on earth enjoyed by a
philosopher. But his death in the hands of the Thirty Tyrants in

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404 B.C. radically changed this picture;10 the Greeks would not
consider as good life a life that ended in such misfortune as that
to which he fell the victim.11 This provided Isocrates with a good
ground for distancing himself from a philosophy that made such
inflated, rash, and easily confutable promises and professions.
- These considerations impel us to date the Phaedrus before
Polemarchus died, some five years before the death of Socrates.12
Isocrates referred to the contrast between the liveliness of the
spoken word and the rigidity of the written word as a commonplace, and he mentioned it in a cursory manner. He admitted in
some of his later works that his voice was feeble and that he was
too timid to be himself a speaker;13 his occupation consisted in
writing carefully structured, rhythmically balanced, and well polished speeches. It is therefore plausible to conjecture that he men-

10. Lysias informs us about his brother's death in Against Eratosthenes. No

serious attempt can be made to assimilate the death of Polemarchus to the
death of Socrates - which seems to be the only option left to those who
insist on dating the dialogue after the death of Socrates. Polemarchus was a
rich alien; his death was without positive meaning for the Athenians; Socrates' death gave a deeper meaning to his whole life spent in philosophy, and
inspired others with a desire to become philosophers. After the death of
Polemarchus Plato seems to have changed his opinion of him. In the Republic,
the only other work in which he is mentioned, he is shown in a poor light;
questioned by Socrates about justice he is soon enmeshed in contradictions,
unable even to keep track of his own answers (331d-335e). Plato's Laws
stipulate that the property of resident aliens should not exceed that of third
class citizens; if it did, and the alien did not leave the city within thirty days,
his property should be confiscated, and he should be punished by death
(915bc). In retrospect, from the standpoint of the Laws, the Thirty had acted
lawfully in the case of Polemarchus. England makes an apposite remark in
his commentary on the Laws when he says that Plato's relatives among the
Thirty, Critias and Charmides, would have condoned this law. (E. B . England, The Laws of Plato, 1921, vol. ii, p. 515, n. on 915b6.)
11. See e.g. Herodotus i. 30-31; Aeschylus, Agamemnon 928-9; Sophocles, Trachiniae 1-3, Oed. Tyr. 1528-30; Euripides, Heraclidae 863-6, Andromache 100-2,
Troiades 509-10.
12. Schleiermacher seems to have been the only modern interpreter of Plato who
had dated the Phaedrus prior to the death of Polemarchus. Cf. his edition
of Plato's works, op. cit. pp. 72-73.
13. Cf. Isocrates, Philip 81, Panathenaicus 9-10, Epist. viii.7. Some further arguments for the rehabilitation of the ancient traditon on the dating of Plato's
Phaedrus can be found in my article 'Dating of the Phaedrus and Interpretation of Plato', Antichthon 1988, pp. 27-41.

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87

tioned the contrasting qualities of the spoken and the written word
only because the imagery involved was strongly evocative of the
Phaedrus; it was a price to be paid for reminding his readers and
potential customers by carefully chosen allusions of the praise bestowed upon him by Socrates in that dialogue. This conjecture derives additional strength from the fact that Alcidamas used the
Phaedran imagery to debunk those who claimed to be rhetoricians
while their activity was limited to writing speeches; he himself was
a rival of Isocrates, and having been attacked by him in Against
the Sophists for his weakness as far as the ability to write speeches
was concerned, turned the tables on him by alluding to the Phaedrus in his turn. For in it philosophy and true rhetoric were identified
with the domain of the spoken word and Alcidamas himself was
strong in extemporizing.
The passage in which Alcidamas was attacked by Isocrates
runs as follows: 'Although the speeches which they compose are
worse than those which some laymen improvise, nevertheless
they promise to make their students clever orators' (9). Alcidamas
retaliated in On Sophists with the following riposte: 'There are
some so called sophists who are as inexperienced in improvising
speeches as laymen; they devote their attention to writing of
speeches and display their wisdom through means of no permanence (' ), and yet hold themselves in high esteem' (1).
Opening his counterattack in this manner, Alcidames at a stroke
reminded his readers both of Isocrates' treatise and of the Phaedrus. Socrates' final censure in that dialogue is against writers who
would ascribe permanence () to their writings (277d).
Let us now turn to passages where Alcidamas' use of the
Phaedran imagery is concentrated. In paragraphs 27 and 28
he maintains that written works are like images () and
imitations () of real speeches, similar to bronze and
stone statues, and to painted pictures of living creatures ( ); the speech that comes directly from the mind of
the speaker has soul and is alive ( ;/), whereas
the written speech is merely stamped in its likeness (
), and stands immobile. Alcidamas carefully
prepared his readers for this massive borrowing; he declared that
the ability to snatch arguments from an opponent and to inte-

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JULIUS TOMIN

grate them into one's own speech was a mark of excellence that
distinguished those who were experienced in extemporizing (24);
earlier on he suggested that the skills acquired in extemporizing
would be useful in writing, but not vice versa (6).
The passage that in Alcidamas' treatise follows the paragraphs
27 and 28 with their use of the Phaedran imagery may shed some
light on the ancient tradition concerning the dating of the dialogue.
In his 'Life of Plato' Diogenes Laertius wrote: 'There is a story that
the Phaedrus was his first dialogue; for the subject has about it
something juvenile' (iii. 38). If an inability to foresee in which direction one's inclinations would develop marks a certain immaturity,
then Plato's derogation of the art of writing in his first dialogue
could be considered as such. Having evoked the imagery of the
Phaedrus, Alcidamas expatiates upon criticism that might accrue
to his own treatise by association: 'Someone might say that it is
irrational to speak against the art of writing, if writing is the means
through which one expresses oneself, and to raise prejudices () against an occupation through which one is going to
make oneself famous among the Greeks. It seems irrational, if one
devotes oneself to philosophy, to extol extemporizing... and to consider as more sagacious those who deliver their speeches without
preparation than those who write thoroughly prepared for their
task' (29). Alcidamas then devotes the rest of his treatise to explaining why such criticism does not apply to himself.
We may suppose that at the time when Alcidamas wrote his
treatise Plato had already published the Gorgias with its denunciation of forensic and political rhetoric. I f so, then it was by
design that Alcidamas introduced after the passages using the
Phaedran imagery a critic who could show up the Phaedrus in
its vulnerability: it was bound to cast a shadow of irrationality
upon its author. Yet we have reason to suppose that the criticism
as such was not of his provenance, for in it we detect a marked
shift in the perception of philosophy itself. Alcidamas shared the
Socratic view that identified philosophy with the spoken word
(2), whereas the critic evidently thought that it was the written
word that provided the proper means for exercising and promoting philosophy. By whom but Plato could have been occasioned
such a change of perspective?