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Philosophical Review

Plato's Biography: The Seventh LetterAuthor(s): R. S. BluckSource: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 58, No. 5 (Sep., 1949), pp. 503-509Published by: Duke University Presson behalf of Philosophical ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2182043.Accessed: 14/09/2011 11:49

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DISCUSSIONPLATO'S BIOGRAPHY:

THE SEVENTH LETTERIN AN interesting article in the Philosophical Review (LVII, Sept.,

1I948, 439-457), Professor George Boas discusses the sources ofour knowledge of Plato's life. I should like to make some remarks byway of a reply, confining myself, for the most part, to his argumentsagainst the authenticity of the Seventh Letter.Professor Boas cites thirty-two verbal echoes or citations ofseventeen different dialogues. Their presence, however, need notsurprise us, for there are many parallel passages in the Platonic dia-logues; and I would merely refer to Dr. C. Vink, Plato's EersteAlcibiades (pp. I42 if.), who shows that Book VI of the Republiccontains over forty passages that may be compared with othersoccurring in sixteen of the accepted dialogues. These similarities nomore concern pet phrases than do the passages cited from the

Seventh Letter. Professor Boas objects in particular to the God wotin Boeotian dialect at 345a. To me the use of the exclamation in thisconnection seems natural enough. It may be used, as Burnet sug-gests,1 simply because the phrase struck Athenian ears as a quaintone,2 and may not be due to any reminiscence of Phaedo 62a. Thetotal number of verbal echoes contained in the Letter seems wellwithin the limits of what one might expect.3A more serious allegation, perhaps, is the charge that the writerof the Letter has on occasion misunderstoodpassages in the genuinedialogues. Under the heading Misunderstandings of the Dialogues,Professor Boas instances four passages, with which I will deal one byone.

'Edition of the Phaedo, note on 62a8.2Cf. Aristophanes' Acharnians 9ii.3Republic VI is contained in twenty-eight pages of Stephanus, the Seventh Letterin slightly over twenty-eight.503

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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW(i) Whereas337 C gives fifty as the right number of guards for acity of io,ooo, Laws 753 D, says that thirty-seven guards would beenough for a city of 5,037 householders. In the first place, thesewords at 337c certainly look like a marginal gloss that has been in-corporated (not without damage, and the eventual addition of a con-necting particle) into the text.4 But whether they are a gloss orgenuinely part of the original text, this body is clearly only a tempo-rary committee, and therefore not comparable with the thirty-sevenLaw-wardens of the Laws.5That the number is rather large comparedwith the tenwho are to legislate for the colony at Cnossos at Laws 702Cmay be due partly to a desire to placate the democratic party andpartly to the large size of the citizen body at Syracuse, which musthave exceeded io,ooo in number6(the word often translated I0,000can mean simply populous 7). As for the appropriateness of thecomment to the situation in Syracuse, our writer is here makingconcrete proposals, and that a commentator in a gloss, or even Platohimself in a parenthesis, should suggest the number fifty for the boardof commissioners seems to me natural enough.(2) 33gb echoes Philebus, I2 B, but completely reverses the mean-ing of it. Now at Philebus I 2b, Philebus, in handing over his part inthe argument to Protarchus, calls the goddess herself to witnesshis action, thereby suggesting, as the context shows, an identifica-tion of Pleasure with Aphrodite. Socrates then says that they mustbegin with the goddess herself, who, according to our friend, iscalled 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 isselfish and poor in spirit shamelessly snatches everywhere whateverhe supposes . . . will provide him with . . . satisfaction in the form ofthat slavish and unlovely pleasure that is wrongly called by the nameof 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 occurelsewhere in Plato, or in Xenophon, Thucydides, or any of the orators, and onlyonce each in Aristotle and Isocrates. In Isocrates, Panathenaicus 286e, it cer-tainly 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 inPlato's Life and Thought, just published by Messrs. Routledge and Kegan Paul.

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DISCUSSIONpassages: the goddess Aphrodite is sometimes associated, but shouldnot 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 withthe futility of over-much detailed legislation. Those states which,having a bad form of government, forbid any radical change in theconstitution, under penalty of death, but honor those who ministerto their whims by proposing a host of petty regulations, are likeinvalids who try all sorts of ineffective remedies, but in their de-praved condition refuse to give up their unwholesome way of life.In the Letter, our writer describes the principles which have alwaysguided him in the giving of advice, and in particular the giving ofadvice to a sick man who leads a life that is incompatible withhealth. In such circumstances he will give advice only if it is likelyto be accepted; similarly he will give advice to a city, but only if heis sure that his words are not going to fall on deaf ears, and that heis not going to die for his pains (33id). The suggestion seems to bethat just as a radical change of outlook was required if Dionysiuswas to become a good king, so also it is needed now if his readers areto achieve peace. In both passages the point being made is thatwhere a fundamental change is needed, whether in the behavior ofindividuals or in the government of a state, the genuine would-bereformer can achieve nothing if violent opposition is shown to theonly sort of reform that could accomplish the required end. The sametheme appears at Republic 496c and Apology 3 d-32a (where Platowas probably thinking partly, at least, of his own early ambitions).None of these passages, in my view, shows misunderstanding ofany of the others.(4) 344C echoes Phaedrus 277 D, in saying that no serious manwould write down his deepest thoughts and thus deliver them overto the mob; but the reasons are not the same in both places. Nowin the Letter10we are told that no man of sense will put his highestthoughts into writing, especially as the written word is unalterable(343a), because sensible objects are always imperfect-what we callround always contains a measure of straightness, and vice versa-and neither a name nor a definition is really reliable (0313aLov);nothing is really reliably fixed ; names and definitions, as instru-ments in an attempt to communicate truth, are not clear ('abatfs,343b). They fill everyone with every kind of bewilderment andperplexity (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.

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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEWI still believe-despite Professor Tate (Classical Review, LXII,p. I3I; cf. my translation [footnote 9])-that this unreliability ofnames is meant to be thought of as largely due to the indeterminatenature of the objects to which they refer; for we find that names anddefinitions, as well as the objects themselves, can be refuted by thesenses (363c).The Phaedrus draws a sharp distinction between oral guidancewhich can take into account the psychology of the pupil (277bc, cf.

27 IC-2 72b), and written discourses which resemble paintings inbeing unable to answer questions (275de). If anyone writes a politicaltreatise supposing that there is any real reliability (03EIaL06rTra)and clearness (aa$'vELac) in his account, it is disgraceful. Thereasons, then, for not trying to express one's highest thoughts inwritten treatises are, according to bothworks (a) the fixity of writtenwords which prevents them from answering questions, and (b) theirlack of reliability and clarity. The main difference between thetwo passages, to my mind, is that the Letter explains more fullywhat is meant by lack of reliability, which suggests that the Letteris not slavishly copying the Phaedrus. I find in the Letter, then, nomisunderstanding 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 writtena treatise about them and never shall, by saying in effect, I shallnow begin to expound what I have just said was ineffable. Now,as we have seen, the Phaedrus also suggests that philosophical truthcannot be communicated in a written work (and the same belief isimplied in the Laws 2), and yet in several of the accepted dialogueswe find dialectical method discussed at least as fully as in this Letter.But to describe the manner in which one should set about attainingknowledge is very different from attempting to put that knowledgeitself into words. The matters about which the writer of the Letterclaims never to have written a treatise are those which he regards asreally important (repi Iw adsYwov tvco, 34Ic); they are the truthswhich must be seriouslyvalued and reside in the soul (344c),13 thechief and primary facts of nature (344d). From 344b-c it is clearthat he means those truths about the ideas which dialectic (and only

Because it implies (as in the Letter) ignorance of the nature of justice andinjustice 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 onlyword of real value is that which is graven in the pupil's soul.506

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DISCUSSIONdialectic) can reveal.'4 Plato often describes the function of the Ideasbut never tries to communicate their essential nature. This passageexplains why the nature of the Good is ineffable, but certainly doesnot undertake to describe it.5

Professor Boas objects to the use of certain terms as Aristotelian.(i) T7 rotov rT. If we accent this expression as it is usually accentedat 343C (76 wrotv T), we have precedents in Plato, e.g., Republic438b,e, Cratylus 432b, cf. Philebus 37c. If we write To wroZovr, andnote that this is contrasted with the 'what ' (,T rt) at 343c, wemust 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 seemsnatural to translate this not as qualities (as opposed to substance), 6or even as the thing qualified, but simply as the vague generallikeness. And in this sense the expression is not Aristotelian. Itwas probably one of many such expressions that originated in theAcademy and came to have a special meaning in Aristotle's doctrine,and I can see no reason why the ancients should have remarked onthis particular instance. (2) The discussion of the five elementsneeded for science is illustrated as in Aristotle (Metaph. 997 B. 35-998 A, 4). Aristotle is saying that if there must be mathematicalintermediates, the objects of astronomy should be intermediateas well, for its objects are as exact as those of the geometrician.What more natural than that he should take the mathematicalcircle as an instance of exactitude? So far as I can see, the passagebears no other resemblance to the Letter. (3) rev w pXe'q1v, 34Ie(= thesis ). Our writer seems to be apologizing'7 for the use ofthe term by adding the word Xeyo~e'v7pv= so-called, cf. 335b);but Laws 63ia and 722d suggest that the word was at least beginningto have a technical sense in Plato's time.

'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 mayjustly arouse suspicion. Certain indications have suggested that in this passagePlato may be using old material, a transcript of an oral lecture (cf. Post, ThirteenEpistles of Plato, pp. 56, 152); but in any case the universal applicability of thedoctrine of Ideas is an important link in the argument.'5Hence I cannot agree with Professor Cherniss (The Riddle of the Early Acade-my, p. 13) that, if this Letter is genuine, Plato has himself borne witness againstanything we may write about the real purport of his thought. Christian theologycan be described by an unbeliever; so, too, one who has not seen the Idea of theGood can describe Plato's beliefs; what we cannot do is communicate Plato'sown personal spiritual feeling.'6It is shown, in fact, that language and sensible objects do not give us a clearnotion even of qualities (343ab).7Cf.he apology for the use of O O'T6s at Theaetetus82a.

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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEWI conclude with a few general remarks. Professor Boas, like Jowett,is impressed by the lack of further testimony to Plato's Sicilianvisits. Harward 8has observed that this may be ascribed to the loss

of many histories and other works concerned with Sicily at thisperiod. But Morrow 9has shown that Diodorus on the one hand, andNepos and Plutarch on the other, almost certainly used Ephorusand Timaeus respectively for their accounts of the banishment ofDion, and that Timaeus must have used Philistus' history as wellas the Letter.This at least affords a priori ground for believing thatTimaeus found Philistus' account in general agreement with the Letter,for Timaeus was a careful historian, and even Plutarch is preparedto admit a discrepancy in the evidence when he finds one.20For mypart, I am convinced of the Letter'sauthenticity; but even if I werenot, I should be inclined to accept it as on the whole biographicallyaccurate. It is one thing to create a legend about, for example, thedivine parentage of a famous personality, but quite another to invent,at a date not very long, anyhow, after they are supposed to haveoccurred, an account of journeys that he never made. As for theabsence of mention of these visits in the dialogues, Plato's politicalideals (which he never entirely abandoned) were rooted in theoryrather than in experience, and it was his practice in any case to re-frain from autobiography; but many of the touches in the picture ofthe tyrannical man in Republic IX have reminded commentatorsof Dionysius,2 n much the same way as at 494c Plato is portrayingthe type although Alcibiades sits for the portrait 22;and Post hasshown that the early books of the Laws reflect quite clearly Plato'sinterest in Dionysius and Syracuse.23Again, if our writer's toneappears dogmatic, we must remember that Plato nowhere, apartfrom the Letters,speaks in his own person, and also that dogmatismwas in the philosophic tradition. It goes right back to the inspiredpoet-philosopher-seer of early antiquity,24 and is reflected, as I be-lieve, in the authoritarian regimes of the Republic and the Laws.Lastly, if it seems strange that Plato should introduce Critias andCharmides into his dialogues if he regarded them as the Letterwouldseem to show, it is no less strange that he should introduce Anytus

18The Platonic Epistles, p. 74.19Studies n 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

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DISCUSSIONinto the Meno despite the part that he had played in the prosecutionof Socrates-and that within a decade of writing the Apology. Plato,it seems, could suppress his personal feelings in the creation of a workof art.I have so far confined myself to discussion of the SeventhLetter, butI am tempted to remark on one further point. Professor Boas speaksof the legend of the Platonic fusion of Pythagoreanism and Socratic-ism ; and the unreliable nature of Diogenes Laertius' account ofPlato's debt to the Heracliteans leads him to declare that one beginsto suspect that the Heracliteanism of Plato is of a piece with hisPythagoreanism and should be relegated to the dustbin of legend.It would appear that he is dismissing the evidence of Aristotle asreadily as he dismisses the stories of later writers; but that is surelycarrying skepticism too far. R. S. BLUCKFettes College,Edinburgh

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