- Plato’s characters talk to each other: about where they are going (e.g., Euthyphro 2–4), who they met yesterday (e.g., Euthydemus 271), where they are planning to have dinner (e.g., Symposium 174); and about virtue (e.g., Meno), about knowledge (e.g., Theaetetus), about truth and falsehood (e.g., Sophist), about what there really is (e.g., Parmenides). Some of what they say seems utterly trivial, but some seems universal and of abiding importance. So, for example, in the Protagoras, the short conversation between Socrates and his friend at 309c–310a has the air of gossip, while the discussion about the virtues between Socrates and Protagoras at 332a–333b appeals to general principles and seeks an abstract conclusion. Does the dramatic detail of the dialogues have any bearing on their philosophical purposes? I shall say that it does—that, indeed, we cannot properly make sense of what Plato does if we ignore the effect on the arguments of dramatic context, allusion, characterisation—indeed, of all the aspects of the style and drama of a dialogue. This effect is felt both particularly (where the dramatic detail alters radically how we understand individual arguments) and generally (where various strategies render the reader carefully reflective on what is said). I shall conclude that the philosophical content of a dialogue is to be found, at least, in the dialogue as a whole. How Plato writes, therefore, is indissoluble from what he is trying to say.
- A Different View: Pictures and Frames
- One answer would be that some parts of a dialogue give us the emotive cast, the tone, of what will follow. The Symposium describes—in delightful detail—Socrates’ wayward progress to Agathon’s dinner party and what happened next. In darker contrast, several dialogues turn on Socrates’ trial and execution: the Phaedo describes Socrates’ death, surrounded by friends, whose grief Socrates finds inappropriate. This theme is picked up in other dialogues, too: Meno (Meno 80b) warns Socrates of the dangers of practising his puzzling method of examination; in the Hippias Major, Socrates’ alter ego tells him that he will never make a really fine speech in court until he knows what fine really is (304c–e); and the Theaetetus, presented as a memorial to Socrates’ young lookalike, Theaetetus, ends with Socrates going off to court (to his meeting, we suppose, with Euthyphro in the King’s Porch; Theaetetus 210d). All this affects us, makes us care about what we read.
- The Interlocutors
In the dialogues, people talk to each other. Some are richly characterized and act accordingly. Euthyphro, for example, comes to the discussion on his way to court, to prosecute his father for the murder of a slave (4a–d); in this extraordinary act11 he has complete confidence, by virtue of the expertise he claims in matters moral and religious (4e–5a). This comes across as an arrogance so deep-seated that even when Socrates shows it to be unfounded, Euthyphro cannot forsake it but quits the scene in haste (15c–e). Charmides is introduced as a young man as noble of spirit as he is handsome (Charmides 154d), and his discussion with Socrates reveals that his character is appropriately modest for a discussion of the virtue of self-control or temperance, sophrosun ^ ^e. Ctesippus is said to be headstrong (Euthydemus 273a); accordingly, he is the first to succumb to the attractions of sophistic argument (298b ff.). And there is Socrates: regularly the protagonist, but variously portrayed: Sometimes he is Socrates the expert in erotics (e.g., Lysis 204b–c, Symposium 177e)—at times apparently inflamed by beautiful young men (Charmides 155c–e, Symposium 216), at times coldly self-controlled (Symposium 217b ff.). Sometimes he is a solitary (late for dinner because he is thinking alone, Symposium 174–75; compare Euthydemus 272e); but sometimes he insists on the company of friends as the best way to proceed in philosophy (e.g., Charmides 166d; Gorgias 486e ff.; Cratylus 391a). He is regularly described as brave (e.g., Laches 181), and he certainly seems to have the courage to discuss anything with anyone; but at times he is apparently terrified by the arguments against him (Euthydemus 293a). Sometimes he is modest (e.g., Euthydemus 272c–d), sometimes arrogant (Gorgias 482)—and sometimes the modesty seems to be a ploy, designed to flummox those to whom he presents himself (compare Euthyphro 5a–c with 15d–16a).
- This figure of Socrates is often unattractive and always difficult to interpret;14 it might properly deter us from seeking a single and uniform account of the dialogues, as much as from looking for a single Socrates persisting through the dialogues.15 For its Socrates may be particular to each dialogue and may both remind us of the other Socrateses and discourage us from supposing that any portrait aims for verisimilitude. Still, Socrates is usually a vivid figure. Some dialogues, by contrast, present their main figures in an exiguous way. The Eleatic Stranger, for example, is introduced as ‘‘godlike’’ (Sophist 216); that may be why he has little individual character.16 His interlocutors, Young Socrates and a subdued Theaetetus, are as thinly characterized. The contrast between these dialogues and those rich dramas of character has tempted commentators to posit a difference in their dates: to suggest that ‘‘the’’ dialogue form was a literary device that lost its appeal later in Plato’s life, to be replaced by an inadequate gesture in the direction of style. But maybe we should pause: How are we to understand the relation between the richly portrayed Theaetetus of his eponymous dialogue and his thin counterpart in the Sophist? Or, within a single dialogue, the benign figure of ‘‘father’’ Parmenides in his eponymous dialogue, compared with his meager portrayal in the second half of the same dialogue? Is the line of demarcation between character and argument to be drawn so easily? And is it so to be drawn for Plato?
- Identification and Transparency
- The Trouble with Imitation
- Imaginative identification may prove problematic, however, even where it might seem plausible (identifying with the Eleatic Stranger, or with Young Socrates of the Statesman is a harder task). In the Republic, Socrates is disapproving of dramatic performance (605e ff.), since it takes over our emotions under reason’s inadequate guard.21 Socrates denies that this kind of sympathy is intellectually healthy— especially sympathy with those who are not exemplary characters (as many of Socrates’ interlocutors are not)—for in imitating poor or uncontrolled characters, we shall ourselves practise their inadequacy, and so much the worse for us. But even the imitation of good characters will be problematic as a means of learning wisdom. For wisdom—or so, at least, Socrates seems to say on several occasions—is not something that is transmitted by our passive absorption of what we learn (for example, Protagoras 313–34; Symposium, 175; compare Euthydemus 285, Republic 345b). Instead, the search for wisdom is a hard road, whose traveling we cannot delegate to anyone else (see Apology 23a–b; Euthydemus 281). So neither imaginative identification with Socrates’ interlocutors nor even with Socrates himself seems to be the right way of going about philosophical inquiry. If we read, in the dialogues, representations of philosophy being done, that tells us nothing about how we should do philosophy with the dialogues. How far, then, does either the criticism of poetry and drama that Socrates puts forward in the Republic, or the repudiation of a passive model of learning, target Plato’s own writing, too?
- Philosophical Fiction
- It would be an obvious mistake to take the Symposium, or the Gorgias, or even the Parmenides, to describe some historical event, just as it happened. For each dialogue is a work of fiction, somehow artfully composed in such a way that we notice the artistry itself.33 Consider, for example, the pastoral tone of the Phaedrus—a work set ostentatiously outside Athens (whither Socrates allegedly only ventured twice34); or the high tragedy of the Phaedo (apparently recorded by Plato, even though he was away sick; 59b); or the logically low comedy of the Euthydemus (Socrates’ encounter with a pair of sophists with poor historical credentials35). The Apology claims to be Socrates’ speech in his own defense, but it includes an improbable philosophical discussion with his accusers (24d–28a).36 The Parmenides describes a visit to Athens paid by the two great Eleatics, Parmenides and Zeno, and their discussion with the young Socrates: bien trouve´, but are we meant to think it actually happened?37 The dramatic dates and places of the dialogues, therefore, may be trickier than at first appear. So the dialogues are not merely verbatim reports of actual events; but artful presentations of conversation. We may distinguish, therefore, between:
- The philosophy that is represented in the fictional encounters of the dialogues: Do the discussions between Socrates (often) and various interlocutors constitute a dialogue’s philosophical content?
- The representing of those encounters: Or is Plato doing more—from a philosophical point of view—than merely recording these discussions when he writes?
- The story is told by Socrates, who wrote no philosophy (this is the direct representation). His telling of the story, however, is represented in such a way that we notice as we read that the story somehow undermines its own mode of representation (it is told in writing). This is not, then, mere reportage. Instead, the writing of a tale told against writing shatters the confidence of his readers that what they read here can be taken on trust.41 But now this gets worrying. If writing is somehow unreliable, why—if we are searching for wisdom—should we read the dialogues? Some would say that the dialogues are somehow inherently contradictory, testimony to the deep down slipperiness of the way we write—or even talk.42 Others would say that they are somehow second best to the oral tradition of philosophy within the Academy.43 Maybe their surface meaning is even the disguise for a coded message underneath.44 Each of these suggestions, however, may underplay the overt self-consciousness of the paradox about writing. For in challenging its own mode of presentation, it asks how the search for wisdom should proceed, and this question, itself a philosophical one, is provoked by, and so reflective on, the written dialogue itself. In what follows, I suggest that the dialogues have this philosophical quality through and through—not only the represented dialogues, but also Plato’s representing of them—and that this should determine our reading of them. Even the most unlikely aspects of their composition45 may be best understood from the default position that Plato writes nothing in vain.
- Question and Answer
- Why does Plato use conversation like this? Is it the compulsion of culture, the regular practice of classical antiquity for theoretical discussion? Compare, for example, the debates in Thucydides,47 or the formalized conversations of drama,48 or the dissoi logoi of the sophistic tradition.49 Or is it—more strongly—a philosophical claim: that theoretical discussion can only be carried out within a particular culture?50 (Tough luck for us, reading Plato from a distance.) This might condemn in advance any attempt by us to abstract arguments from the dialogues or to find some kind of disengaged philosophical viewpoint therein. Can there be a view from outside the culture upon what happens within, whether an Archimedean point from which to make judgment about the arguments represented there, or a way for us here and now to read the dialogues?51 Well, it seems that the business of question and answer is an explicit method of proceeding in philosophical inquiry. Socrates sometimes suggests that question and answer is either the right way to proceed or the only way he is able to proceed:52 consider the extraordinary moment in the Protagoras (334c–d) where he complains that he cannot remember long speeches—even though he is the narrator of the whole dialogue. Other protagonists have the same commitment to question and answer: for example, the Eleatic Stranger at Statesman 285 and Parmenides at Parmenides 137. And many interlocutors explicitly accept this way of going about the business in hand (for example, Gorgias at Gorgias 457 ff. ; Protarchus at Philebus 19; and Euthydemus and Dionysodorus at Euthydemus 275–7653), even if others refuse, either in practice, or directly (for example, Protagoras, at Protagoras 335c, 348b–c; compare Hippias Major 291a).
- As a consequence of this selfconsciousness, proceeding by question and answer is itself subject to scrutiny: What recommends it? First, the process is sequential: one answer provokes another question, and so on (compare Symposium 204d). So the salience of answer to question, and of question to the preceding answer, brings order to the discussion.54 This shows up in the limiting cases, where what the interlocutor says precludes his answering any further question: for example, the monists of Sophist 244c are unable to sustain a conversation at all, and this is taken to be so successful a rebuttal that it amounts to murder. Second, this order is connected to a constraint on both answer and question: the views put forward by any discussant should be internally consistent (Charmides 164c–d; Gorgias 491b–c; Euthydemus 287a–b; Euthyphro 15c).
- This seems, indeed, to be a constraint on what is said or believed that is somehow fundamental to the interlocutors themselves (Gorgias 482b–c). Inconsistency, that is to say, is somehow a fault or a danger, so much so that its discovery provokes all sorts of emotional anguish, evidenced by physiological effects: blushing (Republic 350d), gaping (Charmides 169c); and psychological disturbance, including irritation (Gorgias 489) and confusion (Meno 80). Third, as a consequence both of the ordered nature of question and answer and of its demand for consistency, the process is also reflective. If a later answer is inconsistent with an earlier one, or out of order, this causes trouble, which is then explicitly discussed (for example, Phaedo 92c; Charmides 164d; Laches 193e). Contrariwise, some sophists notoriously reject this condition on conversation (Euthydemus and Dionysodorus at Euthydemus 283–88, Protagoras at Theaetetus 151–71), but Socrates supposes that rejection to be self-defeating (Euthydemus 288a; Theaetetus 178–79). As these conversations are presented, then, they are presented under reflective scrutiny, not only for the content of what is said but also for its integrity and good order. But, fourth, there is not merely a demand for consistency at all costs—mere consistency might just give us a coherent collection of someone’s beliefs, with no claims on the truth, or it could be secured at the price of refusing to engage in philosophical conversation at all. On the contrary, the burden of the questioning is repeatedly to elicit the reasons that some earlier claim might be true: the dominant question is a demand for some kind of explanation (for example, Euthyphro 10–11; compare Phaedo 96 ff.). Explanation is fundamental, indeed, to the structure of question and answer, or at least as it is practiced in these Platonic conversations.
- several key aspects of the Socratic method and the nature of philosophical dialogue in Plato’s works: Sequential Process: The Socratic method is described as a sequential process where one answer leads to another question and vice versa. This sequential nature brings order to the discussion, and the interaction between questions and answers defines the structure of the conversation. Constraint on Answers and Questions: There is a constraint on both answers and questions. The views presented by participants in the dialogue should be internally consistent. Inconsistency is viewed as a fault or danger, and its discovery can lead to emotional reactions such as blushing or confusion. Reflective Nature: The process is reflective, meaning that the participants scrutinize not only the content of what is said but also its integrity and order. If later answers are inconsistent with earlier ones or if they are out of order, the conversation addresses these issues explicitly. Demand for Explanation: The primary aim of the questioning is to elicit reasons and explanations for the truth of earlier claims. The focus is on obtaining a deeper understanding and justification for the views presented, emphasizing the importance of explanation in philosophical discourse. Self-Defeating Rejection: Some sophists reject the demand for consistency, but Socrates considers such rejection to be self-defeating. The rejection of internal consistency is seen as hindering genuine philosophical conversation.
- Conversation and Dialectic
- Formal Analysis of Conversations:
- The author suggests that conversations in Plato’s dialogues can be analyzed formally, considering aspects such as sequence, order, consistency, and explanatory structure.
- The notion of editing out conversational details and forsaking the variety inherent in the dialogue form. Formalization might overlook the broader philosophical implications present beyond specific passages chosen for formalization.
- Dialogues are not uniform; they take different forms and are not confined to a specific conversational style. The prevalence of conversation varies depending on the context and the philosophical goals of the dialogue.
- The breadth of argumentative material extends beyond passages earmarked for formalization. This broader perspective brings the conditions for argument themselves into philosophical view.
- Role of Interlocutors:
- The role of interlocutors is dynamic. Sometimes, one party has a definitive point of view, and their answers are scrutinized. In other instances, both parties have contrasting views, contributing to the philosophical exchange.
- Plato employs diverse modes of discourse, including lengthy exegesis, paratactic structures (as seen in the Symposium), and the use of myths (found in the Gorgias, Phaedo, and Republic). These variations serve specific philosophical purposes.
- Cases where conversation fails or runs out provoke a discussion about the serious significance of conversation for philosophical exploration.
Plato’s Ways of Writing (Mary Margaret McCabe)
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