Abstract

I. M. Crombie, in Plato: The Midwife's Apprentice, assembles the results of studies already published in two previous volumes. This latest book contains his "conclusions only without the arguments on which, it is hoped, they rest". A stereotyped "Platonism," the book insists, "renders static and dogmatic a body of philosophical work that was essentially dynamic, critical and exploratory... freezing into a set posture something which really consists of many postures". In contrast, "Plato conceived of philosophy as an almost unending struggle to give satisfactory expression to what, in one sense, we know perfectly well all along," and "to achieve an explicit understanding of that which we understand implicitly all along". In this way the midwifery required by Plato's doctrine of anamnêsis is explained and justified in a development that goes "a little beyond what the texts allow," but of which Plato himself, the author thinks, would not have disapproved. Though the "splendid vitality" of Plato's writings consists in their never satisfied dialectical inquiry, "there is also something of value for us in Plato's more positive conception of philosophy". Yet, in comparison with the common view "that Plato's metaphysical doctrine is the key to his whole philosophy," it is much nearer the truth to maintain "that the key to Plato's philosophy is his conception of the nature of philosophical activity".