45~ JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:3 JULY 1996 text" , and an element of "oralism" remains in all of Plato's written works. Nonetheless, Robb's "speculations" on the Platonic dialogues are certainly worth reading. Robb is quite aware that his book stirs up controversial issues, and some of these are briefly stated and discussed in his concluding chapter, "Homer, the Alphabet, and the Progress of Greek Literacy and Paideia." And yet in the very notions of "literacy" and "progress," some (...) weaknesses in Robb's work can be found. For example, as W. V. Harris observed in his Ancient Literacy , 3ft., there is no single definition of literacy or orality, and although Robb cites Harris's book , he takes no special account of it in attempting to define or characterize what he means by "orality" and "literacy." And in his zeal to provide a survey of the influence of alphabetic literacy on Plato, Robb perhaps oversimplifies the tension that existed between the spoken and written work in the ancient world. Much of Greek "literature" remains the product of literate, slave- owning, and well-educated authors, written for their peers. Robb suggests as much in his discussion of mousild and sunousia , and one might desire a "sociology" of ancient Athens, for example, in which economic status and.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Of Dialogues and SeedsKenneth SeeskinPlato’s Literary Garden: How to Read a Platonic Dialogue, by Kenneth M. Sayre; xxiii & 292 pp. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995, $34.95.One of the best known paradoxes in the Platonic corpus occurs in the Seventh Letter (341), when Plato says that he has never written about the problems which concern him and never will. His reason: “This knowledge can never be (...) put into words like other subjects; but is generated by living with the matter itself and from many conversations (ek polle\s sunousias). Then like a flashing light when a fire is kindled, it is born in the soul and nourishes itself.” Why would the most gifted philosophical writer in history say that when it comes to goodness, beauty, or justice, language is an inadequate medium in which to convey truth?One answer is that Plato had an esoteric doctrine that he divulged to a few close associates but did not express in the dialogues. 1 The crux of the esotericist position is that Plato’s objection is not to language as such but to written language in particular. A more satisfying answer is offered by Kenneth M. Sayre in this recent book. According to Sayre, Plato wrote dialogues to allow the reader to have conversation (sunousia) with the author “in an indirect manner” and to facilitate the reader’s own discovery of truth. In other words, the dialogues are surrogates for the sort of discussions Plato shared with Socrates “in hopes of producing a similar effect in the mind of the reader.” [End Page 167]If Sayre is right, the problem discussed in the Seventh Letter is not limited to written communication but involves “logoi in whatever form we might identify them today” (p. 159). Sayre enlarges on this insight by claiming (p. 18) that for Plato “philosophic knowledge is not awareness of the truth of propositions” but “discernment of some aspect of reality.” 2 Nor is this view limited to the Seventh Letter; Sayre finds it expressed in dialogues ranging from the Meno to the Statesman. Although I have problems with some of the details of this interpretation, it is noteworthy that the Seventh Letter (342a) does claim its epistemology is not new and “has been expounded many times before.” 3The title of Sayre’s book is taken from a famous passage in the Phaedrus (276), where Socrates says that while written language gives the appearance of finality and inviolability, it is an image (eido\lon) of living speech, by which he means words that can defend themselves and are accompanied by knowledge. But as Sayre points out, the passage also carves out a role for written speech by claiming that it is legitimate for the dialectician to plant seeds in “a literary garden” to assist memory in later years and to help others who “wish to walk in the same path.” In fact, the passage tells us that the dialectician will select a soul of the right type and take pleasure in watching the seeds grow and mature. In keeping with Plato’s metaphor, Sayre organizes his chapters into functions associated with gardening: some dialogues prepare the ground, others sow the seeds, train the shoots, or allow us to reap the fruit. The book ends with an appendix on how to read a specific dialogue, the Theaetetus, in a way that emphasizes indirect or imagined conversation. As one might expect, Sayre takes the Theaetetus to imply that knowledge cannot be defined as true belief with a logos.Although not a highly technical work, Plato’s Literary Garden is a thoughtful and thought-provoking one designed for someone who wants students to see that Plato is not just another philosopher with another doctrine to peddle. So the first step in reading a Platonic dialogue is to recognize with Sayre that the dialogues are not “proto-essays” and that the decision to write dialogues is tied up with important features of Plato’s epistemology. But does that mean, as Sayre claims (p. 12), that “Plato’s dialogues were not conceived by their author as contexts in which to develop and to display positive arguments for... (shrink)

This article investigates the relation between Language and Being as it is articulated in the so-called philosophical digression of Plato‘s alleged Seventh Letter. Here the author of the letter claims, in contrast to the testimony of Plato‘s many dialogues, that there has never been and there will never be any written word on Plato‘s philosophy; and in addition, as if this was not sufficiently perplexing, he goes on to explain that the matters of philosophy do in fact not admit of (...) verbal expression at all. In discussing the arguments for and the consequences of these claims, this paper explores what in the letter is argued to be the only viable way out of the ontological and epistemological deficiencies inherent in language. In trying to lay bare how the author of the letter argues for the insufficiency of a rational, theoretical and linguistic understanding of ultimate reality, this paper explores the notions of sunousia and tribo as the only acts powerful enough to overcome the obstacles of language and to reach a true understanding of Being. Arguing against a mystical interpretation of the notions of sunousia and tribo – in terms of a certain union between subject and object – this paper claims that a true philosophical relation to Being, according to the letter, is not be understood as the end of a particular type of search, but must rather be understood as the search itself. It argues that neither sunousia nor tribo are to capture a type of meditative situation, but rather an articulated conversation reflecting the particular conditions of a philosophical approach. (shrink)

Divers portraits de l’éducation socratique, quoique apparemment contradictoires sur certains points, témoignent d’une conception de la παιδεία qui ne consiste pas à proprement parler dans l’enseignement mais d’abord et avant tout dans la fréquentation de Socrate. Cette étude entend examiner la conception originale de l’éducation défendue par Socrate dans ses divers portraits, et en particulier en ce qui concerne les modes de transmission de la vertu et du savoir au sein du rapport enseignant-élève. À cette fin, j’analyserai la profonde révision (...) de la παιδεία opérée par l’enseignement socratique en me concentrant sur la notion de συνουσία et donc aussi sur la théorie de l’ἔρως que certaines sources, notamment Eschine et Platon, assignent à Socrate. Cette étude, divisée en quatre parties, se penche sur certains passages tirés de (1) l’Alcibiade d’Eschine, en rapport avec d’autres dialogues de l’auteur ; (2) le Banquet de Platon, en parallèle avec une section du Théétète ; (3) le Théagès et le Premier Alcibiade ; (4) les Mémorables de Xénophon. (shrink)