CLAS 161/PHIL 108
Based on Mary Margarte McCabe's 'Plato's Ways of Writing' in Oxford Handbook to Plato.

Writing shares a strange feature with painting. The offsprings of painting stand there as if they are alive, but if anyone asks them anything they remain most solemnly silent, The same is true of written words. You'd think they were speaking as if they had some understanding, but if you question anything that has just been said, because you want to learn more, it continues to signify just that very same thing forever. When it has once been written down, every discourse rolls about everywhere, reaching indiscriminately those with understanding no less than those who have no business with it and it doesn't know to whom it should speak and to whom it should not. And when it is faulted and attacked unfairly, it always needs its father's support; alone, it can neither defend itself nor come to its own support. Phaedrus 275d-e

• What is this saying?
• Socrates delivers it, who wrote nothing.
• Plato wrote it, who never speaks in his own voice.
• It puts into question the authority of writing.
• What does it mean?
• Is there a secret code underneath the writing?
• Is writing always second best to live discussion?
• Is all communication always already doomed to be (mis)interpreted?
  

• Plato's writing
• How should we characterize it?
• Dramatic?
• Direct speech vs. narrated
• Do the dialogues have a beginning, middle, and end? or do they begin in the middle or end in the middle of things? Or do they fade out and into each other?
  
• Characters:
• Socrates
  
• Socrates is a constant in the "early dialogues" and some "middle and late dialogues" (but there are several dialogues in which he has a lesser role or no role)
• Sometimes an expert at erotics (Lysis and Symposium)
• Sometimes aroused by the young men around him (Charmides, Symposium)
• Sometimes extremely self-controlled (Symposium: sex and drink and battle)
• Brave (Laches, Apology)
• Loves talking to anyone
• Sometimes arrogant, humble, afraid of an argument or a person (Thrasymachus), sometimes seems to be faking it ironically, self-deprecating
• Often seems competitive (but what counts as winning?)
  
• Other characters:
• Some are historical figures and we have some of their own writings: their own writing doesn't always match what 'they' say in Plato.
• Often have very good points that are ignored
• Or are "yes-people"
• Dialogues
• But is the Republic a dialogue in the same way as the Euthyphro?
• What should we make of the Parmenides as a dialogue/drama?
  
• Myths, stories
• What's with the end of the Phaedo? the Republic and the "myth of Er"?
  
• How should we take these myths/stories?
  
• Tone-setting
• Socrates' looming death in the Phaedo, looming trial in the Euthyphro.
• Festival of Bendis in the Republic: discussion at a rich foreigner's house with young men
• Festival at start of Parmenides
  
• All of this makes the dialogues lively and interesting and affects us as fiction is wont to do
  
• BUT Does any of this matter for the philosophy that is in the works?
• Frames and Episodes
• Some dialogues have a framework within which they occur
• The Phaedo happens on the day of Socrates' death, but it is told after the fact in a conversation between Echecrates and Phaedo
• Theaetetus and Parmenides have similar frame dialogues.
  
• Euthyphro is a chance encounter between two people on their way to/from court.
• Within that frame, there are several episodes that have clearly delimited boundaries: Euthyphro's definitions and their refutations, Socrates' attempt to steer Euth. the right way
• But it ends in the middle, with Socrates left in the lurch by Euthyphro
• Our relation to the characters
  
• Are we meant to identify with the characters?
  
• What of Socrates' fairly total condemnation of imitative dramatic depiction in the Republic?
• In the Laws, the characters say that what they are doing, the sorts of things they are saying, is what young people should read as literature! Maybe the dialogues are Plato's attempt at literature for the young that is acceptable?
  
• Are we meant to see the flaws in what they say and correct them?
• Our relation to the dialogues
• Are we supposed to be convinced?
• Of what?
  
• To be improved?
• To be provoked?
• Transformed?
• If wisdom is meant to be found by each person for him/herself, not passively absorbed, how does that affect our reading of the dialogues?
• Does that add fuel to the fire of those who think that the keys to the questions Socrates asks are hidden in the dialogues and a good reader can construct them?
  
• The dialogue's relation to Plato
• Is Plato's voice in the dialogues? Where?
• Is it as straightforward as that what Socrates says is what Plato believes?
• What of the dialogues that end in aporia?
• What of the dialogues in which Socrates is not the main character?
• Maybe whoever the main character is channels Plato?
  
• Does the lack of an identified authorial voice imply scepticism? a provisional status to the contents?
• Does it imply indecision? incompatible tendencies in the author's thought?
  
• Dialogues and history
• It seems the dialogues cannot each be a historical occasion
• The Apology  is often held to be "historical" if any Platonic dialogue is.
• And yet, even the Apology has parts that seem impossible (the discussion with his accusers?)
• Many dialogues include elements that are difficult to square with "historicity"
• The dialogues each have a "fictional date": the time they are set in: but the "early," "middle" and "late" are all cheek by jowl: how does that makes sense (remember that "early," "middle" and "late" could equally well be considered "beginning level," "advanced positive positions level" and "alternatives and questioning of previous level")
  
• The form "dialogue" as question-and-answer
• An artificial form, as "natural" as some people think it is, since Plato writes it well.
  
• Two people conversing: it is highly unusual in Plato for there to be more than 2 people at a time conversing.
• In the early dialogues, Socrates suggests that he cannot remember or adequately deal with long speeches
• Both Socrates and Plato's other main characters use question and answer
• Why question-and-answer?
• It has a built in sequence: provides some structural order to the exchange
• Inability to answer or to proceed with the argument is taken as indicating that one's position is a dead end
• Consistency in answers is required of each character
• emotions arise when answerer is inconsistent: confusion, embarrassment, blushing
• bravery is required to present arguments/positions
  
• Promotes reflection on current answer in light of earlier answers
• The question and answer is invariably aimed at explanation of some earlier statement
• question-and-answer is short and amenable to formalization as a logical argument
• Much of the dialogues are not question-and-answer: often there are small speeches and there is a lot of pleasantry and conversational meandering.
• Sometimes a short question-and-answer dialogue between one set of characters is embedded within another question-and-answer passage between another set of characters
• Think of the structure of the Symposium: speeches followed by a conversation where Socrates is the interlocutor, not the questioner.
• All of this invites the reader to ponder the nature of what's going on: how should argument be conducted?
  
• Clearly (?), Socrates (the character: and so implicitly Plato?) favors the idea that philosophy is best done in conversation.
• Dialectical discussion as the paradigm of philosophy
• Who says what and how? Does it matter?
• Some characters are portrayed as sincerely believing a claim they make: what effect does that have on the course of the argument?
• Is 'sincerity' a literary effect that an author can produce? If so, does 'sincerity' in a dialogue matter differently than sincerity in the 'real world'?
• Some characters talk about what other people say: what effect does that have?
• Does it matter that someone who believes a claim be present?
• Doesn't that lay the dialogue open to the objection that it is ad hominem and may not give the position a truly fair shake?
• Characters can do things arguments cannot:
• feel puzzled
• be embarrassed
• resent what is said
• change one's mind
• Occasionally, we are told that dialectical conversation can occur within one person
• thus one can entertain a position
• one can be detached from and yet still consider a position
• Is there a way in which EVERY dialogue is a conversation in PLATO's head that we can hear?
• Is there a way in which thought is often a 'dialogue'?
• Detachment as a key feature of the dialogues
• Much of the above points to a key feature of dialogues: the reader is forced to detach him or herself from the dialogue
• Considerations of who is saying what (and why) make one reflect on the dialogue itself, its form, not just its content
• Questioning whether the dialogue is historically accurate/how accurate it is also makes one reflect and be detached
• One can, however, get lost in the dialogue and speak as though the characters "Socrates" and "Euthyphro" are real people.
• Detachment fosters reflection
• Connections between contents and characters
• While the characters discuss epistemology or ontology, they themselves are situated in a time and place in which the epistemology and ontology have ramifications for them: that emphasizes the connection between abstract philosophical concerns and "real life"
• For example, when a character claims that contradiction is impossible, the very way of writing brings that view into question: psychological continuity of characters, the felt need for consistency, the consequences of inconsistency, etc. become clear.
• We are made to see not only the inner complicatedness of taking a position on any important question, but also that such positions have ramifications external to their own scope: epistemology connects to ontology to psychology to logic to metaphysics, etc.
• Consider the Parmenides: a young Socrates who argues for a theory of Forms is soundly defeated by Parmenides, whose defeat of Socrates' theory of Forms puts into question the whole notion of using dialectical argument to achieve anything. And yet, Parmenides himself uses dialectical argument to defeat Socrates! How can such a situation not provoke reflection?
• Consider the Theaetetus, where Socrates puts into question the very possibility of believing anything that is false, even as he examines someone who, he concludes, has false beliefs! How can that not provoke reflection?
• This all happens within each dialogue as a unit, a little world unto itself. But should they be taken as such?
  
• What happens between the dialogues? inter-dialogue connections
  
• For example, the Theaetetus is a dialogue reportedly written out by Euclides and later  read aloud by a slave. The Sophist, however, is presented simply as two characters conversing, but it is a continuation of the conversation that was written out and read aloud in the Theaetetus! What are we to make of that fact? Does it allow us to connect the philosophy of the two and treat it as continous?
• Another example: the Republic and the Timaeus. The Timaeus at first seems to recount a conversation held at the same festival as the Republic  (which was held at the festival of Bendis). Then it turns out that the Timaeus is held at the festival of Athena. And the Timaeus has what looks like a summary of the Republic, but it leaves out all the metaphysics of books V-VII. How are we to account for that? What does it mean? The setting of the dialogues and the summary of another dialogue within a dialogue clearly forces the issue of comparing the dialogues and their contents.
• Another example: sticks are an important example in both Phaedo and Parmenides
• Another example: recollection is mentioned in the Phaedo, Meno, and Phaedrus.
• All of these examples point to or create connections between the dialogues, but they do so in ways that leave unanswered questions about what the connection means in terms of the philosophical content of the dialogue and the status of theories put forth in the dialogues.
• In other words, they point to similarities while also highlighting differences, which forces reflection.
• They don't seem to be hinting at some secret doctrine which only the initiated got to know.
• But there are those who believe in Plato's "secret doctrines": the "Teubingen School" (not my cup of tea, but still, intelligent folks)
  
• They also don't seem to point to a universal scepticism about all theories.
• In other words, the real work is left to the reader, who must interpret and figure out what it all means.