Topography and Deep Structure in Plato

Clinton Debevoise Corcoran

Description

In this book, Clinton DeBevoise Corcoran examines the use of place in Plato's dialogues. Corcoran argues that spatial representations, such as walls, caves, and roads, as well as the creation of eternal patterns and chaotic images in the particular spaces, times, characterizations, and actions of the dialogues, provide clues to Plato's philosophic project. Throughout the dialogues, the Good serves as an overarching ordering principle for the construction of place and the proper limit of spaces, whether they be here in the world, deep in the underworld, or in the nonspatial ideal realm of the Forms. The Good, since it escapes the limits of space and time, equips Plato with a powerful mythopoetic tool to create settings, frames, and arguments that superimpose different dimensions of reality, allowing worlds to overlap that would otherwise be incommensurable. The Good also serves as a powerful ethical tool for evaluating the order of different spaces. Corcoran explores how Plato uses wrestling and war as metaphors for the mixing of the nonspatial, eternal forms in the world and history, and how he uses spatial images throughout the dialogues to critique Athens's tragic overreach in the Peloponnesian War. Far from merely an incidental backdrop in the dialogues, place etches the tragic intersection of the mortal and the immortal, good and evil, and Athens's past, present, and future.
List of Figures
Acknowledgments

Introduction. Plato’s Esoteric Conception of Space
Physical Space and Narrative Space
Depth and Surface
Plot and Settings
Historical Space and the Canon

1. Descent into the Maelstrom
The Republic, the Oracle of Trophonius, and the Peloponnesian War
The Long Walls
The Cave
The Opening of the Republic and the Oracle of Trophonius
The Oracle of Trophonius
Socrates as a Leader of Souls
The Myth of Er

2. The Menexenus, Socrates, and the Battle of Arginusae
Dead Souls
The History of Athens
The Battle
The Trial
The Anachronism
The City of the Dead

3. The Symbolism in the City Plan of Plato’s Atlantis
The Present Past and Past Present
Intentional Incompleteness?
The Circuit Walls of Atlantis
Oreichalkos and Platonic Metallurgy
Geomancy

4. The Slow Boat from Delos, or Socrates’s Ship Comes In?
Which Ship Is That?
The Woman in White
Reenactment: Saving Athens Again
Socrates and Divination
Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On
The Delia

5. Wrestling and the Fair Fight in Plato
Plato’s View of Wrestling
Wrestling for Phaedrus
Lysis: Wrestling as an Enactment of Philosophic Dialogue
The Republic: Thrasymachus as Pankratist
Wrestling, Dialectic, and Authenticity
Theomachia: Calliope versus Aphrodite in Plato’s Philebus
War and Remembrance
War, Conflict, and the Good

6. The Good as Architectonic
Alcibiades’s Eccentric Orbit of the Good
The Allegory of the Cave and the Myth of the True Earth
The Good as Architectonic
Interdimensionality

Notes
Bibliography
General Index
Index of Names
Index Locorum

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie antique
• Ancient philosophy
• History of philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438462714
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Topography and Deep Structure in Plato
SUNY series in Ancient Greek Philosophy

Anthony Preus, editor
Topography and Deep Structure in Plato
The Construction of Place in the Dialogues
CLINTON D E BEVOISE CORCORAN
Cover painting: Charles Sheeler, American, 1883–1965, The Artist Looks at Nature , 1943, Oil on canvas, 53.3 × 45.7 cm, Gift of Society for Contemporary American Art, 1944.32. Reproduced with the permission of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2016 State University of New York
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No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Eileen Nizer
Marketing, Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Corcoran, Clinton DeBevoise, author.
Title: Topography and deep structure in Plato : the construction of place in the Dialogues / Clinton DeBevoise Corcoran.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2016. | Series: SUNY series in ancient Greek philosophy | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016007294 (print) | LCCN 2016037322 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438462691 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438462714 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Plato. Dialogues. | Place (Philosophy)
Classification: LCC B395.C653 2016 (print) | LCC B395 (ebook) | DDC 184—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016007294
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To My Daughters, Abigail and Alexandra
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Plato’s Esoteric Conception of Space
Physical Space and Narrative Space
Depth and Surface
Plot and Settings
Historical Space and the Canon
Chapter 1. Descent into the Maelstrom
The Republic, the Oracle of Trophonius, and the Peloponnesian War
The Long Walls
The Cave
The Opening of the Republic and the Oracle of Trophonius
The Oracle of Trophonius
Socrates as a Leader of Souls
The Myth of Er
Chapter 2. The Menexenus , Socrates, and the Battle of Arginusae
Dead Souls
The History of Athens
The Battle
The Trial
The Anachronism
The City of the Dead
Chapter 3. The Symbolism in the City Plan of Plato’s Atlantis
The Present Past and Past Present
Intentional Incompleteness?
The Circuit Walls of Atlantis
Oreichalkos and Platonic Metallurgy
Geomancy
Chapter 4. The Slow Boat from Delos, or Socrates’s Ship Comes In?
Which Ship Is That?
The Woman in White
Reenactment: Saving Athens Again
Socrates and Divination
Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On
The Delia
Chapter 5. Wrestling and the Fair Fight in Plato
Plato’s View of Wrestling
Wrestling for Phaedrus
Lysis: Wrestling as an Enactment of Philosophic Dialogue
The Republic : Thrasymachus as Pankratist
Wrestling, Dialectic, and Authenticity
Theomachia: Calliope versus Aphrodite in Plato’s Philebus
War and Remembrance
War, Conflict, and the Good
Chapter 6. The Good as Architectonic
Alcibiades’s Eccentric Orbit of the Good
The Allegory of the Cave and the Myth of the True Earth
The Good as Architectonic
Interdimensionality
Notes
Bibliography
General Index
Index of Names
Index Locorum
List of Figures
1.1. The Piraeus
1.2 A cross section of an archaic city circuit wall
1.3. A Bronze Age tholos tomb, often referred to as a beehive tomb
1.4. Trophonius from a 1675 woodcut
1.5. A map of the Harbor, Long Walls, and Circuit Walls of Athens
2.1 Dispositions at the Battle of Arginusae
2.2. The Dromos Road and the Kerameikos
3.1 Map of Plato’s Atlantis drawn by Lucinda Rodd from The End of Atlantis
3.2. “Red Mercury” (Cinnabar) in crystalline form
4.1. The topography of Attica
4.2. Black figure vase paintings (penteconter and triaconter)
Acknowledgments
Permission to use the cover image was granted by the Chicago Institute of Art. The painting is Charles Sheeler’s 1943 oil “The Artist Looks at Nature.” I would like to thank the following journals for permission to reprint sections of previously published papers. The first part of chapter 4 appeared as “The Slow Boat from Delos, or Socrates’ Ship Comes in?” in The Nautilus: A Maritime Journal of Literature, History, and Culture 1 (2010): 31–43. Chapter 5 was based on “Wrestling and the Fair Fight in Plato” in Nikephoros: Zeitschrift für Sport und Kultur im Alterum XVI, no. 3 (2003): 61–85. Parts of chapter 6 were previously published in “The Problem of Dramatic Expectation in Aristotle’s Poetics ” in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 38, no. 3 (1997): 285–294. I would also like to thank Leanne Jernigan, Shannon LeFever, Caroline McAlister, Fred Humphrey, and editors Andrew Kenyon, Anthony Preus, and the anonymous readers of SUNY Press for their help in the preparation of this manuscript for publication.
Introduction
Plato’s Esoteric Conception of Space
σημεῖόν ἐστιν, οὗ μέρος οὐθέν. Euclid’s Elements 1 Def. 1.
I recall the first day of my freshman year in 1977 in Greek Philosophy, when I heard Dr. Darnell Rucker claim that nothing, no element of a Platonic dialogue, was an accident—that all the component parts, even, if not especially, those plot elements that appear inconsequential, were intentional constructs and thematically related. Aristophanes’s hiccups in the Symposium , Socrates’s covering his face in the first speech of the Phaedrus, and his hiding his head in the last moment of the Phaedo were all actions rife with meaning. 1 What may, at first, seem to be insignificant details of the setting—sitting under the shade of the plane tree (ὑπὸ τῆς πλατάνου) and the mesmerizing hum of the cicadas in the Phaedrus , 2 the mysterious effulgence of the red metal circuit walls of Atlantis, and the melancholy image of the homeless bees in the Critias —often belie deeper and sometimes cryptic thematic issues. Diskin Clay argues that we may take this as an axiom: “In the dialogues of Plato, it seems nothing is accidental.” 3 This depth itself is not purely an accident of Plato’s poetic method, but results from his intentional construction of philosophic mythos, a mythos in accord with the logos of the Good. The Good structures all dimensions of the natural and human worlds, and it also serves as a guide for Plato’s construction of his settings, themes, and the various narrative uses of space-time in the dialogues. Time and space, whenever and wherever they make their appearance, are always artifacts of the Good. Thus, to understand the various uses and structures of space in the dialogues, it is essential to explain its relation to the Good.
Plato, as a philosopher-poet, has special access to the Good. He formulates several famous mytho-poetic constructs to reflect the nature of the Good in his dialogues. These highly spatialized structures are designed to lead readers to a transcendent experience of the Good. The Divided Line, the Allegory of the Cave, the Simile of the Sun, and the Myth of Er in the Republic ; the Ladder of Love in the Symposium ; the Myth of the True Earth in the Phaedo ; and the Chariot myth in the Phaedrus is each a hierarchical construct that maps the Good’s relation to different dimensions of reality. Although superficially these constructs describe different places and scenarios that seem to have different purposes, in the end, each depicts the same superstructure; all of them present a path for souls to travel from the Realm of Becoming to the Realm of Being, and beyond Being to the Good. The Good serves concurrently as a veridical principle for dialectic constructions and an aesthetic principle for artistic constructions—the true and the beautiful. Thus, Dialectic is as much an aesthetic principle as an epistemic one. Thomas Szlezák points out, “There is only one way that leads to knowledge of the ἀρχή [the Good]: dialectic (533a8–9, c7–d4). Dialectic is characterized by a double movement of thought: the step-by-step (see 511b6: οἷον ἐπιβάσεις τε καὶ ὁρμάς) ascent to the non-hypothetical starting point, and the ordered (ἐχομενος τῶν ἐκείνης ἐχομενων) descent (see 511b8: καταβαíνῃ) from the highest to the lowest point.” 4 This latter knowledge gained from the descent supplements the former knowledge of the Forms in-themselves gained from the ascent. The knowledge of the Forms is obtained from increasing abstraction as illustrated in the escape from the Cave in the Republic , the chariot flight in the Phaedrus , or the ascension of the Ladder of Love in the Symposium. In turn, the knowledge of the descent requires both knowledge of the Forms and knowledge of how the Forms can be reapplied to the Realm of Becoming. Plato’s iconic representation of the ascent to and descent from the Good is embodied in the philosopher’s escape from, and return to, the Cave in the Republic . The Socrates of the dialogues is Plato’s archetypal and artistic portrait of the philosopher-artist who has made the round trip. 5 In addition, Plato depicts Socrates as the author of these famed myths.
The Good itself is represented analogically by the sun. Szlezák observes that “[i]n the sensible world there is something that is ‘very similar’ to the idea of the Good and represents an (exact) ‘correspondent’ (ἀνάλογον [ Republic 508b 13]) to it: the sun.” 6 The light of the sun reveals the order of things and nourishes them, but it is not the things themselves. Once the Philosopher-King “has seen the Good itself,” he uses it as a model to put himself, the city, and its citizens “in order” ( Republic 540a–b). 7 At Republic 500d–e and 501c, Socrates describes philosophic artists as “painters of constitut