Dialogues of Plato, Translated Into English With Analyses and Introductions

Plato

Description

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Plato seems now to have made his first formal appearance as a teacher. Following the example of Socrates, who had sought out intelligent youths in the Gymnasia and other public places, he, too, first chose as the scene of his labours a gymnasium, the Academy, whence, however, he subsequently withdrew into his own garden, which was adjacent. Concerning his manner of instruction tradition tells us nothing; but if we consider how decidedly he expresses himself against the rhetoricians who made long speeches, but knew neither how to ask questions nor how to answer them; and how low, on the same ground, was his estimation of written exposition, Open to every misunderstanding and abuse, in comparison with the living personal agency of conversation, if we mark the fact, that in his own works, the development of thought by dialogue is a law, from which in his long literary career he allowed himself not a single noteworthy departure, we can scarcely doubt that in his oral teaching he remained true to these main principles.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Forgotten Books
• Date de parution: 27 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780243661398
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

is hardly nother philosopher antiquity h wh se life we are so intimately acq ainted wi h Pla o s yet even in case trad tio often uncertain and still more often incomplete B orn some years after the commencement the war the son an ancient a i stocratic house favoured also by wealth less than birth he must have found education and surroun ings abun dant intellect al food and even thout the express testimony h story we might conclu e that he profited by these advantag s the fullest expansion of b illiant genius Among the few further par that have des ended to us respec ing e rlier years our atten ion is principally drawn to three point important in their influen mental development O f these we may noticefirst the general condi tion of his country and the olitical position of family Plato s youth co ncided with that u ha py period succeed ng the Sicilian d feat when all the fau ts the previ us Athen an government were terribly avenged all the disadvantages un imited r cy so nakedly exposed all pernici us resul the self see ing et cs and sophistical culture the time so unreservedly splayed He himself belonged to a social class and to a fa ly w c regarded the existing constitution th und sg sed and not always groundless d ontent Several his near st relations were among the spokesmen the aristocratic part But when that party

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itself been raised to p wer by the com on the ruins Athen an greatness it stren h that the eyes its blindes ine tably opened It is ea y to see a noble igh nded youth in the m dst such exp riences and i uence m ght be disgusted not o y with democracy but w th ex st ng State systems in gen eral and ake refuge in political Utopi s which wo d further tend to draw hi s ind from the actual towards the ideal Again there were other circumstanc s working in the same rection We know that Plato in his youth occupied h mself ith poetical attempts and the artistic ability y evinced by some of his earliest writing coupled h the poetical chara ter his hole system uld lead us to sup pose that these studies went far beyond the super a fashionable pursu t The e is therefore little reason to doubt however untrustworthy may be our more precise information on the sub ect that he intimate with the great poet his country Lastly he had even before his acquaint nce with S ocrates turned his attention to philosophy and through the Heraclitean had b co e with a doctrine w ch in combination with other elements esse tially contributed to his later system All these influences however appear as of little importance by the side Plato s acquaintance with Socrates We can not course say what dire tion hi s mind m ght have taken w thout this teacher but the question may well remain unanswered We know enough to prove from all historical traces that the deepest most lasting most decisive impression was produced by the philosop ic reformer hi s con ge al sciple Plato himself is said to hav

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ighest Fort ne vors that ould h ve been born in the life i S oc ate later tradition ador ed ith a igficant h thefiut apartrst meeting the B from this the fact must always be regarded as those remar able contingencies whi h are portant in their bearing the course history to be severed fro it in thought D uring a long and confidential intercourse Plato penetr ted so deeply nto the spi t distinguished friend that the ortr i that sp rit whic he able to us is at once the most faithful and the most ideal that we possess Whether at that time he attention other teachers of philosophy if so to what e ent we do not now but it scarcely credible that a youth hi educated and eager for nowledge whose rst i pul e more over towards philosophy had not co e from Socrates sho d have made no attempt until his th rtieth year to inform hi self as to the ac ievements the earl er philosophers should have learned nothing from f end Euclid about the Eleatics from and Cebes about Phil laus that he should ave inquired no further respecting the doct ines brought to the surface by the public lec ures and disputations of the So ists and left unread the writings Anaxagoras so easily to be ob ained in Athens It is nevertheless probable that the over powering influence the S oc atic teach ng may have tempora y wea ened his intere t in the earl er nat al philosophies and th t close and repeated study afte ard h ve iven a deeper i sigh into t eir d ctri es Si i rly own i a in tiv nature under the restraining inflmaster suence his ialectic probably habitua e severer thought ore cautiou investigation perhaps indeed

LAT O S L IF i received at r an bsolut h c and concept al s ience together ith the art for i ng concepts was only to be attained by a stranger like contempora ies to all such things through the dry prosaic method the ratic inquiry B ut Pla needed this schooling ive him repose and certainty the scientific ethod to develope from a poet into a philos opher nor he in the process permanently lose an ng which natural temperament designed him S ocrates onceptual philosophy had given him a glance into a world and he forthwith set to explore it The tra c end aged ster a tion w ich he se ms at the outset to have thought wholly impossible must have been a fearful blow to Plato and one conse uence of this shock w ich sti l seems long years afte wards to vibrate sensibly in the thrilling description of the Ph do may have b e p rhaps the illness which prevented the faithf l from atten ng master at the last We are however ore im ediately concerned with the quiry the e ect the fate S ocrates on Plato s philosophic development and view of the world and if this inqui y are thrown upon conj ectures these are entirely devoid of prob ability the hand for example we shallfind no di inc ty u derstanding reverence his departed teacher immeasurably increased by the destiny which overtook and the magnani ty with which he yielded to it how the martyr p ilos phy faithful unto death became idealized in heart and memory as the very type the t ue philoso her principles tested by t is ery or l received in eyes the consecration of a higher t th how at once j ud ent the and circumstances con

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in the sacrifiocrates rew ce of S harder and hope any politicalficiency those fainter nay the general tendency fostered in contemplate rea ty in a gloo y ligh and escape from the ills of present fe into a higher supersensuous world O n the other hand it may perhaps have been better scientifiS ocratesc growth that his connection with lasted no longer than it did During the years their intercourse he had made his teacher s spirit own in completer fu ness than was possible to any of his fellow students it was per feet the S ocratic science by the ad ition new ele ments and tofit himself by the utmost expansion in many directions for erecting it on an independent basis his apprentices ip was over his travelling time a re was come After the death of Socra s Plato ith others pupilsfirst betook himself to Megara W here a circle of congenial minds had gathered round Euclid He afterwards undertook j ourneys wh ch led to Egypt Cyrene Magna and Sicily O wing the meagreness and sometimes the ness the traditions it is impossible to asc tain i th certainty how long he continued in Megara when he commenced his travels whether they me ately succeeded the Megaric soj ourn a return to Athens intervened whether stay in Athens was long or short and whether he had had not become a teacher of philosophy before his departure B ut if he really returned from Sicily only ten or twelve years after the de th of Socrates there is great prob ability and even some external evidence that lon before his j ourney he had settled in Athens and there worked as teacher and author even granting that at this period his instructions were confined to

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sele t and that the opening s hool the Academy took pl ce later What in t s case we are to think about the j to Egyptou ey yrene whether the isit Sicily edi ately connected with or whether Platofirst returned to Athens from Egypt and only under too the Itali an j ou ney after an interval of some years can not be certainly determined but there is a good deal in favor the latter alte native If indeed Plato had already attaine to hood when he visited the countries the south and west had already that is before his personal acquaintance ith the Italian Pythagoreans found the scientifisystem and c bases of laid them down in writings these j ourneys can not have had the striking e ect on hi s philosophical d velopment which is often ascribed them in ancient and odern days B esides the general enlargement his views and knowledge human nature his chief gain from them seems to have consisted in a closer acquaintance with the Py hagorean school whose principal written book he appears to have pur chased and in a deeper study mathematics t s study Theodorus i s said have introduced and have at any rate no proof against the correctness the statement He may have mathematical instruction from Archy and other Pythagoreans so that we can scarcely be rong in connecting ith thi s j ourney pre ilection science and remarkable nowledge it W hile on the contrary the stories about the mathematical lore priestly mysteries and olitical ideas which he stated to have acquired in Egypt are in the highest degree improbable In Sicily Plato visited the court of Dionysius the eld r B ut in spite of his close intimacy with D io

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gave great o ence there by plain speaking and the tyrant in wrath delivered up the trouble some moralizer to the S partan a b sador o s by whom he was exposed for sale in the slave arket Ransomed by a Cyrenian he thence returned to his native city Plato seems now to have madefirst formal appearance as a teacher Follow ng the example Socrates who had sought intelligent youths in the Gym asia and other public places he too first chose as the scene of his labours a gymnasium the Academy whence however he subsequently withdre into garden w ch was adj acent Concerning his manner instruction tra tion tells us nothing but if consider how decidedl he expresses h mself against the rhetoricians made long speeches but knew neither to ask questions nor how to answer them and how low the same ground was his es imation written exposition Open to every misunderstan ng and abuse in comparison with the li ing personal ag ncy conversation if we mark the fact that in his own works the development of thought by dialogue is a law from which in his long literary career he allowed himself not a single noteworthy departure we can scarcely doubt that in oral teaching he remained true these main p inciples the other hand however we hear a dis course the Good published by Aristotle and some of hi s fellow pupils and belon ng Plato s later ears A stotle himself mentions d scourses on Philosophy and that t ese were not conversa tions but in their general character at any rate continuous scourses is witnessed partly by express sti ony partly by their internal evidence which can be taken in no other way Als there are any

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portions of the Plato c syste which fro thei nature could we be imparted conversationally It is most probable therefore that Plato accord ing to circumstances made use of both forms w ile the suppositi on ust be admitted that as in writings so in hi s verbal instruction question and answer gave place unbroken exposition in proportion partly to the dimini shed vivacity of increasing years partly to the necessary advance in his teaching from prepara ory inquiries to ogmatic statement his doctrine in detail That side by side with the commu cations tended for the narrower circl friends he should have iven other disco rses designed for the gener l pub c not likely It is more cre ble that he may have brought his writings into connec tion with his spoken instruction and imparted them to hi s scholars by way stimulus to their memories O withoutare entirely however we n t is point for ation Plato doubtless combined with intel lec ual intercourse that friendly life common to which he himself had been accustomed in the S ocrati circle and the Pythagorean S ociety With a ph l little able to separate philosophi c fro moral endeavour it might be expected that munity k owledge would naturally grow into community ife In this way he appears to have j scholars at stated intervals in socialoined his pasts here can be no doubt from what know sentiments the subj ect that his tions were altogether gratuitous and if certain occasions he accepted pres nts from some hi s ich friends there is no reason to conclude that such voluntary o ering were ther fore customary among dis les in the Acade y Plat p ere work seemed to him to

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li ted to this intellectual and e ucational ac ivity more and ore as expe ience deepened his tion that m the then state of Athens no diplo ati career was compatible with the principles he hel The desire however that it ight be otherwise none the less st ong in and that he abandoned the hope somehow and somewher gratif ing this desire is proved by his rea political wor s which are designed erely forth theoretical ideals but at the same time exert a regulative i uence on actual conditions C onsequently though he as l ttle as his great mas er himself wished to be a statesman both may cer be credited ith the aim for ing states men and if he repudiated political activity circumstances which he considered hopeless ther at the same time nothing in hi s principles to keep him back from it should there arise a favor able opportu ty the realization his ideas Such an opportunity seemed to o er after the death the elder Dionysius when Dion and at Dionysius the younger invited him press to Sy acuse Could this potentate indeed be over to Philosophy and to Plato s political bel efs and this Plato at any rate Dion appears certainly to have indulged a hope the ost important results might be expected follow only in his own kingdom but in all Sicily and Magna indeed throughout the Helleni states Meanwhile the event proved only too soon th s hope founded Whe Plato arrived in Syracuse the young Prince most politely and atfivelrst showed interest in the philosopher and endeavors but very shortly became weary of these serious and when his j ealousy D io i