2008년 06월 04일
Plato's Cleitophon
Plato's Cleitophon: On Socrates and the Modern Mind / Mark Kremer (ed.)
First of all, I agree there is no substantial evidence to doubt the authenticity of Cleitophon. But Kremer's discussion on Cleitophonin relationship with modern and postmodern mind is simply too far-fetching. One cannot "see from the relation between Cleitophon andSocrates that Plato anticipated the possibility of modernity and its decline into the postmodern hatred of reason or the affirmation of the will to power." (p. 3) Are we talking about Plato, or Nostradamus? Cleitophon as a dialogue deserves a close study, but it has to be done in the context of Platonic corpus and Ancient Greece, and to summon Plato to our time appears to be a misattribution error. Why do we have to bring postmodernism or Nietzsche to understand Plato’s dialogues? This is as unnecessary as to bring the Social Contract theorists to understand Crito. His discussion on the parallel between Cleitophon and Nietzsche may be meaningful, but the same can be done with the speech of Callicles aswell. I will return to this shortly.
Cleitophon is perplexing indeed, and Cleitophon's speech is a reasonable assessment of Socrates and his legacy. Socrates is not infallible; he stumbles on error and corrects himself, sometimes to a conclusion (tentative it may be) but often altogether fails. The Dramatic Socratesis not an accomplished paragon of wisdom and virtue, but our fellow mortal on the common road to attain the wisdom which we long for. His claim of ignorance may well be a rhetorical statement at times, but more often it is an acknowledgment of his being philosophos, still not a sophos. And Cleitophon thinks all that Socrates can do is to make one philosophos, but not a sophos. This is an objection worthy of serious treatment to Plato.
Neither Socrates nor Plato was THE towering presence in the Athenian intellectual milieu, and there were many disputants whom we now call the pre-Socratics and/or sophists. And Plato does not treat allsophists equally - he treats some more seriously than the other. On the bottom end, there is Hippias. Had Hippias read Greater Hippias, by all means he would have seen it as an insult. To Plato, Hippias is a joke not worthy of serious treatment. On the opposite end, Parmenides gets the highest recognition, and he helps young Socrates in Parmenides and his refutation in Sophist has almost a tragic tone. Plato struggles with Homeric legacy in Ion and Republic. Plato treats Heracleitus and Protagoras seriously, and their refutation in Theaetetus is dense and both Socrates and Protagoras remain unsettled in Protagoras. What was Plato’s stand on Thrasymachus and Cleitophon?
A parallel may be drawn with Gorgias of Leontini. Socrates "misses" the exhibition of Gorgias, and goes on to accuse Gorgias straightaway, and we don't see much defense from Gorgias himself, as if his exhibitions were not worth being reproduced by Plato's hand or the Gorgian rhetoric might have been too formidable. Protagoras shows the frustration of Socrates in face of the rhetorical elaboration of Protagoras, and no doubt Gorgias wouldn't have been any less - it's too much work to produce a dialogue with full-blown Gorgias. Plato writes a dialogue, and he needs a more probable interlocutor who shares the same belief with less rhetorical device blurring the focus of the dialogue, so we have Polus, Callicles, and Meno as a companion dialogue. Similarly, Phaedrus deals with Lysias the orator but through Phaedrus, possibly to prevent Lysias giving another overwhelming elaboration. A dialogue requires two speakers, and Dramatic Socrates as a character should be able to handle the interlocutor as well.
Thrasymachus is not any less significant character than Gorgias. Phaedrus compares Gorgias and Thrasymachus to Nestor and Odysseus in the dialogue named after himself (261c) and it is probably not unreasonable to think that Thrasymachus was just as important a sophist as Gorgias, at least in the mind of his contemporaries. Then Republic I would have been a mere ad hominem attack without substantial backup. And Plato cannot just dismiss Thrasymachus as he did with Hippias; the critique made in Cleitophon shakes the value of Socratic legacy as a basis of the Socratics ingeneral, including Plato himself. Considering the gap between Republic I and the rest, it would not be unreasonable to assume that Cleitophon was called upon to meet this criticism; in Republic I, Cleitophon is depicted not like the wild and intemperate Thrasymachus; he in fact tries to defend Thrasymachus with his own power of reasoning, as someone capable of reasoned discourse. It appears to me that the case against Socrates in Cleitophon is better understood in this context, to provide a more thorough refutation of Thrasymachus. Plato has to provide a reasonable dialogue, and the interlocutor has to be someone capable of discussion as well.
Then, is Cleitophona finished work or a fragment? If fragment, why did Plato leave it so? Cleitophon finishes his speech, and the dialogue ends abruptly. Kremer's allusion to Athenian legal procedure appears to be just confusing. Gorgias ends like this as well, but the conclusion is given by Socrates; it would have been as weird if it ended with speech of Callicles. Socrates begins the accusation of Gorgias, Gorgias and his friends defend him in series, but it ends with Socrates nonetheless. Taking for granted that Cleitophon begins with Socrates' accusation, it wouldn't have been impossible for Plato to finish the dialogue with Socrates' defense. Cleitophon overall leaves the impression of an unfinished work.
But then there is another unfinished work in speech form: Critias. It is more obvious that Critias ends in the middle of the speech, and we may ask why. From the opening of Timaeus we learn that Timaeus was to speak of the cosmogony, Critias about the antediluvian Athens of 10,000 BC. If it's not unreasonable to assume that Hermocrates was to take up the speeches and continue with post-diluvian world in chronological sequence, then the contents would overlap with Laws. And thereis a mysterious "fourth" not present in Timaeus, who might have been meant to continue with the legal institutions in practice as a logical sequence. If we take that this second "Banquet" was abandoned in favour of Laws, then it is possible that Cleitophon was stopped short in favour of the rest of the Republic. Then Cleitophon plays a key link between Republic Book I and II - Socrates will now show that he can indeed help others in pursuit and attainment of good life. Plato might have realised these topics need extensive examinations, which cannot be dealt in a single standalone dialogue. So we have two bulky ones - Republic and Laws - and two unfinished ones, Cleitophon and Critias.
So, where does this all lead to? Kremer’s point on the parallel between postmodern despair with reason and Cleitophon may be valid, but such a matter is dealt with Callicles in Gorgias and Cebes in Phaedo as well. With no doubt, Cleitophonis a work that demands attention of any Plato reader, but if we start attributing a prophetic power to Plato (although Socrates claims suchpowers here and there) then we’re allowed to make any arbitrary interpretation of Plato based on modern experience, and soon Plato would be a postmodernist. Cleitophon, like any other Platonic dialogues, needs to be understood in context of Platonic corpus and the Ancient Greece, and if its statements are valid today, then it is perhaps because we are still the same mortals, frustrated with our inability to be wise and well.
First of all, I agree there is no substantial evidence to doubt the authenticity of Cleitophon. But Kremer's discussion on Cleitophonin relationship with modern and postmodern mind is simply too far-fetching. One cannot "see from the relation between Cleitophon andSocrates that Plato anticipated the possibility of modernity and its decline into the postmodern hatred of reason or the affirmation of the will to power." (p. 3) Are we talking about Plato, or Nostradamus? Cleitophon as a dialogue deserves a close study, but it has to be done in the context of Platonic corpus and Ancient Greece, and to summon Plato to our time appears to be a misattribution error. Why do we have to bring postmodernism or Nietzsche to understand Plato’s dialogues? This is as unnecessary as to bring the Social Contract theorists to understand Crito. His discussion on the parallel between Cleitophon and Nietzsche may be meaningful, but the same can be done with the speech of Callicles aswell. I will return to this shortly.
Cleitophon is perplexing indeed, and Cleitophon's speech is a reasonable assessment of Socrates and his legacy. Socrates is not infallible; he stumbles on error and corrects himself, sometimes to a conclusion (tentative it may be) but often altogether fails. The Dramatic Socratesis not an accomplished paragon of wisdom and virtue, but our fellow mortal on the common road to attain the wisdom which we long for. His claim of ignorance may well be a rhetorical statement at times, but more often it is an acknowledgment of his being philosophos, still not a sophos. And Cleitophon thinks all that Socrates can do is to make one philosophos, but not a sophos. This is an objection worthy of serious treatment to Plato.
Neither Socrates nor Plato was THE towering presence in the Athenian intellectual milieu, and there were many disputants whom we now call the pre-Socratics and/or sophists. And Plato does not treat allsophists equally - he treats some more seriously than the other. On the bottom end, there is Hippias. Had Hippias read Greater Hippias, by all means he would have seen it as an insult. To Plato, Hippias is a joke not worthy of serious treatment. On the opposite end, Parmenides gets the highest recognition, and he helps young Socrates in Parmenides and his refutation in Sophist has almost a tragic tone. Plato struggles with Homeric legacy in Ion and Republic. Plato treats Heracleitus and Protagoras seriously, and their refutation in Theaetetus is dense and both Socrates and Protagoras remain unsettled in Protagoras. What was Plato’s stand on Thrasymachus and Cleitophon?
A parallel may be drawn with Gorgias of Leontini. Socrates "misses" the exhibition of Gorgias, and goes on to accuse Gorgias straightaway, and we don't see much defense from Gorgias himself, as if his exhibitions were not worth being reproduced by Plato's hand or the Gorgian rhetoric might have been too formidable. Protagoras shows the frustration of Socrates in face of the rhetorical elaboration of Protagoras, and no doubt Gorgias wouldn't have been any less - it's too much work to produce a dialogue with full-blown Gorgias. Plato writes a dialogue, and he needs a more probable interlocutor who shares the same belief with less rhetorical device blurring the focus of the dialogue, so we have Polus, Callicles, and Meno as a companion dialogue. Similarly, Phaedrus deals with Lysias the orator but through Phaedrus, possibly to prevent Lysias giving another overwhelming elaboration. A dialogue requires two speakers, and Dramatic Socrates as a character should be able to handle the interlocutor as well.
Thrasymachus is not any less significant character than Gorgias. Phaedrus compares Gorgias and Thrasymachus to Nestor and Odysseus in the dialogue named after himself (261c) and it is probably not unreasonable to think that Thrasymachus was just as important a sophist as Gorgias, at least in the mind of his contemporaries. Then Republic I would have been a mere ad hominem attack without substantial backup. And Plato cannot just dismiss Thrasymachus as he did with Hippias; the critique made in Cleitophon shakes the value of Socratic legacy as a basis of the Socratics ingeneral, including Plato himself. Considering the gap between Republic I and the rest, it would not be unreasonable to assume that Cleitophon was called upon to meet this criticism; in Republic I, Cleitophon is depicted not like the wild and intemperate Thrasymachus; he in fact tries to defend Thrasymachus with his own power of reasoning, as someone capable of reasoned discourse. It appears to me that the case against Socrates in Cleitophon is better understood in this context, to provide a more thorough refutation of Thrasymachus. Plato has to provide a reasonable dialogue, and the interlocutor has to be someone capable of discussion as well.
Then, is Cleitophona finished work or a fragment? If fragment, why did Plato leave it so? Cleitophon finishes his speech, and the dialogue ends abruptly. Kremer's allusion to Athenian legal procedure appears to be just confusing. Gorgias ends like this as well, but the conclusion is given by Socrates; it would have been as weird if it ended with speech of Callicles. Socrates begins the accusation of Gorgias, Gorgias and his friends defend him in series, but it ends with Socrates nonetheless. Taking for granted that Cleitophon begins with Socrates' accusation, it wouldn't have been impossible for Plato to finish the dialogue with Socrates' defense. Cleitophon overall leaves the impression of an unfinished work.
But then there is another unfinished work in speech form: Critias. It is more obvious that Critias ends in the middle of the speech, and we may ask why. From the opening of Timaeus we learn that Timaeus was to speak of the cosmogony, Critias about the antediluvian Athens of 10,000 BC. If it's not unreasonable to assume that Hermocrates was to take up the speeches and continue with post-diluvian world in chronological sequence, then the contents would overlap with Laws. And thereis a mysterious "fourth" not present in Timaeus, who might have been meant to continue with the legal institutions in practice as a logical sequence. If we take that this second "Banquet" was abandoned in favour of Laws, then it is possible that Cleitophon was stopped short in favour of the rest of the Republic. Then Cleitophon plays a key link between Republic Book I and II - Socrates will now show that he can indeed help others in pursuit and attainment of good life. Plato might have realised these topics need extensive examinations, which cannot be dealt in a single standalone dialogue. So we have two bulky ones - Republic and Laws - and two unfinished ones, Cleitophon and Critias.
So, where does this all lead to? Kremer’s point on the parallel between postmodern despair with reason and Cleitophon may be valid, but such a matter is dealt with Callicles in Gorgias and Cebes in Phaedo as well. With no doubt, Cleitophonis a work that demands attention of any Plato reader, but if we start attributing a prophetic power to Plato (although Socrates claims suchpowers here and there) then we’re allowed to make any arbitrary interpretation of Plato based on modern experience, and soon Plato would be a postmodernist. Cleitophon, like any other Platonic dialogues, needs to be understood in context of Platonic corpus and the Ancient Greece, and if its statements are valid today, then it is perhaps because we are still the same mortals, frustrated with our inability to be wise and well.
# by | 2008/06/04 04:55 | Sententiarum | 트랙백 | 핑백(1) | 덧글(1)
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... http://noirstan.egloos.com/4401477</a>The Philosophy of the SophistsTo strive to strengthen one's personality in order to surpass others in violence and in the contest or struggle for earthly goods -- this is the moral ideal of the Sophist.http://www.radi ... more