Socrates by C. C. W. Taylor Christopher;taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

Timaeus , Critias , and Laws , as the latest works in the corpus, identified as such by resemblance in respect of various stylistic features to the Laws , which is attested by ancient sources to have been unfinished at Plato’s death. This research also identified a further group of four dialogues: Parmenides , Phaedrus , Republic , and Theaetetus , as closer than other dialogues to the style of the late group, leading to the hypothesis that these constituted a middle group, written before the late group and after the others. Subsequent stylometric research, while confirming the division into three groups, has not succeeded in establishing any agreed order of composition within any group. 5 This discussion assumes the validity of these results.
    For our purpose the most significant feature is the virtual disappearance of Socrates from the late group; he is absent from the Laws and from the main discussions of all the others except Philebus . His role in that dialogue is similar to that in the dialogues of the middle group with the exception of the anomalous Parmenides , where he is assigned the role of interlocutor to Parmenides. In Philebus , Phaedrus , Republic , and Theaetetus , though he has the leading role, it is rather as a mouthpiece for philosophical theory and an exponent of argumentative technique than as an individual in debate with otherindividuals. These distinctions are, of course, matters not only of judgement but also of degree. This is not to suggest that the figure of Socrates in the middle dialogues has no individual traits, or to deny that some of these link him with the figure portrayed in the early dialogues; thus, Socrates in the Phaedrus goes barefoot (229a) and hears his divine voice warning him against breaking off the discussion prematurely (242b–c). Moreover, even in the early dialogues the figure of Socrates has a representative role, that of the true philosopher. But what is quite clear is that Plato’s interest in the personality of Socrates as the ideal embodiment of philosophy changes in the course of his career as a writer. At the outset that personality is paramount, but gradually its importance declines, and the figure of Socrates comes to assume the depersonalized role of spokesman for Plato’s philosophy, to the point where it is superseded by avowedly impersonal figures such as the Eleatic Stranger and the Athenian of the Laws . What follows will be concerned primarily with the depiction of Socrates in the dialogues of the early period.
    That depiction, it must be re-emphasized, belongs to the genre of ‘Socratic conversations’, and our earlier warnings against the assumption of naive historicism apply to it as much as they do to the writings of Xenophon and the other Socratics. Unlike Xenophon, Plato never claims to have been present at any conversation which he depicts. He does indicate that he was present at Socrates’ trial ( Apol . 34a, 38b), which I take to be the truth, but we saw that that did not justify taking the Apology as a transcript of Socrates’ actual speech. In one significant case he says explicitly that he was not present; when at the beginning of the Phaedo Phaedo tells Echecrates the names of those who were with Socrates on his last day he adds ‘Plato I think was ill’ (59b). The effect of this is to distance Plato from the narrative; the eye-witness is not the author himself, but one of his characters, Phaedo, hence that eye-witness’s claims are to be interpreted as part of the dramatic context. It follows that what is narrated, for example, that Socrates argued for the immortality of the soul from the theoriesof Forms and of Recollection, is part of the dramatic fiction. I am inclined to think that Plato’s claim to have been absent from Socrates’ final scene is as much a matter of literary convention as Xenophon’s claims to have been present at Socratic conversations, and that in all probability Plato was actually present.
    In some cases (