(), the philosopher.
The spirit of Plato is expressed in his works in a manner the more lively aid personal in
proportion to the intimacy with which art and science are blended in them. And yet of the
history of his life and education we have only very unsatisfactory accounts. He mentions his
own name only twice (Phaedon, p. 59b., Apolog. p.
58b.), and then it is for the purpose of indicating the close relation in which he stood to
Socrates; and, in passing, he speaks of his brothers, Adeimantus and Glaucon, as sons of
Ariston (de Rep. i. p. 327, comp. Xenoph. Mem. 3.6;
Quaest. Sympos. 8.2, &c.), appear to have
communicated only some few biographical particulars respecting their great teacher; and
Alexandrian scholars seem to have filled up these accounts from sources which are, to a great
extent, untrustworthy. Even Aristoxenus, the disciple of Aristotle, must have proceeded in a
very careless manner in his notices respecting Plato, when he made him take part in the
battles at Tanagra,
Plato is said to have been the son of Ariston and Perictione or Potone, and to have been
born at Athens on the 7th day of the month Thargelion (21st May), Ol. 87. 2, Fast. Attici, 3.230; Clinton, Fasti Hell. sub anno 429, &c.) His paternal family boasted of being descended from
Codrus; his maternal ancestors of a relationship with Solon (Charm. p. 155, 159. Comp. Tim. 20.) Originally,
we are told, he was named after his grandfather Aristocles, but in consequence of the fluency
of his speech, or, as others have it, the breadth of his chest, he acquired that name under
which alone we know him. (Vita
Platonis, p. 6b; Tychsen, Bibliothek der allen Literatur und
Kunst, v.) According to one story, of which Speusippus (see above) had already made
mention, he was the son of Apollo; another related that bees settled upon the lips of the
sleeping child. (Cic. de Divin. 1.36.) He is also said to have
contended, when a youth, in thle Isthmian and other games, as well as to have made attempts
in epic, lyric, and dithyrambic poetry, and not to have devoted himself to philosophy till
later, probably after Socrates had drawn him within the magic circle of his influence. (Diog.
Laetrt. 3.4, 5; Epist.
vi.) His love for Polymnia had brightened into love for the muse Urania (Plat. Symp. 187). Plato Geschichte und System des Platonischen
Systems, p. 98, note 48, p. 99, note 49.) At an early age (Metaph. 1.6 ; comp. Appuleius, de
Doctr. Plat. p. 47. Elm.) ; through other instructors, or by means of writings, with
the philosophical dogmas of the Eleatics and of Anaxagoras l.c.; Vita Anon. ap.
Tychsen, p. 13); and what is related in the Phaedo and Parmenides of the philosophical
studies of the young Socrates, may in part be referable to Plato. In his 20th year he is said
to have betaken himself to Socrates, and from that time onwards to have devoted himself to
philosophy. (s. v. makes
this into an intercourse of twenty years' duration with Socrates.) The intimacy of this
relation is attested, better than bv hearsay accounts and insufficient testimonies (Marius, 46; comp. Lactant. Div. Inst. 3.19.17), at the close of his life he praised that dispensation which had
made him a contemporary of Socrates. After the death of the latter he betook himself, with
others of the Socratics, as Hermodorus had related, in order to avoid threatened persecutions
(vom Leben und den Scrifien des Plato, p. 51; Van Heusde, Init. Plat. doct. i. p. 72; Hermann, ibid. pp. 46,
490). The communication of the Socratic conversation recorded in the Theaetetus is referred
to Eucleides, and the controversial examination, contained in the Soplistes (p. 246) and
apparently directed against Eucleides and his school, of the tenets of the friends of certain
incorporeal forms (ideas) cognisable by the intellect, testifies esteem for him. Friendship
for the mathematician Theodorus (though this indeed does not manifest itself in the way in
which the latter is introduced in the Theaetetus) is said to have led Plato next to Cyrene
(l.c.). Through his
eagerness for knowledge he is said to have been induced to visit Egypt, Sicily, and the Greek
cities in Lower Italy (Cic. de Rep. 1.10, de Fin.
5.29; l.c.).
Others, in inverted order, make him travel first to Sicily and then to Egypt (l.c. p. 47; comp. Clinton, F. H. vol. ii. p. 366). As
his companion we find mentioned Eudoxus (Strab. 17.29, in opposition to de Daem. Socr. 7), or even
Euripides, who died Ol. 93. 2 (ad v. Gent. p. 46; Vita Anon. p. 14 ; comp. Instit. 4.2 ; comp. Cic. Tusc.
Disp. 4.19). Even the fruits of his better authenticated journeys cannot be traced in
the works of Plato with any definiteness. He may have enlarged his mathematical and
astronomical knowledge, have received some impulses and incitements through personal
intercourse with Archytas and other celebrated Pythagoreans of his age (Clem. Alex. Cic. Val.
Max. &c. ll. cc.), have made himself acquainted with Egyptian modes
of life and Egyptian wisdom (Plat. de Leg. ii. p. 656, vii. pp. 799,
819, Phaedo, p. 274, Philcb. p. 18, Tim. 21; comp. Epinom. p. 986); but on the fundamental
assumptions of his system, and its development and exposition, these journeys can hardly have
exercised any important influence; of any effect produced upon it by the pretended Egyptian
wisdom, as is assumed by Plessing (Memnonium, ii. p. 288, &c., 504,
&c.; Versuch zur Aufklärung der Philosophie des altesten
Alterthums, 2.2. p. 879, &c.) and others, no traces are to be found (comp. Hermann,
l.c. 1.55, &c.). That Plato during his residence in Sicily, through
the intervention of Dion, became acquainted with the elder Dionysius, but very soon fell out
with the tyrant, is asserted by credible witnesses (especially by Hegesander ap. de Exilio, 100.10, &c.). Respecting the acquisition of this garden
again, and the circumstances of Plato as regards property generally, we have conflicting
accounts (Plut. Diog. Laert. Appul. ll. cc. ; A. Gell. N. A. 3.17, coump. Hermann, l.c. p. 77, &c.). Plato taught,
gratuitously (Phaed. p. 275, Protag. pp. 329, 334, Gorg p. 449, comp. Hipp. Min. p. 373), without doubt mainly in the form of lively dialogue;
yet on the more difficult parts of his doctrinal system he probably also delivered connected
lectures; at least in the accounts of his lectures, noted down by Aristotle and other
disciples, on the Good (see below) there appears no trace of the form of dialogue. Themistius
also (Orat. xxi. p. 245d' represents him as delivering a lecture on the
Good in the Peiraeeus before an audience which gradually dwindled away. The more narrow
circle of his disciples (the number of them, which can scarcely have remained uniform, is
stated at 28) assembled themselves in his garden at common, simple meals (Chiliad. 8.972).
From this house came forth his nephew Speusippus, Xenocrates of Chalcedon, Aristotle,
Heracleides Ponticus, Hestiaeus of Perinthus, Philippus the Opuntian, and others, men from
the most different parts of Greece. To the wider circle of those who, without attaching
themselves to the more narrow community of the school, sought instruction and incitement from
him, distinguished men of the age, such as Chabrias, Iphicrates (Aristid. ii. p. 325),
Timotheus (de Sanit. tuenda, p. 127. 6), Phocion, Hyperides,
Lycurgus, Isocrates (Epist. v.; Brut. 32, Orat. 5, de Offic. 1.1, &c.; on the other hand see
Niebuhr, Kleine historische Schriften, p. 482; Bake, Biblioth. Crit. Nova, 5.1. 194, &c.). Even women are said to have attached
themselves to him as his disciples (Diog. Laert. l.c., comp. Olympiod.).
Plato's occupation as an instructor was twice interrupted by journeys undertaken to Sicily ;
first when Dion, probably soon after the death of the elder Dionysius (Ol. 103. 1, Epist. vii. p. 327, iii. p. 316c; Philosoph. esse cum Princip. 100.4; Corn. Nep. 10.3 ; Epist. vii. pp. 339, 345, iii. p. 318; Ep. ; Plut. ll. cc. ;
Philos. e. princ. 100.4;
Themist. Oral. xvii. p. 215b; l.c. p. 66, &c.). If
however Plato had suffered himself to be deceived by such a hope, and if, as we are told, he
withdrew himself from all participation in the public affairs of Athens, from despair with
regard to the destinies of his native city, noble even in her decline, he would indeed have
exhibited a blind partiality for a theory which was too far removed from existing
institutions, and have at the same time displayed a want of statesmanlike feeling and
perception. He did not comply with the invitations of Cyrene and Megalopolis, which had been
newly founded by the Arcadians and Thebans, to arrange their constitution and laws (Plut. ad princ. inerud. 100.1; s. v. Heracleid.) we find him occupied solely in giving instruction and
in the composition of his works. He is said to have died while writing in the 81st, or
according to others the 84th year of his age, in Ol. 108. 1, de Senect. 5; Senec. Epist.
lviii. ; Neanthes in de
Civ. Dei, 8.2). Thence probably arose the title of the éloge of
Speusippus--Cod. ccxlii.; Porphyr. ap. Euseb. Praep.
Evang. 10.3, p. 468). Athenians and strangers honoured his memory by monuments (ib. 25). Yet he had no lack
of enemies and enviers, and the attacks which were made upon him with scoffs and ridicule,
partly by contemporary comic poets, as Theopompus, Alexis, Cratinus the younger, and others
(Platon, 2.1, pp. 19, 1113, 404, 406; 2.2, pp. 17, 20), found a loud echo
among Epicureans, Stoics, certain Peripatetics, and later writers eager for detraction. Thus
even Antisthenes and Aristoxenus (de Aristoxeno,
pp. 14, 73, 91) charged him with sensuality, avarice, and sycophancy (Commentat. Aead. de Simultate quae Platoni cum Xenophonte
intercessisse fertur, Berol. 1811). Others again accused him of having borrowed the
form and substance of his doctrine from earlier philosophers, as Aristippus, Antisthenes
(Theopomp.
These writings, by a happy destiny, have come down to us complete, so far as appears, in
texts comparatively well preserved, and have always been admired as a model of the union of
artistic perfection with philosophical acuteness and depth. Plato was by no means the first
to attempt the form of dialogue. Zeno the Eleatic had already written in the form of question
and answer (Elench.
Soph. 10). Alexamenus the Teian and Sophron in the mimes had treated ethical subjects
in the form of dialogue (Diog. Laert. l.c. ;
Poet. p. 93, &c.) Xenophon, Aeschines, Antisthenes, Eucleides, and
other Socratics also had made use of the dialogical form (Diog. Laert. passim); but Plato has
handied this form not only with greater mastery than any one who preceded him, and, one may
add, than any one who has come after him, but, in all probability, with the distinct
intention of keeping by this very means true to the admonition of Socrates, not to
communicate instruction, but to lead to the spontaneous discovery of it. The dialogue with
him is not merely a favourite method of clothing ideas, handed down from others, as has
recently been maintained (Hermann, l.c. i. p. 354), but the mimetic
dramatic form of it is intended, while it excites and enchains the attention of the reader,
at the same time to give him the opportunity and enable him to place himself in the peculiar
situations of the different interlocutors, and, not without success, with them to seek and
find. But with all the admiration which from the first has been felt for the distinctness and
liveliness of the representation, and the richness and depth of the thoughts, it is
impossible not to feel the difficulty of rendering to oneself a distinct account of what is
designed and accomplished in any particular dialogue, and of its connection with others. And
yet again it can hardly be denied that each of the dialogues forms an artistically
self-contained whole, and at the same time a link in a chain. That the dialogues of Plato
were from first to last not intended to set before any one distinct assertions, but to place
the objects in their opposite points of view (Isag. 128.) With regard to the second point, attention was especially
directed to the dramatic character of the dialogues, and, according to it, the Alexandrian
grammarian Aristophanes of Byzantium arranged a part of them together in trilogies
(Sophistes, Politicus, Cratylus -- Theaetetus, Euthyphron, Apology--Politeia, Timaeus,
Critias--the Laws, Minos, Epinomis -- Criton, Phaedon, Letters), the rest he left unarranged,
though on what grounds he was led to do so it is not easy to discover. Thrasylus, in the age
of Tiberius, with reference to the above-named division into investigating and instructing
dialogues, divided the whole number into tetralogies, probably because Plato had given
intimation of his intention to add as a conclusion to the dialogues Theaetetus, Sophistes,
and Politicus, one called Philosophus, and to the trilogy of the Politeia, Timaeus, and
Critias, the Hermocrates (Plat. Politic. p. 257a. Critias, p. 108a. c.). In place of the unwritten, if intended, Philosophus, Thrasylus
adds to the first of the two trilogies, and as the first member of it, the Cratylus; to the
second, in place of the Hermocrates, and again as the first member, the Clitophon. (Isag, &c. p. 129).
Although this division appears to have been already usual in Varro's time (de
Ling. Lat. 6.80, Bip.), and has been adopted in many manuscripts, as well as in the
older editions, it is not more satisfactory than the others which have been mentioned, partly
because it combines genuine and spurious dialogues, partly because, neglecting internal
references, it not unfrequently unites according to merely external considerations. Nor have
the more recent attempts of Samuel Petitus (Miscell. 3.2), Sydenham (Synopsis, or General View of the Works of Plato, p. 9), and Serranus, which
connect themselves more or less with those earlier attempts, led to any satisfactory
arrangement. Yet at the basis of all these different attempts there lies the correct
assumption, that the insight into the purport and construction of the separate Platonic
dialogues depends upon our ascertaining the internal references by which they are united with
each other. As Schleiermacher, for the purpose of carrying out this supposition, endeavored
to point out in Plato himself the leading ideas which lay at the foundation, and by means of
them to penetrate to the understanding of each of the dialogues and of its connection with
the rest, he has become the originator of a new era in this branch of investigation, and
might with good reason be termed by I. Bekker, who has done so much for the critical
restoration of the text, Platois restitutor. Schleiermiacher starts with
Plato's declaration of the insufficiency of written communication. If he regarded this as the
lifeless image of living colloquy, because, not being able to unfold its meaning, presenting
itself to those who do understand as to those who do not, it produces the futile belief of
being possessed of knowledge in those who do not know, being only adapted to remind the
reader of convictions that have been produced and seized in a lively manner (Plat. Phaedr. p. 275), and nevertheless spent a considerable part of his long
life in the composition of written works, he must doubtless have convinced ib. p. 276, &c.; comp. Protag. p. 329a. 347, c.). The understanding of many of the dialogues of Plato,
however, is rendered difficult by this circumstance, that a single dialogue often contains
different investigations, side by side, which appear to be only loosely connected, and are
even obscured by one another; and these investigations, moreover, often seem to lead to no
conclusion, or even to issue in contradictions. We cannot possibly look upon this peculiarity
as destitute of purpose, or the result of want of skill. If, however, it was intended, the
only purpose which can have been at the bottom of it must have been to compel the reader,
through his spontaneous participation in the investigations proposed, to discover their
central point, to supply intermediate members that are wanting, and in that way himself to
discover the intended solution of the apparent contradictions. If the reader did not succeed
in quite understanding the individual dialogue by itself, it was intended that he should seek
the further carrying out of the investigations in other dialogues, and notice how what
appeared the end of one is at the same time to be regarded as the beginning and foundation of
another. Nevertheless, according to the differences in the investigation and in the
susceptibility and maturity for it to be presupposed in the reader, the mode of conducting it
and the composition of the dialogue devoted to it would require to be different.
Schleierniacher distinguishes three series and classes of dialogues. In the first he
considers that thle germs of dialectic and of the doctrine of ideas begin to unfold
themselves in all the freshness of the first youthful inspiration, with the fulness of an
imagtinative, dramatically mimetic representation; in the second those germs develop
themselves further by means of dialectic investigations respecting the difference between
common and philosophical acquaintance with things, respecting notion and knowledge (Plato, 1.1, Einleitung, p. 45, &c.; comp. 2.2, p. 142). To suppose that Plato. when
he composed the first of his dialogues, already had clearly before his eyes in distinct
outlines the whole series of tihe rest, with all their internal references ;ald connecting
links; and farther, that from the beginning to the end he never varied, but needed only to
keep on spinning the thread he had once begun, without any where taking it up atlresh,--such
a supposition would indeed be preposterous, as Heremann remarks against Schleiernimacher (l.c.. p. 354. 56). But the assumption above referred to respecting the
composition and succession of the dialogues of Plato by no means depends upon any such
supposition. It is enough to believe that tihe fundamental germs of his system early malmde
their appearance in the mind of Plato in a definite form, and attained to their development
inr a natural mmanuer through the power that resided in them. We need suppose in the case of
Plato only what may be demonstrated in the case of other great thinkers of more modern times,
as Des Cartes, Spinozn, Fichte, Schelling. Nay, we are not cvel compelled to assume (what
indeed is very improbable) that the succession of the dialogues according to their internal
references must coincide with the chronological order in which they were composed. Why should
not Plato, while he had already commenced works of the third class, have found occasion now
and then to return to the completion of the dialogues of the second, or even of the first
class ? As regards, however, the arrangements in detail, we will not celly that
Schleiermacher, in the endeavour to assign its place to every dialogue according to the
presupposed connection with all the rest running through the series, has now and then
suffered himself to be misled by insecure traces, and has been induced partly to regard some
leading dialogues from an incorrect or doubtful point of view, partly to supply references by
means of artificial combinations. On the other hand, we believe, after a careful examination
of the objections against it that have been made good, that we may adopt the principle of the
arrangement and the most important points of it.
The first series embraces, according to Schleiermacher, the larger dialogues, Phaedrus,
Protagoras, and Parmenides, to which the smaller ones, Lysis, Laches, Charmides, and
Euthyphron are to be added as supplements. When others, on the contrary, declare themselves
for a much later composition of the Phaedrus, and Hermann in particular (l.c. pp. 356, 373, &c.) regards it as the entranceprogramnime (p. 544) written by
Plato for the opening of his school, we will indeed admit that the account which makes that
dialogue Plato's first youthful composition (Diog. 50.3.38; Olympiod. Vita
Plat. p. 78) can pass for nothing more than a conclusion come to by learned
philosophers or grammarians (though the judgments of Euphorion, Panaetius, and Dicaearchus
brought forward in favour of the opinion deserve regard); but that the compass of knowledge
said to be found in the dialogue, and the fulness and maturity of the thoughts, its
similarity to the Symposium and Menexenus, the acquaintance with Egyptian mythology and
Pythagorean philosophy, bear indubitable testimony to a later composition, we cannot admit;
but we must rather appeal to the fact that the youthful Plato, even before he had visited
Egypt and Magna Graecia, might easily have acquired such an amount of knowledge in Athens,
the centre of all the philosophical life of that age; and further, that what is brougliht
forward as evidence of the compass and maturity of the thoughts is rather the youthful,
lively expression of the first conception of great ideas (comp. Van Heusde, Initia Doctr. Plut. i. p. 197). With the Phaedrus the Lysis stands connected as a
dialectic essay upon love. But as the Phaedrus contains the outlines of the peculiar leading
doctrines of Plato partly still as forebodings expressed in a mythical form, so the
Protagoras is distinctly to be regarded as the Socratic method in opposition to the
sophistic, in discussions wlich we might term the Propylaea of the doctrine of morals. The
early composition of this dialogue is assumed even by the antagonists of Schleiermacher, they
only dispute on insufficient grounds either the gelnuimeness of the smaller dialogues
Charmides, Laches and Euthyphron (see on this point Hernmann, p. 443, &c.), or their
connection with the Protagoras, which manifests itself in Platonische Studien, p. 184, &c.), but rather see ourselves compelled
to assign it a place in the second series of the dialogues of Plato. The foundation of this
series is formed by the dialogues Theaetetus, Sophistes, and Politicus, which have clearly a
mutual connection. Before the Theaetetus Schleiermacher places the Gorgias, and the
connection of the two is indubitable, in so far as they both exhibit the constant and
essential in opposition to the changeable and contingent, the former in the domain of
cognizance, the latter in that of moral action; and as the Theaetetus is to be placed before
the Sophistes, Cratylus and other dialogues, so is the Gorgias to be placed at the head of
the Politicus, Philebus and the Politeia. Less certain is the position assigned by
Schleiermacher to the Menon. Enthydemus and Cratylus, between the Theaetetus and Sophistes.
The Menon seems rather expressly designed to form a connecting link between the
investigations of the Gorgias and those of the Theaetetus, and on the one hand to bring into
view the distinction discussed in the latter between correct notion and true apprehension, in
its application to the idea of virtue; on the other hand, by means of this distinction to
bring nearer to its final decision the question respecting the essence of the good, as of
virtue and the possibility of teaching it. It might be more difficult to assign to the
Euthydemus its definite place. Although with the ridicule of the empty polemical artifices of
sophists which is contained in it, there are connected intimations respecting wisdom as the
art of those who are in a condition at the same time to produce and to use what they produce,
the dialogue nevertheless should probably be regarded as an occasional piece. The Cratylus
opposes to the scoffing art of the sophist, dealing in grammatical niceties, the image of
dialectic art which recognises and fashions language as a necessary production of the human
mind. It should, however, find its appropriate place not before the Sophistes (where
Schleiermacher places it), but after it, as the application of dialectic to language could
hardly become a matter of inquiry until the nature of dialectic had been discussed, as is
done in the Sophistes. The Eleatic stranger, when questioned by Socrates respecting the
nature and difference of the sophist, the statesman and the philosopher (Soph. p. 217), answers only the first two of these questions, in the dialogues that
bear those names, and if Plato had intended a third and similar investigation respecting the
nature of the philosopher, he has not undertaken the immediate fulfilment of his design.
Schleiermacher therefore assumes that in the Banquet and Phaedon taken together the model of
the philosopher is exhibited in the person of Socrates, in the former as he lived, glorified
by the panegyric of Alcibiades, and marked by the function, so especially peculiar to him, of
love generating in the beautiful (p. 206); in the latter as he appears in death, longing to
become pure spirit. (Schleiermacher's Platon, 2.2. p. 358, &c.) The
contents of the two dialogues, however. and their organization as regarded from the point of
view of this assumption, is not altogether intelligible. (Comp. Hermann, p. 525. 27.) But as
little should we, with Ed. Zeller (l.c. p. 194, &c.), look for the
missing member of the trilogy, of which we have part in the Sophistes and Politicus, in the
exclusively dialectical Parmenides. (Comp. Hermann, p. 671, note 533.) But Plato might the
sooner have given up the separate exhibition of the philosopher, partly inasmuch as the
description of him is already mixed up with the representation of the sophist and the
politician, partly as the picture is rendered complete by means of the Symposium and the
Phaedon, as well as by the books on the state. Meantime the place which Schleiermacher
assigns to those two dialogues between the Sophistes and Philebus may be regarded as amply
justified, as even Hermann admits in opposition to Ast and Socher (pp. 398, 469, 526). Only
we must reserve room at this same place for the Parmenides. In this most difficult of the
Platonic dialogues, which has been treated of at length by Ed. Zeller (l.c.), Stallbaum (Platonis Parmenides, cum IV. libris
Prolegomenoram, Lips. 1839), Brandis (Geschichte der Griech. Röm.
Philosophie, 2.1, p. 234, &c., comp. p. 169, note), and others, we find on the one
hand the outlines of the doctrine of ideas with the difficulties which oppose themselves to
it briefly discussed, on the other hand a considerably more extended attempt made to point
out in connection with the conceptions considered in themselves, and in particular with the
most universal of them, the One and Existence, the
contradictions in which the isolated, abstract contemplation of those conceptions involves
us; manifestly in order to pave the way for the solution of those difficulties. In this the
Parmenides is closely connected with the Sophistes, and might be placed immediately after the
Cratylus, before the Symposium and Phaedon. But that the Philebus is to be regarded as the
immediate transition from the second, dialectical, series of dialogues to the third,
Schleiermacher has incontrovertibly shown; and the smaller dialogues, which as regards their
contents and form are related to those of the second series, in so far as they are not
banished as spurious into the appendix, should be ranked with them as occasional treatises.
In the third series the order for the books on the state (Politeia), the Timaeus and the
Critias, has been expressly marked by Plato himself, and with the books on the state those on
the laws connect themselves as a supplement.
Ast, though throughout polemically opposed to Schleiermacher, sees himself compelled in the
main to recognise the threefold division made by the latter, as he distinguishes Socratic
dialogues, in which the poetic and dramatic prevail (Protagoras, Phaedrus, Gorgias and
Phaedon), dialectic dialogues (Theaetetus, Sophistes, Politicus and Cratylus), and purely
scientific, or Socratico-Platonic dialogues (Philebus, Symposiuln, Politeia, Timaeus and
Critias. (Platons Leben und Schriften, Leipzig, 1816.) But through this
new conception and designation of the first series, and by adding, in the separation of the
second and third series, an external ground of division to the internal one, he has been
brought to unsteady and arbitrary assumptions which leave out of consideration the internal
references. Socher's attempt to establish in place of such arrangements depending upon
internal connection Ueber Platons Schriften, München, 1820), has
been followed by no results that can in any degree be depended on, as the date of the
composition can be approximately determined by means of the anachronisms (offences against
the time in which they are supposed to take place) contained in them in but a few dialogues
as compared with the greatly preponderating number of those in which he has assigned it from
mere opinion. K. F. Hermann's undertaking, in the absence of definite external statements, to
restore a chronological arrangement of the dialogues according to traces and marks founded in
facts, with historical circumspection and criticism, and in doing so at the same time to
sketch a faithful picture of the progress of the mental life and development of the writer of
them, is considerably more worth notice. (Geschichte und System der
Platonischen Philosophie. 1ster Theil, Heidelberg, 1839, p. 368, &c.) In the first
period, according to him, Plato's Socrates betrays no other view of life, or scientific
conception, than such as we become acquainted with in the historical Socrates out of Xenophon
and other unsuspicious witnesses (Hippias, Ion, Alcibiades I., Charmides, Lysis, Laches,
Protagoras, and Euthydemus). Then, immediately after the death of Socrates, the Apology,
Criton, Gorgias, Euthyphron, Menon, and Hippias Major belong to a transition step. In the
second, or Megaric period of development dialectic makes its appearance as the true technic
of philosophy, and the ideas as its proper objects (Cratylus,
Theaetetus, Sophistes, Politicus, Parmenides). Lastly in the third period the system itself
is exhibited (Phaedrus, Menexenus, Symposium, Phaedo, Philebus, Politeia, Timaeus, Critias,
and the Laws). But although Hermann has laboured to establish his assumptions with a great
expenditure of acuteness and learning, he has not attained to results that can in any degree
stand the test of examination. For the assumptions that Plato in the first period confined
himself to an analytic treatment of ideas, in a strictly Socratic manner, and did not attain
to a scientific independence till he did so through his removal to Megara, nor to an
acquaintance with the Pythagorean philosophy, and so to the complete development of his
dialectic and doctrine of ideas, till he did so through his travels,--for these assumptions
all that can be made out is, that in a number of the dialogues the peculiar features of the
Platonic dialectic and doctrine of ideas do not as yet make their appearance in a decided
form. But on the one hand Hermann ranks in that class dialogues such as the Euthydemus,
Menon, and Gorgias, in which references to dialectic and the doctrine of ideas can scarcely
fail to be recognised ; on the other it is not easy to see why Plato, even after he had laid
down in his own mind the outlines of his dialectic and doctrine of ideas, should not now and
then, according to the separate reqnirements of the subject in hand, as in the Protagoras and
the smaller dialogues which connect themselves with it, have looked away from them, and
transported himself back again completely to the Socratic point of view. Then again, in
Hermann's mode of treating the subject, dialogues which stand in the closest relation to each
other, as the Gorgias and Theaetetus, the Euthydemus and Theaetetus, are severed from each
other, and assigned to different periods; while the Phaedon, the Symposium and the Philebus
are separated from the Sophistes and Politicus, with which they are much more closely
connected than with the delineative works, the Politeia, Timaeus, &c. (Comp. Brandis, Geschichte der Griechisch-Römischen Philosophie, 2.1, p. 164,
&c.)
Lastly, as regards the genuineness of the writings of Plato, we cannot, indeed, regard the
investigations on the subject as brought to a definitive conclusion, though we may consider
ourselves convinced that only a few occasional pieces, or delineations of Socratic
conversations, are open to doubts of any importance, not those dialogues which are to be
regarded as the larger, essential members of the system. Even if these in part were first
published by disciples of Plato, as by Hermodorus (who has been accused of smuggling in
spurious works only through a misunderstanding of a passage in Cicero, Platonische Studien, p. 201, &c. Respecting the latter comp. Hermann, l.c. i. p. 410, &c.). Notwithstanding these testimonies, the
Parmenides, Sophistes, and Politicus (by Socher, l.c. p. 280, &c.;
see on the other hand Hermann, l.c. p. 506, &100.575, note 131), and
the Menon (by Ast, p. 398, &c.; see in reply Hermann, p. 482, &c.), have been
assailed on exceedingly insufficient grounds; the books on the Laws in a manner much more
deserving of attention (especially by Zeller, l.c. 1-115; but comp.
Hermann, p. 547); but yet even the latter are with preponderating probability to be regarded
as genuine. On the other hand the Epinomis is probably to be assigned to a disciple of Plato
(comp. Hermann, p. 410. 22), the Minos and Hipparchus to a Socratic (A. Böckh, in Platonis Minoen qui vulgo fertur, p. 9, undertakes to make good the
claim of Simon to them). The second Alcibiades was attributed by ancient critics to Xenophon
(
However groundless may be the Neo-platonic assumption of a secret doctrine, of which not
even the passages brought forward out of the insititious Platonic letters (vii. p. 341e. ii.
p. 314c.) contain Phys. 4.2, ib. Simpl. f. 127, de Generat. et Corrupt. 2.3; ib.
Joh. Philop. f. 50; de
Anima, 1.2; ib. Simpl. et Joh. Philop. ; Aristox. Harmonica, ii.
p. 30; comp. Brandis, de Perditis Aristotelis Libris, p. 3, &c.; and
Trendelenburg, Platonis de Ideis et Numeris Doctrina). The Aristotelic
monography on ideas was also at least in part drawn from lectures of Plato, or conversations
with him. (Schol. in Arist. p. 564b. 14, &c.; Brandis, l.c. p. 14, &c.)
The attempt to combine poetry and philosophy (the two fundamental tendencies of the Greek
mind), gives to the Platonic dialogues a charm, which irresistibly attracts us, though we may
have but a deficient comprehension of their subjectmatter. Even the greatest of the Grecian
poets are censured by Plato, not without some degree of passion and partiality, for their
want of clear ideas, and of true insight (de Rep. iii. p. 387a., ii. p.
377, x. pp. 597, c., 605, a., 608, a., v. p. 476b., 479, 472, d., vi. p. 507a., de Leg. iv. p. 719c., Gorg. p. 501b.). Art is to be
regarded as the capacity of creating a whole that is inspired by an invisible order (Phileb. pp. 64, 67, Phaedr. p. 264d.); its aim, to
guide the human soul (Phaedr. pp. 261, a. 277, 100.273, a., de Rep. x. p. 605c.). The living, unconsciously-creative impulse of the
poet, when purified by science, should, on its part, bring this to a full development.
Carrying the Socratic dialogue to greater perfection, Plato endeavours to draw his hearers,
by means of a dramatic intuition, into the circle of the investigation; to bring them, by the
spur of irony, to a consciousness either of knowledge or of ignorance; by means of myths,
partly to waken up the spirit of scientific inquiry, partly to express hopes and
anticipations which science is not yet able to confirm. (See Alb. Jahn, Disserratio Plttonica quatum de Causa et Natura Mythorum Platonicorum disputatur, tum
Mythus de Amoris Ortu Sorte et Indole explicatur. Bernae, 1839.)
Plato, like Socrates, was penetrated with the idea that wisdom is the attribute of the
Godhead, that philosophy, springing from the impulse to know, is the
necessity of the intellectual man, and the greatest of the goods in which he participates
(Phaedr. p. 278d., Lysis, p. 218a., Apolog. p. 23, Theaet. p. 155d., Sympos. p. 204a., Tim. p. 47a.). When once we strive after Wisdom
with the intensity of a lover, she becomes the true consecration and purification of the soul
(Phaedr. p. 60e., Symp. p. 218b.), adapted to lead
us from the nightlike to the true day (de Rep. vii. p.521, d. vi. p.
485b.). An approach to wisdom, however, presupposes an original communion with Being, truly so called ; and this communion again presupposes the divine
nature or immortality of the soul, and the impulse to become like the
Eternal. This impulse is the love which generates in Truth, and the development of it is
termed Dialectics. The hints respecting the constitution of the soul, as
independent of the body; respecting its higher and lower nature ; respecting the mode of
apprehension of the former, and its objects, the eternal and the self-existent ; respecting
its corporisation, and its longing by purification to raise itself again to its higher
existence: these hints, clothed in the form of mythus (Phaedr. p.
245c.), are followed up in the
The question, "What is knowledge," had been brought forward more and more definitely, in
proportion as the development of philosophy generally advanced. Each of the three main
branches of the ancient philosophy, when at their culminating point, had made a trial at the
solution of that question, and considered themselves bound to penetrate beneath the
phenomenal surface of the affections and perceptions. Heracleitus, for example, in order to
gain a sufficient ground for the common (Being, and thought; Philolaus, and with him the
flower of the Pythagoreans generally, in the consciousness we have of the unchangeable
relations of number and measure. When, however, more generally, and to direct
his efforts, therefore, to the investigation of its various forms. In so doing he became the
originator of the science of knowledge,--of dialectics. No one before him had gained an
equally clear perception of the subjective and objective elements of our knowledge; no one of
the theoretical and the practical side of it; and no one before him had attempted to discover
its forms and its laws.
The doctrine of Heracleitus, if we set aside the postulate of a universal
world-consciousness, had been weakened down to the idea that knowledge is confined to the
consciousness of the momentary affection which proceeds from the meeting of the motion of the
subject with that of the object; that each of these affections is equally true, but that
each, on account of the incessant change of the motions, must be a different one. With this
idea that of the atomistic theory coincided, inasmuch as it was only by means of arbitrary
hypotheses that the latter could get over the consciousness of ever-changing sensuous
affections. In order to refute this idea from its very foundation, once for all, Plato's
Theaetetus sets forth with great acuteness the doctrine of eternal generation, and the
results which Protagoras had drawn from it (p. 153, &c.); he renounces the apparent, but
by no means decisive grounds, which lie against it (p. 157e. &c.); but then demonstrates
that Protagoras must regard his own assertion as at once true and false; that he must
renounce and give up all determinations respecting futurity, and consequently respecting
utility ; that continuity of motion being presuplposed, no perception whatever could be
attained; and that the comparison and combination of the emotions or perceptions presupposes
a thinking faculty peculiar to the soul (reflection), distinct from mere feeling (pp. 171,
&100.179, 182-184). The man who acknowledges this, if he still will not renounce
sensualism, yet will be inclined from his sense-perceptions to deduce recollection; from it,
conception ; from conception, when it acquires firmness, knowledge (Phaedo, p. 96c.); and to designate the latter as correct conception; although he will
not be in a condition to render any account of the rise of incorrect conceptions, or of the
difference between those and correct ones, unless he presupposes a knowledge that lies, not
merely beyond conception generally, but even beyond correct conception, and that carries with
it its own evidence (Theaet. p. 187). He will also be obliged to give up
the assertion, that knowledge consists in right conception, united with discourse or
explanation ; for even thus an absolutely certain knowledge will be presupposed as the rule
or criterion of the explanation, whatever may he its more accurate definition (p. 200c.
&c.). Although, therefore, Plato concludes the dialogue with the declaration that he has
not succeeded in bringing the idea of knowledge into perfect clearness (p. 210a.), but that
it must be something which excludes all changeableness, something which is its own guarantee,
simple, uniform, indivisible (p. 205c., comp. 202, d.), and not to be reached in the science
of numbers (p. 195d.): of this the reader, as he spontaneously reproduces the investigation,
was intended to convince himself (comp. Charmid. p. 166, 100.169, c.,
Sophist. p. 220c.). That knowledge, however, grounded on and sustained
by logical inference (Meno, p. 98a., de Rep. iv. p. 431c.), should verify itself
through the medium of true ideas (Tim. p. 51c., de
Rep. vi. p. 54d.), can only be considered as the more perfect determination of the
conclusion to which he had come in the Theaetetus.
But before Plato could pass on to his investigations respecting the modes of development
and the forms of knowledge, he was obliged to undertake to determine the
objects of knowledge, and to grasp that knowledge in its objective
phase. To accomplish this was the purpose of the Sophistes, which immediately attaches itself
to the Theaetetus, and obviously presupposes its conclusions. In the latter dialogue it had
already been intimated that knowledge can only take place in reference
to real existence (Theaet. p. 206e. and 201, a.). This was also the
doctrine of the Eleatics, who nevertheless had deduced the unconditional unity and
unchangeableness of the existent, from the inconceivableness of the non-existent. If,
however, non-existence is absolutely inconceivable, then also must error, false conception,
be so likewise. First of all, therefore, the non-existent was to be discussed, and shown to
have, in some sort, an existence, while to this end existence itself had to be defined.
In the primal substance, perpetually undergoing a process of transformation, which was assumed by the Ionian physiologists, the existent, whether understood as duality, trinity, or plurality, cannot find place (p. 242d.); but as little can it (with the Eleatics) be even so much as conceived in thought as something absolutely single and one, without any multiplicity (p. 244b. &c.). Such a thing would rather again coincide with Non-existence. For a multiplicity even in appearance only to be admitted, a multiformity of the existent must be acknowledged (p. 245c. d.). Manifold existence, however, cannot be a bare multiformity of the tangible and corporeal (p. 246a. f.), nor yet a plurality of intelligible incorporeal Essences (Ideas), which have no share either in Action or in Passion, as Euclid and his school probably taught ; since so conceived they would be destitute of anv influence on the world of the changeable, and would indeed themselves entirely elude our cognizance (p. 248a. f.).
But as in the Theaetetus, the inconceivableness of an eternal generation, without anything
stable, had been the result arrived at (comp. Sophist. p. 249b.), so in
the Sophistes the opposite idea is disposed of, namely, that the absolutely unchangeable
existence alone really is, and that, all change is mere Being instead of a Becoming, and vice versâ, and then to
show how the manifold existences stand in relation to each other, and to the changeable, i.
e. to phenomena. Existence, Plato concludes. can of itself consist neither in Rest nor in
Motion, yet still can share in both, and stand in reciprocal community (p. 250a.
&c.).
But certain ideas absolutely exclude one another, as rest, for example, excludes motion,
and sameness difference. What ideas, then, are capable of being united with each other, and
what are not so, it is the part of science (dialectics) to decide (p.
252e.). By the discussion of the relation which the ideas of rest and motion. of sameness and
difference, hold to each other, it is explained how motion can be the same, and not the same,
how it can be thought of as being and yet not being; consequently, how the non-existent
denotes only the variations of existence, not the bare negation of it (p. 256d. &c.). That existence is not at variance with becoming, and that the latter is not conceivable apart front the former,
Plato shows in the case of the two principal parts of speech, and their reciprocal relation
(p. 258. c., &100.262). From this it becomes evident in what sense dialectics can be
characterised at once as the science of understanding, and as the science of the
self-existent, as the science of sciences. In the Phaedrus (p. 261 ; comp. pp. 266, b. 270,
d.) it is presented to us in the first instance as the art of discoursing. and therewith of
the true education of the soul and of intellection. In the Sophistes (p. 261e. &c.) it
appears as the science of the true connection of ideas; in the Philebns (p. 16c.) as the
highest gift of the gods, as the true Promethean fire; while in the Books on the Republic
(vi. p. 511b.) pure ideas, freed from all form and presupposition, are shown to be grasped
and developed by it.
In the Theaetetus simple ideas, reached only by the spontaneous activity of thought, had
presented themselves as the necessary conditions of knowledge ; in the Sophistes, the objects of knowledge come before us as a manifold existence, containing in
itself the principles of all changes. The existence of things, cognisable only by means of
conception, is their true essence, their idea. Hence the assertion (Parmen. p. 135b.) that to deny the reality of ideas is to destroy all
scientific research. Plato, it is true, departed from the original meaning of the word idea
(namely, that of form or figure) in which it had been employed by Anaxagoras, Diogenes of
Apollonia, and probably also by Democritus; inasmuch as he understood by it the unities
(Phaedr. p. 247, de Rep. ii. p. 380, ix. p. 585b. vi. p. 507b., Phileb.
p. 15, Tim. p. 51b.); but he retained the characteristic of the
intuitive and real, in opposition to the mere abstractness of ideas which belong simply to
the thinking which interposes itself. He included under the expression idea every thing stable amidst the changes of mere phenomena, all really existing and
unchangeable definitudes, by which the changes of things and our knowledge of them are
conditioned, such as the ideas of genus and species, the laws and ends of nature, as also the
principles of cognition, and of moral action, and the essences of individual, concrete,
thinking souls (Phileb. p. 15a., de Rep. vii. p.
532a., Tim p. 51, Phaedo, p. 100b. p. 102. c.
&c). To that only which can be conceived as an entirely formless and undetermined mass,
or as a part of a whole, or as an arbitrary relation, do no ideas whatever correspond (Parm. p. 130c).
But how are we to understand the existence of ideas in things? Neither the whole
conception, nor merely a part of it, can reside in the things; neither is it enough to
understand the ideas to be conceptions, which the soul beholds together
with the things (that is, as we should call them, subjectively valid conceptions or
categories), or as bare thoughts without reality. Even when viewed as the archetypes of the
changeable, they need some more distinct definition, and some security against obvious
objections. This question and the difficulties which lie against its solution, are developed
in the Parmenides, at the beginning of the dialogue, with great acuteness. To introduce the
solution to that question, and the refutation of these difficulties, is the evident intention
of the succeeding dialectical antinomical antinomical (antinomisch) will be evident to any one who examines the Greek word TRANSL.]reality distinct from the natural causality of motion, we cannot here
inquire. Neither can we enter into any discussions respecting the Platonic methods of
division, and of the antinomical definitions of ideas, respecting the leading principles of
these methods, and his attempt in the Cratylus to represent words as the
immediate copy of ideas, that is, of the essential in things, by means
of the fundamental parts of speech, and to point out the part which dialectics must take in
the development of language. While the foundation which Plato lays for the doctrine of ideas
or dialectics must be regarded as something finished and complete in itself, yet the mode in
which he carries it out is not by any means beyond the reach of objections ; and we can
hardly assume that it had attained any remarkably higher development either in the mind of
Plato himself, or in his lectures, although he appears to have been continually endeavouring
to grasp and to represent the fundamental outlines of his doctrine from different points of
view, as is manifest especially from the argumentations which are preserved to us in
Aristotle's work on Plato's ideas. (Brandis, de perditis Aristotelis Libris
de Ideis et de Bono, p. 14, &c.; also Handbuch der Geschichte der
Griechisch-Römischen Philosophie, vol. ii. p. 227, &c.)
That Plato, however, while he distinctly separated the region of pure thinking or of ideas
from that of sensuous perception and the world of phenomena, did not overlook the necessity
of the communion between the intelligible and the sensible world, is abundantly manifest from
the gradations which he assumes for the development of our cognition. In the region of
sense--perception, or conception, again, he distinguishes the comprehension of imayes, and that of objects (Handbuch, &c. vol. ii. pp. 269, &c.--274, &c.) The
fourfold division which he brings forward, and which is discussed in
the
Although, therefore, the carrying out of Plato's dialectics may be imperfect, and by no
means proportional to this excellent foundation, yet he had certainly taken a steady view of
their end, namely, to lay hold of ideas more and more distinctly in their organic connection
at once with one another and with the phenomenal world, by the discovery of their inward
relations; and then having done this, to refer them to their ultimate basis. This ought at
the same time to verify itself as the unconditional ground of the reality of objects and of
the power we have to take cognisance of them, of Being and of Thought ; being comparable to
the intellectual sun. Now this absolutely unconditional ground Plato describes as the idea of
the good (De Rep). vi. p. 505, &c.), convinced that we cannot
imagine any higher definitude than the good ; but that we must, on the
contrary, measure all other definitudes by it, and regard it as the aim and purpose of all
our endeavours, nay of all developments. Not being in a condition to grasp the idea of the
good with fill distinctness, we are able to approximate to it only so far as we elevate the
power of thinking to its original purity (Brands. ibid.pp . 281,
&100.324, &c.). Although the idea of the good, as the ultimate basis both of the mind
and of the realities laid hold of by it, of thought and of existence, is, according to him,
more elevated than that of spirit or actual existence itself, yet we can only imagine its
activity as the activity of the mind. Through its activity the determinate natures of the
ideas, which in themselves only exist, acquire their power of causation, a power which must
be set down as spiritual, that is, free. Plato, therefore, describes the idea of the good, or
the Godhead, sometimes teleologically, as the ultimate purpose of all conditioned existence ;
sometimes cosmologically, as the ultimate operative cause; and has begun to develope the
cosmological, as also the physico-theological proof for the being of God; but has referred
both back to the idea of the Good, as the necessary presupposition to
all other ideas, and our cognition of them. Moreover, we find him earnestly endeavouring to
purify and free from its restrictions the idea of the Godhead, to establish and defend the
belief in a wise and divine government of the world; as also to set aside the doubt that
arises from the existence of evil and suffering in the world. (Brandis, Ibid. p. 331, &c.)
But then, how does the sensuous world, the world of phenomena, come into existence? To
suppose that in his view it was nothing else than the mere subjective appearance which
springs from the commingling of the ideas, or the confused conception of the ideas (Ritter,
Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. ii. pp. 295, &100.339, &c.),
not only contradicts the declarations of Plato in the
Both these departments which form the connecting link between Dialectics and Physics, and
the principles of Physics themselves, contain only preliminary assumptions and hypothetical
declarations, which Plato describes as a kind of recreation from more earnest search after
the really existent, as an innocent enjoyment, a rational sport (Tim.
pp. 27, e. 29, b. 59, c.). Inasmuch as physics treat only of the changeable and imitative,
they must be contented with attaining probability but they should aim, especially, at
investigating teleologically end-causes, that is, free causality, and showing how they
converge in the realisation of the idea of the good. All the determinations of the original
undetermined matter are realised by corporeal forms; in these forms
Plato attempts to find the natural or necessary basis of the different kinds of feeling and
of sensuous perception. Throughout the whole development, however, of his Physiology, as also
in the outlines of his doctrine on Health and Sickness, pregnant ideas and clear views are to
be met with. (See especially Etudes sur le
Timée de Platon, Paris, 1841.)
With the physiology of Plato his doctrine of the Soul is closely connected. Endowed with
the same nature as the soul of the world, the human soul is that which is spontaneously
active and unapproachable by death, although in its coneetion with the body bound up with the
appetitive, the sensuous; and the Tim. p. 69d. 71, b.,
de Rep. iv. p. 435, &c. ix. p. 571.) Another link of connection
between the intellectual and sensuous nature of the soul is referred to Lore, which, separated from concupiscent desire, is conceived of as an inspiration
that transcends mere mediate intellection, whose purpose is to realise a perpetual striving
after the immortal, the eternal ;--to realise, in a word, by a close connection with others,
the Good in the form of the Beautifill. In the Phaedrus Plato speaks of love under the veil
of a myth; in the Lysis he commences the logical definition of it ; and in the Symposium, one
of the most artistic and attractive of his dialogues, he analyses the different momeneta
which are necessary to the complete determination of the idea. In these and some of the other
dialogues, however, beauty is described as the image of the ideas, penetrating the veil of
pheomena and apprehended by the purest and brightest exercise of sense, in relation to
colours, forms, actions, and morals, as also with relation to the harmonious combination of
the Manifold into perfect Unity, and distinctly separated from the Agreeable and the Useful.
Art is celebrated as the power of producing a whole, inspired by an invisible arrangement; of
grouping together into one form the images of the ideas, which are everywhere scattered
around.
That the soul, when separated from the body, -- or the pure spirit, -- is immortal, and
that a continuance, in which power and consciousness or insight are preserved, is secured to
it, Socrates, in the Phaedo of Plato, when approaching death, endeavours to convince his
friends, partly by means of analogies drawn from the nature of things, partly by the
refutation of the opposed hypothesis, that the soul is an harmonious union and tuning of the
constituents of the body, partly by the attempt to prove the simplicity of the essential
nature of the soul, its consequent indestructibility, and its relation to the Eternal, or its
pre-existence; partly by the argumentation that the idea of the soul is inseparable from that
of life, and that it can never be destroyed by moral evil, -- the only evil to which,
properly speaking, it is subjected (comp. de Rep. x. p. 609b. &c.,
Phaedr. p. 245c.). Respecting the condition of the soul after death
Plato expresses himself only in myths, and his utterances respecting the Transmigration of
Souls also are expressed in a mythical form.
As a true disciple of Socrates, Plato devoted all the energy of his soul to ethics, which
again are closely connected with politics. He paves the way for a scientific treatment of
ethics by the refutation of the sophistical sensualistic and hedonistic (selfish) theories,
first of all in the Protagoras and the three smaller dialogues attached to it (see above),
then in the Gorgias, by pointing ont the contradictions in which the assertions, on the one
hand that wrong actions are uglier than right ones but more useful, on the other that the
only right recognised by nature is that of the stronger, are involved. In this discussion the
result is deduced, that neither happiness nor virtue can consist in the attempt to satisfy
our unbridled and ever-increasing desires (de Rep. i.). In the Menon the
Good is defined as that kind of utility which can never become injurious, and whose
realisation is referred to a knowledge which is absolutely fixed and certain,--a knowledge,
however, which must be viewed as something not externally communicable, but only to be
developed from the spontaneous activity of the soul. Lastly, in the Philebus, the
investigation respecting pleasure and pain, which was commenced in the Gorgias, as also that
on the idea of the Good, is completed; and this twofold investigation grounded upon the
principles of dialectics, and brought into relation with phys cs. Pain is referred to the
disturbance of the inward harmony, pleasure to the maintenance, or restoration of it; and it
is shown how, on the one hand, true and false, on the other, pure and mixed pleasure, are to
be distinguished, while, inasmuch as it (pleasure) is always dependent on the activity out of
which it springs, it becomes so much the truer and purer in proportion as the activity itself
becomes more elevated. In this way the first sketch of a table of Goods
is attained, in which the eternal nature of Measure, that is, the sum
and substance of the ideas, as the highest canon, and then the different steps of the actual
realisation of them in life, in a regular descending scale, are given, while it is
acknowledged that the accompaying pure (unsensuous) pleasure is also to be regarded as a
good, but inferior to that on which it depends, the reason and the understanding, science and
art. Now, if we consider that, ac cording to Plato, all morality must be directed to the
realisation of the ideas in the phenomenal world; and, moreover, that these ideas in their
reality and their activity, as also the knowledge respecting them, is to be referred to the
Godhead, we can understand how he could designate the highest good as being an assimilation
to God. (Theaet. p. 176a, de Rep. 10.613; comp,
Wyttenbach, ad Plut. de Ser. Num. Vind. p. 27.)
In the Ethics of Plato the doctrine respecting virtue is attached to that of the highest
good, and its development. That virtue is essentially one, and the science of the good, had
been already deduced in the critical and dialectical introductory dialogues; but it had been
also presupposed and even hinted that, without detriment to its unity, different phases of it
could be distinguished, and that to knowledge there must be added practice, and an earnest
combating of the sensuous functions. In order to discover these different phases, Plato goes
back upon his triple division of the faculties of the soul. Virtue, in other words, is
fitness of the soul for the operations that are peculiar to it (de Rep.
i. p. 353d. x. p. 601d.), and it manifests itself by means of its (the soul's) inward
harmony, beauty, and health (Gorg. pp. 504, b. 506, b., Phaedo, p. 93e., de Rep. iv. pp. 444, d. 8.554, e.). Different
phases of virtue are distinguishable so far as the soul is not pure spirit; but just as the
spirit should rule both the other elements of the soul, so also should wisdom, as the inn
development of the spirit, rule the Courage. If the sensuous or
appetitive (de Rep. iv. p. 428b.
&c.). That happiness coincides with the inward harmony of virtue, is inferred from this
deduction of the virtues, as also from the discussions respecting pleasure (de Rep. viii. p. 547, &c. ix. p. 580, &c.).
If it be true that the ethico-rational nature of the individual can only develope itself
completely in a well-ordered state (de Rep. 6.496, b.), then the object
and constitution of the state must perfectly answer to the moral nature of the individual,
and politics must be an essential, inseparable part of ethics. While, therefore, Plato
considers the state as the copy of a well-regulated individual life (de
Rep. ii. p. 368e. viii. p. 544e. &c.), he demands of it that it should exhibit a
perfect harmony, in which everything is common to all, and the individual in all his
relations only an organ of the state. The entire merging of the individual life in the life
of the state might have appeared to him as the only effectual means of stemming that
selfishness and licence of the citizens, which in his time was becoming more and more
predominant. Plato deduces the three main elements of the state from the three different
activities of the soul; and just as the appetitive element should be absolutely under
control, so also the working class, which answers to it; and the military order, which
answers to the emotive element, should develope itself in thorough dependence upon the
reason, by means of gymnastics and music; and from that the governing order, answering to the
rational faculty, must proceed. The right of passing from the rank of a guard (becoming to being, from notion to knowledge ;
for the ruler ought to be in a condition to extend and confirm the government of the reason
in the state more and more, and especially to direct and watch over training and education.
Without admitting altogether the impracticability of his state, yet Plato confesses that no
realisation of it in the phenomenal world can fully express his idea, but that an
approximation to it must be aimed at by a limitation of unconditional unity and community,
adapted to circumstances. On this account, with the view of approximating to the given
circumstances, he renounces, in his book on the Laws, that absolute separation of ranks;
limits the power of the governors, attempts to reconcile freedom with reason and unity, to
mingle monarchy with democracy ; distinguishes several classes of rulers, and will only
commit to their organically constructed body the highest power under the guarantee of the
laws.
There are numerous editions both of the entire text of Plato, and of separate dialogues.
A joint edition by Bekker and Wolf was projected and commenced, but not completed.
Of separate dialogues, or collections of dialogues, the editions are almost endless.
The versions of separate dialogues in different languages are too numerous to be noticed.
We have space to notice only the following out of the very numerous works written in
illustration of Plato: -- Platonis Dialogorum Argumenta Exposita et
Illustrata, by Tiedemann (Bip. 1786); System der Platonischen
Philosophie, by Tennemann (4 vols. 8vo. Leipz. 1792-5); Initia
Philosophiae Platonicae, by P. G. Van Heusde (ed. ii. Lugd. Bat. 1842); Platons Leben und Schriften, by G. A. F. Ast (Leipz. 1816); Geschichte
und System der Platonischen Philosophic, by C. F. Hermann (Heidelb. 1838); Platonis de Ideis et Numeris Doctrina ea Aristotele illustrata, by F. A.
Trendelenburg (Lips. 1826); Platonische Studien, by E. Zeller
(Tübing. 1839). There are also numerous smaller treatises by Böckh, C. F. Hermann,
Stallbaum, &c., which may be consulted with profit. Schleiermacher's introductions to
some of the dialogues have been translated and published in a separate form in English.