Though
it appears we have everything that Plato wrote, there is not much
evidence concerning his life, his education and his teaching in
the Academy.[1]
The most important record of his activities are the Letters
that have come down through the tradition as part of the canon.
Plato's Letters are significant - even though their
authenticity has always subject to debate - because they are the
only place in his writings where we find autobiographical
statements. Next in importance are the comments by Aristotle
and by other early authors, and, finally, the statements of
Diogenes Laertius. Though Diogenes lived in the earlier half
of the third century, he had access to the texts of ancient
writers that we do not have. Since, as Eduard Zeller once
noted, the tradition concerning ancient philosophers "has
more and more to tell, the further it lies, chronologically, from
the events," let us consider the sources in reverse order,
from least to most reliable.[2]
Diogenes
Laertius's Account
In
his book, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius
noted that Plato was born in the 88th Olympiad (about 428 B.C.E.).
He was either eighty-one or eighty-four when he died.[3]He
was originally named Aristocles, after his grandfather. Both
his father and his mother came from noble Athenian families.
He had two brothers, Adeimantus and Glaucon, as well as a sister,
Potone. He was educated in the school of Dionysius and then,
later, he studied philosophy with the followers of Heraclitus.
He excelled at gymnastics and wrestling. Some say his
wrestling teacher, Ariston, renamed him Plato - which means "broad"
or "wide" - on account of his "robust figure."
Others say the name Plato came from "the breadth of his style"
(III. 4). As Plato grew older, he applied himself to the
composition of lyric poems and tragedies. In 408 B.C., when
he was twenty, he was about to enter one of his compositions into
a competition when he heard Socrates speak in front of the theatre
of Dionysus. He abandoned poetry and from then onwards,
attached himself to Socrates. In 399, Socrates was charged
with corrupting the youth with false teachings about the gods, and
with introducing new gods into Greece. He was executed by
poison. When Socrates was gone, Plato joined the circle of
Cratylus the Heraclitean. Then, he studied with Hermogenes
who taught the philosophy of Parmenides. When he was
twenty-eight, he began traveling. He went to Megara for a
time with some of the other disciples of Socrates, and there he
studied with Euclides. Later, he spent time in Cyrene with
Theodorus the mathematician. After that, he journeyed to
Italy to visit with the Pythagoreans, Eurytus and Philolaus.
Philolaus (perhaps late fifth century) wrote a book entitled, On
Nature (VIII. 84-85), making him the first Pythagorean to
write and to publish the doctrines which had been kept secret
until then (VIII. 15). When Plato's studies with the
Pythagoreans ended, he traveled to Egypt "to see those who
interpreted the will of the gods" (III. 6) Eventually,
he accepted an appointment arranged by his friend Dion to act as
tutor to the younger Dionysius, son of the tyrant Dionysius of
Syracuse, a Greek city in Sicily. Plato returned to Athens
when he was about forty and established the Academy in a grove
outside the city walls. Later, the seventeen-year-old
Aristotle became one of Plato's students and took up residence at
the school. Some reports say that he stayed for twenty
years. Others say that he remained until Plato's death.
About 367, Plato made a second trip to Italy. He tried to
convince the younger Dionysius - who had by then inherited the
realm - to create a constitution based on his model of the ideal
state. The younger Dionysius agreed but then he decided that
Plato's republic was too austere and he broke his word.
About 387, he dismissed Plato from the court and threw him in
prison. His release was secured by the Pythagorean Archytas
(fourth century B.C.E.), who wrote to Dionysius, procured a pardon
and arranged for Plato's safe return to Athens. In 360,
Plato made a third trip to Italy. This trip ended in
disaster as well. After that, he stayed out of politics and
concentrated on teaching.
Some
sources say that Plato wrote to Dion and persuaded him to purchase
three Pythagorean treatises from Philolaus for one hundred minae
(a fortune at the time), and that it was from these texts that he
learned to write the Timaeus and the Republic. Other
authorities say that the book was a gift, given to Plato for
securing the release from prison of one of Philolaus' disciples.
According to a third source, there was only one book. This,
Plato bought himself from the relatives of Philolaus on one of his
trips to Sicily and from it he transcribed the Timaeus (VIII.
84-85). According to traditional sources, Plato "transcribed
a great deal" from other authors and in particular, he "employed
the words" of the Pythagorean Epicarmus (550-460 B.C.E.).
Plato also drew upon the mimes of Sophron, modeling his characters
in this style. He was the first philosopher to refute the
speech of Lysias, which he set out word for word in the Phaedrus.
He was a rival of Xenophon, who had been another pupil of
Socrates. They both wrote similar narratives, including a
Defense of Socrates, a Symposium, a Republic, and various moral
treatises (Lives III. 34). In fact, Aristoxenus said that
nearly all of Plato's Republic was a replication of the
Controversies of Protagoras (III. 36-39).
To
many of his contemporaries, Plato's philosophy was
incomprehensible. According to Diogenes, "he employed a
number of different terms to make his system less intelligible to
the ignorant." He used the same word in contexts where
they have a very different meaning, he employed different words to
represent the same thing, and he expressed the same thing by way
of contrary expressions. When Plato first read the Phaedo
to an audience, only Aristotle stayed to the end; the rest of the
assembly got up and walked away.
Plato
died at a wedding feast when he was an old man. His friends
discovered a copy of the mimes of Sophron under his pillow; the
Laws were left on wax tablets, and they found that the early part
of the Republic had been revised several times. Speusippus,
the son of Plato's sister, succeeded him as head of the Academy.
Reports
on Plato's Teaching From the Early Commentators
Diogenes'
report that Plato's philosophy incorporated many phrases and
doctrines from earlier thinkers was based on a number of ancient
reports. Aristobulus, (ap. Clem. Al. Strom
I. 22; cf. Eus. Praep. Ev. XIII. 12.); Clement of
Alexandria (Stromateis I. 22. 131, 2-6); Eusebius (Praeparatio
Evangelica X. 1I, XI. I); and Origen (Contra Celsum IV.
39, VI. 19) all stated that Plato borrowed from the Hebrew
philosophers, altered their precepts slightly, and inserted them
into his system of doctrines.
Similarly,
Diogenes' account of the audience walking out on Plato's reading
of the Phaedo is just one version of the story concerning
this famous incident. There are many references in the Greek
commentators on Aristotle to Plato's lecture On the Good.
Our most reliable source concerning this speech (or series of
talks) comes from Aristotle's student, Aristoxenus, who recounts:
as
Aristotle used often to relate . . . most of the audience that
attended Plato's lectures on the good . . . came . . . in the
conviction that they would get from the lectures some one or
other of the things that the world calls good; riches or
health, or strength, in fine, some extraordinary gift of
fortune. But when they found that Plato's reasonings
were of sciences and numbers, and geometry, and astronomy, and
of good and unity as predicates of the finite . . . their
disenchantment was complete. The result was that some of
them sneered at the thing, while others vilified it (Harmonics
30.10-31).[4]
Apparently,
people did not anticipate that Plato's "good" would
involve numbers, geometry, unity, and the notion of limit.
Simplicius, in his commentary on Aristotle's Physics
(187a12: 151), refers to the lecture On the Good (Phys.
545.23), saying that this talk was attended by a number of Plato's
students, including Aristotle, who wrote down his "enigmatic
utterances."[5]Different
versions of the story come to us from Proclus in his commentary on
the Philebus,[6]
and from Themistius.[7]Another
piece of evidence concerning Plato's teaching indicates that many
of his educated contemporaries could not fathom his philosophy.
A fragment of a comedy by Epicrates (frag. 11) tells of a
physician who passed by the Academy and witnessed Plato teaching a
group of his students. All of them were engaged in "distinguishing
and defining the kinds of animals and plants." They
were huddled together, silently contemplating a gourd.
"Suddenly and without straightening up one said: 'It's a
round vegetable'; another: 'It's a grass'; a third: 'It's a shrub'."
Their procedure was so puzzling to the doctor that he pronounced
their activity "nonsense." Apparently, Plato and
his students were unperturbed, and "went on drawing their
distinctions."[8]
Aristotle
is the most important secondary source for the biography of Plato.
In the Metaphysics (I. IV. 9-v. 1-VI. 10), he describes
Plato's education and how his philosophy was influenced by his
various teachers. In the Poetics (II. 47b8-10), he
discusses Plato's writing style.
The
passage in the Metaphysics is significant because it
contains the only comments about Plato as a person in the
surviving texts of his most famous student. Though in other
treatises, Aristotle mentions Plato by name and discusses his
philosophical doctrines, he is silent about the character and
personality of his master, about events surrounding his life, and
about his relations with other people. Nor do Aristotle's
extant writings contain a single account of his experiences at
Plato's Academy.[9]Despite
its significance, caution must be exercised in accepting as fact
the evidence from this testimony, for the Metaphysics, as
Werner Jaeger demonstrated, is a collection that was assembled
after Aristotle's death.[10]
Little is known about which of its parts contain Aristotle's own
writing, how much of it accommodated earlier works, or what
adaptations were made by editors. Even so, it is as close as
we come to an eyewitness report.
Aristotle
says that Plato followed the philosophy of the Pythagoreans, but
he added to it certain peculiar features that made his teaching
distinctive. This was because, as a young man, Plato studied
the Heraclitean doctrines with Cratylus. He embraced the
view that sensibles are a state of flux and so there can be no
secure knowledge of them. Plato continued to adhere to these
doctrines from then onward. Later, he studied with Socrates,
who did not deal with the physical universe but focussed instead
on moral questions, seeking the universal definitions. Plato
combined the thought of Socrates with the Heraclitean doctrines
concerning flux. He came to believe that inquiry was not
concerned with sensible things but with "entities of another
kind," since there can be no general definition of things
that are always changing. He called these other entities
"ideas," says Aristotle, and he held that all sensible
things which have the same name as the forms exist by
participation in them.
In
the Poetics (II. 47b8-10), Aristotle defines three
different kinds of imitation and classifies Plato's writing style
as one of them. He mentions that one form of imitation used
verses alone, one used prose without rhythm, and a new kind of
composition mixed poetry with prose discourse. This third
kind of art was so new, says Aristotle, there was as yet no name
for it. As examples of this form of imitation, he describes
the mimes of Sophron, Xenarchus, and the Socratic discourses.
It is assumed that the expression, "Socratic discourses,"
refers to Plato's writings, and that Aristotle classifies them as
a mixture of prose and poetry.[11]
Plato's
Letters
The
most reliable source for Plato's biography comes from his own
Letters, which date from the last two decades of his life and
relate to his travels to Italy and his activities there.
Most refer to his friendship with Dion and his involvement in the
politics of Syracuse. Some refer to Plato's association with
the Pythagoreans. Letters Nine and Twelve were
addressed to Archytas of Tarentum (the Pythagorean who arranged
with Dionysius for Plato's release from prison). This
correspondence indicates that Plato and Archytas were engaged in
finding, recording and preserving the Pythagorean philosophy.
Archytas says in his letter to Plato that he is sending him
treatises on Law, Kingship, Piety, and the Origin of the
Universe. He mentions that the rest were nowhere to be
found.[12]
In reply, Plato says that he had received the writings and was
returning some of his own even though they were not yet completed.
These treatises, he states, should be kept under guard (Ltr.
XII 359 d-e).
That
Plato was involved with others in a major effort to preserve the
Pythagorean philosophy is supported by a passage in the Thirteenth
Letter (360b), where Plato writes, "Here then is
something we must keep alive. . . . So I am doing my part now to
effect this by sending you herewith some Pythagorean treatises and
some classifications." In line with the Pythagorean
tradition of silence concerning their doctrines,[13]Plato
warns in the Second Letter (314-315), 'Take
precautions, lest this teaching ever be disclosed." He
says that he is couching the doctrine concerning the nature of the
first principle of this philosophy in riddles, lest his letter
fall into the wrong hands (Ltr. II 312e). He
describes some sort of "incredible doctrine," and how it
had been preserved and transmitted.
For
it is through being repeated and listened to frequently for many
years that these doctrines are refined at length, like gold, with
prolonged labor. But listen to the most remarkable result of
all. Quite a number of men there are who have listened to
these doctrines - men capable of learning and capable also of
holding them in mind and judging them by all sorts of tests - and
who have been hearers of mine for no less than thirty years and are
now quite old; and these men now declare that the doctrines that
they once held to be most incredible appear to them now the most
credible, and what they then held most credible now appears the
opposite (Ltr. II 314a-b).
The
emphasis on repeating and listening in this description makes it
clear that this was an oral doctrine that was passed on by
face-to-face communication. With respect to this "doctrine"
and "teaching" (Ltr. II 313d), Plato's advice
was to "avoid writing and learn by heart; for it is not
possible that what is written down should not get divulged."
He continued, "That is the reason why I have never written
anything about these things, and why there is not and will not be
any written work of Plato's own. What are now called his are
the work of a Socrates embellished and modernized" (Ltr.
II 314c), or (as it has sometimes been translated), as "a
Socrates become fair and young."[14]
Plato continued with the following instruction, "Farewell and
believe. Read this letter now at once many times and burn it"
(Ltr. II 314b-c).
[1]Our
knowledge of early Greek literature and philosophy is based on
two kinds of evidence: (1) fragments, mainly in the form
of quotations containing the philosopher's actual words, and (2)
testimonia, the descriptions of the philosophers'
teaching reported by later writers. The fragments of
quotations that have come down to us provide the most valuable
source of information. To fill in the gaps around
fragments, we must rely on the reports of other authors.
Both fragments and testimonia tend to be found in the
same sources. The following are the most significant.
After Plato, the earliest source is Aristotle, who sometimes
initiates his discussion of philosophical problems by surveying
the views of his intellectual forebears. He seldom quotes
the exact words of his predecessors. The accounts he gives
of the tradition - in Metaphysics 1 and Physics 1
- are the earliest we have. Aristobulus (probably the
second half of the second century B.C.E.), was the author of a
work known to us only through quotations in Clement of
Alexandria and Eusebius. Aristoxenus, the theorist to whom
we owe almost all our knowledge of the musical theory of Ancient
Greece, was Aristotle's pupil, as was Theophrastus. Cicero
(mid-first century B.C.E.) was a prolific writer and frequently
quoted the early Greek philosophers. This Roman orator and
statesman wrote significant accounts of post-Aristotelian Greek
philosophy that include historical surveys of the philosophical
views of the Presocratics. Quintilian (born 35 C.E., date
of death unknown), was a Roman rhetorician and teacher.
His one surviving work, the Institutio Oratoria, contains
numerous comments and stories of the ancient Greek authors.
Clement of Alexandria (150 C.E.), was an Athenian who converted
to Christianity. His writings contain numerous quotations
from the early Greek literature. Origen (184-255 C.E.),
was born in Alexandria of Christian parents. He was a
famed teacher, and wrote many works dealing with Greek
philosophy. The Didaskalikos by Alcinous (second
century C.E. and long identified erroneously with the middle
Platonist Albinus), is a significant document of one school of
second century C.E. Platonism. It served as the standard
introduction to Platonism in the Byzantine period and the
Renaissance. Numenius of Apamea (second century C.E.), was
said by Longinus to be the culmination of a long line of
Pythagorean writers (ap. Porph. V. Plot. 20).
We have today only fragments of his works. Sextus
Empiricus (late second century C.E.), was a physician of the
empirical school and a follower of the skeptic Aenesidemus.
He wrote three books, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Against the
Dogmatists, and Against the Schoolmasters. The
first is a work of skeptical philosophy. The latter two
are concerned primarily with cognition and sense perception and
contain numerous quotations of earlier philosophers.
Diogenes Laertius probably lived in the earlier half of the
third century. His book, Lives of Eminent Philosophers,
somewhat uncritically compiles material from a number of sources
that have not survived. Eusebius (260-339 C.E.), was an
early Christian historian who cited many ancient sources in his
works. Simplicius lived in the sixth century C.E. He
wrote commentaries on Aristotle's Categories, De
Anima, De Caelo and Physics. He explicated Aristotle's
critiques of the early Greeks by citing the words of the
philosophers themselves. In so doing, he provided
extensive extracts, noting that the older writings had become
rare [see Richard D. McKirahan, Jr. Philosophy Before
Socrates: An Introduction with Texts and Commentary
(Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.,
1994), pp. 1-6; and J. M. Robinson, An Introduction to Early
Greek Philosophy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1968),
pp. 309-312].
[2]Eduard
Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen in Ihrer Geschichtlichen
Entwicklung, ed., Wilhelm Nestle (13th edition, Leipzig,
1928), p. 364.
[3]Diogenes
Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Vol. I, trans.
R.D. Hicks (1925; rpt. Cambridge, MA and London, England:
Harvard University Press, LCL 184, 1991), p. 277, 313.
[4]Henry
S. Macran, trans., The Harmonics of Aristoxenus
(Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1902), p. 88-89.
[5]As
cited in Konrad Gaiser, "Plato's Enigmatic Lecture: 'On The
Good,' " Phronesis, 25 (1980): 5-37. See also
Sir David Ross, Plato's Theory of Ideas (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1953), p. 148; and A.E. Taylor, Plato: The
Man and His Work (New York: Meridian, 1926, 1927, 1956), p.
503.
[6]"[Interpreters]
raise the question whether philosophers should read out their
writings before an audience, as Zeno did; and they insist, if
one does so, only to read material suited to the audience so as
not to suffer the same fate as Plato when he announced a lecture
On the Good. A great throng of all kinds of people
assembled: but when he delivered his lecture, they did not
understand his argument, and went away one by one until finally
they had almost all gone. But Plato knew that this would
happen to him, and had told his followers beforehand not to
refuse entry to anyone, since the lecture would still only take
place before their group" [Proclus, Commentary on Plato's
Philebus, translated in Victor Cousin (Paris: Budé, 1864),
p. 688].
[7]Themistius
says, "It did not in the least prevent wise old Plato from
being wise on the occasion of his lecture in the Piraeus when
people came flocking from all around and assembled together -
not only the townspeople from above but also workers from the
fields and vineyards and from the silver-works - and when he
presented his treatise On the Good, the huge crowd became
dazed and streamed away from the place until finally the
audience was reduced to Plato's trusted followers only" [Oratio
21, 245 c-d, as cited in Gaiser, "Plato's Enigmatic
Lecture," pp. 9-10.
[8]
Epicrates, frag. 11, ed., T. Kock, Comicorum Attocorum
Fragmenta, Vol. II (Leipzig, 1884), p. 287. Also
translated and quoted in Harold Cherniss, The Riddle of the
Early Academy (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1945), p. 63.
[9]Further,
Ryle provides an outline of numerous features in Plato's
writings about which Aristotle seems unaware [Plato's
Progress, pp. 2-10].
[10]Werner
Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His
Development, translation with the author's corrections and
additions by Richard Robinson, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1948), p. 168ff.
[11]As
Gerald F. Else pointed out, ". . . we think naturally of
Plato's, but he did not invent the genre and was far from being
the only practitioner of it. Indeed, one theory maintains
that Plato took up the writing of Socratic dialogues in order to
correct misinterpretations by others" [see his translation
of Aristotle's Poetics (Ann Arbor, MI: University of
Michigan Press, 1970), fn. 7, p. 81.]
[12]Diogenes
is our only source for Archytas's letter to Plato. Since
he documents Plato's Twelfth Letter verbatim, it is
reasonable to assume that he recorded Archytas's letter
accurately as well.
[13]
On the secrecy of the Pythagoreans, Diogenes Laertius (VIII. 15)
mentions that for centuries after the death of Pythagoras,
"down to the time of Philolaus, it was impossible to obtain
any knowledge of any Pythagorean doctrine." From
Porphyry, we learn that "What he taught his disciples no
one can say for certain, for they maintained a remarkable
silence" [Vita Pythagorae 19, as cited in Robinson,
Early Greek Philosophy, p. 57].
[14]"Embellished
and modernized" is the translation favored by L.A. Post,
while "a Socrates become fair and young," is the one
offered by R.G. Bury.
