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Plato 1: An Introduction
Prefaces
Translator's Note
List of Illustrations
Eidos
Demon & Eros
Beyond Being
The Academy
The Written Work
Socrates in Plato
Irony
Dialogue
Myth
Intuition & Construction
Aletheia
Dialogue & Existence
Plato's Letters
Plato as Physicist
Plato as Geographer
Plato as Jurist
Plato as City Planner
Socrates Enters Rome
Notes & Abbreviations
Index
Bibliography of the Writings of Paul Friedländer
Biographical Note
Translator's Note
List of Illustrations
Eidos
Demon & Eros
Beyond Being
The Academy
The Written Work
Socrates in Plato
Irony
Dialogue
Myth
Intuition & Construction
Aletheia
Dialogue & Existence
Plato's Letters
Plato as Physicist
Plato as Geographer
Plato as Jurist
Plato as City Planner
Socrates Enters Rome
Notes & Abbreviations
Index
Bibliography of the Writings of Paul Friedländer
Biographical Note
- GenresPhilosophy
467 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1930
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 19, 2013
This is the first of a three volume set introducing the works of Plato. One is advised to have read the Platonic corpus first. I read this alongside a course entitled "Plato-Parmenides" taught by Reginald Allen at Loyola University Chicago during the first semester of 1981/82.
December 29, 2014
Some of my friends think that Plato asserted the existence of another world and of an arcane knowledge about it. I read Friedlander’s book in order to get help in combating such a widely held but gross misconception of Plato’s philosophy. Friedlander was very useful in this regard.
Of the twenty-eight or so works attributed to Plato, most are dialogues with Socrates as a character talking with or listening to other philosophers and figures from Athenian life. Three keys to understanding Plato are the relationship of Socrates to Plato, the use of myth and the use of irony.
Socrates was a real human being who was described and admired by a number of classical sources and who had a profound impact on Plato. Plato described him in more subtle detail than anyone else, but in the dialogues Plato could only make his character Socrates-like or Socrates-inspired. To quote Friedlander, “Plato also inherited the insight from Socrates that there is no ready-made knowledge simply transferable from one person to another, but only philosophy as an activity, the level of which is invariably determined by one’s partner. Every philosophical conversation conducted by Socrates is new and different according to the partner – this is the Socratic principle of education.”
In other words, taking any snippet of a dialogue, one cannot describe it as Socrates’ view or Plato’s view, because it could only be Socrates-like, and because the full meaning, according to Plato, could only come out as the result of dialogue, and then only incompletely.
The use of myth is a major stumbling block, because it cannot be taken literally. Mythos and Logos (myth and reason) are major categories in Greek thinking, and Plato uses both. Friedlander delineates three levels of myth in Plato, varying from pre-Socratic stories preparatory to the logos of dialogue, to the descriptions of insight which go beyond the logos of dialogue, to pure speculation when logos is impossible. Many disclaimers about myth are given in the dialogues. Some are described as “fairy tales.” Friedlander at one point suggests that some of the myths are “utopian fiction,” which bring to mind novels such as 1984 and Brave New World. While nobody denies the importance of such novels, it would be silly to take any part of them literally.
The use of irony is also a stumbling block, especially if it is regarded as saying the opposite of what one means. Of course the paradigmatic case of irony in Plato is Socrates’ claiming that he only knows that he knows nothing. By making that claim, and by asking questions of those who claim to know more, Socrates reveals his own wisdom. It may be questioned if Socrates is merely being a smart-ass, but the point is that, by reason we can eliminate false paths, and what is left, even if we are not sure we can describe it exactly, is the path to truth.
As Friedlander says, “Socratic irony, at its center, expresses the tension between ignorance – that is, the impossibility ultimately to put into words “what justice is” – and the direct experience of the unknown, the existence of the just man, whom justice raises to the level of the divine.”
The only other points I want to make, since I cannot address every conceivable misconception and I think the points above help to give an orientation towards Plato, are with regard to Plato’s “other-worldly” forms or ideas. Quoting from Friedlander, “Precisely because it has an intuitive origin, we must not begin by defining conceptually what the Idea is; for Plato himself, the Idea, though the highest object of knowledge, is never entirely definable in conceptual terms. We must also be careful not to identify Plato’s “intuition” with the ecstatic act in the ordinary sense of the word.”
The Platonic view resembles in spirit Wittgenstein’s view when he says in the Tractatus, “What we cannot speak about, we must pass over in silence.” But Plato does not pass over in silence, he uses myth.
In another section, Friedlander says, “It is not sufficiently recognized that Plato does not, in the strict sense of the word, “teach” anything at all about the fate of the human soul. Socrates speaks about it in myths, which are part of the dramatic structure in Plato’s works.”
The forms or ideas, which are figuratively said to constitute a separate realm, are Plato’s pioneering effort to describe in rational terms the nature of abstract concepts, also known as the problem of universals in philosophy. When you examine an abstract term, whether it be “circle” or “equality” or “justice,” you find that it has immutable, or at least commanding, implications. For Plato, mathematics is the best example. But a concept like “justice,” through the use of reason and the process of dialogue, can be shown to exclude the concept of “might makes right.” Even though “justice” may not be exhaustively defined, its nature has been clarified by excluding a misconception.
For the sake of my naturalist friends, consider the concept of “species,” not this or that particular plant or animal, but the concept that binds together sets of these. It has particular interesting characteristics, such that Darwin could write The Origin of Species. There is something to the concept, whether you describe it mythically or not, that you have to deal with in describing the world.
Friedlander writes about many other fascinating aspects of Plato, such as his impact on physics, chemistry, geography, jurisprudence, city planning and other disciplines. For example, he says, “The physicist Heisenberg discovers two primary, basic ideas in Greek natural philosophy influencing the course of the exact natural sciences down to the present: first, the belief of the atomists that matter is composed of very small particles; second the Pythagorean belief in the mathematical structure of the universe. Both views, according to Heisenberg, are combined in Plato’s physics.”
While I don’t quote Friedlander to trump the discussion with an authority, I do think that Friedlander offers a scholarly approach to understanding Plato in a sensible way. I’m sure there are those, including myself, who would disagree on this or that point, but what I find overwhelmingly impressive about Plato is that he had an overall view of the world, taking into account the science of his day, the political realities and the ethical dilemmas of his time, and his own existence as a human being, or should I say as a rational animal. He is the model of an educated man, speaking with the subtlety and the universality of a Shakespeare in an era of epics and triremes.
I apologize for going on and on, but this is a topic of particular importance to me. I usually try to keep my reviews short, but Plato and Friedlander’s treatment of Plato arouse my wholehearted enthusiasm.
Of the twenty-eight or so works attributed to Plato, most are dialogues with Socrates as a character talking with or listening to other philosophers and figures from Athenian life. Three keys to understanding Plato are the relationship of Socrates to Plato, the use of myth and the use of irony.
Socrates was a real human being who was described and admired by a number of classical sources and who had a profound impact on Plato. Plato described him in more subtle detail than anyone else, but in the dialogues Plato could only make his character Socrates-like or Socrates-inspired. To quote Friedlander, “Plato also inherited the insight from Socrates that there is no ready-made knowledge simply transferable from one person to another, but only philosophy as an activity, the level of which is invariably determined by one’s partner. Every philosophical conversation conducted by Socrates is new and different according to the partner – this is the Socratic principle of education.”
In other words, taking any snippet of a dialogue, one cannot describe it as Socrates’ view or Plato’s view, because it could only be Socrates-like, and because the full meaning, according to Plato, could only come out as the result of dialogue, and then only incompletely.
The use of myth is a major stumbling block, because it cannot be taken literally. Mythos and Logos (myth and reason) are major categories in Greek thinking, and Plato uses both. Friedlander delineates three levels of myth in Plato, varying from pre-Socratic stories preparatory to the logos of dialogue, to the descriptions of insight which go beyond the logos of dialogue, to pure speculation when logos is impossible. Many disclaimers about myth are given in the dialogues. Some are described as “fairy tales.” Friedlander at one point suggests that some of the myths are “utopian fiction,” which bring to mind novels such as 1984 and Brave New World. While nobody denies the importance of such novels, it would be silly to take any part of them literally.
The use of irony is also a stumbling block, especially if it is regarded as saying the opposite of what one means. Of course the paradigmatic case of irony in Plato is Socrates’ claiming that he only knows that he knows nothing. By making that claim, and by asking questions of those who claim to know more, Socrates reveals his own wisdom. It may be questioned if Socrates is merely being a smart-ass, but the point is that, by reason we can eliminate false paths, and what is left, even if we are not sure we can describe it exactly, is the path to truth.
As Friedlander says, “Socratic irony, at its center, expresses the tension between ignorance – that is, the impossibility ultimately to put into words “what justice is” – and the direct experience of the unknown, the existence of the just man, whom justice raises to the level of the divine.”
The only other points I want to make, since I cannot address every conceivable misconception and I think the points above help to give an orientation towards Plato, are with regard to Plato’s “other-worldly” forms or ideas. Quoting from Friedlander, “Precisely because it has an intuitive origin, we must not begin by defining conceptually what the Idea is; for Plato himself, the Idea, though the highest object of knowledge, is never entirely definable in conceptual terms. We must also be careful not to identify Plato’s “intuition” with the ecstatic act in the ordinary sense of the word.”
The Platonic view resembles in spirit Wittgenstein’s view when he says in the Tractatus, “What we cannot speak about, we must pass over in silence.” But Plato does not pass over in silence, he uses myth.
In another section, Friedlander says, “It is not sufficiently recognized that Plato does not, in the strict sense of the word, “teach” anything at all about the fate of the human soul. Socrates speaks about it in myths, which are part of the dramatic structure in Plato’s works.”
The forms or ideas, which are figuratively said to constitute a separate realm, are Plato’s pioneering effort to describe in rational terms the nature of abstract concepts, also known as the problem of universals in philosophy. When you examine an abstract term, whether it be “circle” or “equality” or “justice,” you find that it has immutable, or at least commanding, implications. For Plato, mathematics is the best example. But a concept like “justice,” through the use of reason and the process of dialogue, can be shown to exclude the concept of “might makes right.” Even though “justice” may not be exhaustively defined, its nature has been clarified by excluding a misconception.
For the sake of my naturalist friends, consider the concept of “species,” not this or that particular plant or animal, but the concept that binds together sets of these. It has particular interesting characteristics, such that Darwin could write The Origin of Species. There is something to the concept, whether you describe it mythically or not, that you have to deal with in describing the world.
Friedlander writes about many other fascinating aspects of Plato, such as his impact on physics, chemistry, geography, jurisprudence, city planning and other disciplines. For example, he says, “The physicist Heisenberg discovers two primary, basic ideas in Greek natural philosophy influencing the course of the exact natural sciences down to the present: first, the belief of the atomists that matter is composed of very small particles; second the Pythagorean belief in the mathematical structure of the universe. Both views, according to Heisenberg, are combined in Plato’s physics.”
While I don’t quote Friedlander to trump the discussion with an authority, I do think that Friedlander offers a scholarly approach to understanding Plato in a sensible way. I’m sure there are those, including myself, who would disagree on this or that point, but what I find overwhelmingly impressive about Plato is that he had an overall view of the world, taking into account the science of his day, the political realities and the ethical dilemmas of his time, and his own existence as a human being, or should I say as a rational animal. He is the model of an educated man, speaking with the subtlety and the universality of a Shakespeare in an era of epics and triremes.
I apologize for going on and on, but this is a topic of particular importance to me. I usually try to keep my reviews short, but Plato and Friedlander’s treatment of Plato arouse my wholehearted enthusiasm.
February 6, 2015
Part I of this book is excellent. Friedlander covers the main problems readers encounter with Plato’s dialogues, particularly his relationship to Socrates, the use of myth and irony, and whether there is “doctrine” in Plato’s thought.
Plato, Friedlander states, “never placed himself in opposition to Socrates; for decades he spoke through the mouth of Socrates. Thus it is quite right – yet not enough – to say that the written works of the pupil are a monument of gratitude to the teacher.” By myth,* Friedlander means that while the details are not to be taken literally, myths have truth embedded in them. Of the myth of Diotima, for example, Friedlander comments that “to say that it is ‘nothing but’ a myth is…wrong, and evades what the point of the myth is….Plato would not have chosen the form of a myth if he had been able to find a perfect expression in the form of a logical concept.” Platonic truth is intuited (see below) only by a select few but, for the “ordinary man,” myth was Plato’s vehicle to help them “recognize the connection with the eternal.” It is the same with irony: “Platonic irony, incorporating the whole teaching and magic of the figure of Socrates, is revealed as veiling and protecting the Platonic secret. However, as in a Greek statue the garment not only serves as a veil but at the same time reveals that which it veils, so is Plato’s irony also a guide on the path to the eternal forms and to that which is beyond being.” As opposed to doctrine, eternal truth for Plato is beyond words. Eternal Ideas are not conceptual. Truth, in the end, must be intuited: “Plato’s path to the mystery leads through the realm of the eternal forms” that the soul, “to which it is akin,” intuits. “Intuition,” Friedlander states, “is the sympathy by means of which we project ourselves into an object in order to achieve identification with that element in which it is unique and which is inexpressible.”
Plato’s philosophy is about this alternative world, though Friedlander argues that Plato bridges both the worlds of being and becoming, of the eternal world and our world of change, in several ways. The world of eternal forms creates the changing world and we are drawn to that eternal world. “Eros becomes the guide to the Idea” Friedlander says of Plato and “Eros is a great demon, mediator between God and man. He lifts the human soul from the world of becoming to the sphere above the heavens, home of the gods and the eternal forms.” Laws for our world are copies of the eternal world as are Plato’s own writings. Friedlander calls all of this the “science of ideas” and, in the strangest of ways, sees Plato as “a predecessor of Rutherford and Bohr.” For Plato, Friedlander adds, the “construction of the universe…may be found… at the highest place, in the creative energy of the demiurge, or, in language less mythological, in the formative power of the Idea of the Good.” Because of these ties to the material world, and because Plato is about thought and not “magic” and “dervishes,” Friedlander argues that Plato is not a mystic. But that distinction is too fine. “Plato’s ‘dialectical journey,’" Friedlander says, "his rise from the darkness of the cave to the light of the sun, the ascent of the soul’s chariot to the realm beyond the heavens – all these elements have their equivalents in the form of mysticism.” Plato’s world, in short, is one where our bodies evaporate into a “beyond being” realm.**
“Once Plato has discovered the world of eternal being,” Friedlander writes, “man is part of both worlds and of neither; he is between both worlds, belonging to the world of becoming and passing away because of his body and the ‘lower parts of his soul,’ [and] belonging to the world of being because of the eternal part of his soul.” Later, Friedlander drives home the point that the eternal Idea and of our higher soul are integral to each other: “If the human soul is by nature of such a kind that it knows eternal being, then it must itself…have being after the manner of the eternal forms. Just as the arguments for immortality are not accidentally placed within the frame of the story about the death of Socrates, so these two justifications for the eternal existence of the human soul are not juxtaposed accidentally. For Plato had perceived the eternal forms in and through Socrates. Thus ‘Socrates,’ ‘Edios,’ [form, essence] and ‘immortality’ are, as it were, three different aspects of the same reality.”
In the dialogues, Socrates’ famed “admission of not-knowing” is not a reflection of humility but of a man who knew of the existence of an eternal world yet believed that such a world, conceptually, is “not knowable.” Socrates’ task was to expose the ignorance of others in regard to this other world: “Just as Socrates’ ugliness concealed a beauty of a higher order…so does a profound knowledge become visible behind his ignorance.” The beauty of a Platonic irony, Friedlander states, is that it “contains an element of tension: on the one hand deceptively concealing, on the other uncompromisingly revealing, the truth.” Having “discovered a metaphysical world,” it was Plato’s “task to make others see it through his own eyes. “He was,” Friedlander writes, “truly serious in his philosophy and his teaching, that is, ultimately, in his knowledge of God and in the guidance of his disciples to this knowledge.” “The goal is an intellectual vision of the highest reality,” Friedlander states, “….in the end, it leads to something that cannot be said in words. This may almost suggest a mystical realm and a path of personal salvation, provided we do not think of mysticism in terms of wild ecstasy, and of salvation in doctrinal terms.”
An open-ended quest for knowledge, truth, wisdom and the good about our material world is one thing, but filling these noble philosophical concepts with other-worldly meaning and giving them an absolute status is quite another. Absoluteness in the moral realm is Plato’s dangerous idea. “Knowledge is “something eternal” Friedlander writes and “education means shaping the beloved after the image of the god…this orientation also imposes upon the educator the obligation to look up to the god and to resemble the latter more and more.” As epitomized by the philosopher-king (seers of Truth), the ideal order in the Republic and the Laws (to shape others after the Good), and the figure of Socrates (Truth’s apostle), Plato’s philosophy would impose an alien vision on those who see the world differently. This is a violation of the worse sort. Believing is one thing. As Schleiermacher describes the Platonic goal of becoming “pure spirit,” it can even become a beautiful thing for those who believe and there’s nothing wrong with sharing that vision. But with Socrates you get someone who tediously makes a point of telling others that they don’t know the Truth and you get the feeling of a true believer who tells others how they need to order their soul. This is not about tolerance and respect for different perspectives. This is not dialogue. This is about a divine world that, for many, does not exist.
*Friedlander refers to the “myth of” Phaedras, Timaeus, the Republic, and the Statesman; he refers to “myths in” the Phaedo, Apology and Gorgias.
**“As the sun bestows development and growth, as well as the law of growth, upon the objects of the world of becoming, so the Idea of the Good gives being and order to the objects of the world of being. Thus the true circle, like true justice, owes its perfection to that ultimate perfection. At last, still another dimension becomes visible above the level of being. As the cause of becoming is not itself becoming, so the source of being is not itself being. Then we encounter the highest paradox: not itself being, but beyond being. While there is still knowledge about being, through not purely conceptual knowledge, there can be no knowledge about what is ‘beyond’ being.”
Plato, Friedlander states, “never placed himself in opposition to Socrates; for decades he spoke through the mouth of Socrates. Thus it is quite right – yet not enough – to say that the written works of the pupil are a monument of gratitude to the teacher.” By myth,* Friedlander means that while the details are not to be taken literally, myths have truth embedded in them. Of the myth of Diotima, for example, Friedlander comments that “to say that it is ‘nothing but’ a myth is…wrong, and evades what the point of the myth is….Plato would not have chosen the form of a myth if he had been able to find a perfect expression in the form of a logical concept.” Platonic truth is intuited (see below) only by a select few but, for the “ordinary man,” myth was Plato’s vehicle to help them “recognize the connection with the eternal.” It is the same with irony: “Platonic irony, incorporating the whole teaching and magic of the figure of Socrates, is revealed as veiling and protecting the Platonic secret. However, as in a Greek statue the garment not only serves as a veil but at the same time reveals that which it veils, so is Plato’s irony also a guide on the path to the eternal forms and to that which is beyond being.” As opposed to doctrine, eternal truth for Plato is beyond words. Eternal Ideas are not conceptual. Truth, in the end, must be intuited: “Plato’s path to the mystery leads through the realm of the eternal forms” that the soul, “to which it is akin,” intuits. “Intuition,” Friedlander states, “is the sympathy by means of which we project ourselves into an object in order to achieve identification with that element in which it is unique and which is inexpressible.”
Plato’s philosophy is about this alternative world, though Friedlander argues that Plato bridges both the worlds of being and becoming, of the eternal world and our world of change, in several ways. The world of eternal forms creates the changing world and we are drawn to that eternal world. “Eros becomes the guide to the Idea” Friedlander says of Plato and “Eros is a great demon, mediator between God and man. He lifts the human soul from the world of becoming to the sphere above the heavens, home of the gods and the eternal forms.” Laws for our world are copies of the eternal world as are Plato’s own writings. Friedlander calls all of this the “science of ideas” and, in the strangest of ways, sees Plato as “a predecessor of Rutherford and Bohr.” For Plato, Friedlander adds, the “construction of the universe…may be found… at the highest place, in the creative energy of the demiurge, or, in language less mythological, in the formative power of the Idea of the Good.” Because of these ties to the material world, and because Plato is about thought and not “magic” and “dervishes,” Friedlander argues that Plato is not a mystic. But that distinction is too fine. “Plato’s ‘dialectical journey,’" Friedlander says, "his rise from the darkness of the cave to the light of the sun, the ascent of the soul’s chariot to the realm beyond the heavens – all these elements have their equivalents in the form of mysticism.” Plato’s world, in short, is one where our bodies evaporate into a “beyond being” realm.**
“Once Plato has discovered the world of eternal being,” Friedlander writes, “man is part of both worlds and of neither; he is between both worlds, belonging to the world of becoming and passing away because of his body and the ‘lower parts of his soul,’ [and] belonging to the world of being because of the eternal part of his soul.” Later, Friedlander drives home the point that the eternal Idea and of our higher soul are integral to each other: “If the human soul is by nature of such a kind that it knows eternal being, then it must itself…have being after the manner of the eternal forms. Just as the arguments for immortality are not accidentally placed within the frame of the story about the death of Socrates, so these two justifications for the eternal existence of the human soul are not juxtaposed accidentally. For Plato had perceived the eternal forms in and through Socrates. Thus ‘Socrates,’ ‘Edios,’ [form, essence] and ‘immortality’ are, as it were, three different aspects of the same reality.”
In the dialogues, Socrates’ famed “admission of not-knowing” is not a reflection of humility but of a man who knew of the existence of an eternal world yet believed that such a world, conceptually, is “not knowable.” Socrates’ task was to expose the ignorance of others in regard to this other world: “Just as Socrates’ ugliness concealed a beauty of a higher order…so does a profound knowledge become visible behind his ignorance.” The beauty of a Platonic irony, Friedlander states, is that it “contains an element of tension: on the one hand deceptively concealing, on the other uncompromisingly revealing, the truth.” Having “discovered a metaphysical world,” it was Plato’s “task to make others see it through his own eyes. “He was,” Friedlander writes, “truly serious in his philosophy and his teaching, that is, ultimately, in his knowledge of God and in the guidance of his disciples to this knowledge.” “The goal is an intellectual vision of the highest reality,” Friedlander states, “….in the end, it leads to something that cannot be said in words. This may almost suggest a mystical realm and a path of personal salvation, provided we do not think of mysticism in terms of wild ecstasy, and of salvation in doctrinal terms.”
An open-ended quest for knowledge, truth, wisdom and the good about our material world is one thing, but filling these noble philosophical concepts with other-worldly meaning and giving them an absolute status is quite another. Absoluteness in the moral realm is Plato’s dangerous idea. “Knowledge is “something eternal” Friedlander writes and “education means shaping the beloved after the image of the god…this orientation also imposes upon the educator the obligation to look up to the god and to resemble the latter more and more.” As epitomized by the philosopher-king (seers of Truth), the ideal order in the Republic and the Laws (to shape others after the Good), and the figure of Socrates (Truth’s apostle), Plato’s philosophy would impose an alien vision on those who see the world differently. This is a violation of the worse sort. Believing is one thing. As Schleiermacher describes the Platonic goal of becoming “pure spirit,” it can even become a beautiful thing for those who believe and there’s nothing wrong with sharing that vision. But with Socrates you get someone who tediously makes a point of telling others that they don’t know the Truth and you get the feeling of a true believer who tells others how they need to order their soul. This is not about tolerance and respect for different perspectives. This is not dialogue. This is about a divine world that, for many, does not exist.
*Friedlander refers to the “myth of” Phaedras, Timaeus, the Republic, and the Statesman; he refers to “myths in” the Phaedo, Apology and Gorgias.
**“As the sun bestows development and growth, as well as the law of growth, upon the objects of the world of becoming, so the Idea of the Good gives being and order to the objects of the world of being. Thus the true circle, like true justice, owes its perfection to that ultimate perfection. At last, still another dimension becomes visible above the level of being. As the cause of becoming is not itself becoming, so the source of being is not itself being. Then we encounter the highest paradox: not itself being, but beyond being. While there is still knowledge about being, through not purely conceptual knowledge, there can be no knowledge about what is ‘beyond’ being.”
December 29, 2020
The first several essays in this volume were engrossing and helped fill out a conception of Plato as a person, a citizen, and a thinker. Most of the remainder, highly topical, were of less general interest. Still, a worthy reference.
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