Review: [untitled]

Author(s): Raphael Woolf

Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 126 (2006), pp. 211-212
Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30033473
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PHILOSOPHY 211
HUNTER (R.) Plato's
Symposium. (Oxford
Approaches
to Classical Literature). Oxford UP,
2004. xiii + 150. A24.50 (hbk), 0195160797; A9.50
(pbk).
0195160800.
This volume is
among
the first of a series, Oxford
Approaches
to Classical Literature, in which eminent
scholars offer
interpretations
of the
'masterpieces'
of
classical literature, aimed particularly
at those encoun-
tering
the relevant works for the first time. The
Symposium
is an ideal choice for such a series: all have
heard of 'Platonic love', but few know what that entails,
and the
dialogue,
with its wealth of
imagery, myth
and
metaphor,
its
dazzling array
of characters and brilliant
setting,
is an excellent introduction to Plato's
writing.
Gone are the
days
when Plato's
philosophy
was
regard-
ed as
being separable
from the context in which it is
embedded, and Richard Hunter's sophisticated study
shows how the
dialogue's
form is
integral
to its mean-
ing.
Thus the elaborate narrative frame not
only high-
lights the
Symposium's
own
problematic
status as a
written account of a
quintessentially
oral occasion, but
also raises the central
question of how Socrates should
be remembered. Alcibiades' eulogy
of Socrates in the
final scene returns to this
question,
and H. focuses on
the famous
comparison
of Socrates to Silenus, with its
invitation to find the
spoudaion
beneath the geloion,
as a
programmatic image
for the
reading
of Plato's
Socratic
dialogues
as a whole, especially
this one. That
challenge
has reverberated
through
the centuries, and
H. discusses some of the
key
moments in the
dialogue's
reception,
from Plutarch
through
Methodius and Ficino
to
Shelley, E.M. Forster, Freud and Lacan.
D.H. Lawrence referred to the
Symposium
as 'a
queer
little novel', but the
genre
with which it has most
in common is, of course, drama. Set in the
golden age
of
prelapsarian Athens, with hints at disasters to come
which
only
serve to
heighten
the sense of
nostalgia
for
an irrecoverable
past, Agathon's victory party
itself is
presented
as an
elite
form of theatre, with the
guests
appearing
as both actors and audience in a
performance
which
incorporates tragedy (Agathon), comedy
(Aristophanes) and satyr play (Alcibiades). Socrates as
hero is a
figure
of
myth
rather than of
history, and H.
cautions against getting too
bogged
down in questions
of 'narrow
historicity',
whilst at the same time
acknowledging
that
part of Plato's
purpose is to vindi-
cate Socrates'
memory:
Diotima's account of the lover
who loves a virtuous soul and
gives
birth to
logoi
such
as 'make
young
men better'
(210c)
is a
provocative
reversal of the
charge against
Socrates that he
corrupt-
ed
young men, a
charge
that is also
implicitly
refuted
by
Alcibiades'
self-deprecating
account of his
attempted
seduction of this
heroically
resistant
man.
Alcibiades' failure to understand that there is more
to
philosophy
than
sleeping
with Socrates is indicative
of the
gap
between traditional conceptions of eros and
the vision of 'Platonic love' which Diotima presents.
The
extraordinary metaphorical biology
of Diotima's
speech emphasizes
the educational
process
involved in
the
philosophical
ascent of the ladder of
knowledge,
an
ascent which is arduous and involves a
guide (no doubt
in some sort of dialectical
exchange),
but which cannot
be
accomplished merely by
the transfer of
knowledge
from teacher to
pupil
as Alcibiades
imagines.
For at
every stage
the lover must realize the truth for himself
until he is
finally granted
the revelation of
Beauty
as it
really
is. This
severely
intellectual view of the
r61e
of
eros in human life contrasts
markedly
with that of the
ever popular Aristophanic myth of eros as the desire
and
pursuit
of the whole, but for Plato (as perhaps
for
H.?) that
myth
is
ultimately sterile, since what we
should be
seeking
is not the lost half of ourselves, but
inside what we
already
have.
H.'s
fine
study
does full
justice
to the
complexity
of this ever
fascinating
work
and will
encourage
further
thought amongst
its readers.
PENELOPE MURRAY
University of
Warwick
LEE (M.-K.) Epistemology
after
Protagoras.
Responses
to Relativism in Plato, Aristotle, and
Democritus.
Oxford UP, 2005. Pp.
x + 291. A45.
0199262225.
Lee sets out to examine the influence exerted by
Protagoras,
and his famous 'Measure Doctrine' (MD),
on the
development
of classical Greek
epistemology.
After a short introduction, and a
suggestive
ch.2 on
what (else) Truth
might
have contained, L. turns in ch.3
to the
question
of how we should understand MD itself.
She argues
that it does not advocate relativism about
truth, but an 'infallibilist'
position:
all
appearances
are
(simply)
true. L. records that 'Plato nowhere
suggests
that
Protagoras gave such an
analysis
of truth [as rela-
tivistic]' (36); and that 'our ancient sources are unani-
mous in
representing Protagoras
as
rejecting
the
possi-
bility
of error'
(33-4).
Now the sources (Plato a
prime
example) also, at times, have him
speak of appearances
as
being
true
for
their
subject;
and one
may
doubt that
Protagoras
was in the business of
giving analysis
at all.
A better test, then, is to see how well L.'s schema fits
the
way our sources respond to MD. In ch.4, rightly
emphasizing
the
arguments
in the Theaetetus that cul-
minate in the renowned 'self-refutation', L. gives
a
smooth reading that deals
cogently
with the now-you-
see-them-now-you-don't problem
of the qualifiers.
Ch.5 gets
to
grips
with the 'Secret Doctrine'
(SD) of
the Theaetetus. L.
argues
that SD is not meant
by
Plato
to be
implied by MD, and
expends
considerable
exeget-
ical
energy arguing
for her
interpretation
of the relation
between MD and SD. Since SD is what Plato
supplies
to
undergird MD, it is not clear how much difference it
makes if he did not think it
actually
necessitated
by
MD, except
that his
subsequent
attack on SD loses force
against Protagoras.
If SD is refuted, but not implied by
MD, then MD stands. The loss is one L. is
happy
to
embrace: she concludes that the
deployment
of ideas
212 REVIEWS OF BOOKS
contained in SD
'provides [Plato with] a neat
opportu-
nity to examine - and then to demolish - those ideas
themselves'
(117).
Given the book's
topic,
the reader
who
negotiates
L.'s
exposition
of SD
may
feel
surprised
by
a
pay-off
that
downplays
its
r61e
as a
response
to
Protagoras.
Chs 6 and 7 constitute the book's main discussion
of Aristotle's treatment of Protagorean
issues. L.
argues
that Aristotle is interested in
uncovering
the
assump-
tions that
might
make MD credible, one
being
his
pred-
ecessors' tendency to treat
sense-perception
as a model
for
knowing.
Given that
they regarded sense-percep-
tion as a
passive affection, it is hard for them to
explain
how error is
possible,
and this (Aristotle recognizes)
is
perilously
close to
scepticism
of a kind. So his task is
to show that his
predecessors'
account of
cognition
is
too narrow, and
replace
it with a better one.
The
picture thus
presented
of
Protagoras
as
provid-
ing
a motivation for Aristotle's reflections on
cognition
is attractive and
plausible.
It does, though,
shift the
weight
of L.'s discussion onto those reflections, and L.
is content to
relegate Protagoras
to the sidelines, stating
at the close of ch.7 that in
critiquing
earlier views of
perception
and knowledge, 'Aristotle is not thinking
exclusively
or even
primarily
of
Protagoras' (180). L.
sees this as
illustrating how, for Aristotle, 'Protagoras'
claim [in MD] is of more than historical
significance'
(ibid.), and a
good part
of the
chapter
is taken
up
with
an
exposition
of Aristotle's take on various Presocratic
views of
cognition
and some of his own
positive
contri-
butions. Here, it seems to me, L. does not have a
great
deal new to
say.
Her
attempt
to broaden the reach of
Protagoras' influence on Aristotle risks
diluting
one's
appreciation
of a distinctive
engagement
with
Protagoras
on Aristotle's
part.
L.'s final two main chapters (8 and 9) are on
Democritus. Was he a
sceptic,
an
empiricist,
a rational-
ist? All can be inferred at various
places
in the sources.
L.
pleasingly suggests
this
may bespeak
a dialectical
Democritus, one who raised arguments for and
against
a
given position,
rather than
peddling
an exclusive line.
I was less convinced by L.'s claim that the sources may
yet
'reflect different
aspects
of a
single
coherent
epis-
tem-ology' (247). And things
are further muddied by
L.'s not
very
wholehearted
connecting
of Democritus
with
Protagoras.
If Democritus 'endorsed the
spirit
behind
Protagoras' claim that we are all measures of the
truth and of
reality' (250), could he also have been the
exponent
of
explanation-giving (aitiologia) that, as L.
rightly brings out, he was
reported
to be? The latter
requires,
at a minimum, a
willingness
to
go beyond
immediate
appearances,
which seems
already
at odds
with the
spirit
of MD. L.'s book has much
good
schol-
arship and careful analysis,
but a
slightly uneasy rela-
tionship
to its main theme.
RAPHAEL WOOLF
Harvard University
NIGHTINGALE (A.W.)
Spectacles
of Truth in
Classical Greek Philosophy. Theoria in its
Cultural Context.
Cambridge UP, 2004.
Pp.
x +
311. A45. 0521838258.
Although this book offers detailed readings of a number
of important works primarily of Plato and Aristotle
regarding the rise of theoretical
philosophy
in fourth-
century
BC Greece, its essential
argument
can be sim-
ply
stated. The Greek cultural
practice
of theoria - state
pilgrimage involving
official
witnessing
of
public
and
religious
rituals - was invoked
by
Plato and his succes-
sors as a new model
by
which to define the idea of the
philosopher; consequently,
theoria itself came to stand
for
philosophical activity
and became considered the
highest
form of wisdom. Thus, contemplative philo-
sophy as we know it was born.
Nightingale
sees a
development
in
philosophical
uses of theoria. For
Plato, she claims that theoria still has some link to the
world of social
activity.
It is Aristotle, she
suggests,
who first
posits
it as a disinterested, indeed amoral,
activity done purely for its own sake with little or no
link to social
praxis.
N.'s treatment of what can be
gleaned
of the
Realien of theoria (ch.1) is a useful
summary
of this
practice.
She
emphasizes
the
r6le
of the theoros as
trav-
eller and
foreigner (at least from a different
polis)
who
witnesses
divinity
in the form of
religious
ritual and
returns to his community to
report
on what he has seen.
This feature in
particular
informs the Platonic theoros
of the
Republic, especially
in the famous cave
analogy.
Here, the theoros emerges from the cave to
contemplate
a
higher reality
in the light of the Sun, then returns to
those in the darkness of the cave who still labour under
the illusions set before them. Likewise in
Republic 10,
Er is a theoros whose soul travels, shaman-like, to the
land of the dead, eventually
to
report
on what he has
seen on his return. In these treatments, N. sees Plato
working
with a theoria based in civic action, retaining
the ideas of travel and return. While this is
plausible
for
these sections of the
Republic,
N.'s
attempt
to see
prax-
is as underpinning theoria elsewhere in the Platonic
corpus
is less
convincing;
this
problem
is evident to her,
even
d propos
of the
Republic (134 n.68). Moreover,
there is little evidence from the other
dialogues
which
N. discusses in detail - Phaedo, Phaedrus, Symposium
and Timaeus - that the theoria expounded there
by
Plato
is concerned with
philosophical
action in a
major way
(esp. ch.4).
It
ranges
from
contemplation
of the idea of
beauty initially
via the
sight
of one's beloved (like some
divine
agalma)
in the Phaedrus to the uses of astron-
omy
for
philosophical
theoria in the Timaeus. Indeed,
N.
rightly
sees that the kind of theoria found in these
dialogues
tends to be much more personal than civic.
N.'s take on Aristotelian theoria tends, conversely,
to
underplay
the
possible
r6le
praxis
has for his
concept
of theoria (ch.5).
N.'s
reading
is
largely predicated
on
the Nicomachean Ethics - whose Book 10 famously
announces theoria as the most
complete
and self-suffi-