Aristotle was a phony

On the matter of Aristotle, I am in a minority of one. Or at least very few. I am one of that small minority of people who is prepared to ask the unthinkable: are the works of Aristotle forgeries? In one respect, it is a question that hardly matters. No one denies the depth and profundity of the works of Aristotle. But were they really by Aristotle and was this Aristotle who we suppose he was? I am a sceptic. I am inclined to question some of the basic features of what I call the Aristotle myth. In particular, I question the supposition - and it is a supposition - that this Aristotle was a student of Plato and a member of Plato's Academy. And I doubt, furthermore, the story that Aristotle was the teacher of Alexander the Great. I detect a mythology in these stories rather than historical fact. Regarding the works of Aristotle, the whole story of how they were preserved and how they were subsequently found and published is inherently fishy. I smell a forgery. There have been scholars throughout history - notably in the Renaissance - who have raised such questions. I think they are good questions.

It is my view, in any case, that the extant works of Aristotle are the product of the first century BC and not much earlier when they were supposedly "found" in Athens and taken back to Rome by Sulla. Regarding the character known as "Aristotle" - I regard it as a myth, the purpose of which was to connect Alexander the Great to the Divine Plato. The Aristotle myth, that is, grew along with the mythology of Alexander. There was, I believe, an early poet named Aristotle. This character has been engrandized during the myth-making surrounding Alexander. A large body of work - sort of a counter-Plato - was composed/collected and attached to this name in the first century BC. I therefore see the works of Aristotle as Roman productions.

Here are some points:

*According to the traditional account the works of Aristotle, student of Plato, were "lost" after his death and "preserved" in a cellar until the first century BC. This story explains why we have no notices of Aristotle before this time. Aristotle goes missing for two hundred years. Then his works turn up intact having been preserved in a cellar. Is this likely? It is an inherently dubious tale. I invite readers to check it out. It's a very fishy story.

*The man credited with "discovering" the works of Aristotle, Apellicon of Teos, was a complete rogue. He was a book collector. It is said that he purchased the manuscripts of Aristotle from a Neleus of Scepsis. It is said they were hidden in a cellar to keep them away from the princes of Pergamon. Then we are told that because Aristotle's manuscripts were in poor shape, Apellicon made his own copies and filled up the gaps himself. So, in fact, our Aristotle - we are to believe - is Apellicon's free-and-easy rendering of the concealed manuscripts of Neleus. This entire story is suspect, frankly.

*Next we are told that Apellicon's library was carried back to Rome by Sulla. This is in 84BC. This is actually the first time Aristotle's works ever appear anywhere in public. They are part of the spoils of Sulla. This was a major Roman acquisition of Greek heritage. I argue that large amounts of this heritage was fabricated for Roman purposes.

*The circle who did the fabricating is identifiable: along with the library of Apellicon, the Romans also acquired such Greek scholars as the accomplished scribe and grammarian Tyrannoin of Amisus. He was employed by the Romans, we are told, to organise Apellicon's library. He then worked in the circle of Cicero. This is a circle of people, I maintain, who were more than capable of forging the works of Aristotle. These were deeply learned men and men of great literary power. We underestimate the philosophical and literary genius of that period. Moreover, it is Cicero who provides us with the list of heads of the Academy down to the Roman period. Cicero crafts this myth.

*The literary form of the works of Aristotle is strange and un-Hellenic. We are told that what has survived are his "notebooks". They do not resemble other works of Platonic philosophy or any other production of the Academy. I argue that their form is more distinctly Roman than Platonic Greek. The best way to explain the peculiar literary features of Aristotle's works is to see them as late productions.

*There are many, many strange and unaccountable misrepresentations of Plato in the works of Aristotle. Did he really know Plato? How close was he to Plato? The extant Aristotle does not seem like a close companion of Plato. He misunderstands basic points and misrepresents Plato on fundamental matters. Countless scholars have tried to reconcile the two philosophers on the assumption that they were close companions. But perhaps they weren't. Perhaps there is a good reason why our Aristotle seems so askew about Plato. There are too many clangers in Aristotle. I am not convinced that the person who wrote the works of Aristotle was a personal student of Plato of Athens.

Again: this does not change the intrinsic value of the Aristotelean corpus.  I am not proposing that they are worthless forgeries. But I doubt the standard story about the origins of the works of Aristotle. I especially doubt the proposal that our Aristotle was a student of Plato. His works say otherwise. I suspect they are forgeries of the first century BC, a direct product of the Roman acquisition of Greek learning under Sulla. This would explain much. My explanation: "Aristotle" is a mythic production that accompanied the growth of the Alexander myths. The character of Aristotle was necessary to graft Alexander - the "philosopher king" - onto the Academy.

The important thing, in any case, is not to read Plato through Aristotle.








- Harper McAlpine Black

Plato as Grasshopper

Reading through Diogenes Laertius' Life of Plato I found the following epigram by Timon:

A man did lead them on, a strong stout man,
A honeyed speaker, sweet as melody 

Of tuneful grasshopper, who, seated high 

On Hecademus' tree, unwearied sings.

Hecademus, as Diogenes notes, is now called the Academy, so the image we are given here is of Plato as a grasshopper seated high in the olive trees of the Academy. 

In my studies of Plato, grasshopper (cicadas) are emblematic of autochthony. In ancient mythology, grasshoppers are born from the earth. Plato uses this reference several times. Note, in this context, the reference to the cicadas singing in the tree tops in the Phaedrus dialogue. Timon's image of Plato as the grasshopper in the tree tops alludes to it. 

The Canon of Plato (Thrasyllus' Attestation)

The canon of Plato's works has been supplied to us by a certain ancient authority named Thrasyllus, about whom we know very little. He is the source quoted by Diogenes Laertius in his life of Plato and this provides a list of thirty-six works grouped together into nine tetralogies as follows:

THE NINE TETRALOGIES

*Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phædo
*Cratylus, Theætetus, Sophist, Statesman
*Parmenides, Philebus, Symposium, Phædrus
*Alcibiades, 2nd Alcibiades, Hipparchus, Rival Lovers
*Theages, Charmides, Laches, Lysis
*Euthydemus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno
*Hippias major, Hippias minor, Ion, Menexenus
*Clitophon, Republic, Timæus, Critias
*Minos, Laws, Epinomis, [Letters]

THE THIRTY-FIVE WORKS

Note that the final tetralogy includes the Letters, which is not a dialogue. So, in total, there are thirty-five dialogues or philosophical works ascribed to Plato by this ancient attestation, leaving the Letters aside. (Actually, some of the "dialogues" are not dialogues, but that is another matter. See below. Collectively, we call them "dialogues".) 

Modern scholarship questions the authenticity of some of these works, but usually on the basis of a preconceived idea of what is and is not Plato. This is always an open question. Take a work such as Rival Lovers. Modern scholars agree that in terms of literary style and its Greek it seems on a par with the other works in the canon; it is rejected because its content is deemed "unworthy of Plato's philosophical mind." That is, its' content conflicts with our idea of who Plato was and what he believed and what he taught. This, however, is highly debatable in itself; it is hardly a sure criterion by which to decide authenticity, all other things being equal.

We can be much less sure about this distinction than we can be sure of the fact that these works are all, at least, in the school of Plato. That is, among all the philosophical works of Greek antiquity, there is a set of thirty-five works which, ancient testimony attests, are definitely Platonic if not by the hand of Plato himself. For the ancients, that is a less important question. Regarding the works that modern scholars deem spurious: if they are not by Plato then they are by his immediate followers such as Philip of Opus. For the ancients, that was good enough. The subsequent Platonic tradition, in any case, accepted these thirty-five works and regarded Thrasyllus' list as canonical and was not too concerned with strict standards of authorship. 

On this matter I follow the ancient tradition. I'm not very interested in modern squabbles about what is and is not by Plato the man and I mistrust the process by which these matters are decided. I want to avoid debates about authenticity and I want to have a secure canon with which to work. Thrasyllus gives us a secure canon. He tells us what works the ancients, (within the next two hundred or so years after Plato) reckoned Platonic. This is the accepted ancient (and medieval) canon and so - by tradition, if for no other reason - these are all works by "Plato". The name "Plato" may, I admit, refer not only to Plato the man but also, in some cases, to his school. The Epinomis is a good example. Modern scholarship says it is by Philip of Opus. Maybe so, but for our purposes he is still called "Plato". For practical purposes here Plato is somewhat interchangeable with his school; when we say "Plato" we may mean, in fact, "Plato and his school". The canon, that is, may include faithful pseudepigrapha. I am less perturbed about this prospect than I am about imposing an inappropriate and debilitating historicism.

This, I think, is the only way to approach a canon. Otherwise, you get bogged down in disputes about what is authentic and what is spurious and the business of philosophy never begins. The best approach is to draw a line and embrace a canon and be done with it. In this case, I see no compelling reasons to draw the line anywhere other than where it was drawn by ancient attestation.

I therefore take and recommend the following stance:

Of these thirty-five works we say: whoever wrote them was Plato!

***

There is some basis for the general notion that the works were written in groups in Plato himself: in the Timaeus, for example, there is a projected scheme of three dialogues, a trilogy. So we know that Plato at least sometimes conceived of ensembles of dialogues - trilogies - rather than conceiving of the dialogues each as a stand alone work. 

The arrangement into groups of four imitates the known practice in Athenian drama: four plays (three tragedies and a comedy) form a single dramatic group. The assumption is that Plato conceived of his dialogues as philosophical dramas and wrote them in programmes of four in the same way as the dramatists. This doesn't conflict with the abode-mentioned trilogy structures because the dramatic tetralogy is three tragedies plus one comedy, a trilogy plus an addendum. 

Clearly, some extant dialogues belong together. But which dialogues belong with which? It is a very complex question. Is there, moreover, a single over-arching scheme uniting the tetralogies or whatever other groupings we discern in the canon?

Here are a few useful points about the thirty-five dialogues:

Performed dialogues = 26
Narrated dialogues = 9

Narrated dialogues narrated by Socrates = 6
Narrated dialogues narrated by other than Socrates = 3

Narrated to a named person = 2
Narrated to an unnamed person = 2
Narrated to an indeterminate audience = 5

***

Regarding the over-all organizing principle of the canon, it is my contention that the dialogues are grouped around various Athenian religious festivals and that the various dialogues are related to one or more deity. I am especially interested in the time signatures in the dialogues. I think that Plato wrote works for particular times in the Athenian calendar. Sometimes this is explicit but often it is just hinted at. For instance, in the Parmenides we are explicitly told that it is set on the Greater Panathenaea. In the Phaedrus, on the other hand, it is only the chirping of the cicadas in the trees that lets us know it is high summer.





- Harper 

Vampire myths as counter-Islamic

It has long been my surmise that the vampire myths, even as they have formed in the popular imagination, are essentially anti- or counter-Islamic in origin. I mentioned this in a class recently and it reminded me that I am yet to make a case for this in writing. I have talked about it and described it to people for years, but not put it in writing. In all the literature I have perused regarding vampires I have never seen anything of this mentioned. I think it is obvious. (There are lots of things in Western culture that are anti-Islamic in this way.)

It is a simple proposal. I am saying that the vampire myths are an expression of a dark mythology that comes out of Christo-Islamic demonization of religious opponents; in this case, a product of Romano/Turkish tensions. Almost all of the various motifs that assemble around the figure of the vampire can be explained in this way. This is on top of the historical and geographical elements that form the basic structure of the thesis.

The vampire, I maintain, is a complex of ideas and motifs growing out of Christian demonization of the Muslim Other. It is a mythology about Otherness. It was this before it was developed into its familiar form by Bram Stoker, but I maintain that his agenda - conscious or unconscious - was counter-Islamic too. Stoker was close friends with Gladstone. It was Gladstone, let us recall, who turned British foreign policy against the Ottoman Empire. Gladstone and his circle, among them Stoker, were viciously and axiomatically anti-Turk. Stoker's myth grows from anti-Turk soil.

Some basic points:

Vampires come from Transylvania

Geographical proximity. These myths come from the border of Christendom and the Islamic world. They are the product of the tensions between the two civilizations. The vampire legends move into western Europe from the Balkans and other eastern European Christian/Islamic borderlands.

The Vampire myths are based on Vlad the Impaler

The history behind the myth points to Christian/Muslim origins. Vlad's infamous cruelty was dedicated to the protection of Christianity in Eastern Europe from the Turks. This cruel figure is projected onto the vampire. The demonization of the victim.

No reflection in a mirror

Vampires have no reflection in a mirror because they are already reflections. This mythology is about Otherness and projection. One thing going on here is the demonization of Islam's similarities to Christianity. The Christian response is: whatever the Muslims have in common with us is a diabolical inversion. Inversion of symbols is a key move in this mythology.

Vampires hate Crucifixes

Plain enough. Vampires are antithetical to Christianity. The Muslim conceived as the exactly anti-Christian.

Burnt by Holy Water

Plain enough.

Vampires come out at night

This important motif concerns the Muslim fast of Ramadan. The vampire sleeps all day and emerges when the sun goes down. So do Muslims during the fast, or so it can seem to outsiders. In Islam, the darkness of night (and night vigil) is characteristic of piety. Here we see that element of Islamic spirituality cast as satanic.

The Black Cape

Muslims - both male and female - wearing black capes is a common sight in traditional Islamic culture.  Travellers often describe them as bat-like. Indeed, I have seen this myself. At Ramadan, the movement of women (and men) draped in black around the streets. In a Turkish context, see the capes worn in the Mevlevi Order, for example. The Sufi murid is often described as "dead" and, indeed, as "living dead" and wears a black cape (hirka) to signify the tomb. The distinctive Mevlevi fez (kulah or sikke) signifies the tombstone, as Rumi and other Mevlevi authorities tell us. The vampire as the "living dead" is specifically counter-Sufi in this context.

The gnostic elements in vampire mythology, to which some like to point, should always be understood through the mediation of Sufism here.

Vampires drink blood

A play on the idea that the Turks are "blood-thirsty" but also a parody of the fact that Muslims don't drink blood. Blood is forbidden under halal food laws. Thus do vampires drink blood. More generally, this motif reports the actual savagery of battle in such borderlands; war often degenerates into cannibalism (vampirism is a type of cannibalism, after all), even in our own times.

The metal silver

The metal silver appears in many vampire motifs. Silver is the characteristic sacred metal of Islam. (Muslim men, for instance, are forbidden from wearing gold. Silver is much more common.)

There are, of course, deeper pre-Christian foundations for the idea of the vampire - a vitality-sucking demon is a common motif in mythologies everywhere, no doubt; I am talking about the specifically Western manifestations of this mythology in relatively modern times.

I have much more to say about this. Another time. In general though, if you don't appreciate that the historic Christo-Islamic tensions are "a battle raging in a single system", as Hichem Djait put it, then you are only considering half of the equation. Any account of the underside of Western mythology that neglects the construction of the "Saracens" and "Turks" as Other and ignores the impact of that upon "occult" themes in Western culture is naive.

Importantly, this argument shouldn't be seen as just another recital in liberal Islamophobia apologetics - the argument is that the vampire myths are myths of the borderlands, the fault lines. So, for example, it suggests that Islam and the West do not mix as readily as the multiculturalists suggest. There are real, structural divisions. These border myths reveal the darker side of these tensions.

On a personal note, this thesis is important to me. I've spent thirty years as a Westerner exploring Islam. This is not a thesis formed on a whim. The mutual demonization of Islam and Christendom (to say nothing of the Jews) is potent and forms the substrata of our entire psychic make-up. Islam is what is on the other side of the mirror. 

This thesis should not be construed as just an instance of "Islamophobia". On the contrary, it admits the deep and fundamental, visceral, unconscious tensions that operate in Christian/Islamic discourse - these are tectonic pressures. These are myths of the fault line.







- Harper McAlpine Black

The Hemlock Appreciation Society

I think it is very Platonic to have an ironic facade to a serious enterprise. That is the inspiration behind the Hemlock Appreciation Society. (The Society began among a few friends from the University over coffee and lamentations about intellectual life in this town.) We're working on developing this idea in creative ways, most of them in the off-line world.

Here is our charter:

CHARTER

ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ

The Society exists for the study of Platonic philosophy as a body of perennial wisdom.

We read the dialogues of Plato.

Membership is by invitation only.

The motto of the Society is: 'Philosophy begins in wonder!'

The oath of membership is 'By the dog!'

Members are required to keep their membership concealed from casual inquirers.

The duration of membership is the next three lifetimes or until the member achieves the Vision of the Good, whichever comes first.

The proceedings of the Society are conducted in the memory of our comrade and friend in philosophy Algis Uzdavinys (1962-2010)

Prosperity. 

CONDUCT

Proceedings of the Society shall be conducted as follows:

Quorum - Quorum is two or more members of the Society.

The Reading - One of the members shall read a passage from the Phaedo.

The Toast - One of the members shall propose a toast "By the dog" to which all members in attendance shall drink.

Thereafter, philosophy. 

The Equality of Women in the Republic

The Straussian reading of Plato depends upon knowing irony when you see it. Infamously, Straussians view the doctrine of the equality of women as presented in the Republic as a case of irony: it is a joke, they say, among gentlemen. Strauss finds it impossible to believe that Plato, given his historical context and the sociology of ancient Greece, was being serious.

Once again I find this a case where my reading of Plato resolves questions that others find confounding. To spell it out, my reading of Plato goes like this (in brief):

I suppose that Plato was a loyal, noble-born son of Athens, a patriot, and, as such, a dedicated devotee of the traditional religious cultus of the polis. He lives, however, in a turbulent age when the authority of traditional religion is waning and the traditional gods are being undermined by new thinking and increasing cosmopolitanism. 

I suppose that Plato saw in Socrates someone who was attempting to understand the traditional polis religion (Athenian religion) through the lens of new thinking; not to undermine it, but to defend it. (This is what is lampooned in Aristophanes' The Clouds.) The Platonic enterprise is an extension of this Socratic one; Plato wants to revivify the Athenian religion and explain its profundity in a new mode of understanding.

The wider background to the tumult of this period is the collision of Hellenic and Persian civilizations. The crisis in Athenian polis religion is signalled in Aristophanes' Clouds as an illicit change to the lunar calendar. 

The specific cultus to which Plato is referring is that of the gods of the Acropolis and Athene herself. Plato's philosophia is the religion of Athene recast. Plato's Republic is an idealised (antedeluvian) Athens. Plato's cosmology is a recasting of the foundation myths of the city. Plato's metaphysics is an explanation of the theology of Athene. In Plato, the philosophical path is a means of becoming "earthborn" like the golden souls of ancient Athens. What we find in Plato are the ancient (esoteric) teachings of the Acropolis. 

Plato looked to several sources beyond Athens for the revivification of the traditional polis religion, with three chief ones: 

1. Egypt, and the parallel traditions of the sister city, Sais, (a Solonic heritage), 

2. the young polities of Magna Grecia (Pythagoreans, Parmenides, Timaeus of Locri) where the religious and cultic foundations of polities were being newly enacted. 

3. Persia, in the application of Persian sexigesimal mathematics to Attican mythology.

We could also mention Orphism in this context. But all of this was in the service of his city and his goddess. 

I therefore see the figure of Athene, and the other deities of the Acropolis, shining in the background of all the Platonic dialogues. I think the works of Plato need to be read in this context.

But we also need to bear in mind that Plato's enterprise - an Athenian Reformation - is a delicate and dangerous undertaking, as Socrates discovered. In Plato, much is concealed. When I read Plato I do so as a detective, hunting for the hints and clues and symbols and allusions he has left for readers who would have known the polity religion well. 

Therefore: if the Republic is an idealised Athens, then the citizens of the Republic are idealised Athenians who are perfections of Athenian values. These are the values of the goddess Athene. Philosophy. Defensive warfare. And - the subject of this post - female equality. Athene, indeed, is as great as Zeus to Athenians. She is the most masculine of the goddesses. She embodies the equal female.  It is not surprising then that this is what we find in the Republic. It is not a joke. Nor is it even a radically new idea, in some respects. It is an extrapolation of ideas inherent in the theology of Athene. Note that the equality of women in the Republic is mentioned pertaining to military service, and again in the Timaeus and then explicitly in the Critias:

the figure and the image of the goddess, whom they of old set up in armor, according to the custom of their time, when exercises of war were common to woman and man alike. (110B)

The source of this "radical" idea of female equality is the "goddess" herself, namely Athene. It is a distinctly Athenian concept.

So much else in Plato can be explained in exactly this way. I simply read Plato in relation to the religion of the polis of which he (and Socrates) was a citizen. Then begins the tension between the local and the universal.






- Harper

Reading Plato

The refreshing thing about Leo Strauss is that he resists a merely chronological reading of Plato. Equally, he puts into sharp contrast the general tendencies in modern Platonic scholarship to impose a chronological framework upon the Platonic dialogues. Recently, I borrowed several works by English Platonic scholars, as well as the Cambridge Companion to Plato, and was immediately struck by the pervasive assumptions of chronological reading. It has given me new insights into exactly why I have for so long found the academic study of Plato so utterly irksome. When I was much younger Plato was my passion. I dreamed of going to an academic life and spending my days immersed in Platonic philosophy. The reality turned out to be much different. I found the academic establishment - the classicists - profoundly uninspiring. I wondered how and why it was that so many intelligent people - scholars, and Oxford dons - could turn Plato into such a boring old drudge. Very quickly I recoiled from the prevailing academic discourse and moved into other fields. Now I have a fuller view of why this was and what had caused me to recoil; it was the chronological framework through which virtually all academic scholarship on Plato, at least in the English tradition, is conducted. It is, as I say, refreshing to encounter Strauss because he is not part of that tradition and because he offers new and fertile ways of looking at Plato.

It's a question of how to read the Platonic dialogues. In the English tradition, the first thing you do arrange them in chronological order. Then the game becomes plotting Plato's "evolution"  from his "early" phase, through his "middle" phase to his "late" phase. That is, the English study Plato through time, through the lens of history. The distinction between the early "Socratic" dialogues and the later "Platonic" ones is the mainstay of this framework. But this is not really the practice of philosophy. It is, rather, a "history" of philosophy. The English tradition is pervaded with historical thinking and historical assumptions. It is everywhere in English Platonic scholarship. And it is immensely dull. After a short exposure to it, one never wants to read Plato ever again. This is how I feel about scholars like Vlastos, too (an American). Great erudition, tight scholarship, painstaking study - all to reduce Plato to an historical curiosity of little or no value outside of his time period. I started off loving Plato; if I had followed Vlastos and co. I would have ended up hating the entire endeavour. It is good to discover that others feel the same and that there are alternative ways of reading Plato.

I felt refreshed when I discovered the works of the German scholar Friedlander. Here was a reader of Plato who viewed the dialogues as literary creations, not as signposts on a road of historical "evolution". More recently, I found the writings of Bernard Suzanne. He wants to consider the dialogues as a single edifice and not as a stream of "development". He proposes that the dialogues were written in a much shorter period of time than do the English developmentalists. That strikes me as a wise move. He wants to consider all the dialogues as a single body of work. That is how I always regarded them, and still do. The basic approach is this: the Platonic philosophy, or the Platonic viewpoint, is complete and intact, in toto, right from the beginning - it is then extrapolated and "unpacked" in multiform encounters through the various dialogues. It is not a case that Plato "developed" or "evolved" - he has a single view and it is expanded and exposed through his works. That is, all the dialogues are a singular conception, not a development of ideas from immature to mature.

For me, a very helpful encounter was the works of the great French metaphysician, Rene Guenon. He is a writer - a mathematician - who composes essays and books over some 40 years and yet there is virtually no development in his ideas. His point of view is exactly the same at the end as it was at the beginning, and yet his works are fascinatingly rich explorations of the same viewpoint applied to various religious and philosophical traditions. After reading Guenon I felt more secure in my assumptions about Plato. Plato also is a metaphysician, and a mathematician. Why is it not possible that Plato had a firm position from the outset and that he has explored it in sundry ways and various contexts in his many works? In that case, reading Plato through a historical or chronological lens is as radically wrong as looking for "development" in Guenon. In both cases, whatever "development" there is is hardly the important thing and it is quite wrong to place it at the centre of our studies.

Plato, though, is a more complicated case. This is because the man himself nowhere appears in his writing and because, as Strauss wants to emphasize, the voice through which we might assume Plato speaks - namely Socrates - is not a plain speaker but rather an "ironical man". That is, the above mentioned "firm position" that I suppose Plato held from the outset is not given voice; it is hidden, indeed carefully hidden. I acknowledge all the difficulties this presents, but I don't think that those difficulties are better resolved by a chronological reading. Nor is this to avoid the difficulties posed by the question of historical consciousness in Plato. Clearly, Plato knows himself to be a man on the cusp of history - even his fictions are presented with the semblance of history. It is significant, for example, that there appear to be no fictional characters in the dialogues. The dialogues are not a-temporal but rather seem suspended in a tension between inside and outside of time. No doubt an entirely a-historical reading of Plato would be wrong too.

All the same, I see no compelling reasons to suppose that, for example, the Laws should be regarded as Plato's final work, or even as a late work, or why the Apology should be regarded as the first or an early work. The question of the relationship between dialogues is a complicated one. Disparate dialogues clearly allude to one another (the Timaeus to the Republic, for example) in ways that are altogether confounding. Imposing a chronological structure based on a supposed relationship of the author to Socrates does nothing to resolve such difficulties but it destroys much along the way. It is better to consider the intractable nature of such difficulties as part of the design and to deal with them in that way.

We find an instructive parallel - albeit from a very different tradition - in the Koran. It is a work consisting of visionary narrations from over several decades but it is not arranged chronologically - there is some other ordering principle. The very first move that Western scholars make, however, is to try to rearrange the surahs (chapters) in chronological order on the basis of the Prophet's presumed growing and changing sense of mission. This does violence to the text; it denatures it. This is how I feel about attempts to read Plato chronologically - it denatures the text. The Koranic revelations are thoroughly shuffled. I think that Plato has deliberately shuffled his dialogues and is working to quite different ordering principles. What those principles are is another matter, but we can be sure they go beyond and are much more interesting than flat, prosaic chronology.




- Harper McAlpine Black

The Gardening metaphor in Plato

Leo's Strauss' reading of Plato is based in an important passage in the Phaedrus where, we are told of the deficiencies of the written text. A written text is deficient, Socrates and Phaedrus agree, because it always says the same thing and it says it exactly the same to everyone. Living speech is not like that.

Strauss, quite correctly I think, detects in this section of the Phaedrus a key to understanding Plato's own works. Not all texts are equal. The best sort of text counters the inherent deficiencies of writing. Such texts don't say the same thing to everyone; they are designed to be read differently by different types of readers. This is the foundation of Strauss' notion of the "esoteric text."

It is a very important passage for me, though, because of its reflections in the opening passages of the Timaeus-Critias ensemble. By extension, I am also interested in the horticultural metaphor that runs through this passage but about which Strauss says nothing. By my reading, the mythological underpinnings of the Timaeus cosmology is based in the Athenian cultus of autochthony. Here in the Phaedrus Socrates is comparing philosophy to the growing of plants from the soil.

Moreover, I follow the Phaedrus passage to the same metaphor in the Theaetetus, and there we find the soil/gardening metaphor explicitly combined with the midwife metaphor. This is a very important passage for my reading of Plato over-all. Midwifery and horticulture are collapsed together. Here we have philosophy as autochthony. Here it is:

***

Soc. Did you ever remark that they [midwives] are also most cunning matchmakers, and have a thorough knowledge of what unions are likely to produce a brave brood? 

Theaet. No, never. 

Soc. Then let me tell you that this is their greatest pride, more than cutting the umbilical cord. And if you reflect, you will see that the same art which cultivates and gathers in the fruits of the earth, will be most likely to know in what soils the several plants or seeds should be deposited. 

Theaet. Yes, the same art. 

Soc. And do you suppose that with women the case is otherwise? 

Theaet. I should think not.

***

Here is the extending text of the passage in the Phaedrus:

Soc. I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves.

Phaedr. That again is most true.

Soc. Is there not another kind of word or speech far better than this, and having far greater power-a son of the same family, but lawfully begotten?

Phaedr. Whom do you mean, and what is his origin?

Soc. I mean an intelligent word graven in the soul of the learner, which can defend itself, and knows when to speak and when to be silent.

Phaedr. You mean the living word of knowledge which has a soul, and of which written word is properly no more than an image?

Soc. Yes, of course that is what I mean. And now may I be allowed to ask you a question: Would a husbandman, who is a man of sense, take the seeds, which he values and which he wishes to bear fruit, and in sober seriousness plant them during the heat of summer, in some garden of Adonis, that he may rejoice when he sees them in eight days appearing in beauty? at least he would do so, if at all, only for the sake of amusement and pastime. But when he is in earnest he sows in fitting soil, and practises husbandry, and is satisfied if in eight months the seeds which he has sown arrive at perfection?

Phaedr. Yes, Socrates, that will be his way when he is in earnest; he will do the other, as you say, only in play.

Soc. And can we suppose that he who knows the just and good and honourable has less understanding, than the husbandman, about his own seeds?

Phaedr. Certainly not.

Soc. Then he will not seriously incline to "write" his thoughts "in water" with pen and ink, sowing words which can neither speak for themselves nor teach the truth adequately to others?

Phaedr. No, that is not likely.

Soc. No, that is not likely-in the garden of letters he will sow and plant, but only for the sake of recreation and amusement; he will write them down as memorials to be treasured against the forgetfulness of old age, by himself, or by any other old man who is treading the same path. He will rejoice in beholding their tender growth; and while others are refreshing their souls with banqueting and the like, this will be the pastime in which his days are spent.

Phaedr. A pastime, Socrates, as noble as the other is ignoble, the pastime of a man who can be amused by serious talk, and can discourse merrily about justice and the like.

Soc. True, Phaedrus. But nobler far is the serious pursuit of the dialectician, who, finding a congenial soul, by the help of science sows and plants therein words which are able to help themselves and him who planted them, and are not unfruitful, but have in them a seed which others brought up in different soils render immortal, making the possessors of it happy to the utmost extent of human happiness.

Phaedr. Far nobler, certainly.

Soc. And now, Phaedrus, having agreed upon the premises we decide about the conclusion.

Phaedr. About what conclusion?

Soc. About Lysias, whom we censured, and his art of writing, and his discourses, and the rhetorical skill or want of skill which was shown in them-these are the questions which we sought to determine, and they brought us to this point. And I think that we are now pretty well informed about the nature of art and its opposite.

Phaedr. Yes, I think with you; but I wish that you would repeat what was said.

Soc. Until a man knows the truth of the several particulars of which he is writing or speaking, and is able to define them as they are, and having defined them again to divide them until they can be no longer divided, and until in like manner he is able to discern the nature of the soul, and discover the different modes of discourse which are adapted to different natures, and to arrange and dispose them in such a way that the simple form of speech may be addressed to the simpler nature, and the complex and composite to the more complex nature-until he has accomplished all this, he will be unable to handle arguments according to rules of art, as far as their nature allows them to be subjected to art, either for the purpose of teaching or persuading;-such is the view which is implied in the whole preceding argument.

Wayman in love - the sociological gaze

One of my all-time favourite poems is by the Canadian poet Tom Wayman and its called Wayman in Love. It's a funny poem about a very serious matter - the intrusion of what I call the "sociological gaze" into the intimate lives of ordinary people. Sociologists think they have a right to study everything and everyone. Nothing is sacred. Everything is reduced down to power relationships. It is an ugly, impoverished vision of human beings. The politicisation of sexuality is by far its ugliest and most destructive manifestation. Poor Tom Wayman...

WAYMAN IN LOVE

At last Wayman gets the girl into bed.
He is locked in one of those embraces
so passionate his left arm is asleep
when suddenly he is bumped in the back.
"Excuse me," a voice mutters, thick with German.
Wayman and the girl sit up astounded
as a furry gentleman in boots and a frock coat
climbs in under the covers.

"My name is Doktor Marx," the intruder announces
settling his neck comfortably on the pillow.
"I'm here to consider for you the cost of a kiss."
He pulls out a notepad. "Let's see now,
we have the price of the mattress, this room must be rented,
your time off work, groceries for two,
medical fees in case of accidents..."

"Look," Wayman says,
"couldn't we do this later."
The philosopher sighs and continues: "You too are affected, Miss.
If you are not working, you are going to resent
your dependent position. This will influence
I assure you, your most intimate moments..."

"Doctor, please," Wayman says, "All we want
is to be left alone."
But another beard, more nattily dressed,
is also getting into the bed.
There is a shifting and heaving of bodies
as everyone wriggles out room for themselves.
"I want you to meet a friend from Vienna,"
Marx says. "This is Doktor Freud."

The newcomer straightens his glasses,
peers at Wayman and the girl.
"I can see," he begins,
"that you two have problems..."


- Tom Wayman

This is a poem just waiting for feminist analysis, isn't it? You don't need to go any further than the first line. At last Wayman gets the girl into bed. Clearly, Wayman is a sexual predator. The words "at last" are a confession that he has, in fact, stalked this poor woman. And the words "gets the girl" tell us that he thinks of her as an object to be possessed. There ought to be laws against it! Oh wait! There are! Just ask Julian Assange...

There's nothing more intrusive but less sexy than sociology. In all seriousness, the intrusion of the sociological gaze into the intimate lives of human beings is one of the most abhorrent and appalling aspects of the times in which we live. Wayman speaks for the common man...

"Doctor, please," Wayman says, "All we want is to be left alone."



- Harper McAlpine Black