Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/410

Rh 398 PLATO. nection a purely chronological arrangement, de- pending on tlie time of their composition (^Ueber Platons Schri/hn, Miinchen, 1820), has been followed by no results that can in any degree be depended on, as the date of the composition can be approximately determined by means of the ana- chronisms (offences against the time in which they are supposed to take place) contained in them in but a few dialogues as compared with the greatly preponderating number of those in which he has assigned it from mere opinion. K. F. Hermann's undertaking, in the absence of definite external statements, to restore a chronological arrangement of the dialogues according to traces and marks founded in facts, with historical circumspection and criticism, and ip. doing so at the same time to sketch a faithful picture of the progress of the mental life and development of the writer of them, is considerably more worth notice. {Geschichte und Si/sleni der PhUonischen PMlosophie. Ister Theil, Heidelberg, 1 839, p. 368, &c.) In the first period, according to him, Plato's Socrates betrays no other view of life, or scientific conception, than such as we become acquainted with in the historical So- crates out of Xenophon and other unsuspicious witnesses (Hippias, Ion, Alcibiades I., Charmides, Lysis, Laches, Protagoras, and Euthydemus). Then, immediately after the death of Socrates, the Apology, Criton, Gorgias, Euthyphron, Menon, and Hippias Major belong to a transition step. In the second, or Megaric period of development dialectic makes its appearance as the true technic of phi- losophy, and the ideas as its proper objects (Cra- tylus, Theaetetus, Sophistes, Politicus, Parmenides). Lastly in the third period the system itself is exhibited (Phaedrus, Menexenus, Symposium, Phaedo, Philebus, Politeia, Timaeus, Critias, and the Laws). But although Hermann has laboured to establish his assumptions with a great expendi- ture of acuteness and learning, he has not attained to results that can in any degree stand the test of examination. For the assumptions that Plato in the first period confined himself to an analytic treat- ment of ideas, in a strictly Socratic manner, and did not attain to a scientific independence till he did so through his removal to Megara, nor to an acquaintance with the Pythagorean philosophy, and 60 to the complete development of his dialectic and doctrine of ideas, till he did so through his travels, — for these assumptions all that can be made out is, that in a number of the dialogues the peculiar fea- tures of the Platonic dialectic and doctrine of ideas do not as yet make their appearance in a decided form. But on the one hand Hermann ranks in that class dialogues such as the Euthydemus, Menon, and Gorgias, in which references to dialectic and the doctrine of ideas can scarcely fail to be recog- nised ; on the other it is not easy to see why Plato, even after he had laid down in his own inind the outlines of his dialectic and doctrine of ideas, should not now and then, according to the separate re- quirements of the subject in hand, as in the Pro- tagoras and the smaller dialogues which connect themselves with it, have looked away from them, and transported himself back again completely to the Socratic point of view. Then again, in Her- ■mann's mode of treating the subject, dialogues which stand in the closest relation to each other, as the Gorgias and Theaetetus, the Euthydemus and Theaetetus, are severed from each other, and assigned to different periods ; wliiie the Phaedon, PLATO- the Symposium and the Philebus are separated from the Sophistes and Politicus, with which they are much more closely connected than with the delineative works, the Politeia, Timaeus, &c. (Comp. Brandis, Geschichte der Griechisch-Iio- miscJien PMlosophie, ii. 1, p. 164, &c.) Lastly, as regards the genuineness of the writings of Plato, we cannot, indeed, regard the investiga- tions on the subject as brought to a definitive con- clusion, though we may consider ourselves con- vinced that only a few occasional pieces, or delinea- tions of Socratic conversations, are open to doubts of any importance, not those dialogues which are to be regarded as the larger, essential members of the system. Even if these in part were first published by disciples of Plato, as by Hermodorus (v/ho has been accused of smuggling in spurious works only through a misunderstanding of a passage in Cicero, ad Att. xiii. 21), and by Philippus the Opuntian ; and though, farther, little can be built upon the confirmation afforded by their having been received into the trilogies of the grammarian Aristophanes, the authenticity of the most important of them is de- monstrated by the testimonies of Aristotle and some other incontrovertible authorities (the former will be found carefully collected in Zeller's Pkdonische Sludien, p. 201, &c. Respecting the latter comp. Hermann, I.e. i. p. 410, &c.). Notwithstanding these testimonies, the Parmenides, Sophistes, and Politicus (by Socher, I.e. p. 280, &c.; see on the other hand Hermann, I.e. p. 506, &c. 575, note 131), and the Menon (by Ast, p. 398, &c.; see in reply Hermann, p. 482, &c.), have been assailed on exceedingly insufficient grounds ; the books on the Laws in a manner much more deserving of attention (especially by Zeller, I. c. 1 — 115 ; but comp. Her- mann, p. 547) ; but yet even the latter are with preponderating probability to be regarded as ge- nuine. On the other hand the Epinomis is pro- bably to be assigned to a disciple of Plato (comp. Hermann, p. 410. 22), the Minos and Hipparchus to a Socratic (A. Bdckh, in Platonis Mino'cn qui vulgo fertur., p. 9, undertakes to make good the claim of Simon to them). The second Alcibiades was attributed by ancient critics to Xenophon (Athen. xi, p. 506, c). The Anterastae and Cli- tophon are probably of much later origin (see Her- mann, p. 420, &c. 425, &c.). The Platonic letters were composed at different periods ; the oldest of them, the seventh and eighth, probably by disciples of Plato (Hermann, p. 420, &c.). The dialogues Demodocus, Sisyphus, Eryxias, Axiochus, and those on justice and virtue, were with good reason re- garded by ancient critics as spurious, and witii them may be associated the Hipparchus, Th cages, and the Definitions. The genuineness of the fir^t Alcibiades seems doubtful, though Hennann defends it (p. 439, &c.). The smaller Hippias, the Ion, and the Menexenus, on the other hand, which are allowed by Aristotle, but assailed bv Schleiermacher (i. 2, p. 295, ii. 3, p. 367, &c.) and Ast (p. 303, &c. 448), might very well maintain their ground as occasional compositions of Plato. As regards the thorough criticism of these dialogues in more recent times, Stallbaum in particular, in the prefaces to his editions, and Hermann (p. 366, &c. 400, &c.), have rendered important services. However groundless may be the Neo-platonic assumption of a secret doctrine, of which not even the passages brought forward out of the insititious Platonic letters (vii. p. 341, e. ii. p. 314, c.) contain