Rick Benitez

It has become customary to begin any discussion of the Alcibiades with a review of its puzzling features. Any way you look at it, the Alcibiades is a strange dialogue. Stylistically it is peculiar, not only because it contains some unique terms,2 but also because it contains similarities to early, middle and even late dialogues. These similarities are distributed to different parts of the dialogue, prompting some scholars to maintain that the Alcibiades was written piecemeal, perhaps by different authors (cf. Clark 1955). On most accounts of the Alcibiades, however, it resembles, or seems to have been written to resemble, an early Socratic dialogue. But this too is odd, since stylometric studies tend to place it at least among the middle dialogues, and in many cases after the Republic. A relatively late dating also fits with the conjectures of many scholars on the basis of anachronisms, allusions and other considerations.

Most readers of Plato’s dialogues would probably think of him as likely to approve more of the old masters than of new art. The old masters were on the whole far more realistic than modern painters—compare, say, Velázquez Innocent X (1650) with Matisse The Snail (1953)2—and Plato often seems to take issue with an artist if he departs even slightly from realism. A long section of the Ion, for example, is dedicated to showing that experts in charioteering, medicine, and other areas make the best judges about what poets say on those subjects, ostensibly because only experts can tell how realistically the poet represents chariots, medical treatments and the like.3 Even more telling is the view, famously expressed in the Republic, which suggests that painters should paint things according to what they actually look like:

Many of Plato’s dialogues explicitly discuss matters that today fall under the umbrella of aesthetics. Literary criticism occupies a prominent place in the Ion, Menexenus, Symposium, Republic, Phaedrus and Laws . Arguments about the standard of aesthetic judgement occupy most of the Hippias Major , as well as portions of the Smp. and the second book of theLg. Some dialogues even venture into territory that we might describe as ‘pure aesthetics’, in that they dis-cuss specific perceptible properties of form, colour or sound (Hp. Ma. 298 ff.;Philebus 51c), the manner by which art objects appear as they do to spectators (Sophist 236a), the characteristics of an artwork purely in terms of art (Lg. 667d) or the ontological status of art objects ( R. 596a ff.). A few dialogues inci-dentally discuss painting, sculpture or music (narrowly construed), by way of illustrat-ing a more general topic (R. 472d ff.;Phlb. 17d;Critias 107b), and some dialogues, such as theGorgias andTimaeus , delineate or at least prominently display the aims, condi-tions and principles of art (technê , q.v.). Thus it can be said that aesthetic themes are prom-inent throughout the works of Plato. There are two dimensions of Plato’s aesthetics, however, that are arguably more fundamen-tal to his philosophy than any of the specific themes just mentioned. They are the dimen-sions ofmimêsis (q.v.), or representation, and the dimension ofmousikê , or ‘music’ in the broad sense that includes all the arts (q.v. music). When these are taken into con-sideration it becomes plain that aesthetics is not just prominent in, but central to Plato’s thought.

In this paper I will begin by exploring the context in which objectoriented aesthetics arose. I will set object-oriented aesthetics against another focus which I shall call "activity-oriented aesthetics", in which the excellence of an artistic production lies in the artist's activity. This activity is merely expressed in the finished work, even when the work is overwhelmingly admirable. Excellent artistic activity originates and persists in the artist's manner, execution and style. 1 Just as there is a special case of object-oriented aesthetics in which objective beauty is the fundamental aesthetic concept, there is a special case of activity-oriented aesthetics in which artistic beauty/ a property of the artist's activity, becomes the fundamental aesthetic concept. Artistic beauty is beauty that radiates from the activity of an artist. It is visible directly in the activity itself, but it is also visible in the work through and to which it is transmitted. (The combination of activity and work I shall call 'artistic production'.)

Plato's Sophist is complex. Its themes are many and ambiguous. The early grammarians gave it the subtitle1tEp1. 'tau ov'to~ ('on being') and assigned it to Plato's logical investigations. The Neoplatonists prized it for a theory of ontological categories they preferred to Aristotle's. Modern scholars sometimes court paradox and refer to the Sophist as Plato's dialogue on not-being (because the question ofthe possibility of not-being occupies much of the dialogue). Whitehead took the Sophist to be primarily about ouvo.~t~ ('power') and found in it many of the central ideas of process theology.2 Heidegger thought it articulated the 'average concept of being in general'.3 In Cornford's view the Sophist is mainly about truth and falsehood. Ackrill, Frede and most analytic philosophers think it is about predication.4 Stanley Rosen treats it as a metaphysico-aesthetic dialogue: in his view it is about the relation of images to originals.5 As far as the title of the dialogue goes, however, opinion is almost universal. Do not be misled: 'the definition of the sophist' observed Archer-Hind 'is simply a piece of pungent satire'6 and he added that 'we may be sure that (Plato] cared little about defining the sophist, but very much about the metaphysical questions to which the process of definition was to give rise'.7 The most spectacular case of agreement with this judgment can be found in Cornford, who omits to translate the sections on the definition of the sophist because, as he says 'the modern reader ... might be wearied'.8

Once upon a time, a scholar, ascetic and relig-ious man named Abu Hamid Ibn Muhammad Ibn Muhammad al-Tusi al-Shafi'i al-Ghazali (AI-Ghazali, 1058-11 II) wrote a worl, called The Incoherence qf the Philosophers, 1\ clever philosopher, Abu AI-\Valid Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Hushd (Averroes, 112li-1 ID8), responded to this by writing The IlIcolurence (!l the Inroherence. In IVhat is Art;;, Tolstoy refers to the importance of art in order to ridicule itl He notes the attention paid to art, music, theatre, filrn, and books in the press. IIe notes the in\'(~stment of gm'ernments in the support of museums, theatres and the like. He notes the time spent by artists and perlilrmers in learning- their craft. He presents the most sardonic description of an opera rehearsal you will ever read. He describes the eHilrt and money poured into art as "stupefying", "repulsive", "a gigantic absurdity", and "utterly incomprehensible".~ I-Imv can art be so important that a peasant should have to sell his only cow to pay the taxes that maintain the artist-producer in grand luxury~

From the late Classical period until the Nineteenth Century, Plato was admired for his inspiration and vision, rather than for his theories and argumentation. Then with the advent of analytic philosophy in the Twentieth Century, the pendulum swung hard in the other direction. Plato’s myths were largely ignored. The drama of his dialogues was considered insignificant. The theory of forms and the theory of recollection (as a gloss on immortality) became the pillars of Platonism, and the journals became filled with careful, logical analyses of Platonic principles, theories, and hypotheses. Recently even mainstream Plato scholars have tried to redress the overemphasis on Platonic theory, but they have limited themselves mostly to arguing that image, myth, and characterisation are important to the interpretation of Plato in addition to concepts, theories, and dialectic. This paper argues that myth and dialogue play a much more central role in Platonic philosophy than is currently accepted. There is evidence that Plato treats the dialogues themselves as framing myths, within which all action and dialogue is treated as mimesis, rather than as direct presentation of Plato’s logoi. If this is correct, then each of Plato’s works is organised around the representation of a comprehensive poetic vision not stated in, but rather only through, the action of the dialogue.

When I was asked to contribute an issue to the Literature and Aesthetics series on great thinkers in aesthetics, I did not appreciate how difficult it might be to put together a volume on Plato. Originally my plan was simply to call the volume Plato’s Aesthetics, or Plato on Art and Beauty. I came to realise, however, that Plato was not driven to write about art from an interest in aesthetics (at least not aesthetics as we know it), and that the terms ‘art’ and ‘beauty’ are very inaccurate descriptors for what Plato was “on about”, as they say here in Australia. The fact is that Plato is concerned with all sorts of matters that walk under the umbrella of literature and aesthetics—poetry, drama, myth, music, painting, perspective, attractiveness, organicity, creativity, criticism, truth, and philosophy—and the terms ‘aesthetics’, ‘art’, and ‘beauty’ convey only a small portion of them. What was needed was a more comprehensive conception of Plato’s interest.

This study consists of a series of essays on the metaphysics and epistemology of Plato's Philebus. My chief aim is to determine to what extent Plato maintains the theory of Forms in that dialogue. Because it is generally thought to be a late dialogue, the Philebus is a key to setting a long-standing debate about Plato's philosophical development. Scholars disagree on whether the theory of Forms is maintained in Plato's late dialogues. Most recent interpretations of the Philebus claim that it is incompatible with the theory of Forms. My study shows, however, that the Philebus reaffirms the ontological and epistemological claims of that theory. To secure my thesis I make extensive comparisons with Plato's middle dialogues, particularly the Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus, Republic, and Cratylus. This sort of comparison is crucial because Plato's actual descriptions of Forms differ in significant ways from standard accounts of his theory. I show that the distinctions between being and becoming and between knowledge and opinion, which were essential to the theory of Forms in the middle dialogues, are reaffirmed in the Philebus. As in the middle dialogues, Forms in the Philebus are the prime bearers of the attributes their names describe. Forms are logical causes of the attributes of sensibles, and each Form is a unit having many sensible participants. Plato's reaffirmation of the essential features of the theory of Forms in the Philebus shows that he did not substantially revise that theory in dialogues after the Parmenides.

This paper describes adjustments to teaching practice after migrating from the North American to the Australasian higher education sector. Although the particular experience described is individual and personal, the discoveries and adjustments made can be useful to anyone who faces the experience of academic migration, or even to any teacher. Key adjustments recommended include emphasis on inquiry over information, patient attention to the individuality of learners and teachers, and shared practice of the values of sympathetic understanding, fairness and intellectual humility. These recommendations are not new – in fact the paper takes pains to show how ancient they really are – but they can serve as reminders to teachers facing the insecurity of the global higher education environment.

In this paper I use the traditional image of Plato as swan to suggest that interpreting Plato should not be a matter of getting to know what his doctrines are (a doctrinal approach), but rather a of getting to know Plato himself (a knowledge by acquaintance approach). I argue that the dialogues encourage the knowledge by acquaintance approach and discourage the doctrinal approach, through the use of Platonic anonymity, Platonic irony and Platonic self-effacement. I point out how the knowledge by acquaintance approach values the rich diversity of historical opinions about Plato, whereas the doctrinal approach seeks to resolve such diversity once and for all. Even though the doctrinal approach has powerful tools at its disposal—such as the testimony of Aristotle, the principle that the main speaker in a dialogue is Plato’s mouthpiece, and stylometric analysis—the product of a doctrinal approach is a brand of Platonism that is weak, rigid, and ultimately dispensable. The philosophy of Plato is worthy of more respect than that, and it repays such respect with wider understanding

According to the canon of Thrasyllus (see D. L. 3.59), Plato’s Laches is about cour-age and employs, to borrow a term from Theaetetus 149a–51d, an ‘obstetric’ method, in which the ideas of Socrates’ interlocu-tors are delivered into the light of day and examined. These Thrasyllan labels correctly identify the simple theme and tactic of the La., but as with all of the Socratic dialogues, apparent simplicity disguises enormous sub-tlety of structure and composition. One thing that seems hidden from most readers is the special relation between theme and tactic, namely that the practise of Socratic dialogue requires and exhibits courage in examining what one really thinks.

The Laws is the longest and, according to tra-dition, the last of Plato’s dialogues. It was left ‘in the wax’ at the time of Plato’s death and brought into publication by Philip of Opus (D. L. 3.37). Whether Philip had a hand in editing the work or whether he merely tran-scribed it is uncertain (for one recent account, see Nails and Thesleff 2003). The most recent analyses of its style indicate significant affini-ties with the Sophist, Politicus and Philebus, though there are stark differences in places. These, however, might be explained in vari-ous ways, and there has never been any ques-tion that the Lg. substantially contains the thought of Plato. If we set special problems of composition aside, including admittedly serious questions about the overall coher-ence of the dialogue, then the chief difficul-ties remaining for an interpreter of the Lg. include (a) its dramatic date and structure, (b) its relation to other political dialogues of Plato, especially the Republic and the Plt. and (c) the extensive discussion of cosmology and theology in L. bk 10.