Jacob Howland

The seven Platonic dialogues which are dramatically arranged around Socrates' last days have as their common focus the question: "Who, or what is Socrates?" Socrates' public display of political and philosophic negativity, and his consequent conviction and execution by an Athenian court, give this question a special, dramatic urgency. The Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman together present a philosophic trial of Socrates which takes place simultaneously with his public trial, and in which the Stranger from Elea presses the charges of bad citizenship and bad philosophy. These charges lead us to reflect upon the broader issues of the nature of philosophy, the distinction between philosophy and sophistry, and the relation of philosophy to political community. In addressing these issues, Socrates' philosophic trial also illuminates Plato's complex response to his teacher's theoretical and practical introduction of philosophy into the cities of men. ;The trial is shaped by the encounter between Socrates' and the Stranger's very different ways of philosophizing: the one emphasizing the production of scientific accounts, the other prophetic, recollective familiarity with human souls and the contexts within which they move. This encounter--in the course of which Socrates levels the counter-charge of sophistry against the Stranger--has the form of an Odyssean allegory. The shifts and reversals of this drama point toward the Odyssean polytropism of the philosopher, and, more broadly, toward the unfinished, open, erotic natures of human souls. While souls elude the Stranger's attempts to grasp them, the philosopher's nature, Plato suggests, can be displayed in the philosophic drama of the dialogues. ;In the Statesman, in which the trial's denouement takes the form of a mutual test of philosophic kinship, the Stranger makes it clear that his encounter with Socrates has led him to embrace Socratic philosophizing. He nevertheless renews his initial charge of bad citizenship. While the Stranger's transformation confirms the fruitfulness of Socratic philosophizing, the trial leaves open, as enduring issues with which the philosopher must continually struggle in his attempt to know himself, essentially Socratic questions about the dangers of philosophy and the philosopher's complex attitude toward that which is distinctively human