The book is written for anyone seriously interested in Plato's thought and in the history of literary theory or of rhetoric. No knowledge of Greek is required. The focus of this account is on how the resources both of persuasive myth and of formal argument, for all that Plato sets them in strong contrast, nevertheless complement and reinforce each other in his philosophy.

Any account of Socrates must necessarily begin with the admission that there is, and always will be, a “problem of Socrates”. He himself wrote nothing, and although soon after his death—possibly even before it—many of his friends and admirers began to write about him, their writings are not reports in any literal sense, but reconstructions or interpretations coloured, to a greater or less degree, by the writer's own interests and prejudices, and inevitably selective in their treatment of a complex personality. (...) Out of the very considerable bulk of this Socratic literature there is left to us in a complete form the work of Xenophon and Plato only, together with some scanty remains of Aeschines and yet scantier fragments of Antisthenes, the reputed founder of the Cynic school. In antiquity it was Aeschines who had the reputation of giving the most faithful picture of the master, a fact which deserves to be borne in mind when we attempt to determine how much of Plato's Socrates preserves the record of the man himself. (shrink)

Perhaps the most important contribution to the history of Greek philosophy that has been made during the last twenty years is to be found in the work under-taken by Professors Burnet and A. E. Taylor in reconstructing the personality of the historical Socrates. There is, by this time, fairly general agreement that it is not to Xenophon's Memorabilia but to Plato's dialogues that we must go if we are to attempt to understand what Socrates meant for his own age and (...) for all time. But Socrates' gain has been Plato's loss. We are compelled to deny to Plato any power of really original thinking until at least his fortieth year. He is, indeed, still left in possession of supreme literary and dramatic genius; but all that he wrote, down to and including the Republic, is not the fruit of his own thought, but the careful record of the thought of Socrates. (shrink)

In the ontology of the Philebus νοσ is the ατία τς συμμξεωσ, the cause that combines πρας with πειρον into the mixture called γνεσισ ες οσαν or γεγενημνη οσα: correspondingly in the Timaeus the Demiurge, ριστος τν ατιν , brings order into unordered chaos by ‘Forms and Numbers’ . In the Philebus the Universe has a Soul, discriminated from the νος that causes it : correspondingly in the Timaeus the Demiurge devises a soul of the world, as well as its (...) body. (shrink)

Plato's examination of False Statement is, like many of his discussions in the later dialogues, a mixture of complete lucidity with extreme obscurity. Any English student who seeks to understand it will of course turn first to Professor Cornford's translation and commentary; and if he next reads what M. Diès has to say in the Introduction to his Budé edition of the Sophist he will, I think, have sufficient acquaintance with the views of modern Platonic scholars on the subject. For (...) myself, at least, I have not gained any further understanding from other writers than these two. (shrink)

The complete, or almost complete, absence from the Theaetetus of any unequivocal reference to Platonic Forms is a problem, the solution of which appeared to many scholars to have been found and convincingly presented in the late Professor Gornford's book Plato's Theory of Knowledge, published in 1935. Put briefly, his contention was that the main purpose of the dialogue is to show that no acceptable definition of knowledge can be reached if the Forms are left out of account, that there (...) are a number of passages in which any reader of the middle dialogues would see that they were deliberately being left out of account, and one or two, namely in the famous digression on the philosophic life, and in the discussion of ‘common terms’ , where they are actually brought in, though not indeed under the name of. (shrink)

The old question whether or no the doctrine of ‘intermediate mathematical objects’ ascribed to Plato by Aristotle is to be found in the Divided Line of Republic vi, has been recently raised again in a careful and lucid discussion by Mr. W. F. R. Hardie. I may clear the ground by saying at once that I agree with that part of Mr. Hardie's chapter which deals with those criticisms of the traditional view that have been put forward by Prof. Ferguson (...) and the late Prof. Stocks; nevertheless I do not believe that the objects of the third segment are intermediate between Forms and Sensibles: I propose to argue that they, like the objects of the highest segment, are Forms. (shrink)

The old question whether or no the doctrine of ‘intermediate mathematical objects’ ascribed to Plato by Aristotle is to be found in the Divided Line of Republic vi, has been recently raised again in a careful and lucid discussion by Mr. W. F. R. Hardie. I may clear the ground by saying at once that I agree with that part of Mr. Hardie's chapter which deals with those criticisms of the traditional view that have been put forward by Prof. Ferguson (...) and the late Prof. Stocks; nevertheless I do not believe that the objects of the third segment are intermediate between Forms and Sensibles: I propose to argue that they, like the objects of the highest segment, are Forms. (shrink)

At 195B 9 it is pointed out that the Wax Block theory does not cover that large class of judgments in which no sense-objects are concerned, e.g. judgments about numbers. How can we make the mistake of judging that 7 + 5 = 11?The simile of the Aviary, now introduced, is very simple. It illustrates the difference between potential knowledge and actual knowledge, i.e. between knowledge at our disposal, because it has been learnt and stored away in the mind, and (...) knowledge present and ‘alive’ at the moment. The theory is that when we make a mistake about the sum of 7 and 5 we are ‘hunting for’ the knowledge of 12, which we ‘possess’ as we might possess a bird in a cage, but which we have not ‘got about us’ ; but we mis-take, wrongly take our knowledge of 11, i.e. we call up before our mind a different piece of knowledge. (shrink)

Any account of Socrates must necessarily begin with the admission that there is, and always will be, a “problem of Socrates”. He himself wrote nothing, and although soon after his death—possibly even before it—many of his friends and admirers began to write about him, their writings are not reports in any literal sense, but reconstructions or interpretations coloured, to a greater or less degree, by the writer's own interests and prejudices, and inevitably selective in their treatment of a complex personality. (...) Out of the very considerable bulk of this Socratic literature there is left to us in a complete form the work of Xenophon and Plato only, together with some scanty remains of Aeschines and yet scantier fragments of Antisthenes, the reputed founder of the Cynic school. In antiquity it was Aeschines who had the reputation of giving the most faithful picture of the master, a fact which deserves to be borne in mind when we attempt to determine how much of Plato's Socrates preserves the record of the man himself. (shrink)

It is universally agreed that Plato inherited from Socrates, and consistently maintained to the end, the doctrine that no man does evil of set purpose—οδες κν μαρτνει—but because he mistakes evil for good. All moral evil, therefore, for Plato, involves ignorance. There are, however, two passages, one in the Sophist, the other in Laws ix, which on the face of them appear to recognize a type of moral evil in which ignorance is not involved, a type which is indeed contrasted (...) with that arising from ignorance. These passages have not, of course, been overlooked by scholars: they are regularly referred to in the best-known accounts of Platonic ethical theory; yet I do not think they have been sufficiently considered, nor is a clear answer forthcoming to the question whether or no in these later dialogues Plato really intends, as he seems to intend, a modification of his earlier ethical doctrine. My purpose is to show that he does not, and to account if possible for his apparent inconsistency. (shrink)

It is universally agreed that Plato inherited from Socrates, and consistently maintained to the end, the doctrine that no man does evil of set purpose—οδες κν μαρτνει—but because he mistakes evil for good. All moral evil, therefore, for Plato, involves ignorance. There are, however, two passages, one in the Sophist, the other in Laws ix, which on the face of them appear to recognize a type of moral evil in which ignorance is not involved, a type which is indeed contrasted (...) with that arising from ignorance. These passages have not, of course, been overlooked by scholars: they are regularly referred to in the best-known accounts of Platonic ethical theory; yet I do not think they have been sufficiently considered, nor is a clear answer forthcoming to the question whether or no in these later dialogues Plato really intends, as he seems to intend, a modification of his earlier ethical doctrine. My purpose is to show that he does not, and to account if possible for his apparent inconsistency. (shrink)

This famous sentence, which opens the address of the Demiurge to the created gods, has puzzled commentators both ancient and modern. We must, I think, agree with Taylor and Cornford, who both discuss it at length, that no sense can be got out of θεọ θεν taken together, i.e. with a comma after θεν: I need notreproduce their arguments on this point. Accordingly they punctuate after θεọ. Taylor, however, thinks that even so the sentence cannot be translated, and accepts Badham's (...) proposal to read ộδων in place of θεν ν. He then takes ộδων πγων as an instance of ‘inverse relative attraction’ and translates ‘Ye gods, works whereof I am maker and father, seeing they were fashioned by my hands, are indissoluble without my consent’. Cornford objects to ộδων on the grounds that it creates an objectionable hiatus between the first two words , and also that it destroys what he finds to be the dominant rhythm of the whole speech, and particularly of this first sentence. That rhythm is Cretic: θεọ θεν ν ẻγ δημωνπγς πατπ πγων: which he compares the famous opening of the De Corona τος θεος εχομα πδ κα πδς. I am, however, doubtful about the cogency of this argument from rhythm, as I have noticed a number of places in the dialogue where a similar rhythm occurs to all appearance naturally: 58 A κα ππς ατν πεφνκνα βολεδθα. 66 C δ κα ποδφλς παντ πν. 70 A τν τε δ καπδαν μμτων. 77 A τς γπ νθπωπνης δνγγεν 81 δγκλεν ατν ππς λληλα κκτηα. (shrink)

17A. ο δ νν τν νθρπων σοφο ν μν, πως ν τχωσι, κα πολλ θττον κα βραδτερον ποιοσι το δοντος, μετ δ τ ν πειρα εθς τ δ μσα ατος κφεγειος διακεχρισται τ τε διαλεκτικς πλιν κα τ ριστικς μς ποιεσθαι πρς λλλους τος λγους.

In a recent number of the Classical Quarterly Mr. F. M. Cornford argues against the commonly accepted view, according to which the tripartite social structure of the Republic is a corollary, in Plato′s mind, to the tripartition of the individual Soul. In the present paper I propose to examine the general plan of the dialogue, in the hope of showing that Plato′s conceptions of State and Soul were not, as generally assumed and as assumed by Mr. Cornford, ready-made and clearly (...) formulated in his mind before he began to write the Republic: that, on the contrary, we can detect profound and vital modifications of his original views as the argument proceeds: and that the conceptions of the Ideal State and the rightly constituted human soul grow out of one another and react on one another in such a way that it is impossible to give a simple answer, affirmative or negative, to the question ‘ Which is prior, the tripartition of State or the tripartition of Soul ?’. (shrink)

In a recent number of the Classical Quarterly Mr. F. M. Cornford argues against the commonly accepted view, according to which the tripartite social structure of the Republic is a corollary, in Plato′s mind, to the tripartition of the individual Soul. In the present paper I propose to examine the general plan of the dialogue, in the hope of showing that Plato′s conceptions of State and Soul were not, as generally assumed and as assumed by Mr. Cornford, ready-made and clearly (...) formulated in his mind before he began to write the Republic: that, on the contrary, we can detect profound and vital modifications of his original views as the argument proceeds: and that the conceptions of the Ideal State and the rightly constituted human soul grow out of one another and react on one another in such a way that it is impossible to give a simple answer, affirmative or negative, to the question ‘ Which is prior, the tripartition of State or the tripartition of Soul?’. (shrink)