Journal of the History of Philosophy

294 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 35:2 APRIL ~997 inability to deal with large and complex philosophical systems), wrote dialogues (chapter 12). Some of these--the Socratic dialogues--depict Socrates engaged in the oral conduct of philosophy. Others are "didactic"; still others are "mixed." What is distinctive of the dialogues taken as a whole, and of the Socratic dialogues in particular, is what Nails calls "double openendedness": a refusal to regard as fixed or settled not just the conclusions of philosophical argument but also the assumptions that lead to those conclusions (3, ~I8-19). There is much to discuss in a book as rich and provocative as this one is, and we will hear plenty, I'm sure, when the developmentalist empire strikes back. Considerations of space restrict me here to two brief remarks on the project of distinguishing Socrates from Plato in terms of focus and doctrine. First, although there are many details to worry about, Nails may well be right in her attempt to distinguish Socrates from Plato by appeal to their different ways of doing philosophy. But it does not follow from this that they cannot also be distinguished in terms of focus and doctrine: perhaps we can have it both ways. Second, the effort to distinguish by focus and doctrine as well as by method need not depend on any view about the order in which Plato wrote the dialogues (though historically, of course, it has), much less on any views about which dialogues are early, which middle, and which late. The crucial question, in my view, is whether it can be shown that Plato's dialogues may be divided into (at least) two groups, each of them more or less of a piece as regards focus and doctrine, and each more or less distinct from the other. After reading Nails's book, I am still convinced that the project can be carried off, and that what will emerge is something along the lines, more or less, of what I sketched in my first paragraph. But I am also convinced that the project is much more difficult to carry off than I once thought it was. CHARLES M. YOUNG The ClaremontGraduate School Marie-Luise Lakmann, Der Platoniker Tauros mder DarsteUungdesAulus GeUius. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995. Pp. xi + 294. Cloth, $45:oo. Recent interest in Middle Platonism, particularly in the Didascalicusof Alcinous, which has possibly received disproportionate attention, because it conveniently covers all major areas of Platonic doctrine, makes this work welcome. The collection of the fragments and testimonia on pp. 229-58 is a service to those who wish to investigate more deeply the nature of second-century Platonism. It does not take a great deal of familiarity with the testimonia, however, to realize the problem of such a volume. The collection is arranged under the following headings: A. Life, B. Master and Pupils, C. Works, D. Commentary on Plato's Timaeus, E. Miscellaneous. Under A one finds a line of Eusebius and a helpful inscription; under B five lines of Philostratus and thirteen passages from the NoctesAtticae of Gellius; under C one long passage of Gellius ', dealing with Taurus' commentary on the Gorgias, plus three snippets from Greek authors which are of varying usefulness; under D nine passages of Philopon's De Aeternitate Mundi plus one passage from Stobaeus, which in fact makes reference to BOOK REVIEWS 295 "the Platonists around Taurus," dividing these into two groups so as to show that the reference is not just a periphrasis for Taurus; under E is a single passage from Ammonius . In short most texts derive from just two completely unrelated works, one from a contemporary writing in Latin, and sometimes thought, not entirely without reason, to be rather antiphilosophical (see L. Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius [London/Chapel Hill, 1988-89], 192), and one from a late Neoplatonist arguing in Greek about the lifespan of the universe. The remaining texts (eight) are fewer than either main group, and also shorter; while some are helpful, they cannot possibly fill the gaps left by the specialist interests of Gellius and Philopon. We get a more rounded portrait of Taurus and his philosophy from Gellius than from...