Such is the sum of our information respecting Plato. Scanty as it is, we have not even the advantage of contemporary authority for any portion of it. We have no description of Plato from any contemporary author, friendly or adverse. It will be seen that after the death of Sokrates we know nothing about Plato as a man and a citizen, except the little which can be learnt from his few Epistles, all written when he was very old, and relating almost entirely to his peculiar relations with Dion and Dionysius. His dialogues, when we try to interpret them collectively, and gather from them general results as to the character and purposes of the author, suggest valuable arguments and perplexing doubts, but yield few solutions. In no one of the dialogues does Plato address us in his own person. In the Apology alone (which is not a dialogue) is he alluded to even as present: in the Phædon he is mentioned as absent from illness. Each of the dialogues, direct or indirect, is conducted from beginning to end by the persons whom he introduces.[35] Not one of the dialogues affords any positive internal evidence showing the date of its composition. In a few there are allusions to prove that they must have been composed at a period later than others, or later than some given event of known date; but nothing more can be positively established. Nor is there any good extraneous testimony to determine the date of any one among them. For the remark ascribed to Sokrates about the dialogue called Lysis (which remark, if authentic, would prove the dialogue to have been composed during the life-time of Sokrates) appears altogether untrustworthy. And the statement of some critics, that the Phædrus was Plato’s earliest composition, is clearly nothing more than an inference (doubtful at best, and, in my judgment, erroneous) from its dithyrambic style and erotic subject.[36]
[35] On this point Aristotle, in the dialogues which he composed, did not follow Plato’s example. Aristotle introduced two or more persons debating a question, but he appeared in his own person to give the solution, or at least to wind up the debate. He sometimes also opened the debate by a proœm or prefatory address in his own person (Cic. ad Attic. iv. 16, 2, xiii. 19, 4). Cicero followed the manner of Aristotle, not that of Plato. His dialogues are rhetorical rather than dramatic.
All the dialogues of Aristotle are lost.
[36] Diog. L. iii. 38. Compare the Prolegomena τῆς Πλάτωνος Φιλοσοφίας, c. 24, in the Appendix Platonica of K. F. Hermann’s edition, p. 217.
CHAPTER VI.
PLATONIC CANON, AS RECOGNISED BY THRASYLLUS.
As we know little about Plato except from his works, the first question to be decided is, Which are his real works? Where are we to find a trustworthy Platonic Canon?
Platonic Canon — Ancient and modern discussions.
Down to the close of the last century this question was not much raised or discussed. The catalogue recognised by the rhetor Thrasyllus (contemporary with the Emperor Tiberius) was generally accepted as including none but genuine works of Plato; and was followed as such by editors and critics, who were indeed not very numerous.[1] But the discussions carried on during the present century have taken a different turn. While editors, critics, and translators have been greatly multiplied, some of the most distinguished among them, Schleiermacher at the head, have either professedly set aside, or in practice disregarded, the Thrasyllean catalogue, as if it carried no authority and very faint presumption. They have reasoned upon each dialogue as if its title to be considered genuine were now to be proved for the first time; either by external testimony (mentioned in Aristotle or others), or by internal evidences of style, handling, and thoughts:[2] as if, in other words, the onus probandi lay upon any one who believed the printed works of Plato to be genuine — not upon an opponent who disputes the authenticity of any one or more among them, and rejects it as spurious. Before I proceed to examine the conclusions, alike numerous and discordant, which these critics have proclaimed, I shall enquire how far the method which they have pursued is warrantable. Is there any presumption at all — and if so, what amount of presumption — in favour of the catalogue transmitted from antiquity by Thrasyllus, as a canon containing genuine works of Plato and no others?