[37] Ueberweg, pp. 100-105-296. “Eine Anzahl kleinerer Platonischer Schriften.”
[38] Ueberweg, pp. 249-267-296.
[39] Ueberweg, pp. 226, 227.
[40] Ueberweg, p. 265.
[41] Ueberweg, pp. 204-292.
[42] Ueberweg, pp. 143-176-222-250.
Other Platonic critics — great dissensions about scheme and order of the dialogues.
The works above enumerated are those chiefly deserving of notice, though there are various others also useful, amidst the abundance of recent Platonic criticism. All these writers, Schleiermacher, Ast, Socher, K. F. Hermann, Stallbaum, Steinhart, Susemihl, Munk, Ueberweg, have not merely laid down general schemes of arrangement for the Platonic dialogues, but have gone through the dialogues seriatim, each endeavouring to show that his own scheme fits them well, and each raising objections against the schemes earlier than his own. It is indeed truly remarkable to follow the differences of opinion among these learned men, all careful students of the Platonic writings. And the number of dissents would be indefinitely multiplied, if we took into the account the various historians of philosophy during the last few years. Ritter and Brandis accept, in the main, the theory of Schleiermacher: Zeller also, to a certain extent. But each of these authors has had a point of view more or less belonging to himself respecting the general scheme and purpose of Plato, and respecting the authenticity, sequence, and reciprocal illustration of the dialogues.[43]
[43] Socher remarks (Ueber, Platon. p. 225) (after enumerating twenty-two dialogues of the Thrasyllean canon, which he considers the earliest) that of these twenty-two, there are only two which have not been declared spurious by some one or more critics. He then proceeds to examine the remainder, among which are Sophistês, Politikus, Parmenidês. He (Socher) declares these three last to be spurious, which no critic had declared before.
Contrast of different points of view instructive — but no solution has been obtained.