No written exposition can keep clear of these chances of error.
For this reason, no man of real excellence will ever write and publish his views, upon the gravest matters, into a world of spite and puzzling contention. In one word, when you see any published writings, either laws proclaimed by the law-giver or other compositions by others, you may be sure that, if he be himself a man of worth, these were not matters of first-rate importance in his estimation. If they really were so, and if he has published his views in writing, some evil influence must have destroyed his good sense.[35]
[35] Plat. Epist. vii. 344 C-D.
Relations of Plato with Dionysius II. and the friends of the deceased Dion. Pretensions of Dionysius to understand and expound Plato’s doctrines.
We see by these letters that Plato disliked and disapproved the idea of publishing, for the benefit of readers generally, any written exposition of philosophia prima, carrying his own name, and making him responsible for it. His writings are altogether dramatic. All opinions on philosophy are enunciated through one or other of his spokesmen: that portion of the Athenian drama called the Parabasis, in which the Chorus addressed the audience directly and avowedly in the name of the poet, found no favour with Plato. We read indeed in several of his dialogues (Phædon, Republic, Timæus, and others) dogmas advanced about the highest and most recondite topics of philosophy: but then they are all advanced under the name of Sokrates, Timæus, &c. — Οὐκ ἐμὸς ὁ μῦθος, &c. There never was any written programme issued by Plato himself, declaring the Symbolum Fidei to which he attached his own name.[36] Even in the Leges, the most dogmatical of all his works, the dramatic character and the borrowed voice are kept up. Probably at the time when Plato wrote his letter to the friends of the deceased Dion, from which I have just quoted — his aversion to written expositions was aggravated by the fact, that Dionysius II., or some friend in his name, had written and published a philosophical treatise of this sort, passing himself off as editor of a Platonic philosophy, or of improved doctrines of his own built thereupon, from oral communication with Plato.[37] We must remember that Plato himself (whether with full sincerity or not) had complimented Dionysius for his natural ability and aptitude in philosophical debate:[38] so that the pretension of the latter to come forward as an expositor of Plato appears the less preposterous. On the other hand, such pretension was calculated to raise a belief that Dionysius had been among the most favoured and confidential companions of Plato: which belief Plato, writing as he was to the surviving friends of Dion the enemy of Dionysius, is most anxious to remove, while on the other hand he extols the dispositions and extenuates the faults of his friend Dion. It is to vindicate himself from misconception of his own past proceedings, as well as to exhort with regard to the future, that Plato transmits to Sicily his long seventh and eighth Epistles, wherein are embodied his objections against the usefulness of written exposition intended for readers generally.
[36] The Platonic dialogue was in this respect different from the Aristotelian dialogue. Aristotle, in his composed dialogues, introduced other speakers, but delivered the principal arguments in his own name. Cicero followed his example, in the De Finibus and elsewhere: “Quæ his temporibus scripsi, Ἀριστοτέλειον morem habent: in quo sermo ita inducitur cæterorum, ut penes ipsum sit principatus”. (Cic. ad Att. xiii. 19.)
Herakleides of Pontus (Cicero, ibid.), in his composed dialogues, introduced himself as a κωφὸν πρόσωπον. Plato does not even do thus much.
[37] We see this from Epist. vii. 341 B, 344 D, 345 A. Plato speaks of the impression as then prevalent (when he wrote) in the mind of Dionysius:—πότερον Διονύσιος ἀκούσας μόνον ἅπαξ οὕτως εἰδέναι τε οἴεται καὶ ἱκανως οἶδεν, &c.
[38] Plat. Epist. ii. 314 D.