[45] See Tennemann, Gesch. d. Phil. vol. ii. p. 205, 215, 221 seq. This portion of Tennemann’s History is valuable, as it takes due account of the seventh Platonic Epistle, compared with the remarkable passage in the Phædrus about the inefficacy of written exposition for the purpose of teaching.
But I cannot think that Tennemann rightly interprets the Epistol. vii. I see no proof that Plato had any secret or esoteric philosophy, reserved for a few chosen pupils, and not proclaimed to the public from apprehension of giving offence to established creeds: though I believe such apprehension to have operated as one motive, deterring him from publishing any philosophical exposition under his own name — any Πλάτωνος σύγγραμμα.
Groups into which the dialogues admit of being thrown.
In judging of Plato, we must confine ourselves to the evidence furnished by one or more of the existing Platonic compositions, adding the testimony of Aristotle and a few others respecting Platonic views not declared in the dialogues. Though little can be predicated respecting the dialogues collectively, I shall say something about the various groups into which they admit of being thrown, before I touch upon them separately and seriatim.
Distribution made by Thrasyllus defective, but still useful — Dialogues of Search, Dialogues of Exposition.
The scheme proposed by Thrasyllus, so far as intended to furnish a symmetrical arrangement of all the Platonic works, is defective, partly because the apportionment of the separate works between the two leading classes is in several cases erroneous — partly because the discrimination of the two leading classes, as well as the sub-division of one of the two, is founded on diversity of Method, while the sub-division of the other class is founded on diversity of Subject. But the scheme is nevertheless useful, as directing our attention to real and important attributes belonging in common to considerable groups of dialogues. It is in this respect preferable to the fanciful dramatic partnership of trilogies and tetralogies, as well as to the mystical interpretation and arrangement suggested by the Neo-platonists. The Dialogues of Exposition — in which one who knows (or professes to know) some truth, announces and developes it to those who do not know it — are contrasted with those of Search or Investigation, in which the element of knowledge and affirmative communication is wanting. All the interlocutors are at once ignorant and eager to know; all of them are jointly engaged in searching for the unknown, though one among them stands prominent both in suggesting where to look and in testing all that is found, whether it be really the thing looked for. Among the expository dialogues, the most marked specimens are Timæus and Epinomis, in neither of which is there any searching or testing debate at all. Republic, Phædon, Philêbus, exhibit exposition preceded or accompanied by a search. Of the dialogues of pure investigation, the most elaborate specimen is the Theætêtus: Menon, Lachês, Charmidês, Lysis, Euthyphron, &c., are of the like description, yet less worked out. There are also several others. In the Menon, indeed,[46] Sokrates goes so far as to deny that there can be any real teaching, and to contend that what appears teaching is only resuscitation of buried or forgotten knowledge.
[46] Plato, Menon, p. 81-82.
Dialogues of Exposition — present affirmative result. Dialogues of Search are wanting in that attribute.
Of these two classes of Dialogues, the Expository are those which exhibit the distinct attribute — an affirmative result or doctrine, announced and developed by a person professing to know, and proved in a manner more or less satisfactory. The other class — the Searching or Investigative — have little else in common except the absence of this property. We find in them debate, refutation, several points of view canvassed and some shown to be untenable; but there is no affirmative result established, or even announced as established, at the close. Often there is even a confession of disappointment. In other respects, the dialogues of this class are greatly diversified among one another: they have only the one common attribute — much debate, with absence of affirmative result.
The distribution coincides mainly with that of Aristotle — Dialectic, Demonstrative.