Kleitophon is genuine, and perfectly in harmony with a just theory of Plato.
Like so many other pieces in the Thrasyllean catalogue, the Kleitophon has been declared to be spurious by Schleiermacher and other critics of the present century. I see no ground for this opinion, and I believe the dialogue to be genuine. If it be asked, how can we imagine Plato to have composed a polemic argument, both powerful and unanswered, against Sokrates, — I reply, that this is not so surprising as the Parmenidês: in which Plato has introduced the veteran so named as the successful assailant not only of Sokrates, but of the Platonic theory of Ideas defended by Sokrates.
I have already declared, that the character of Plato is, in my judgment, essentially many-sided. It comprehends the whole process of searching for truth, and testing all that is propounded as such: it does not shrink from broaching and developing speculative views not merely various and distinct, but sometimes even opposite.
It could not have been published until after Plato’s death.
Yet though the Kleitophon is Plato’s work, it is a sketch or fragment never worked out. In its present condition, it can hardly have been published (any more than the Kritias) either by his direction or during his life. I conceive it to have remained among his papers, to have been made known by his school after his death, and to have passed from thence among the other Platonic manuscripts into the Alexandrian library at its first foundation. Possibly it may have been originally intended as a preparation for the solution of that problem, which Sokrates afterwards undertakes in the Republic: for it is a challenge to Sokrates to explain what he means by Justice. It may have been intended as such, but never prosecuted:— the preparation for that solution being provided in another way, such as we now read in the first and second books of the Republic. That the great works of Plato — Republic, Protagoras, Symposion, &c. — could not have been completed without preliminary sketches and tentatives — we may regard as certain. That some of these sketches, though never worked up, and never published by Plato himself, should have been good enough to be preserved by him and published by those who succeeded him — is at the very least highly probable. One such is the Kleitophon.
Reasons why the Kleitophon was never finished. It points out the defects of Sokrates, just as he himself confesses them in the Apology.
When I read the Kleitophon, I am not at all surprised that Plato never brought it to a conclusion, nor ever provided Sokrates with an answer to the respectful, yet emphatic, requisition of Kleitophon. The case against Sokrates has been made so strong, that I doubt whether Plato himself could have answered it to his own satisfaction. It resembles the objections which he advances in the Parmenidês against the theory of Ideas: objections which he has nowhere answered, and which I do not believe that he could answer. The characteristic attribute of which Kleitophon complains in Sokrates is, that of a one-sided and incomplete efficiency — (φύσις μονόκωλος) — “You are perpetually stirring us up and instigating us: you do this most admirably: but when we have become full of fervour, you do not teach us how we are to act, nor point out the goal towards which we are to move”.[18] Now this is precisely the description which Sokrates gives of his own efficiency, in the Platonic Apology addressed to the Dikasts. He lays especial stress on the mission imposed upon him by the Gods, to apply his Elenchus in testing and convicting the false persuasion of knowledge universally prevalent:— to make sure by repeated cross-examination, whether the citizens pursued money and worldly advancement more energetically than virtue:— and to worry the Athenians with perpetual stimulus, like the gadfly exciting a high-bred but lethargic horse. Sokrates describes this not only as the mission of his life, but as a signal benefit and privilege conferred upon Athens by the Gods.[19] But here his services end. He declares explicitly that he shares in the universal ignorance, and that he is no wiser than any one else, except in being aware of his own ignorance. He disclaims all power of teaching:[20] and he deprecates the supposition, — that he himself knew what he convicted others of not knowing, — as a mistake which had brought upon him alike unmerited reputation and great unpopularity.[21] We find thus that the description given by Sokrates of himself in the Apology, and the reproach addressed to Sokrates by Kleitophon, fully coincide. “My mission from the Gods” (says Sokrates), “is to dispel the false persuasion of knowledge, to cross-examine men into a painful conviction of their own ignorance, and to create in them a lively impulse towards knowledge and virtue: but I am no wiser than they: I can teach them nothing, nor can I direct them what to do.” — That is exactly what I complain of (remarks Kleitophon): I have gone through your course, — have been electrified by your Elenchus, — and am full of the impulse which you so admirably communicate. In this condition, what I require is, to find out how, or in which direction I am to employ that impulse. If you cannot tell me, I must ask Thrasymachus or some one else.
[18] I have in an earlier chapter ([ch. viii. vol. i. p. 406]) cited the passage — “Philosophiam multis locis inchoasti: ad impellendum satis, ad edocendum parum”. This is the language addressed by Cicero to Varro, and coinciding substantially with that of Kleitophon here.
[19] Plat. Apol. Sokr. pp. 28 E, 29 D-E, 30 A-E. 30 E: προσκείμενον τῇ πόλει ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ ὥσπερ ἵππῳ μεγάλῳ μὲν καὶ γενναίῳ, ὑπὸ μεγέθους δὲ νωθεστέρῳ καὶ δεομένῳ ἐγείρεσθαι ὑπὸ μύωπός τινος· οἷον δή μοι δοκεῖ ὁ θεὸς ἐμὲ τῇ πόλει προστεθεικέναι τοιοῦτόν τινα, ὃς ὑμᾶς ἐγείρων καὶ πείθων καὶ ὀνειδίζων ἕνα ἕκαστον οὐδὲν παύομαι τὴν ἡμέραν ὅλην πανταχοῦ προσκαθίζων. Also pp. 36 D, 41 E.
[20] Plat. Apol. Sokr. pp. 21 D-22 D, 33 A: ἐγὼ δὲ διδάσκαλος οὐδενὸς πώποτ’ ἐγενόμην.