CHAPTER VII
PLATO (427–347 B. C.)
Abdera and Athens. The materialism of Democritus was the natural consummation of the thought of the Cosmological Period. The influence of the Sophistic psychology only enriched it, widened it, and brought its materialism into a systematic formulation. The Democritan system from the isolated centre of Abdera points only to the past. Upon the death of Democritus the school quickly disappeared. Its materialistic doctrine reappeared from time to time in one form and another,—in the Skeptics, the Epicureans, and the Stoics. It was reintroduced as a system into Europe during the Renaissance. So far as Greece was concerned, the school of Abdera was an early ripening and an early dying branch.
The school of Athenian immaterialism, the principal tendency of Greek thought, arose from the centre of Attic civilization and pointed to the future. It drew its materials from practically the same sources as the philosophy of Abdera, but the materials were polarized about the ethical teaching of Socrates. The life of Plato coincides with the unhappy history of Athens after the death of Pericles (429 B. C.). The Peloponnesian War began in 431 B. C., two years before the death of Pericles and four years before the birth of Plato; and it did not end until 403 B. C. The event most disastrous to the Athenians during this war was the Sicilian expedition in 413 B. C. Athens wascaptured by the Spartans in 403 B. C., and the great walls of the city were destroyed. The remainder of Plato’s life was contemporaneous with the devastating wars among the Greek cities, for there was no city strong enough to hold the balance of power after it left the hands of the Athenians. In 359 B. C. Macedon began to loom up as a power in the north. The life of Plato, the formulator of Athenian immaterialism, may be easily remembered as covering that period between the rise of Sparta and the rise of Macedon.
The Difficulties in Understanding the Teaching of Plato. The theory of Plato is one of the most involved and one of the most difficult to understand in the whole history of philosophy. This difficulty of interpreting Plato as a philosopher depends upon many factors: upon the artistic literary form of the dialogue in which his philosophy is presented; upon the conflicting tendencies of thought in Plato himself; upon the fact that the composition of his dialogues extended over a period of more than half a century; upon the constant reshaping of the content as well as the form of his thought; and upon the uncertainty of the chronological order of his writings. This chronological order of Plato’s dialogues is an important factor in determining his teaching. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century a vast amount of literature has been published on the subject, and many theories of the dialogue-chronology have been proposed. There are three principal groups of theories: (1) those based upon purely a priori hypotheses, as, for example, that of Hermann, that each dialogue is a stage in the development of Plato’s thought; or that of Schleiermacher, that Plato had a systematic plan from the beginning; (2) those basedupon an empirical study of the historical allusions in the dialogues themselves (Zeller, Windelband, et als.); (3) those recent theories based upon the “stylometric test,” i. e. by an examination of the peculiarities of the style of Plato. Lutoslawski is a prominent representative of this method.
The result to the student is bewildering, on account of the differing conclusions. But since some choice must be made,we shall follow the order laid down by Windelband,[26] because it is fairly orthodox and conservative. For convenience to the memory, the writings will be grouped in the periods of Plato’s life. Our interpretation will therefore follow Windelband in respect to the character of Plato’s theory itself.
The Life and Writings of Plato. Two important events divide Plato’s long life of eighty years into three periods. These events were the death of his master, Socrates, in 399 B. C., and Plato’s return from Sicily in 387 B. C., after having there come under the influence of the Pythagoreans. His first period may be called his student life, and was twenty-eight years long; the second period was that of the traveler, and was twelve years long; the third period was that of teacher of the Academy, and was forty years long. The first half of his life therefore covers the first two periods, and the second half covers his period as teacher. Probably he was engaged in the composition of the dialogues during all these periods, and Cicero reports him to have died “pen in hand” (scribens est mortuus).
1. Plato’s Student Life (427–399 B. C.). This period closes with the death of Socrates. His acquaintance with Socrates began when he was twenty years old, and therefore lasted eight years.
The dialogues written during this period are presentations of the doctrine of Socrates and do not contain the constructive theory of Plato. They are concerned either with Socratic subjects or with Socrates personally, and were written in part during Socrates’ life, in part directly after his death.
(a) Dialogues written under the influence of Socrates:
Lysis, concerning friendship;