To whom should the ideas expressed by Socrates in Plato's dialogues be attributed? Not for Plato and certainly not for Socrates, claims the philosopher Catherine Osborne
Gilad Sharivit *
"The Death of Socrates", Jacques Louis David
Socrates is considered the father of Western philosophy, but despite his great importance to culture and thought, we only know the dates of his birth and death (469-400 BC), and the names of his parents. He wrote nothing, and there is no historical information based on him and his work. What there is is a considerable record of views attributed to him, written by major thinkers in ancient Greece, including the playwright Aristophanes, the historian Xenophon, and of course the philosopher Plato.
But the character of Socrates changes completely from author to author. For example, Xenophon's Socrates is a simple and flightless character, while Plato's Socrates is a sharp-tongued and quick-thinking hero who sacrifices his life on the altar of reason. In fact, the question "Who is Socrates" is so controversial that at the beginning of the twentieth century some researchers claimed that it was a literary fiction and not a historical figure.
Many philosophers claim that Plato, Socrates' important student, is the one who faithfully represents the views of his great teacher in his dialogues, mainly due to his advantage over playwrights like Aristophanes and historians like Xenophon in understanding the theoretical side of Socrates' philosophy. Others claim that Socrates expresses Plato's ideas in the dialogues, meaning that Socrates serves as a mouthpiece for his student's views.
One of the main problems that bothers those who look to Plato's dialogues for a coherent philosophical theory of Socrates, or alternatively of Plato, is the fact that there are several places where there is a clear contradiction in the positions that Socrates presents regarding a certain subject. For example, in the dialogue "Protagoras" Socrates argues in favor of Donism as a way of life, and in contrast in "Gorgias" he opposes it. In the same way, Socrates declares his commitment to the Athenian law in the "Crito" dialogue, but refuses to acknowledge it in the "Apology" dialogue.
How can the gap between conflicting opinions on the same subject be explained in a place where uniformity and clarity of thought are required? Who contradicts himself, Socrates or Plato?
One way to overcome the problem is to divide Plato's writings into three main periods. In the first period, Plato is loyal to the ideas of Socrates and does not commit to an independent philosophical method. In a second period he is no longer committed to the ideas of Socrates and seeks to present his own philosophical theory. In the third period the topics he discusses are not relevant to Socrates' thought. According to this approach, some of the essential contradictions in Socrates' words stem from the fact that in the first period the character "Socrates" expresses his opinion, while in the second period - Plato's opinion.
In a study recently published in the journal "Philosophical Investigations", philosopher Catherine Osborne from UEA Norwich offers a new way to understand Socrates' place in Plato's writings. First, Osborne challenges the notion that Plato's writings should be read as one piece and use them to establish his (or, alternatively, Socrates') systematic philosophical framework. Instead she argues that the dialogues should be understood as independent philosophical works. The power and importance of Plato's thought, she believes, are found in the ideas presented in each dialogue separately, and not in the collection of dialogues together.
Osborne bases her argument on the fact that around 390 BC a new literary genre, the Socratic dialogue, was founded in Greece. According to the rules of the genre, in which Plato's early compositions were written, the writer of the dialogue had two goals: to present in an authentic and lively way the character of Socrates, and to deal in an original way with some of the issues that troubled him, while ignoring the question of whether Socrates really held the opinion that he expresses in the dialogue .
That is, as long as the writers, including Plato, presented Socrates the man artistically, they could offer the reader a varied and changing collection of opinions that Socrates the philosopher could have held. Even if the writers tried to present in the Socratic dialogue a small number of philosophical principles that Socrates expressed - for example, his well-known claim that the search for truth is important for the good life - then all the other ideas expressed in the dialogues by him changed frequently.
Osborne claims that when Plato wrote a dialogue with the participation of Socrates, he was first of all interested in the narrative background of the dialogue - the situation in which it takes place and the characters with whom Socrates meets. In the next stage of writing the dialogue, Plato sought to understand precisely the ideas presented by Socrates' interlocutor, who in many cases was a famous personality, and to formulate his position fairly and precisely. Socrates, Osborne claims, had a negative role: to collapse the conceptual framework of his interlocutor. He served as a narrative device - a kind of devil's advocate.
Since the main literary and philosophical engagement in the discussion is focused on the views of Socrates' interlocutors, there is no reason to look for a connection between Plato's ideas and the ideas expressed by Socrates. These vary from dialogue to dialogue, because the opinions of Socrates' interlocutors change. For example, if Protagoras argues against hedonism, Socrates will argue in favor of this way of life; And if Callicles (in the dialogue "Gorgias") supports hedonism, Socrates will oppose it. Socrates does not express any independent idea, and there is no connection between one dialogue and another. Plato's ambition is to create a reliable literary framework that meets the aesthetic requirements of the Socratic dialogue, through which he can test and critique accepted philosophical traditions.
According to Osborne, the Socratic dialogue cannot help us understand who the "real" Socrates is or alternatively who the "real" Plato is - Plato's systematic philosophy is expressed in his later writings. Instead, the reader is offered to enjoy her impressive literary-philosophical genre, and to appreciate each dialogue on its own. Who was Socrates and what he really thought - we will probably never know that.
The author is a doctoral student in philosophy at Tel Aviv University
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