Platonic Aporiai. Der Sinn Der Aporien in Den Dialogen Platons Übungsstücke Zur Anleitung...

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Platonic AporiaiDer Sinn der Aporien in den Dialogen Platons: bungsstcke zur Anleitung imphilosophischen Denken by Michael ErlerReview by: Robert WardyThe Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 40, No. 1 (1990), pp. 65-67Published by: Cambridge University Presson behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3064980.

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THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 65Laws X (903b-d, 904ab). There are two taproots of the conception of the UltimateSource of Motion. One is that perfection of movement and rest that has self-rotationon a constant axis as its physical representation. Called the motion of vois at LawsX 897cd, it is not bodily in itself. The Politicus myth says that the cosmos cannotpartake in it because the cosmos has a body. This implies that the ultimate apXVrfmovement is not embodied in the sense that physical embodiment is the necessarycondition of its existing, but rather that it is thepriusof what we see in embodied soul.It is a 'mobile' rather than a 'static' apXq7. It is a simplification, though it is abreakthrough in thought, to say that it is bvXr as Phaedrus 245c says it is, stating itin its most general terms.Can we agree, then, with O., that Plato in his latest phase of thought thought aboutthe /vXj in terms close to Aristotle's concept of entelechy?This step could be made,and indeed we see Aristotle taking it in the de anima. But there are hesitations onPlato's side. Even when dealing with physical and medical teachings, Plato remainsaware of the noetic system which characterisesmicrocosm as well as macrocosm, andhe neverclearly abandons the doctrine of transmigration.Plato cannot escape the biteof Aristotle's searchingcriticism that those who believe in it must believe that any soulcan enter any body. Although at every transmigrationadaptation of body to soul maytake place and the psychophysical formula may remain in this perpetual rise and fallin the scale of being, it is alien to the biologist's assumption of the specific form beingconstantly recaptured in the offspring of some fixed species.Here Aristotle shows his true genius and his basic contribution to physical science.It does not, of course, settle all psychophysical questions - the age-long questionsabout the Active Intellect remain. Plato, for his part, has a faith in creativebenevolence at work in a universe which is less than perfect but as good as it can be.An outgoing creative force intelligible and rational has also been of age-longencouragement to interpretersof the cosmos, who have sought to traceits outworkingin verifiable details and mathematical meaning.So we have the great masters with their own aims and achievements, but we areindebted to Dr Ostenfeld for compelling us to face the questions latent in thedynamic-telic approach seen in Plato's later thought. It ought to be added, in viewof earlier criticism of the format of the work, that each section has a summing-upandthe work as a whole has a clear and valuable conclusion (pages 275 to 280).Bristol J. B. SKEMP

PLATONIC APORIAIMICHAEL ERLER: Der Sinn der Aporien in den Dialogen Platons.Ubungssticke zur Anleitung im philosophischen Denken. (Unter-suchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte, 25.) Pp. xi+330.Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1987. DM 154.E. focuses on the perennial problem confronting readers of the aporetic dialogues. Tostruggle free from the disturbing conclusion voiced so often by his smartinginterlocutors - Socrates has manipulated the discussion in a nastily ironic, sophisticalmanner-we must choose between apparently incompatible interpretations. His-toricists understand them as genuine reflections of Plato's philosophical development:if a dialogue ends in unresolved puzzlement, it is because Plato himself had no wayout. It came as a surprise to this reviewer, at least, to learn very early on that the

THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 65Laws X (903b-d, 904ab). There are two taproots of the conception of the UltimateSource of Motion. One is that perfection of movement and rest that has self-rotationon a constant axis as its physical representation. Called the motion of vois at LawsX 897cd, it is not bodily in itself. The Politicus myth says that the cosmos cannotpartake in it because the cosmos has a body. This implies that the ultimate apXVrfmovement is not embodied in the sense that physical embodiment is the necessarycondition of its existing, but rather that it is thepriusof what we see in embodied soul.It is a 'mobile' rather than a 'static' apXq7. It is a simplification, though it is abreakthrough in thought, to say that it is bvXr as Phaedrus 245c says it is, stating itin its most general terms.Can we agree, then, with O., that Plato in his latest phase of thought thought aboutthe /vXj in terms close to Aristotle's concept of entelechy?This step could be made,and indeed we see Aristotle taking it in the de anima. But there are hesitations onPlato's side. Even when dealing with physical and medical teachings, Plato remainsaware of the noetic system which characterisesmicrocosm as well as macrocosm, andhe neverclearly abandons the doctrine of transmigration.Plato cannot escape the biteof Aristotle's searchingcriticism that those who believe in it must believe that any soulcan enter any body. Although at every transmigrationadaptation of body to soul maytake place and the psychophysical formula may remain in this perpetual rise and fallin the scale of being, it is alien to the biologist's assumption of the specific form beingconstantly recaptured in the offspring of some fixed species.Here Aristotle shows his true genius and his basic contribution to physical science.It does not, of course, settle all psychophysical questions - the age-long questionsabout the Active Intellect remain. Plato, for his part, has a faith in creativebenevolence at work in a universe which is less than perfect but as good as it can be.An outgoing creative force intelligible and rational has also been of age-longencouragement to interpretersof the cosmos, who have sought to traceits outworkingin verifiable details and mathematical meaning.So we have the great masters with their own aims and achievements, but we areindebted to Dr Ostenfeld for compelling us to face the questions latent in thedynamic-telic approach seen in Plato's later thought. It ought to be added, in viewof earlier criticism of the format of the work, that each section has a summing-upandthe work as a whole has a clear and valuable conclusion (pages 275 to 280).Bristol J. B. SKEMP

PLATONIC APORIAIMICHAEL ERLER: Der Sinn der Aporien in den Dialogen Platons.Ubungssticke zur Anleitung im philosophischen Denken. (Unter-suchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte, 25.) Pp. xi+330.Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1987. DM 154.E. focuses on the perennial problem confronting readers of the aporetic dialogues. Tostruggle free from the disturbing conclusion voiced so often by his smartinginterlocutors - Socrates has manipulated the discussion in a nastily ironic, sophisticalmanner-we must choose between apparently incompatible interpretations. His-toricists understand them as genuine reflections of Plato's philosophical development:if a dialogue ends in unresolved puzzlement, it is because Plato himself had no wayout. It came as a surprise to this reviewer, at least, to learn very early on that the0009-840X/90 3.00 ? Oxford University Press 1990009-840X/90 3.00 ? Oxford University Press 1990

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communisopinionow dismisses this line as unviable (p. 6). Existentialists also regardthe dnropL'al s authentic, not, however, on account of Plato's immaturity, but ratherbecause truth really is unattainable or at any rate ineffable: still they fare no betterthan the historicists. On the other side are paedagogic unitarians who suppose thatPlato started off with at least the essentials of his philosophy to hand, but clothed hislessons in riddles to test the reader. On neither side, as it were, are esotericists of amore or less neoplatonic persuasion, for whom literary and dramatic clues,'Ironiesignale', indicate that all the problems and paradoxes just dissolve away intonothing.E. himself subscribesto an elaborate and ratherirenicposition. The d7ropLaLre notintrinsicallyinsoluble, nor did Plato imagine they were. Against the esotericists, hemaintains that the interlocutor'smiscomprehensionis responsible for the puzzles, andthat indeed within the limits set by his 'Verstandnishorizont' they are fully legitimate.Furthermore, Socrates is innocent of bad intellectual faith, since he is obliged toremain within those limits. Yet this view of the dialectic does not preclude theexpectation that the adropt'a yield to analysis at a higher level of understanding:'Vielmehr ware sie in diesem Fall insofern kiinstlich, als Platon, der Gestalter desDialoges, durch die Wahl des Gesprachspartnersfur Sokrates gleichsam das Niveauschon vorgegeben hat, welches die Aporie bedingt' (pp. 13-14).Further, investigation of the function of the aporetic dialogues should not bedivorced from the question of the r6ole scribed to written philosophy. E. resists theinclination to correlate, to the detriment of the dialogues, the spoken/written andesoteric/exoteric polarities. Instead he seeks an accommodation with Gaiser's andKramer'scontention that most of Plato's philosophy must be construed in the termsof an Unwritten Doctrine, by drawing on his distinction between Diskussionniveaus.That the level on which the ar optLa disappear is not realised in writing mightrecommend application of something like the Gaiser/Kramer thesis to the earlydialogues.E. accordingly sets himself an ambitious, tri-partite programme: first, to derivefrom the Phaedrus'celebratedcritique guidance concerningPlato's conception of howwriting might be reasonably employed, and to set this conception against thehistorical background of sophistic practice. Second, to examine whether and howthe puzzles thrown up in a number of dialogues can be resolved. Third, to bring theresults of the first two projects into conjunction, and decide if it is actually possibleto harmonise Plato's aporetic practicewith his critique of writing. E.'s close readingsof the dialogues are often helpful and repay study, but in the nature of the case arenot amenable to proper treatment in a short review. I shall thus concentrate on thechallenging principles underlying the first stage of E.'s programme.E. starts promisingly enough with the contention that Plato's relativevaluation ofsoul and script need not entail the exclusion of any given material from philosophicalwriting (pp. 30-1, on Phaedrus278d8). Basically, E. endorses Gaiser's claim that thedialogues themselves fall within the scope of the strictures on writing, and that onemust attributeto the early productions, at least, a broadly rhetoricalfunction directedat the ignorant. His only modification of this position is to emphasise an alternativefunction directed at the knowing, i.e. that the dialogues might work as 6vrotivnraraor aides-mdmoire.The Phaedrusclearly does say something like that; unfortunately,E. barely recognises how paltry the concession appears, at any rate withoutimaginative and speculativeexpansion, such as John Ferraridelivers (Listeningto theCicadas [CUP, 1987]).Far too much of this part of the book is a flat-footed journeyover well-trodden ground, in the worst tradition of the Habilitation.

66 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW



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E.'s historical excursion is devoted to establishing a contrast between Plato's andthe sophists' evaluation of writing. The latter, with certain qualifications (notably inIsocrates), conceive of written texts as essential to the learning-process, in whichsample discourses served as models for rote-learning. This estimation of writingcorresponds fully with their conception of the acquisition of expertise, according towhich wisdom is an almost quasi-concrete item capable of direct transmission fromsophist to student. In stark opposition, Plato concedes to the written text only aninessential job, given that according to his epistemological convictions knowledgecannot be bestowed by some authoritative, authoritarian figure.This is hardly news to either the Platonic scholar or the student of fifth-centuryintellectual and social history. Where E. emerges from the worthily obvious is in hisdiscussion of the recurrentPlatonic theme of'escape', whetherof fugitiveconclusionsin hunting-metaphors or in the image of Daedalus' mobile statues. E. asserts that allsuch language should put us in mind of Socrates' injunction to bind propositionsa'iTas AoyLaL, in the hope of eventually converting mere correct opinion intoknowledge (E. disconcertingly lets slip only at a very advanced stage of his argumentthat in his opinion the Meno presupposes the Forms [p. 96]). All admissions of'escape' in the dialogues should therefore be taken as behests to the reader torecapture and secure the errant conclusion.But how? Here an unfortunate unitarianism breaks cover. After promiscuousreference to the Theaetetus, Gorgias, Republic and Crito, E. concludes: 'DieUrsachen, auf welche sich das begriindende Denken richtet, waren dann die Ideen.Platon sagt im Phaidon jedenfalls, daB das Gute zu binden vermag' (p. 90).Apparently the Forms are not just themselves eternal, they were eternally present toPlato's mind. E. does at last confront this problem, but only at the end of the firstsection of his book, and revealingly in a footnote (beware when an author hides asubstantial methodological statement at the bottom of the page):Doch steht diese Moglichkeit viz'daBPlatonsLehre eine Entwicklung urchlaufen abenkann']nicht ein grundsatzliches indernisur den hiervorgefiihrtenVersuchdar. Wennalsovonplatonischer ehreoderIdeenlehre ie Rede st,dann eschieht as neinem rundsdtzlichenSinn... (pp.95-6, n. 59- emphasisadded)

This declaration is disarmingly frank, but can hardly satisfy a reader not alreadywedded to some sort of transcendental view. In protest against E.'s approach, onemight very well grant that e.g. the Tractatus is illuminated by the PhilosophicalInvestigations, and yet deny that it either contains or even hints at the laterWittgenstein's reactions to the impassewhich his first work reaches. If philosophicalevolution happens, then it matters, and genetic decisions cannot be dismissed asinsignificantfor major interpretativeissues, as E. maintains. One can make the crucialpoint without engaging in any particular controversies: if Plato's thought reallychanged and moved, then there is at least the open possibility that aporeticexpressions in dialogues of different periods are of radically different significance.Ostensible &aropiain a later dialogue might indeed signify 'hidden' answers:apparently identical language in an earlier dialogue might record honest frustration.E.'s monolithic appraisal of Plato cannot tolerate such possibilities. Despite themagnitude of his undertaking and the scrupulous care with which on the whole hecarries it out, in the end he leaves the reader fundamentally puzzled by Plato - butperhaps therein lies the truly Socratic Sinn der Aporien in den Dialogen Platons.St Catharine'sCollege, Cambridge ROBERT WARDY

67HE CLASSICAL REVIEW


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