The Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues (review)

This valuable book examines Plato's use of characterization, focusing on the interplay between form and content and thus rejecting a reductive duality between literary and philosophical approaches to Plato. Blondell concentrates on the implications of Plato's uniquely rich portrayal of Socrates, a portrayal that may be philosophically problematic, given Platonic philosophy's quest to transcend the particular and individual. "Above all," writes Blondell, "Plato is concerned with the possibility of Socratic self-reproduction" (3).

Chapters 1 and 2 survey methodological issues. "Drama and Dialogue" examines the implications of dramatic presentation (which prevents us from assuming the equivalency of any speaking character with Plato), dialogue form, historical context, and mode of performance. Because performance shapes character, reading a Platonic text can make the reader philosophical, collapsing the gap between performer and audience. "The Imitation of Character" explores how Plato's presentation of character and argument is shaped by his educational concerns. Greek interest in character focused on types rather than (undesirable) idiosyncratic detail. Socrates is, therefore, ambivalent. We are encouraged to emulate this heroic figure, yet his uniqueness renders emulation problematic. Although Socrates proves unable to reproduce himself in the dialogues, Plato hopes to succeed in this task through the dialogues. We must, however, engage in "structural" rather then "slavish" imitation of Socrates, not parroting his ideas and mannerisms, but internalizing his analytic principles.

The remaining chapters are case studies putting these themes to work in Hippias Minor, Republic, Theaetetus, Sophist,and Statesman. Although Blondell rightly distances herself from a developmentalist approach, her intellectual narrative has a developmental feel: we move from a richly textured, elenctic, and infuriating Socrates, to a more friendly and constructive Socrates (less richly characterized), to the anonymous and idealized Eleatic Stranger, as Plato—and the reader—work through and eventually transcend their relationship with Socrates. The elenctic Socrates of the Hippias Minor models a critical response to sophistry and traditional education, but his failure to convert his opponent and his alienating superiority mark a weakness in the Socratic paradigm. Republic shows the move to a constructive Socrates, but again underlines Socrates' failure with a hostile opponent. Books 2–10 have the right kind of respondents to spark philosophical creativity, but as Socrates becomes constructive, he also becomes more authoritative and less idiosyncratic. Concomitantly, the dialogue becomes less stylistically rich.

Theaetetus deals with Socratic self-reproduction in the person of Theaetetus. The differences between Socrates and Theaetetus underline Plato's ambivalence about the possibility for such reproduction. Yet the dialogue presents to the philosophical reader amodel of dialectic as conversation with the self, erasing the personal and particular. The move towards transcending the individual culminates in the Eleatic Stranger of the Sophist and Statesman (a generic philosopher, freed from the baggage of historicity) and his colorless respondents. These generic characters are not, however, evidence of literary deterioration, but show that productive philosophical teaching does not involve conflict with interlocutors. The authoritarianism of the knowledgeable philosopher is necessary for proper training of the young, whose present compliance will, it is hoped, breed future intellectual autonomy. The uniqueness of Socrates is thus transcended, and Socrates is put in his place as only one of a range of approaches to philosophy. Paradoxically, however, in "taming" and critiquing Socrates, Plato remains true to Socrates' intellectual ideals, a structural rather than a slavish imitator.

This brief summary cannot do justice to Blondell's work. Of course, each reader will find points of discomfort. I, for example, am not convinced that the authoritarianism of the Eleatic Stranger bodes well for the philosophic education of his youthful interlocutors, nor that the Stranger is a solution to the problems of Socratic idiosyncrasy and the self-reproduction of the philosopher. This book has already generated spirited discussion, often centering on Blondell's assertion that it is a methodological error to infer "the equivalence of any of Plato's characters with the voice of the author" (19). Yet focus on this issue (whether for...