Bibliographie zu Platons Staat: Die Rezeption der Politeia im deutschsprachigen Raum von 1800 bis 1970 (review)

Book Reviews Ulrike Zimbrich. Bibliographie zu Platons Staat: Die Rezeption der Politeia im deutschsprachigen Raum von x8oo his i 97o. Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1994. Pp. xvii + 312. Cloth, $128.oo. This handsome volume contains an admirable attempt at a complete bibliography of work on Plato's Republic published either in German or in German-speaking countries during the period 18oo-197o. As such it is a useful if expensive research tool for studying the Republic. The justification (xiv) for ending with 197o (viz., in that year Maurer's reply to Popper appeared) is thin, however, and the early terminus diminishes the bibliography's value. A crucial question for bibliographers is what to include and what to exclude. Since Zimbrich's principal intention is to provide a basis for investigating the Rezeptionsgeschichte of Plato's Ideal State in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germany (xv), the question has two prongs: a) What works published in German or in German-speaking countries say something significant about the Republic? b) What works published anywhere , in any language, bear significantly on the Rezeptionsgeschichte of the Republic in Germany? Zimbrich offers a broad answer to a), but fails to consider b). Regarding a), Zimbrich offers an excellent bibliography, in chronological order, of Greek texts (1-12), German translations (12-22), scholarly literature (23-245), and bibliographies and Forschungsberichte (246-57), followed by indices of authors, subjects, and passages (259-312). Zimbrich includes general books and articles, noting chapters, sections, or pages treating the Republic. The author personally examined almost all the works included. Even so, some works are missing--noticeably, Ast;' also a few items2 included in bibliographies Zimbrich knows. The bibliography is a scholarly bibliography--suitable for Plato specialists but less so for those concerned with Rezeptionsgeschichte who consider nonscholarly material too. Regarding b) the virtual absence of material published outside German-speaking countries reveals a serious flaw in the work's conception. For the bibliography is apparently founded on the patently false assumption that only German-language works and works published in German-speaking countries have influenced the understanding of the Republic in Germany. The standard Greek text of the Republic for this century (ed. F. Ast,LexiconPlatonicum,3 vols. (Leipzig, 1835-38). "I located U. Rademacher, "Demokratie und Tyrannis in Platons 'Staat'," Altsprachliche UnterrichtXI, 5 (1968): 3o-47, and R. Nickel, "Der diomedische Zwang (Platon, Politeia493d),'' AltsprachlicheUnterrichtXIII, 2 (197o): 93-1oo. [289] 29 o JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:2 APRIL t996 J. Burnet, Oxford, 19oz) is excluded, as are influential works in foreign languages. Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. I is included 077); it was later translated into German (zoz). The converse does not hold: P. Friedl~inder's Platon 049-43) is included, but its English translation is not. F. Solmsen's Plato's Theology is not included, nor is his "Plato and the Unity of Science,"s although it was reprinted in Solmsen's Kleine Schriften4 and Soimen's German articles reprinted there are included. As the international Plato Forschungsberichte of Ritter5 demonstrate even for the Germany of the early decades of this century, the world of scholarship knows no national boundaries . The present attempt to impose them on Platonic studies results in a highly artificial work of bibliography. 6 RICHARD McKIRAHAN Pomona College Carl A. Huffman. Philolaus of Croton,T Pythagorean and Presocratic: A Commentary on the Fragments and Testimonia with Interpretive Essays. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xix + 444- Cloth, $1oo.oo. Pythagoreanism used to play a major role in accounts of Presocratic philosophy. Following the testimony of ancient Platonists, the Pythagoreans were seen as Plato's precursors in cosmology, on the soul, aTnd on Ideas and numbers; and attempts were made to reconstruct the systematic philosophy of the Pythagoreans, or even of Pythagoras himself. Now, however, we have learned to recognize much of the ancient testimony about Pythagorean philosophy as post-Platonic fabrication, and in place of the older accounts of the role of Pythagoreanism in the development of Greek thought, we are left with an embarrassed silence. Walter Burkert has laid the foundations for distinguishing genuine from spurious testimony about pre-Platonic Pythagoreans (though not about Pythagoras himself...