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

Plato's dialogues were written before audiences distinguished philosophy from literature. Recently scholars have argued that the dialogues should be read as philosophy that is literature, and no one makes the case better than Blondell does in this splendid work. Her argument compels by focusing on character in the relevant senses: as the dramatis personae of the dialogues, as that which individuates them and prompts them to act in ways that affect their very souls, and as "the effects of literary characterization on the moral character of the audience" (2). Character connects the dialogues as "literature," "philosophy," and paideia.

In Plato's careful delineation of the characters of his dramatis personae, Blondell finds a tension between the existence of human particularity and the search for generic types. Socrates is a prime example of the dialectical movement between particularity and its attempted transcendence. Plato's choice to write dialogues is also "an assertion of human plurality" (49) that exhibits the pathos of trying to transcend human experience. "Dramatic form . . . becomes a medium for exploring the limits of transcendence, and the multiple tensions—between ideal and particular, mind and body, original and image, one and many, being and becoming, divine and human, deduction and persuasion, reason and emotion—which pervade the works of Plato" (50). Blondell's discussions of how dramatic form serves epistemological and pedagogical aims in Hippias Minor, Republic, Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman are so rich in insight and nuance that one hesitates to suggest they could be improved upon. Still, greater emphasis on the historical and cultural contexts shared by characters, author, and audience might add to our understanding of Plato's preoccupation with these specific philosophical tensions as well as his choice to address them through dramatic form.

Blondell's discussion of Theaetetus is especially good in showing how "abstract epistemological issues . . . play themselves out in the world of specific, particularized human beings. . . . [I]t is this personal dimension of epistemology—the fact that we are particular, embodied individuals—that generates most of the problems in this dialogue (especially the reliability and subjectivity of sense perception)" (252). That philosophy, epistemology, and pedagogy come to be identified with Socrates also generates problems. Can there be philosophy without Socrates? To become a philosopher, must one resemble Socrates? If philosophy cannot go on without Socrates, how can it realize its aim of transcending human particularity? If philosophy can go on without him, will its practice and pedagogy nonetheless require dialectical discussion among embodied inquirers?

No character in the dialogues appears a more likely successor to Socrates than Theaetetus. He resembles Socrates in appearance and character, and Blondell notes that repeated references to the younger man's gentleness and courage, and to his training in geometry, recall nothing so much as the guardians of the Republic. Theaetetus is the right kind of interlocutor, and one that allows Plato to portray—and defend—the elenchic Socrates, who merges with the "productive" Socrates in this dialogue. Before meeting Socrates, Theaetetus's attempts at philosophy were unsuccessful because he needed someone like himself to help him realize his philosophical potential. Socrates offers himself as an intellectual midwife, yet Blondell observes that, his protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, he sometimes assumes the position and privileges of a father, and at other times is identified with philosophy as the object of desire. As an intellectual parent, Socrates demonstrates his superiority to Theodorus as the orphan's guardian. That Theodorus was Protagoras's pupil suggests one line of descent for Theaetetus: Protagoras—Theodorus—Theaetetus. Socrates' invocation of Parmenides suggests another: Parmenides—Socrates—Theaetetus. Different lines of descent bring different kinds of pedagogy: passive transference from Sophist to pupil versus active learning through dialectical discussion.

But there is more to being a philosopher than what is found in Socrates or Theaetetus, for the ideal philosopher as Socrates describes him lacks...