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New Literary History 32.3 (2001) 485-500



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Does Socrates Speak for Plato?
Reflections on an Open Question

Dorrit Cohn


Plato says," "Plato believed that," "according to Plato":expressions of this kind have, for more than two millennia, preceded quotations or paraphrases of words Plato explicitly attributes to Socrates. The idea that Plato may not have been speaking through the voice of his Socrates has surfaced only quite recently. It is in the last twenty years or so that we have come to read, with increasing frequency, statements that deny the so-called "mouthpiece theory": "Plato himself never speaks directly to his readers. Only his characters speak . . ."; 1 "It is crucial to note that there is no character called 'Plato' who speaks in any of the dialogues; . . . Still more importantly, we are not justified in identifying Plato with any of his characters. Indeed, there are positive reasons why he cannot be identified even with Socrates . . ."; 2 "Why should Plato speak through Socrates any more than Shakespeare through Hamlet? Indeed, Plato seems very often critical of his master." 3 The wide spread of this "dialogic" interpretation of Plato's works may be gauged from the fact that at least five volumes have appeared since 1988 that announce themselves as collections of essays illustrating this new approach. 4

Despite such prefatory announcements, however, the possibility of understanding the dialogues in this dramatic fashion has remained largely abstract and theoretical. The potential separation of the author from his main protagonist, in particular, has made only faint inroads into the close reading of Plato's works. 5 In the first part of this essay I intend to explore the grounds and implications of such a reading for three middle-period dialogues--the Platonic texts that perhaps bring it to mind most loudly and most clearly--and then propose a reason why the separation of Socrates from Plato may also resolve an overriding problem in Plato's oeuvre. Having displayed these interpretive vistas, I will not, however, insist on their conclusiveness. To understand Socrates as a dramatic character in lieu of a stand-in clone for Plato seems to me much rather an alternative reading option opened up by the dialogic structure of Plato's works. With a view to clarifying this problem, the second part of my essay will look to literary theory for guidelines to [End Page 485] sorting out the complex relationship between philosophy and literature and to placing Plato's genre--the philosophical dialogue--in respect to this relationship.

I

No doubt the most striking incongruity between what Socrates says and what Plato does occurs when Socrates condemns writing in a work that Plato has written. Even though the place where this happens--the final part of the Phaedrus--is one of the most intensively discussed moments of the Platonic oeuvre, few critics clearly face the problem it raises concerning the relationship of the author to his protagonist. 6 Those who do look at it squarely are forced to conclude, at least in passing, that it is difficult (if not impossible) to understand Socrates as Plato's spokesman here. 7 Charles S. Griswold, the only critic who has given this problem more than cursory attention, describes it as follows: "a simple act of reflection reveals a puzzling dimension in the last section of the Phaedrus. Socrates' criticisms of writing are themselves written. . . . Must not Plato either reject the criticisms or weigh them differently than Socrates does? . . . [Socrates'] criticism of writing is itself written and so itself recanted--by Plato." 8

Socrates' argument against writing is decisive and peremptory. Beginning with his "Egyptian legend," he quotes Thamus's reply to Theuth, the inventor of writing: "this invention will produce forgetfulness [le[the[n] in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practise their own memory [mne[me[s]. . . . You have invented an elixir [pharmakon] not of memory [mne[me[s], but of reminding [hypomne[seo[s]; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom." 9 After the legend's conclusion...

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