Plato's Trilogy (review)

Book Reviews Jacob Klein. Plato's Trilogy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. Pp. vii + 2oo. $16.oo. Jacob Klein's third book provides commentaries on Plato's thre e dialogues: Theaetetus , Sophist, and Statesman. It treats each of these dialogues in a separate section of the book, but interprets each of them in the light of the others. This accords with statements Klein made in his second book, "Unquestionably, these three dialogues form a unity .... The links between these dialogues are not external or superficial."' In fact, the general directions of Klein's interpretations of these dialogues are clear not only from his earlier work on the Meno but also even from his first book.' Inasmuch as these two previous books are of'great----of outstanding--worth, this book, by remaining close to them, has much strength. Yet it must be said that this work has some serious weaknesses and is less impressive than his earlier books. Klein begins the introduction with the assertion, "Any meaningful interpretation of any Platonic dialogue has to rest on the following premises," after which he presents six premises (pp. 1-2). Even if this strikes us as overstatement, the premises themselves can be extremely useful ones for interpreting the dialogues, but his discussion of these is to be found in an earlier book.3 Following the list of his interpretive premises, the introduction has several sections; among other things Klein gives us brief indications of his purpose in the book. We find on page 6: "The ultimate goal of the dialogues is to make us repeat and continue the questioning"; and on p. 5: "We shall watch the text carefully.... We shall participate in the discussions: The paraphrase of the text of the dialogues will be interwoven with what occurs to us as listeners." Such remarks lead us to expect a very careful, perhaps detailed, treatment of the dialogues. Unfortunately, the entire book is obviously not large enough to give detailed analysis, and we find that most of it is occupied with paraphrase and hardly any comment. Many seemingly important points in the dialogues are passed over with no discussion. Occasionally there are some useful comments in the paraphrase, but so rarely that Klein's book is more likely to provide help with the general inter- ' A Commentary on Plato's Meno (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965), p. 27. 9 "Die griechische Logistik und die Entstehung der Algebra," in Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik, Astronomie und Physik, Abteilung B: Studien, vol. 3, fasc. t (Berlin, 1934), pp. 18-1o5 (pt. l); fasc. 2 (1936), pp. 122-235 (pt. 2). English trans., GreekMathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1968), see esp. pp. 237-38, n. lot. Commentao on Plato's Meno, pp. 3-3 I. [377] 378 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY pretation of the whole of a dialogue than with particular difficult passages. Plato's Tri/0gy refers to little of the secondary literature on the three dialogues. The commentaries start with the treatment of the Sophist for reasons I will discuss below. His commentary on the Sophist paraphrases the whole dialogue, as they all do, but in addition it stresses that the frequent appearance of the word "both" provides the key for interpretation. He counts thirty-four appearances of "both" (which is the sum of the two perfect numbers six and twenty-eight, and also the number of sections in Plato's Trilogy.t). There are three reasons for the repeated usage of "both," according to Klein; these three reflect his life-long conviction that Aristotle's comments upon Plato in Metaphysics I, 6 and 9, but especially XIII, 6-8, take us to the heart of Plato's thought (see p. 1).4 The first reason is that Plato conceives the form Being to be the "eidetic Two." His deepest penetration into Being's structure, into its manner of association with other forms, is to view it as a sort of two. Opposites such as Rest and Motion "both together" constitute Being (pp. 48, 54, 56, 60); we should not count three things---Rest, Motion, and Being--as our speech and thought...