Self-Knowledge in Plato's "Phaedrus" (review)

606 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 27:4 OCTOBER i989 ness to students. Volumes 1 and 2 print critical texts of the ancient sources of information on the following: Euclid and the Megarians; Phaedo of Ells and Menedemus of Eretria and their followers; Aristippus and the Cyrenaics (Vol. 1); Antisthenes, Diogenes, Crates and the ancient Cynics (Vol. 2). Vol. 3 is a 523-page commentary on the texts in the first two volumes: a critical study of immense learning and seasoned historicaljudgment : scholars aspiring to do original research in this area may neglect it at their peril. Vol. 4 of the work includes an Index Fontium and also an Index Nominum. Though the brevity of this notice precludes critical discussion, I may nonetheless voice regret that Vol. 4 has no index of leading Greek words (as in the Diels-Kranz Vorsokratiker and von Arnim's Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta); and that the selection of ancient authors omits the dialogues of Aeschines of Sphettus, whose representations of Socrates commanded respect in antiquity (see the testimonies about him in H. Dittmar, Aischines yon Sphettos [Berlin, 1912]) but who founded no school of followers, and, therefore, fails to meet the editor's criterion for inclusion. But these are minor points, hardly worth mentioning in view of the debt under which Giannantoni has placed all students of ancient philosophy in producing this magnificent work. Despite its high cost, no research library of Greek philosophy can afford to be without it. GREGORY VLASTOS University of California, Berkeley Charles L. Griswold, J. Self-Knowledge in Plato's "Phaedrus." New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. Pp. xii + 315 . $29.5o. One of the most prevalent and disquieting features of the Phaedrus is its apparent disunity. The star instance of this is where, after being borne aloft by the winged words of Socrates's famous palinode, we come crashing down to the rather tedious talk about talk, the discussion of rhetoric vs. philosophy, written vs. spoken speech. Griswold's solution is to see the seemingly dissonant elements in the dialogue as moments in the dialectical development of its central theme: self-knowledge. This is a novel thesis and Griswold tirelessly pursues its appearance throughout the twistings and turnings of the dialogue in both its thematic and dramatic details. This makes for a rather dizzying spin around the hermeneutic circle, but many readers may find that some of the rather spectacular scenery Griswold points out along the way will make it a trip worth taking. This review will provide merely a whirlwind tour of Griswold's ambitious search for the unity of the Phaedrus. According to Griswold, the self-knowledge theme pervades the dialogue. It is in response to the ethically charged injunction of the Delphic oracle "Know thyself" (23oa) that Socrates seeks to know who he is and how he can live the morally right life. But such knowledge cannot be obtained without understanding the soul and how it functions in the overall scheme of things or the "Whole." It is the quest for such knowledge that leads Socrates and Phaedrus from the falsely narrow and inconsistent view of desire and selfinterest at work in Lysias's speech to the all-encompassing vistas offered by the palinode. In this speech, Socrates presents a mythological depiction of the proper role of eros in BOOK REVIEWS 607 aiding the human soul in its struggle to recollect both its true character-type (the god it served) and its partial vision of reality framed by the Forms which are "outside the heavens" (hyperuranian beings). Yet, according to Griswold, the very comprehensiveness of the myth displays its lack of reflexivity and self-consciousness. For in narrating it, Socrates cannot possibly make good on his claim to tell the whole truth since this is beyond the realm of human knowledge or recollection. Thus Socrates and Phaedrus turn from the boundless flights of mythic mania to the sober techne ("science") of collection and division. But whereas the myth was too comprehensive and inspired, the techne is too narrow and mundane; it concentrates on analysis and loses sight of value. These two types of discourse embody two seemingly antithetical propensities in the human soul: madness and...