The - Reading - Order of Platos Dialogues

THE READING ORDER OF PLATO'S DIALOGUES
Author(s): William H. F. Altman

Source: Phoenix, Vol. 64, No. 1/2 (Spring-Summer/printemps-été 2010), pp. 18-51
Published by: Classical Association of Canada
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23074778 .
Accessed: 03/01/2014 14:11
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Classical Association of Canada is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Phoenix.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 3 Jan 2014 14:11:25 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
William H. F. Altman
J. WEi.VF. years ago in this journal, Carol Poster (1998: 282-283), as part of
"a methodological prolegomenon to Platonic hermeneutics," classified four ways
of ordering the Platonic dialogues, one of them designated "(3) pedagogical order"
and defined as "the order in which we should read or teach the dialogues." It is
my purpose to offer a twenty-first century reconstruction—agnostic with respect

to her "(1) chronology of composition," the dominant paradigm of nineteenth
and twentieth-century Platonic scholarship (Howland 1991)—of "the reading

order of Plato's dialogues" (hereafter "ROPD") in which the indispensable role
of Poster's "(2) dramatic chronology" and "(4) theoretical or metaphysical order"
will be viewed through the lens of pedagogical considerations. After reviewing

the intellectual history of the ROPD, seven principles of this reconstruction
project will be introduced (section i); four of these—beginning with Charles H.

Kahn's notion of "proleptic" composition (Kahn 1981a, 1988, and 1996)—will
be elucidated in connection with "the City of Good Men Only" in Republic
1 (section ii). Modifying Kahn's conception of the between
relationship Lysis
and Symposium. (Kahn 1996: 258-291), section hi will make the case that Plato
intended to follow in the ROPD in order to test whether the
Lysis Symposium
student/reader has assimilated Diotima's conception of what is one's own (to
oiksÎov). Given that grasping the tragic of Symposium,
aspect by contrast, requires
a detailed knowledge of Athenian political history, section iv will show that
Aspasia's intentionally anachronistic oration in Menexenus precedes in

Symposium
the ROPD. Once the pedagogical principles on which the reconstruction is based
have been applied to Menexenus, and section v will a
Symposium, Lysis, present
synopsis of the ROPD as a whole.
I. RECONSTRUCTING THE ROPD
Our edition of Plato is from the search, once of considerable

inseparable
interest to his students, for the ROPD; Charles Dunn's studies of Thrasyllus
(1974: 1976; see also Tarrant 1993) show that the nine "tetralogies" (thirty-five
dialogues and the Letters arranged in sets of four) constituted his version of the
To my wonderful teachers at the University of Toronto,

George Edison (in memoriam) and Graeme
Nicholson (Trinity College), Wallace McLeod and Denys de Montmollin (Victoria College), I
respectfully dedicate this study. Victoria Wohl, Carol Poster, and an anonymous reader for Phoenix
have provided invaluable criticism and support; thanks are also due to Roslyn Weiss, James Wood, Luc
Brisson, and Melissa Lane from whose comments this paper has benefited. Naturally all remaining
errors and infelicities are entirely my own responsibility. As revised for
publication, this paper was
submitted to Phoenix in its present form on June 6, 2008.
Phoenix, Vol. 64 (2010) 1-2.

THE READING ORDER OF PLATO'S DIALOGUES 19
ROPD. It is instructive that the Neo-Platonist Albinus takes Thrasyllus to task for
the opening Euthyphro,Apology, Crito, and Phaedo quartet (Snyder 2000: 98-99);
a long tradition of ancient attempts to determine the ROPD (Festugière 1969;
Mansfeld 1994: 64, n. Ill) was guided by what Poster calls "theoretical and
metaphysical order" in sharp distinction to the "dramatic chronology" that guides
Thrasyllus, albeit to a limited extent (Mansfeld 1994: 67-68). But neither of
these two schools of thought privileged "pedagogical order" in the sense I propose.
This can be illustrated with reference to Alcibiades Major, both camps accept it as
genuine (Snyder 2000: 97) but those who place it firstin the ROPD—the camp
hostile to the First Tetralogy of Thrasyllus—did so for theoretical/metaphysical
reasons, not pedagogical ones. Proclus (O'Neill 1965: 1-4), for example* says
nothing about the fact that its childlike and natural simplicity—if the teacher
reads "Socrates," the student scarcely needs a script—makes Alcibiades Major the
ideal place to begin guiding the neophyte.1 The first principle of the ROPD
proposed here is that it is guided by pedagogical considerations: to speak very
roughly, the more difficult dialogues are to be read only after the preparation
provided by easier and earlier ones (i.e., earlier with respect to the ROPD).
This ROPD reconstruction project is therefore both old and new: it accom
plishes an ancient objective with means not ably employed in antiquity. Precisely
because most of those who sought the ROPD in the past were guided by a
Neo-Platonic contempt for the merely historical, they ignored the pedagogical
advantages of "dramatic chronology," whereas a cycle of dialogues culminating in
Phaedo tells a compelling stoiy with a happy ending about a remarkable hero. As
for Thrasyllus, the limits of his loyalty to "dramatic chronology" can be illustrated
by the fact that he failed to interpolate Sophist and Statesman between Euthyphro
and Apology in his First Tetralogy. Had he done so, he would have had, no sound
pedagogical reason for confronting neophytes with the difficult Sophist as their
second In short, the Phaedo last in the ROPD not only provides a
dialogue. placing
for the story of Socrates but also ensures that complex dialogues like
good ending
Theaetetus, and Statesman are read near the end of it. And it is certainly
Sophist,
Plato's concern for effective pedagogy that explains the priority of the elementary
Alcibiades Major.
It is probably no accident that a concern for reconstructing the ROPD would
as soon as the Alcibiades Majorwas dropped from the canon.2 Freed at last
disappear
1
Heidel 1896: 62: "Furthermore, in its character as a primer of Platonism in regards to ethics and
than can be found in
politics, Alcibiades I contains a greater number of distinctively Platonic thoughts
any number of even the greater single works of Plato. In this respect the dialogue may be pronounced
too Platonic." Compare Guthrie 1969: 470: "a dialogue which, whether or not Plato wrote it, was
for beginners'."
apdy described by Burnet as 'designed as a sort of introduction to Socratic philosophy
2 and the
Conversely, it is renewed interest in the Alcibiades Major (Scott 2000; Denyer 2001)
other anathetized dialogues (Pangle 1987) that has finally made it possible to renew the ROPD
all thirtyrfive dialogues widely available in
question. Cooper and Hutchinson (1997) not only makes
English but also contains the following observation (x): "Thrasyllus' order appears to be determined by

20 PHOENIX
from the metaphysical ofNeo-Platonism, any pedagogical justification for

baggage
Alcibiades Major as a wonderful way to introduce the student/reader to a
regarding
Platonic confronts the modern obj ection that it, along with a
dialogue immediately
considerable (but now apparently shrinking) number of dialogues, is not by Plato.
The growing interest in Cleitophon is a case in point,3 especially because it affords

an instance where my ROPD coincides with that of Thrasyllus. Considered alone,
appears to be incomplete and inauthentic. Considered as authentic but

Cleitophon
viewed in isolation, it can be used to promote a radical alternative to Platonism
(Kremer 2004). But it is of great pedagogical importance when considered as
an authentic introduction to Republic (cf. Bowe 2004; Souilhé 1949: 179), as

Thrasyllus too must have recognized. The second principle of the ROPD proposed
here is that none of the thirty-five dialogues transmitted by Thrasyllus are to
be considered inauthentic a priori; indeed, a new criterion for authenticity is
being employed: a dialogue is authentic when it is snugly joined—by dramatic,

pedagogical, and/or theoretical/metaphysical considerations—between two other
dialogues, the one that precedes and the one that follows it in the ROPD.
The third principle is that dramatic considerations—having been detached
from various preconceptions about their philosophical significance (Griswold

2008: 205-207)—are . our best guide to the ROPD and therefore trump more
speculative principles in cases of conflict: the difficult Protagoras thus precedes

the introductory Alcibiades Major. It will be observed that although both are
present in the house of Callias, Socrates never to Alcibiades in

speaks Protagoras
while the Alcibiades Major represents their first actual conversation (Ale. 1.103a4).4
In that conversation, the otherwise befuddled Alcibiades evades (to his cost) a
Socratic trap by means of a sophisticated trick (Ale. l.lllal-3) used by Protagoras
(.Prot. 327e3-328al; see Denyer 2001: 122). But dramatic connections between
dialogues need not always be chronological; a much broader conception of

dramatic detail will be employed here. For example, the Menexenus takes place
after the Lysis with respect to "dramatic chronology"; Menexenus has grown up
since his schooldays with Lysis (Nails 2002: 319). But as section m will make
clear, there are pedagogical, theoretical, and dramatic considerations that place
Lysis after just as there are theoretical, dramatic, and
Symposium, pedagogical,
indeed chronological considerations that Menexenus before it (section iv).
place
In neither case is the "dramatic" connection the fact, for
crudely chronological:
example, that Socrates leaves Agathon's house for the 223dl0)
Lyceum (Symp.
and that the Lysis finds him en route thither (Ly. 203al) is paradigmatic of the
kind of dramatic clue that guides my reconstruction of the ROPD.
no single criterion but by several sometimes conflicting ones, though his arrangement
may represent
some more or less unified idea about the order in which the dialogues should be read and
taught."
3Grote 1865; Grube 1931; Souilhé 1949; Orwin 1982; Pangle 1987; Slings 1999; Rowe 2000;
Bailly 2003; and Kremer 2004.

4
All references are to the text of Burnet (1900-1907).

With a title suggesting a beginning and a dramatic setting that wakes the dawn
{Prot. 310a8; cf. Phd. 118e7-8), the Protagoras is both a very difficult dialogue
and a very vivid one: it brings to life the historical context for even the dullest
student but would confuse even the brightest about a wide variety of important
subjects (Guthrie 1975: 235). A fourth principle of the ROPD proposed here is
that Plato employs "proleptic" composition: he begins by confusing the student
in an ultimately salutary manner, i.e., about things that it is pedagogically useful
for the student to be confused about. To give the most important example: the
student who comes to Republic with Protagoras in mind—where piety may be the
fifthvirtue and virtue may have no parts (Prot. 349bl-3)—will be as justly critical
of the justice discovered in Book 4 as her search for an answer to Cleitophon's
burning question (Clit. 408d7-e2) will make her receptive to the subterranean
justice only discovered by returning to the Cave.
The fifth principle is the absolute centrality of Republic in the ROPD.5

-Although less accessible to those who have not recently completed the series of
dialogues beginning with Protagoras and ending with Cleitophon (Rep. 520b6-7),
7 contains the essence of Platonism: Plato's teaching is his answer
Republic
to Cleitophon's question (Rep. 520cl). In accordance with the principle of
Plato is understood here as first and foremost a teacher, a
pedagogical priority,
teacher with a school—the well as a teaching. The dialogues are
Academy—as
intended to transmit that teaching through (1) the dialectic represented in the
dialogues, (2) dialectic between students about the dialogues, and (3)—this point
is crucial to reconstructing the ROPD—the inter-dialogue dialectic between the
when read in the order. Most importantly, "(3)" reveals the

dialogues proper
of (4) the decisive between Plato and the reader in Republic 7.
centrality dialogue
Plato's therefore on the recognition that there
Understanding pedagogy depends
are three distinct classes of Platonic dialogue: the the dialogues that
Republic,
the way for the Republic, and the dialogues that follow it in the ROPD.
prepare
The basic principle underlying this classification will be illustrated here in
the context of Symposium, a dialogue that comes closer to Republic than any of
the other that in my reconstruction of the ROPD. In

dialogues precede Republic
accordance with the of the visual revelation that is the Idea, these
importance
dialogues (Kahn [1996: 42 and 274] justly adds the later Phaedo) will here be
called It will likewise be seen that the Plato who emerges from
"visionary."
the reconstructed ROPD will resemble what used to be called "a Platonist." He
is in case a philosopher, an idealist, and a teacher: a teacher who, while

any
alive, taught others to philosophize and who—especially when the unity of his
5
Cf. Annas 1999: 95: "If we try to jettison the assumptions that the Republic is a contribution to
and central of the dialogues, the natural
political theory, and that it is obviously the most important
culmination of a development from the Socratic dialogues, and if we try to restore it to its ancient
an argument about the sufficiency of virtue
place—one dialogue among many in which Plato develops
for happiness—we shall have done a great deal to restore balance and proportion to "ourstudy of Plato's
thought."

22 PHOENIX
richly diverse and dialectical curriculum6 is recognized—continues to do just that
through his writings. At the heart of his thought is "the Idea of the Good"
and, in its light, the true philosopher's just (and therefore voluntary; see Cic.
return to the Cave. He is not a "post-Modern Plato" (Zuckert 1996:
Off. 1.28)
48-56; cf. Strauss 1946: 361), his Socrates does not know (Ap. 21d7) that he
knows nothing (Strauss 1953: 32 and 1983: 42), and his use of the dialogue form
does not preclude the fact that he has a teaching (Strauss 1987: 33 followed by
Frede 1992). Although each dialogue is a beautiful work of art, the principle that
each dialogue must be understood without reference to any other—the principle
of hermeneutic isolationism (e.g., Press 1993: 109-111)—is antithetical to the
project undertaken here (see Ferrari 2003: 244). It may be useful to explicitly
identify the view that Plato has a visionary teaching and that he expressed it in
his dialogues as a sixth principle.

The seventh (and final) principle is somewhat more difficult to elucidate.
To begin with, it identifies "testing" as a crucial element of Platonic pedagogy.
For reasons to be explained in section ii, I will use the neologism "basanistic,"
based on the Greek word for "touchstone," as a technical term. There are three
points that need to be made right away about "the basanistic element in Plato's
dialogues": (1) Along withproleptic and visionary (with which it forms a triad), the
basanistic element is best understood as one of three theoretical and hypothetical
springboards (Rep. 511b6) towards hermeneutic clarity rather than as a rigid and
exclusive technical term. (2) Although there is a meaningful sense in which a
given dialogue can crudely be called proleptic, visionary, or basanistic, it is better
to think of this triad as inter-related elements that can also be deployed in a single
dialogue, or even in a single passage (as will be demonstrated in section n). (3)
The basanistic element is like a springboard in another sense, the same sense in
which a good student actually learns from taking a well-constructed test. Plato
deploys the basanistic element for a triple purpose: (a) to ensure that the student
has grasped his visionary teaching, (b) to cause that teaching to leap from the
text into the mind of the student 435al-2), and (c) to point the student to
(Rep.
something even greater than what the teacher has already taught.7
6Cic. Or. 12 (translation mine): "Of course I'm also aware that I often seem to be saying
original
things when I'm saying very ancient ones (albeit having been unheard by most) and I confess myself
to stand out as an orator—if that's what I am, or in any case, whatever else it is that I am [au/
etiam quicumque sim]—not from the ministrations of the rhetoricians but from the
open spaces of the
Academy. For such is the curricula of many-leveled and conflicting dialogues [curricula
multiplicium
variorumque sermonum\ in which the tracks of Plato have been principally impressed." For translating
sermones as "dialogues," see Fantham 2004: SO, n. 2.
7
A crucial instance of the basanistic is Socrates' insistence at Phdr. 275d4-e5 on the mute
incapacity of a written text to create dialectic with the student/reader (compare Sayre 1995: xvi):
readers of Republic 7 who recognize themselves as the "you" Plato has addressed at
Rep. 520b5 know
this to be untrue. The Tubingen school—from Kramer 1959: 393 to Reale 1990—takes the Phaedrus
passage literally. A reductio ad absurdum on this approach is Szlezâk 1999: 46 where the dialogues
become "a witty game which gave him [it. Plato] great pleasure." Although it owes
nothing to the

The foregoing seven principles, hereafter to be cited by numbers alone (e.g.,

"§1"), may be usefully simplified as follows:
§1. Pedagogical Effectiveness: elementary dialogues precede complex ones.

§2. New Criterion of Authenticity: each dialogue snug between two others.
§3. Primacy of Dramatic Connections; often but not always chronological.
§4. Proleptic Composition: confusing students first in a pedagogically useful way.
§5. Centrality of Republic, having been prepared (§4) for the Good and justice.
§6. Visionary Teaching: Plato revealed (§5) as teacher and "Platonist."
§7. "Basanistic" Testing: students must reject falsehoods on the basis of §6.
The interplay of §4, §6, and §7 will now be illustrated in the context of Republic
1 (§5).
II. THE CITY OF GOOD MEN ONLY
Socrates introduces the City of Good Men Only (hereafter "CGMO") in
response to Glaucon's first interruption 347a7): Plato represents his elder

{Rep.
brother as failing to grasp what Socrates meant by the penalty that impels good
men to take up the burden of political office, i.e., to go back down into the Cave
as Cicero and Cicero's Demosthenes did.8 That penalty is, of course, to be ruled
by worse men (Rep. 347c3-5).

For we may venture to say that, if there should be a city of good men only, immunity from
office-holding would be as eagerly contended for as office is now, and there it would be
made plain that in very truth the true ruler does not naturally seek his own advantage but
that of the ruled; so that every man of understanding [rcâç ô yiyvcôcjKcov] would rather
choose to be benefited by another than to be bothered with benefiting him.
(Rep. 347d2-8; Shorey)

The political message of Republic is that unless those ruling our cities would rather
be philosophizing, those cities will be badly ruled (Rep. 520e4—521a2). Moreover,

the iv(or)y tower philosophers (Rep. 473d3-5) who refuse to participate in politics
592a5) even though better qualified than those who are presently doing so
(Rep.
(Rep. 557e2-3) are not living in accordance with the Platonic paradigm (Rep.
592b2—3), particularly when their own earthly city is a democracy teetering on
the edge of tyranny and tragedy. For true philosophers, "not to rule" is doubtless
because it leaves the free to consider that thing alone which

prized philosopher
testimony of Aristotle (see Cherniss 1945), the ROPD is nevertheless analogous to "the unwritten
doctrines" of the Tubingen school; the former could easily take the place of the latter in the diagram
at Gaiser 1963: 6. Both approaches restore Platonism to Plato while denying that the dialogues
constitute "a journey of thought with no end" (Szlezâk 1999: 116). But in the case of the ROPD,
in particular
Plato's teaching is to be sought by the student/reader within the dialogues, Republic
(compare Ep. 7.341c4-d2 with Rep. 434e4-435a2) although the moment of unwritten illumination
takes place only within the student.
8 1966: 100: "as consistendy denied by modern
On Demosthenes as Plato's student, see Douglas
"
scholars as it is asserted by ancient sources....

24 PHOENIX
is truly good (i.e., the Idea of the Good): good rulers, on the other hand, must
attend precisely to the indefinite plurality of things that are badly managed in
order to govern well {Rep. 520c3—6). Despite being by nature suited for something
entirely different, then, only true philosophers could yet become the kind of rulers
whose unitary goal is to see things well managed for the benefit of those they rule.
In short, only a philosopher, having no interest in making money, being honored,
or exercising power is, "in reality, the true ruler." Precisely because the CGMO
consists only of the good, none of them covets money or honor. The crucial point,
however, is that the penalty of being ruled by worse men does not exist in such a
city as it does in ours. It follows, therefore (claims Socrates provocatively), that
no one would rule in the CGMO: no one would be willing to do so.
When Socrates says: "every one in the know would choose rather to be
benefited by someone else than be bothered with benefiting another" (cf. Xen.
Mem. 2.10.3), he is describing a moral universe where no parent would take
care of an infant, no child would nurse their dying parent, and certainly no
independently wealthy genius would take the time to teach students young or
slow-witted enough to require the crystal clarity of Alcibiades Major. It also
flatly contradicts what Socrates himself has just said: "the true ruler has not
the nature to watch out for his own advantage." Platonic pedagogy originally
revolved around the possibility that a freeborn Greek could be round
brought
{Rep. 518c8—9) to recognize that the self-interested position of 7tâç ô yiyvcoaKcov
is a slavish point of view.9 In any context, ancient or modern, the most
denying
important of all ethical truths—i.e., that altruism is good and selfishness bad—
forces students to discover it for themselves (cf. Cic. Fin. 2.118). The alternative
to reading this passage as basanistic is a slavish literalism in defense of an even
more illiberal selfishness. This is, moreover, only the first of three times that
this basanistic affirmation of selfishness occurs in Republic.10 But the basanistic
portion of the CGMO—where the willingness of a good man to rule is explicitly

denied—is the paradigmatic case. To begin with, the contradiction—based on
9Thrasymachus (Rep. 344c5-6; Shorey) claims that "injustice on a sufficiently large scale is a
stronger, freer [eX-euGspicoxepov], and more masterful thing than justice." Socrates aims to reverse this
judgment in accordance with noblesse oblige and he therefore depends on his audience's abhorrence
of acting the part of a slave. Callicles' conception of to Ô0UÀ,07tp87ieç(G. 485b7) is indicated by
comparing 485el and 486c3; Socrates reverses this formula beginning at 518a2 (already implied at
482d8). The process actually begins at Ale. 1.134c4-6: wickedness is Ô00À,07ip87iéç while virtue is
8A.eu08pO7cp87i8ç; Alcibiades is in a slavish position (134cl0-ll) from the start.
Compare Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 4.1 (1120a21-23): "And of all virtuous people the liberal
[ol 8À,8u0épioi] are perhaps the most beloved, because they are beneficial [d)(j)éÀ,i|j.oi] to others; and
they are so in that they give [èv xfl ôôaei]." By definition the liberal (ol £À,eu0épioi) are not slavish,
i.e., selfish. See also 1120al3—15 and 1120a23—25.
10Rep. 347d6-8, 489b6-c3, and 599b6-7. All involve the distinction between active and passive
verb forms in the context of altruism and selfishness. In the second, not even the Book 1
penalty
impels the stargazing philosopher to struggle for the helm (this explains Rep. 498c9-dl). In the third,
Plato's Socrates would only be correct if there were no Plato's Socrates. See Altman 2009: 89-98.

the difference between active and passive verb forms—is clearer in the original
(347d4-8):
xqj ôvxi àÀriSivôç apxcov où 7té(|>OK£ xô aoxqj .ouji(|)épov aKoneîaGai àXXà xô x$ âpxo
(j.svcp- raaxs 7tâç âv ô yiyvcnaKtov xo cb<|>eêîa0ai |aâM.ov D-oixo orc' âXXov tî a^Xov
wijieXôv Tipayâxa e'xeiv.
The true ruler (ap%cov) considers the advantage of the ruled (xoj à.pxop.Év<p) when
ruling, but every man of understanding prefers to be benefited (ax|)sA,sta0ai)

rather than to benefit (dx|>£Xcov) when deciding not to rule. The true ruler is
therefore precisely the opposite of the man of understanding. Unlike the true
ruler (t<m ovti à/.r|0ivoç dp'/ojv), the man of understanding (ttccç ô yiyvoocnccov)
is guided by his own advantage (to auxcp cu|i(j>Épov). On the other hand, it is
precisely the nature (tieûke) of the true ruler not to be so guided. Although the
contradiction involved here is scarcely invisible, the student who turns to Republic
in the context of the ROPD is particularly well prepared to interrupt—as Glaucon
has just done—and reject the decision of the knowing man who would rather be
benefited than to benefit others.
In the present case, it is Gorgias that "Plato the teacher" (cf. Stenzel 1928)
counts on the student remembering; indeed the passage is an unforgettable
one. Socrates had presented an even more controversial variant of the ethical
abyss dividing the active and passive verb forms in Gorgias: xô àôiKEÎv aïcrxiov
Eivai too â5iK£iCT0ai (i.e., "committing an injustice is more disgraceful than
suffering it," G. 482d8; translation mine). Anyone selfish enough to uniformly

o)(|>£/a:îa0ca to (àcfiEÂcov (i.e., the man who is guided exclusively by to
prefer
auxo) au(i(|)£pov) is most unlikely to consider to ciSikelv to be aïa/iov than
àôiKEiaOm. But as a matter of logical the argument in

strictly argumentation,
Gorgias does not entail the opposite of what Socrates says about the CGMO.
The between the two active/passive pairs is therefore extremely

relationship
it is more difficult in practice to undergo to à8iK£Îa0cu in
interesting: although
order to avoid the greater evil of to àSiKEÎv, it is more difficult in theory to show
it is aïcrxiov ("more shameful") to prefer oj<t>£/.£Î<T0ca to di)<j>£Xcov. In other

why
words, there are many generous people who are willing to benefit others without
a return who would think twice about suffering an injustice rather than avoiding
it altogether unethical to someone else. In practice, then,
by doing something
the to undergo in preference to performing it is much less
willingness injustice
common than to benefit others. But in theory, it is another matter.
being willing
Socrates can show, as he does in that to ciôikeÎv is bad for the soul
Gorgias,
(i.e., is not to auxw ou|a(^£pov) but he cannot do this in the case of to
simply
it's hardly to one's own to be benefited. Nor can
oj(|)E/.EK70ai: contrary advantage
he, in conformitywith the censorship imposed upon him by Plato's brothers {Rep.
358b6-7 and 366e6), invoke the Afterlife. In other words (and strictly in the
context of the ROPD), it makes sense that the paradox in Gorgias
active/passive
is easier (albeit and therefore earlier than its counterpart in
only theoretically)

26 PHOENIX
Republic (§1) even if it is more striking, paradoxical, and far more difficult in
practice. But any student who has truly been persuaded by Socrates in Gorgias
will object to what she now hears in Republic, indeed the story of Socrates
from first to last concerns the benefactor (o cbcfm/aov) par excellence who willingly
endures being wronged (to àSiKeîaQcu), likewise par excellence. Therefore the
intra-textual—i.e., fictional—interruption of Glaucon at 347a6 deserves another
from the extra-textual student/reader who remembers Gorgias: exactly as Glaucon
interrupted just a moment before, so now Plato is challenging (or provoking)11

the student/reader to reject not so much the logic as the slavish self-interest of
raxç ô yiyvcocmov guided by to autrp au|i(|)épov. And this would simultaneously

constitute a rejection of the slavish literalism appropriate to a merely mute and
unresponsive text.
It is now time to elucidate the CGMO as a microcosm of the proleptic,

visionary, and basanistic elements. Presented proleptically in section i, it is well to
recall that there are proleptic dialogues (or, in the present case, proleptic portions
of a dialogue) that are designed to confuse the reader in a salutary way through
paradox concerning matters about which it is pedagogically necessary for the
student to be confused if they are to be prepared for what is to come (§4). It is
the first of three clauses [I] in the single sentence that describes the CGMO that
is perfectly proleptic:
[I] Were it to happen that a city of good men came into being, not to rule would be as
prized as ruling is today, [II] and there it would become crystal clear that, in reality, the
true ruler has not the nature to watch out for his own advantage but that of the ruled; [III]
for every one in the know would choose rather to be benefited by someone else than be
bothered with benefiting another.
[I] is paradoxical on two levels: (1) it explicitly contradicts what most of us

think is true, guided as we are by what is "prized ... and (2) it is written
today"
from the philosopher's for prizing the chance not to rule—a
perspective—unique
perspective that Plato will eventually want us to choose for ourselves but that he
here tells us nothing about, not even that it is the of a philosopher.
perspective
Plato uses prolepsis (Kahn 1993: 138) and to awaken the student's
paradox
curiosity about what the view will be like from the mountaintops which he
upon
will someday us to take our stand (at least for the moment before
help returning
to the Cave). And it is precisely the view from the mountain that is presented in
section [II]:
[II] and there it would become crystal clear [Kata(|)avèç] that, in reality, the true ruler [x(p
ôvtt àXrjGivôç apxcov] hasn't the nature to watch out for his own but that of
advantage
the ruled ...
This clause is a microcosm of the [II] visionary dialogues (or, in the case of
Republic, the vision-producing portions of a single dialogue). Everything here
11
See Miller 1985 for a path-breaking willingness to see Plato as.
directly engaging the reader.

is pure Platonism (§6): here, there is neither paradox nor test. The true ruler
possesses the noble nature that is inseparable from noblesse oblige. Plato knows
(i.e., has seen) that the possibility of toj ôvti à/.r]0ivôç ap/cov ("the true ruler
with respect to that which truly is") has been realized in both Socrates and in
himself. Just as Socrates quickened this conception in Aristocles son of Ariston,
so too will the re-made Plato now do the same for us: i.e., the purpose of Plato
the teacher is to actualize this natural potentiality in his readers/students. "[II]"
is, in short, a crystal clear statement of altruism and, at the same time, the essence
of Platonic justice (§5). Plato does all this for our benefit, which is not to say that
it is not beneficial for him to do so as well. It has been well and truly said that
is the least highly paid but most rewarding profession. But it is not only
teaching
the teacher who knows as a matter of fact that to be ô cocj)e/.ojv is simultaneously
to undergo to <b<|)eA,£ict0cci precisely when being the former is chosen in perfect
contempt for the latter.

But Plato the teacher was not content with expressing beautiful thoughts
beautifully and that is why he also employs the basanistic element [III]:
[III]for every one in the know [râç ... ô yiyvcÔCTKWv] would choose rather to be benefited
by someone else than be bothered with benefiting another.
what he has just said in the visionary section, Socrates here states
By contradicting
the of the truth in order to test the student (§7). In other words, Plato
opposite
the reader to raise the questions—and, on their basis, to make the
challenges
kinds of decision—that lead to the truth. Plato the teacher was not inclined, at
least after he had some teaching experience (because every teacher learns
gained
this lesson the hard way), to think that the student who enthusiastically agreed
with him about had or necessarily the point. A student
everything really gotten
could, for example, the Socratic in the for its logical or
praise position Gorgias
even rhetorical excellences but reveal—by a failure to interrupt here—her lack of
commitment to its implications. In short, as this third clause shows, Plato tests his
students. He can even use Socrates (to say nothing of less attractive interlocutors)
to trick the reader into something that is false for a pedagogical purpose
accepting
(Beversluis 2000). In fact, not only is testing an essential part of Platonic pedagogy
but an falsehoods, half-truths, or merely partial
having authority figure present
truths is the principal Plato tests his students/readers, i.e., begets in them a
way
firm possession of the truth. As a rule of thumb, it is prudent to think of the
like Timaeus, Critias,

dialogues in which "one in the know" takes the lead—men
Parmenides, the Eleatic and his Athenian counterpart—as basanistic.
Stranger,
But there is far more to be said about this basanistic element: the ideal test
teaches both student and teacher. In other words, there is a danger in taking
the notion of "test" too To be sure Plato wanted to test his students,
literally.
but as an end in itself. as well as teaching them through the
hardly By testing
basanistic element, he was able to create a truly dialectical his students
pedagogy:
come to know themselves in battle with the errors to which Plato deliberately

28 PHOENIX
exposes them. When students reject the selfishness of "the man in the know,"
they not only are proved worthy but also confirm within themselves (Frede 1992:
219) the inborn insights of which Plato's maieutic pedagogy is intended to deliver
them.
All of these considerations are built into the word "basanistic." To with,
begin
most Platonic words for "test" are derived from pâaavoç.12 E. R. Dodds explains
the term in his commentary on the (1959: 280): it is "the touchstone
Gorgias
(Auô(a /aOoç), a kind of black quartz jasper ... used for assaying samples of gold
by rubbing them against the touchstone and the streaks left on
comparing they
it." The passage from which the use of "basanistic" is derived is Gorgias 486d2-7,
partly because what Socrates says to Callicles afterwards is exactly what I conceive
Plato to be saying implicitly to his students throughout (G. 486e5-6; translation
mine): "I know well that should with me concerning the things this soul
you agree
of mine [r| sjifi v|/oxr|]considers right, that these same things are ipsofacto [i]8r|]
»
true.
If my soul were wrought of gold, Callicles, do you not think I should be delighted to find
one of those stones wherewith they test [|3aaavîÇoucriv] best of them—and
gold—the
the best one; which I could apply to it, and it established that my soul had been well
nurtured, I should be assured that I was in good condition and in need of no further test
[Pcxaâvou]? (G. 486d2-5; tr. W. D. Woodhead)
It is therefore not only a question of a teacher a student but of

proving worthy
finding and together confirming the truth through dialectic (cf. Zappen 2004:
47).
III. LYSIS AND SYMPOSIUM
Unlike Kahn's "proleptic," the neologism "basanistic" is meaningful exclusively

in the context of the ROPD, i.e., outside the context of mainstream Plato
scholarship.13 Kahn's intellectual context is the of

chronology composition
characteristic of that mainstream; while Kahn never doubts that the Lysis precedes
the in order of composition, his remarkable claim is that it anticipates
Symposium
the latter i.e., that Plato had the "solution" of the "in
"proleptically"; Symposium
12
Plato repeatedly uses both the verb (3aaaviÇco (thirty-four instances) and the noun
pàaavoç
throughout the corpus. See in particular Rep. 7.537b5-540a2 and G. 486d3-487e2.
13 In
a lively exchange, Griswold (1999 and 2000) and Kahn (2000) have succeeded in
bringing a
series of questions relevant to the ROPD into the scholarly mainstream. Although the
pedagogical
solution proposed here is not mooted in their debate (but see Kahn 1996: 48), the ROPD
hypothesis
splits the difference between Kahn (with his dual commitments to proleptic composition and
chronology of composition) and Griswold (with his mixed commitments both to "fictive chronology"
and hermeneutic isolationism)
having excluded the second member of each pair. See also Osborne 1994:
58: "It remains unclear, therefore, whether the reader would be
expected to approach the Lysis having
the Symposium in mind, or to approach the
Symposium having already read the Lysis'' The simple
fact of her having raised this
question suggests that she inclines to the solution being proposed here,
although the leaden weight of "chronology of composition" is revealed at 58, n. 19.

mind" when he wrote the Lysis (Kahn 1996: 267). In Kahn's sense of the term,
I would agree that the Lysis is "proleptic."14 But a new sense
"proleptic" acquires
in the ROPD context; it is the to the "basanistic."
(prior) complement (posterior)
Once the meaning of "proleptic" has been transformed in this way, the intersection
between the first two sections of this article and mainstream Plato studies can be
stated: with respect to Symposium, the Lysis is basanistic, not proleptic.
Demonstrating this claim does not require re-inventing the wheel: the close
connection between Lysis and has long been recognized (Wirth 1895:
Symposium
216). In other words, the controversial aspect of this claim is implicit in the
term "basanistic" and thus in the notion of the ROPD; the textual evidence that
supports the claim—the close thematic and substantive relationship between the
two dialogues—is widely known and it is therefore to argue for a
unnecessary
new interpretation of It is rather a question of situating the best available
Lysis.
interpretations of Lysis in the context of the ROPD hypothesis. Kahn's serviceable
reading of the dialogue (Kahn 1996: 281-291) is certainly a good place to start,
and the evidence he cites for reading it as proleptic fully supports my claim that
it is actually basanistic.15 But there are two other more detailed of Lysis
readings
that deserve attention, each being constituted—appropriately enough, given the
pairing of Menexenus and Lysis in Lysis—by a pair. The firstof these is the recent
study of Lysis by Terry Penner and Christopher Rowe (2005), the second is a pair
of articles by Francisco J. Gonzalez (1995 and 2000a).
In "Plato's Lysis: An Enactment of Philosophical Kinship," Gonzalez (1995:
69) makes a brilliant observation:
The Lysis has the further problem that it has always existed in the shadow of two other
works that seem to provide solutions to the problems it raises: Plato's Symposium and
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Consequently interpretation of the Lysis has generally
revolved around these, borrowing its light from them.
Gonzalez then proceeds to offer a fourfold classification of previous interpretations

based on two differentiae:the Lysis either (a) contains or (b) fails to provide the
solution(s) supplied by either (i) Plato or (ii) Aristotle. The basanistic reading of
14Kahn (2000: 190) suggests that he is now disowning the term ("I was [rc. beginning with Kahn
1996] increasingly uncomfortable with the term 'proleptic' ..."); I am happy to adopt it. Although
derived from Kahn 1981a, 1988, and 1996, the term "proleptic" will be used hereafter only in the
context of the ROPD.
15
We agree that Lysis is a puzzle and that Symposium provides its solution (Kahn 1996: 266-267)
but only Kahn is concerned with squaring this insight with the chronological priority of Lysis (281);
this creates a tension in his broad conception of Lysis. Compare 266 ("no reader who comes to
in the Symposium could understand") with 267
Lysis without knowledge of the doctrine expounded
("Plato thus presents us in Lysis] with a series of enigmatic hints that form a kind of puzzle for
the uninitiated reader to decipher, but that become completely intelligible"); the ROPD eliminates
the problem. Parsing the exact difference between Kahn's views and mine is a tricky business: in the
ROPD, it is Hippias Major that is proleptic with respect to Symposium (Hip. Maj. 286dl-2: xi sail
to KaA,ov;) in Kahn's sense while Kahn himself rejects the Hippias Major as inauthentic (Kahn 1981a:
308, n. 10; see also Kahn 1996: 182).

30 PHOENIX
Lysis accounts for the existence of all four of these types: deliberately created by
Plato as a test—a test administered to the young Aristode along with Plato's other
students/readers—the Lysis can only be solved on a Platonic basis by realizing

that its explicit failure to resolve problems actually points the way back to the
solution already contained in the Symposium. Although this solution is implicit
in the Lysis, Aristode attempted to solve its puzzle—as Plato intended that his
student/reader should—without embracing or grasping his teacher's solution. The
relationship between Aristotle and Lysis will be revisited at the end of this section;
for the present, it is sufficientto point out that Gonzalez situates himself in a fifth
category (1995: 70): "So long as this dialogue is not read on its own, its coherence
will remain in question." Despite his almost polemical insistence in 1995 that
his reading is independent of Symposium (1995: 71 and 88-89), Gonzalez clearly
derives little from Aristode (1995: 87, n. 38). Moreover, in his "Socrates on
Loving One's Own: A Traditional Conception of <1)1AI A Radically Transformed"
(2000a), Gonzalez drops his polemical stance and bases his compelling reading of
Lysis on conceptions that originate in Symposium (2000a: 394).
Penner and Rowe (2005: 300-307) explicitly address the relationship between
Lysis and Symposium and their conclusion is that the two are consistent
dialogues
(303). If Gonzalez is more influenced by the Symposium than he admits,
Penner and Rowe solve the on far more Aristotelian lines than Gonzalez
Lysis
does (260-279). But such a characterization is unfair to their brilliant and
subtle reading: it steers an ingenious—if potentially self-contradictory16—course
between Plato and Aristotle that preserves the best of both. This is not the
place to review this remarkable book, an amiable of a philosophical

product
dialogue between friends about friendship;17 but it is that Penner
noteworthy
and Rowe discover the key that unlocks their solution to the in
synthetic Lysis
the Euthydemus (264-267, 268, and 276). Set in the Lyceum (Euthd. 271al)—
the destination Socrates does not reach in (Planeaux 2001)—it follows
Lysis
Symposiumand Lysis in my ROPD. To summarize, Penner and Rowe (2005: 303)
provide an ultra-modern and post-Platonic solution to the Lysis that nevertheless
reveals something amazing about Platonic pedagogy—the strictly philosophical
continuity between and that emerges when
Symposium Lysis guided retrospectively
by Euthydemus—without any regard for the details of dramatic presentation:
the key idea in the

Symposium, of eras as desire for "procreation in the beautiful" (206c ff.),
is in essence a colorful elaboration of Socrates' conclusion about the genuine lover in Lysis
222a6-7, albeit a brilliant—brilliantly coloured—and elaboration. That is, it
suggestive
adds nothing of philosophical substance.
16Penner and Rowe 2005: 267 (emphasis in original): "Let us

try to offer an explanation of the
idea of being good in itselfas a means to happiness
17
Compare the more dialectical but less amiable relationship between Hans von Arnim and Max
Pohlenz described in Gonzalez 1995: 81, n. 27 and 83, n. 29. See von Arnim 1914: 59 for an
anticipation of Kahn's "proleptic" that emerges in dialogue with Pohlenz.

Naturally Penner and Rowe have no reason to ask themselves whether a student
could discover the essence of "the genuine lover" in Lysis without having read
Symposium.
The more intriguing implications of the basanistic element in Plato—that it
not only challenges the student to apply an earlier solution but leads her farther
as a result of doing so—is implicit in the claim made by Gonzalez (1995: 71)
that "Lysis goes beyond" Symposium (also Geier 2002: 66). Although by no means
entirely uncomfortable with the judgment of Penner and Rowe that Gonzalez
reverses here, the latter seems closer to the truth (Gonzalez 1995: 89):
The important point is that the Lysis, in pursuing the relation between love and what is
oIkeÎov, discloses something about love that we cannot learn from reading the Symposium.
But Gonzalez can only bring his reader to a place where this sentence is intelligible
in the context of Diotima's crucial description of to o'ikhiov at Symposium

205e5—206al, a passage he has just quoted (1995: 88, n. 40) before adding
(88-89):
The difference, is that while this suggestion
however, is not at all pursued in the Symposium,
it is the main of the Lysis. This observation
theme does not commit me to the view that
the Lysis was written after the Symposium.
Gonzalez is right. But with no alternative ordering principle to which he can
turn, he is forced to add this second sentence. With so much excellent work
been no need to offer a new of the

done by others on Lysis, there has reading
but to that the readings of those who have elucidated
dialogue only propose
its philosophical content be considered in a pedagogical context by raising the
question: "What role does the Lysis play in Plato's pedagogy?" The broad answer
to this is embodied in the ROPD and more specifically in its basanistic
question
element. A few details are worth mentioning: the student/reader is
pedagogical
to recall Diotima's psxaû (the Leitmotiv and àpyr\ of her discourse;
prompted
Symp. 201el0-202a3) at Ly. 216d3-7, although Plato basanistically withholds the

verbal cue pctaqij until 220d6; this in turn accomplishes the return of philosophy
at Ly. 218a-b6 been introduced to the student/reader at Symp. 204al-4.

having
The 7tpcoxov (fuz-ov 219dl) introduces the student/reader to the notion of
{Ly.
infinite recalls the Beautiful of Symposium, and points forward to the
regress,
Good (Kahn 1996: 267); its nature would be the central topic of discussion in
of its name. In short: the Platonic solution to the Lysis
any academy worthy
requires applying Symp. 205e5-206al (§6) to Ly. 221e7—222a3 (§7). The ideal
examination question for the basanistic Lysis would be: "Why is Lysis (unlike
Menexenus) silent at 222a4?" (Geier 2002: 136-137). I would suggest that the
silence of Lysis—like Lysis himself {Ly. 213d8)—is philosophical in Plato's sense
of the term while the Xuoiç of the is the third component of any true
Lysis
friendship (see Hoerber 1959: 18-19): the un-embodied Beautiful revealed by

Diotima {Symp. 211a5-b5).

32 PHOENIX
It is revealing that Aristotle introduces the meaning of the word À.6cnç
employed above: "as a technical term, a. solution of a difficulty"(LSJ II.4). Plato,

on the other hand, uses it—along with "separation" (x&ipiapoc, Phd. 67d4)—in
the service of precisely the dualistic metaphysics that Aristotle rejected. It is usually
put that way: "Aristotle rejected the separable Forms." From Plato's perspective,
however, it would be stated otherwise: "Aristode never was able to grasp the
Idea" (cf. Chang 2002). Given the tremendous impact Lysis had on Aristotle's
conception of friendship,18 itself the culminating topic of his Nicomachean Ethics,
there is something to be said for the view that Aristode's failure (on Plato's
terms, that is) to pass the test of Lysis as a neophyte had a decisive impact on
his subsequent philosophical development. Ingenious attempts have been made
to absolve Aristotle of equivocation on the word oivcsîov at Nicomachean Ethics
9.9;19 a Platonist is spared this joyless task. But Aristotle's heroic struggle with the
Lysis—regardless of its success—indicates that Plato intended the student/reader

to struggle with it and that he created it in the belief that it could only be solved
by one who followed Diotima's hint that the essence of to oIkëÎov would more
nearly resemble what her student Socrates would later call "the Idea of the Good"
than it would the self s alter ego, so vividly described in the speech of Aristophanes
the comedian (cf. Sheffield 2006: 110-111).
IV. MENEXENUS AND THE TRAGEDY OF SYMPOSIUM
The last words of the (a) establish its dramatic connection to the
Symposium20
first words of (b) offer the reader/student the most clue to its
Lysis, important
interpretation, i.e., that Symposium itself proves Plato's Socrates right (and then
some) by being at once comedy and tragedy, and (c) indicate why—i.e., in order
to bring its tragedy to light—Menexenus is the necessary and tool
perfect teaching
(§4) for preparing the student/reader to interpret Plato could
Symposium correctly.
not have known that Athenaeus {217a) would record the (416
eventually year
that Agathon won the prize for Tragic Drama. But
b.c.) any reader of Thucydides
could deduce from the drunken entry of Alcibiades (cf. Thuc. 6.28.1) that the
cjuvouGia takes
(Symp. 172a7) place before the Great Fleet, under the influence of
18
Price 1989:
1: "In his two surviving treatments [jc. concerning friendship], in the Nkomachean
and Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle effectively takes the Lysis as his starting point; with no other Platonic
dialogue does he show such a detailed, yet implicit, familiarity."
19
Kahn 1981b; Price 1989: 122-123; Annas 1977: 550-551; Pakaluk 1998: 205-208 and 2005:
283-285; and Penner and Rowe 2005: 319.
20
Symp. 22362-12 (tr. M. Joyce): "Socrates was forcing them [jc. Agathon and Aristophanes] to
admit that the same man might be capable of
writing both comedy and tragedy—that the tragic poet
might be a comedian as well. But as he clinched the argument, which the other two were scarcely in
a state to follow, they began to nod, and first Aristophanes fell off to
sleep and then Agathon, as day
was breaking. Whereupon Socrates tucked them
up comfortably and went away, followed, of course,
by Aristodemus. And after calling at the Lyceum for a bath, he spent the rest of the day as usual, and
then, toward evening, made his way home to rest."

Alcibiades—he with whom, of course, the ROPD begins (Prot. 309al-2)—sailed

to Sicily (415 b.c.) and after,perhaps it should be added, the Battle of Mantinaea
(418 b.c.). Readers of Xenophon's continuation of Thucydides (see Hell. 5.2.5)
would have some reason to suspect Plato's Aristophanes of anachronism in the
case of Mantinaea (Symp. 193a2-3; cf. Dover 1965) but probably only if they had
also read/heard Menexenus. And that is precisely the point: aside from Plato's
contemporaries, only readers of Xenophon's Hellenica know that Socrates had
been dead for many years when Plato's Socrates enacts Aspasia referring to the
King's Peace {Hell. 5.1.31) in Menexenus (245c2-6). The important point here
is that without understanding the War, i.e., the dialogue's historical context, the
comic element of Symposium dominates, while understanding its tragic element
depends on Thucydides. But Symposium delights even without knowledge of

Thucydides, while Menexenus without Thucydides is unintelligible and probably
unthinkable (cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Demosthenes 23). And appreciating
the funniest joke in Menexenus depends on having read Xenophon's Hellenica as
well.21
To with, Socrates refers to the most famous (and hopeful) passage in

begin
Thucydides at Menexenus 236b5: the Funeral Oration of Pericles (Thuc. 2.35—46).

But in the context of Symposium, it is what Socrates' Aspasia says about Sicily at
242e6-243a3 that is more important: she endorses precisely the pretext (Thuc.
6.8.2)—explicitly unmasked as such both by Thucydides himself (Thuc. 6.6.1)

and his Hermocrates (6.77.1)—that Alcibiades used (Thuc. 6.18.1-2) to persuade
the flower of Athens to race (Thuc. 6.32.2) towards their tragic end (413 b.c.)
in the Great Harbor of Syracuse (Thuc. 7.71; cf. Finley 1938: 61-63). In fact,
Aspasia's speech is as interwoven with Thucydides (Bruell 1999: 201-209) as it is
with lies and the anachronism involving the King's Peace of Xenophon
pretexts;
(Cawkwell 1981; cf. Badian 1987: 27) is only the funniest of these. Naturally
there are in Symposium that are infinitely funnier. But before being
many things
allowed to attend a performance of Symposium (see Ryle 1966: 23-24), the student
In I propose that a proven of

was tested by Menexenus. other words, knowledge
the facts of Athenian as recorded by Xenophon and Thucydides—to be
history
demonstrated out the deliberate errors Plato makes in Menexenus—
by pointing
was a prerequisite for seeing/hearing/reading the something even the
Symposium,
dullest students wanted to do (Aulus Gellius, Nodes Atticae 1.9.9; see Snyder
badly
2000: 111-113 and 95).
There is an understandable university professors to imagine
tendency among
Plato as a university writing for his peers; the Plato of the ROPD is,
professor
contrast, a teacher of the But the of what other authors
by youth. question
21 for interpreting
Although this is not the time to argue the case, (1) the importance of Xenophon
Menexenus, (2) the fact that Xenophon also wrote a Symposium (see Thesleff 1978 and Danzig 2005),
and (3) the remarkable resemblance between Lysis and Mem. 2.6, all point to the same conclusion.
Will anyone deny that Plato's masterful Meno becomes a far greater dialogue for one who has read the
description of Meno (An. 2.6.21-8) in Xenophon's Anabasis}

34 PHOENIX
Plato assumes his readers will have read clearly some

requires independent study;
reasons for including Xenophon and Thucydides among these have now been
sketched. There are easier (Homer and Hesiod) and more difficult ones:
examples
without Andocides (On the Mysteries, 35), for instance, one would not know that
Eryximachus was implicated in the matter of the Herms (Nails 2006: 101). In
short, serious students of Plato need to ask what kind of readers he
anticipated
having and thus what he expected those readers to know. It is as mistaken to
doubt that Plato considered his to be a KTrj|ià èç alsi (Thuc. 1.22.4)
writings
as it is to assume that he believed every literary work he knew would share this
distinction. It may be useful to consider four of authors from Plato's
categories
perspective: (1) the ancient writers, like Homer, whose he
immortality clearly
anticipated, (2) contemporary writers who would survive along with him, (3)
those writers—both ancient and current—whom he set about to immortalize by
making them prerequisite to his own work, and (4) those who would either not
survive (77. 22cl-3) or do so in fragments (Ion 534d4-7). Whether he regarded
Thucydides as belonging to the second or third be debatable; that
category may
he both anticipated and counted on Thucydides' is not.
immortality
In her The People of Plato: A
Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics, Debra
Nails (2002) has created a landmark in Plato studies. Not surprisingly—given
her intimate knowledge of the historical context—she has also written the best
piece on the tragic element of Symposium (Nails 2006). She shows the influence
of three events on the the profanation of the Mysteries, the mutilation
dialogue:
of the Herms, and the execution of Socrates. Possessedof so much knowledge
herself, she does not stop to wonder what Plato could his
reasonably expect
readers to know. This she fails to emphasize the most
probably explains why
obvious tragic element in the dialogue (Nails 2006: 101, n. 63): that Athens is
poised on the precipice of the Sicilian Expedition (Salman 1991: 215—219). It is
also worth that Nails not makes a "dramatic of Plato's
noting only chronology"
dialogues possible but that she is clearly interested in and
arranging, perhaps
reading/teaching them in that order (Nails 2002: 307-330; cf. Press 2007). To
the extent that she—in support of Charles L. Griswold Jr. (1999: 387-390
and 2000: 196-197)—is contributing to loosening the grip of the
chronology of
composition, she does well; to the extent that she one form
may simply replace
of modern over-concern with historical with an equally unhistorical
development
form of it, she misses the Harbor for the Herms (but see
Ly. 206dl).
This is not to that Plato was unaware of chronology: it is clearly one
say
of several themes—in addition to the War and its historians—that connect
Menexenus and (§3). Not does echo
Symposium only Aristophanes Aspasia's
anachronism but the as a whole with an anachronism detected
Symposium begins
and corrected 172cl-2). But there are other connections that seem
(Symp. many
more characteristic: the of both is problematic
provenance dialogues (Menex.
249el and Halperin 1992), both feature a wise woman
(Halperin 1990; Salkever
1993: 140-141), both women elucidate their theme with a
myth of origins

(Menex. 237el-238b6 and Symp. 203b2-d8), and both dialogues are concerned
with rhetoric—remarkably gorgeous at times {Menex. 240d6-7, 247a2-4 and
Symp. 197d5-e5, 211bl—2)—as revealed in reported speeches, a circumstance
that also joins both with Thucydides in yet another and remarkably subtle way
(Monoson 1998: 492). Andrea Wilson Nightingale has identified a theme that
binds together all three dialogues (Menexenus, Symposium, and Lysis): the dangers
of encomiastic rhetoric.22 Unlike Diotima and Socrates, who humble their
respective auditors in order to improve them, Aspasia and Hippothales praise

theirs in a damaging way (Nightingale 1993: 115). Of all the connections, the
most significant is that both Aspasia and Diotima are brilliant women (Halperin
1990:122-124) from whom Socrates is man enough to learn (Phaenarete prepares
for the triad at Ale 1. 131e4; cf. Tht. 149al-4). The fact that Aspasia's discourse
proves unreliable could easily lead the reader astray (§4) about the priceless value
of Diotima's (§6); the Lysis tests whether this trap has been avoided (§7).
It bears repeating that basanistic and proleptic must not be hardened into fixed
and exclusive categories, especially when applied to entire dialogues. Although

Menexenus proleptically prepares the reader for Symposium, it is also basanistic:
every step of Aspasia's speech tests the student/reader's knowledge of Athenian
Basanistic with to Symposium, is proleptic with respect to

history. respect Lysis
The essential to grasp is that Plato has both of these elements in
Republic. point
his pedagogical toolbox. But with respect to the ROPD as a whole, the basanistic
significance of Menexenus can hardly be overemphasized: it is the first dialogue

where the student is challenged to reject most everything its has to say.
principal speaker
These skills will be put to use in Symposium (cf. Salman 1991: 224-225) but will
become of central importance when the student/reader meets Timaeus, Critias,
Parmenides, the Eleatic, and the Athenian Strangers.

At the start of his career, Kahn (1963: 220) laid down four things an adequate
of Menexenus must explain: why did Plato (1) attribute the speech to
interpretation
Aspasia, (2) include the glaring anachronism, (3) systematically distort Athenian
and (4) write a funeral oration in the first place? The relation between
history,
Menexenus and in the ROPD has now provided answers to these
Symposium
But the dialogue with Thucydides that begins in Menexenus continues
questions.
in Symposium not only because the shadow of Syracuse (cf. Halperin 2005: 56)
over the festivities at Agathon's but because Pericles called upon the citizens
hangs
of Athens to become lovers of its power in the Funeral Oration (Thuc. 2.43.1)
and Thucydides reports that the passion Alcibiades ignited in the Athenians for
Sicily was erotic (Thuc. 6.45.5).23 There is a sense in which Thucydides is present
at the Symposium and delivers his own oration about Love. To put it another way,
22
See the opening sentence of Nightingale 1993: 112: "Plato targets the encomiastic genre in three
separate dialogues: the Lysis, the Menexenus, and the Symposium

23 and rj 8è xrjv eùnopiav
Compare the relationship between rj êXiàç (which is both rj ô' 8<j>e7iofi£vr|
xfjç t6xt|s u7iOTi0sîaa) and ô epcoç èrii mvxi (which, although it follows in order of presentation,
is both ô nèv r|yo6fievoc; and ô fièv tt)v £7tiPouA,T)vèK^povuÇcov) with what Diotima says of Penia

36 PHOENIX
Aspasia's Funeral Oration stands approximately halfway between the Funeral

Oration of Pericles and the Sicilian Speech of Alcibiades inThucydides (6.16-18)
and it is these speeches that must ring in the ears of the auditor who would weep
during a performance of Symposium.
Kahn (1963: 220) adds a fifthcriterion that has nothing to do with Plato per
se: he requires to explain the fact recorded
any interpretation by Cicero (Or. 151)
that the Athenians of his day listened to a public recitation24 of the Menexenus
each year. Kahn intends this criterion to short-circuit the to present
attempt
the dialogue as "a playful joke" or a "parody or satire of contemporary rhetoric."
Although the dialogue is something more than these, it is also these; Lucinda
Coventry (1989) is a particularly reliable guide. Kahn's own explanation (1963:

226-230) is possible but there is a simpler one that furnishes its foundation:
Athens was great and Plato had loved her. The fact that he this love
expresses
more sincerely in Symposium than in Menexenus cannot the fact that it is
change
also a far more cumbersome vehicle for expressing that love on an annual basis
in front of a crowd. If Athens were not there would be no in
great, tragedy
Symposium: her self-deluded epcoç would have her the
brought upon precisely
retribution she deserved. It is seldom remarked or pondered that Plato's dialogues
preserve a vivid memory of Athens in the of her It is also
hey-day democracy.
seldom pondered or remarked that Plato, after the ne plus ultra in
abandoning
aristocratic names, became an unpaid teacher and recreated outside of Athens
just
a remarkably enduring "school of Hellas" after the Great War (see Cornford 1967:
42—43) had destroyed its Periclean exemplar. There is considerably more civic
pride in Plato the Athenian than Plato lets on (Kahn 1963: 224).
Protagoras is intended to initiate the reader/student/hearer into that beautiful
bygone world of power, wealth, wit, students, absolute

ambling professors, eager
confidence, refinement, and neglected flute-girls (Prot. 347d4-5), as well as
prepare them for another Beautiful that in the that

gradually emerges, dialogues
follow, at once from, in accordance with, and in opposition to, the worldly beauty
that was "famous Athens." The dualities of the (Ziolkowski
perpetual Symposium
1999; cf. Hoerber 1959) bring these two beauties at the moment of
together
crisis and at the of Kpâcnç (mixture): the where Diotima the
place great party
mantic Mantinaean Socrates, Aristodemus, and
(through Apollodorus, Plato)25
(203b7) and Poros (203d4) in Symposium, on which see Halperin 1990: 148. Valuable work has been
done on the importance of Êpcoç in Thucydides; see
Ehrenberg 1947: 50-52; Bruell 1974: 17; Forde
1986: 439-440; Monoson 1994: 254, n. 8; and Wohl 2002: 190-194.
24Ion, whose hero's profession is to charm the audience (compare Menex. 235b8-c5 and Ion
535d8-e3) with a public recitation of Homer from whom he claims to have learned how to be a
general because he knows what it befits a general to say (Ion 540d5), precedes Menexenus in the
reconstructed ROPD.
25
Amidst so many publications on Symposium, the work of David M. Halperin (1985,1986,1990,
1992, and 2005) stands out—along with The People of Plato—as a signal achievement for contemporary
Plato studies in the United States; an equally brilliant article
by Charles Salman (1991) deserves wider

revealed the heavenly Beautiful just before Alcibiades the chameleon (Plut. Ale.
23.4)—seemingly hell-bent on destroying its earthly embodiment, or rather the

social and historical context from which its beholders had the
emerged—told
story of Socrates at Potidaea (Symp. 220c3-d5).
From a philosophical standpoint, it is Diotima's Beauty that is the essence
of Symposium and Plato the teacher will duly ensure that the student/reader has
assimilated this essence in Lysis. The soaring soul that escapes into eternity in
Phaedo—after impregnating us all with the Beautiful it engendered (Morrison

1964: 53) while on earth—this is the last act of a divine comedy conceived in
Symposium. It is therefore tempting to imagine Socrates entranced at Potidaea,
rapt to the sight of heavenly Beauty. F. M. Cornford (1971: 128) indicates on

metaphysical grounds why this is not likely: the Idea is perceived im Augenblick.
It accompanies its admirers wherever they go.
It is only the auditor of Thucydides—the student who has already passed the
test of Menexenus—who knows what Socrates was actually doing in Potidaea and
thus will experience Symposium as the tragedy it is. As one of three thousand
Athenian hoplites sent there to crush a revolt (Thuc. 1.61), Socrates arrives in
Potidaea just before the Great War broke out: indeed the Expeditionary Force
of which he is a spear-carrying member (Nails 2002: 264-265) becomes the
torch that will set all Hellas ablaze (Thuc. 1.56—67). Narrated by Alcibiades,
charming assassin of Athenian greatness, the story of Socrates' all-night vigil
is, like Symposium itself, susceptible of a comic reading: contemplation of the
eternal Idea remains a true delight. On the other hand, the historical, dramatic,
and metaphysical context suggests that it was not Being but Becoming (Shanske
2007: 119-153) that the stationary Socrates (Geier 2002: 19-20 and 63-66)
contemplated throughout that fateful northern night: he was imagining the
sinuous alternatives, both rational and senseless, of a movement unfolding in
time that Thucydides also realized right from the start would become something
massive (Thuc. 1.1.1). After many a terrible year, the conflagration will destroy
the power of the violet-crowned city whose lovers Pericles had exhorted its citizens
to be, eventually leaving them only Plato's Aspasia as ironic consolation for the
loss of a truly glorious past. In retrospect, it will be the moment just before the
departure for Sicily (cf. Thg. 129c8—d2)—historical setting for the intellectual
recorded in Plato's marks the turning point on this
triumph Symposium—that
fatal path to civic and comedy are fully mixed in "the last of the
calamity. Tragedy
wine" (Renault 1956) where Plato meets Thucydides. We owe it to those
only
who suffered in the quarries of Syracuse (Thuc. 7.87) to acknowledge
unspeakably
attention. It would also be cowardly not to acknowledge here my considerable debts to Renault (1956),
Hamilton (1930: 204-226), and Cornford (1967: 42-43). In the context of the latter, consider Annas
1999: 95 (cf. above, 21, n. 5): "It is easy to remain unaware of the extent to which our attitude to it [sc.
of Plato's thought, derives from Victorian
Republic], as a political work, and as the obvious centerpiece
traditions, particularly that of Jowett." Some eras are evidently more receptive to Plato's teaching than
others.

38 PHOENIX
how much both historian and philosopher—to say nothing of Socrates (Thg.
128d3-5 and Joyal 1994: 26-27, 29)—loved the men and boys who so skillfully
and senselessly "raced with one another as far as Aegina" (Thuc. 6.32; Jowett).
V. THE READING ORDER
Unlike Becoming, the Idea is eternally what it is and never over time:
changes
its contemplation requires no stationary Socrates. Neither did Plato ever abandon
it. It is, moreover, difficult to believe that anyone who actually embraces it
could think that he did. Why would he? Where he appears to be doing so—in
Parmenides, for example (Prm. 130el-e4; cf. Festugière 1969: 297)—he is testing
his readers/students to see if
they have. And beginning with Aristotle, so many
have done so that Plato's detachment from Platonism has become an article of
skeptical faith. This is the injustice that restoring the ROPD aims to redress: it
reclaims Platonism for Plato by allowing "the unity of Plato's thought"—without
excising its deliberately un-Platonic moments (Shorey 1903: 408)—to emerge
within a dialectical but ultimately harmonious pedagogical program (cf. Lamm
2000: 225). To be sure this Platonism will be unlike earlier versions; each age
must leave its own mark on the immortal dialogues of Plato. But an overriding
concern for "chronology of composition" nearly accomplished something entirely
unacceptable: it remade the philosopher of timeless into a mere of
Being process
Becoming. Beginning in the nineteenth Plato evolves', he seeks, discovers
century,
and then outgrows the idealism of his "middle dialogues." It is time to realize that
the nineteenth century, in accordance with its own (in a double sense
Zeitgeist
of that term) was to look at everything sub specie Whatever
predisposed temporis.
gains were made in other fields of the essence of Plato—for whom
study,
Becoming was unintelligible and the better (i.e., without
Progress) meaningless
the Good—could only become obscured Meanwhile a twentieth-century
thereby.
"Plato" has emerged who is even less Platonic: this el'ScoXov does not abandon the
Idea, Recollection, or Immortality because he never embraced them in

seriously
the first place.
It is now time to what it means to be with to the

explain agnostic respect
dominant paradigm of nineteenth- and Platonic
twentieth-century scholarship:
the chronology of Platonic is no more relevant to reconstructing the
composition
ROPD than the ROPD was to nineteenth- and
reconstructing twentieth-century
Platonic scholarship. The ROPD offers no basis for denying or even doubting
the conclusions drawn from and vice versa. Plato could have
stylometric analysis
composed the in precisely the order and
dialogues presently accepted gradually
worked them into an evolving ROPD of which even the initial must
conception
have been a late It is the conclusion but
comparatively development. tacitly
illegitimately derived from stylometric that must be categorically
analysis rejected:
order of composition cannot that Plato abandoned the Idea of the Good. To
prove
put it another if can tell us what were after
way: stylometry dialogues composed

Republic, it cannot tell us how to read them (Nails 1994). Even if the assumption
upon which stylometric analysis depends is correct and Laws was the last dialogue
Plato wrote, this still proves nothing about the tëA,6ç of Plato's thought in any
philosophical sense, or about how he busied himself at the end of his long life.
About this matter, Dionysius of Halicarnassus (De compositione 3.16) preserves
for the modern reader some external evidence:
ô 5è n^àxcov, toùç sauxoû ôiaXôyooç ktevîÇmv kcù PocrtpoxiÇoûv, kcù navra xpônov
àvanXÉKmv, où ôis^wcëv ôyôor|KovTa y6yovà>ç ëtr\.
And Plato was not through with combing and curling his dialogues, and braiding
[àva7iÀ.8Kû>v] them in every which way, having reached his eightieth year. (Translation
mine)
Clearly this "hair-care" imagery is purely metaphorical. Dionysius is simply

asserting that Plato took great pains to beautify and adorn his dialogues; this
will scarcely surprise anyone one who has read them. On the surface, then, the
sentence suggests that (1) Plato took his dialogues seriously in a very playful
manner, tinkering with them until the end, and (2) Plato labored over precisely
the Platonic dialogues as a whole.26 This sentence expressly does not confirm the
typical vision of a tired old Plato, bent double over the tedious Laws—too sick to
make the required final revisions—and leaving behind only a few scattered notes
for Philip of Opus to turn into Epinomis (Diog. Laert. 3.37). It is only with this
conception that the ROPD hypothesis is incompatible, not stylometric analysis or
chronology of composition per se. This, then, is what it means to be agnostic on
the question.
The most amusing element in the passage from Dionysius is his use of the
word avan/.r.KOiv: only in context of the extended hair-care metaphor is it proper
to translate it as "braided" (cf. Pausanias 10.25.10). Even as "braided," however,

the word the principles upon which the ROPD is based. The braiding of
suggests
hair—at any time or place—requires separating a rich long mass of it into three
distinct strands and weaving them together, one over another, again and again.
In fact, the literal sense of the à va- (meaning "up," "over," or "over again") in
àv«TtÂéK0)v captures precisely this aspect of intertwining three discrete strands.27
This affords a poetic expression of Plato's pedagogical methodology as embodied
in Phaenarete, Diotima, and Aspasia respectively: the interweaving (or braiding)

of proleptic, and basanistic elements in his dialogues. The real meaning
visionary,
of the word àvaTtÀÉKrav is, after all, "inter-weaving." It would not have
simply
been it would have appeared to be so—to translate the
tendentious—although
sentence as "grooming and his dialogues, and inter-weaving them in
embellishing
26 As when
a Mother, or dear older Sister, on the night of the Prom, lovingly arranges and
the skeptical eye of
rearranges the young girl's gown and tresses, again and again regarding—with
more than nostalgic love—each tiny detail before sending her off into the world of men.
27The most delightful use of the word is in Pindar 01. 2.70, where he conjures an image of girls
joining their hands in a dancing chain (ô opfioc).

40 PHOENIX
every way." In other words, this passage from Dionysius suggests that Plato may
have been tinkering with the ROPD—i.e., with the dramatic details on which its
construction entirely depends—until the very end.
To begin at the end, the Laws and are best understood as a thirteen
Epinomis
book basanistic anti-Platonic character becomes luminously clear
dialogue—its
in the star-lit Epinomis {Epin. 990al-4; cf. Rep. 528e6-528c4) reflecting that
character backwards onto Laws 820e4) for those who have not noticed it
{Leg.
already {Leg. 714c6, 661b2, and 648a6)—with the crowning impiety of Laws 7
{Leg. 818cl-3; cf. 624al) dead in the middle. The Athenian Stranger is, as Leo
Strauss discovered in 1938 (2001: 562), the kind of Socrates who would have
followed Crito's advice and fled from Athens to Sparta or Crete {Cri. 52e5-6). As
is the case with the Eleatic Stranger (Gonzalez 2000b), the Athenian's views no
more reflect Plato's than does the speech of Aspasia in Menexenus. And also like
and Statesman, Laws and Epinomis are embedded in the First Tetralogy of
Sophist
Thrasyllus, the latter pair between Crito and Phaedo (compare Leg. 647el-648a6
with Ly. 219e2-4). This leaves only one pair of dialogues in the quartet {Apology
and Crito) between which two dialogues have not been interpolated. Hipparchus
and Minos are a matched set (Grote 1865) who find no other home; the second
is propaedeutic both to Crito and the journey made in Laws {Min. 319e3; cf.
Morrow 1960: 35-39) while the pair mirrors Sophist {Min. 319c3; cf. Hipparch.
228b5-e7) and Statesman {Pit. 309dl-4). I propose that these curious dialogues
are the conversations Socrates had with the but
sympathetic anonymous jailor
of indeterminate age who bursts into tears in Phaedo (116d5-7).28 The fact
that both Hipparchus and Minos were personae non gratae in Athens illustrates
how comparatively restrained Socrates had been—and defensively patriotic on
one occasion when confronted by an Ionian's truth {Ion 541c3-8)29—before his
city definitively cut herself off from him; despite Hipparchus and Minos, Crito
reveals that he never did the same to her. This creates the following ending
for the ROPD: Statesman, Minos, Crito,
Euthyphro, Sophist, Apology, Hipparchus,
Laws, Epinomis, and the visionary Phaedo (§6). It is worth making it explicit that
Socrates is the philosopher whom the Eleatic for all his many divisions,
Stranger,
never distinguishes {Soph. 217a6-b3 and Pit. 257b8-cl) while the Eleatic Stranger
is, at best,30 the un-Socratic philosopher already described (§4) by Socrates in
Theaetetus (173c8-174a2; cf. 144c5-8). The Athenian Stranger, Plato's final test
of the reader/student (§7), is prefigured there as well {Tht. 176a8-b3).
28
Only if Socrates had added that the two had passed the time jiëttsuovteç could this connection
be called "snug"; it would also have made it obvious
(Hipfarch. 229e3 and Min. 316c3). But the
question of Law clearly links Minos and Crito. Consider ûsoAp. 41a3.
29
Neither Ion nor anyone else has heard of Apollodorus of Cyzicus; Plato alone preserves his
name. For the other two examples at Ion 541dl-2—one found in Thucydides (4.50), the other in
Xenophon (Hell. 1.15.18-9), both in Andocides—see the invaluable Nails 2002 adloc.
30
Straussians (e.g., Cropsey 1995) tend to be extremely reliable guides to the basanistic
dialogues
once one realizes that they mistakenly regard these as "visionary."

The ROPD now has a delightful beginning (Protagoras), a mighty middle

(.Republic), and a happy ending (Phaedo).31 Before proceeding, it is necessary
to explain why the ROPD includes all thirty-fivedialogues by Thrasyllus. It
is easy to systematize Plato's dialogues—or any other given body of evidence
in any field of study—when the critic is empowered to exclude any evidence
that does not fit a pre-conceived system. This is precisely what Friedrich
Schleiermacher did (Lamm 2000: 232-233) and it is what is happening again

among the proponents of "dramatic chronology": the authenticity of Laws is
already being denied (Tejera 1999: 291-308; Nails 2002: 328; and Press 2007: 57
and 69) and the chronologically inexplicable Menexenus already shows a tendency
to disappear (Press 2007: 72-73). If it were not for Aristotle's testimony,

Menexenus would have been dropped from the canon long ago (Guthrie 1975:
312). By finding a home in the ROPD—snugly ensconced between Ion and

Symposium (§2) and without reliance on Aristotle's testimony (cf. Dean-Jones
1995: 52, n. 5)—Menexenus may yet rescue her less fortunate sisters, unnamed
by the Stagirite. For what it is worth, finding places for Menexenus, Hipparchus,
and Minos was the most challenging problem encountered in reconstructing
the ROPD. But excluding any of them because "they did not fit" would have
vitiated the project, at least in its proponent's eyes. As it happens, all thirty-five
dialogues do fit and thus the ROPD is—mirabile dictu—confirmed at the very
same moment that it confers authenticity on its most despised components.
But it would have been impossible to discover even the general location of
and Minos—which seem to be "early" dialogues in any sense of that

Hipparchus
word—without starting with the assumption that is literally the center
Republic
of the ROPD (§5): eighteenth in a series of thirty-five. It turned out that
there was no place for Hipparchus and Minos among the seventeen dialogues
that for Republic, while there was an opening for a matched set after
prepared
it.
The Alcibiades Major—the first conversation between Socrates and

elementary
Alcibiades—follows while Alcibiades Minor necessarily follows it in a
Protagoras,
chronological sense. More importantiy it now becomes unclear to Alcibiades {Ale.
2.148a8-b4) that the things he had originally hoped that Socrates would help him
acquire {Ale. 1.104d2-4) are actually worth acquiring (§1). This rehabilitation
of ignorance {Ale. 2.143b6-c3) already (§4) stands in sharp contrast with the
rival pretensions of the knowledgeable Hippias {Ale. 2.147d6) who was present,
along with Alcibiades and Socrates, in the house of Callias {Prot. 315b9-cl and
316a4). Plato's to create dialogues has already been observed
proclivity paired
in the interstices of the First Tetralogy; this pattern is established early in the
ROPD where two Hippias dialogues are paired with two Alcibiades dialogues, both
beginning with the greater {Hip. Maj. 286b4—c2 and Hip. Min. 363al—2). Since
31 that Plato has created a true

For the relationship between Phaedo and Protagoras—evidence
encyclopaedia—see Reuter2001: 82-83.

42 PHOENIX
Alcibiades is a man of action and Hippias a pretentious know-it-all, the Erastai
(or "Rival Lovers") bridges the gap (§2) between one pair (Amat. 132d4-5 with
Ale. 2.143b6-c5 and 145c2) and the other {Amat. 133cll, 137b4, and 139a4-5
with Hip. Min. 363c7—d4). Lesser Hippias concerns Homer {Hip. Min. 363a6-bl)
and is therefore followed naturally by Ion (§3). The result is: Protagoras, Alcibiades
Major, Alcibiades Minor, Erastai, Hippias Major, Hippias Minor, Ion, Menexenus,
Symposium,and then the basanistic Lysis (§7). It will be noted that Tetralogy 7 of
Thrasyllus is identical, while Tetralogy IV contains, given the difficultyof placing
Hipparchus, but one perfectly understandable error. It will also be noted that
the visionary Symposium (§6) is ninth in the ROPD: mid-point of the seventeen
Republic dialogues (§5).
Between Lysis and Republic, the greatest problem is the placement of Theages.
Completing the set of five "virtue" dialogues (without it, there would be no
dialogue devoted to wisdom), containing the only explicit reference in the
dialogues to the Sicilian Expedition, and essential to unlocking a key passage

in Republic {Rep. 496b7-c5), it clearly deserves a home. It is easy to see
why Thrasyllus placed it in company with Laches and Charmides (Tetralogy V)
although its reference to Charmides ( Thg. 128d8-el) suggests that it should not
have been placed prior to it. But also backwards to Gorgias
Theages points {Thg.
127e8-128al) as Meno does as well {Men. 70b2-3); indeed Gorgias and Meno
seem as inseparable (Tetralogy VI) as Laches and Charmides. It is the return of
"divine dispensation" (Oeta noipa first appears at Ion 542a4; cf. Men. 99e6 and
Thg. 128d2) that suggests the answer: Theages comes between Gorgias and Meno
(compare also G. 515dl, Thg. 126a9-10, and Men. 93b7-94e2) and prepares
the reader to take the conclusion of the latter (cf. Reuter 2001). The
seriously
danger posed by Anytus joins Meno to the preliminary charge brought against
Socrates in To return, then, to is followed (cf.
Cleitophon. Symposium-. Lysis
Tetralogies IV and V) by Euthydemus where Socrates reaches the Lyceum
finally
and Ctesippus (Ly. 203a4) wins the love of his beloved {Euthd. 300d5-7) in
a manner that shows how well he has been (Altman 2007: 371-375).
taught
Remaining in the Lyceum (§3), the men fighting in armor {Euthd. 271d3) join
Euthydemus to Laches {La. 178al) which is linked, in turn, to Charmides, not
only as a virtue dialogue but by the War {La. 181bl and Chrm. 153al; cf.
Symp. 220e8-221al and 219e6). It should be emphasized that Laches stands
prior to Charmides not because of the former's dramatic link to
only Euthydemus
but also by virtue of the latter's comparative complexity (see Guthrie 1975: 125
and 163). Another kind of war breaks out in the late arrival
Gorgias', opening
is a joke (G. 447al-2). It is Plato's manly/cowardly former self that connects
Charmides—a dialogue filled with Plato's relatives (Nails 2002: 244)—to Gorgias.
In Callicles we meet the pre-Socratic Aristocles (Dodds 1959: 14, n. 1 and
Bremer 2002: 100—101) in whom Socrates finally discovered his touchstone, by
whom he would be completed (cf. Arieti 1991: 92), and through whom he would

became "a possession into forever."32 These conclusions may be summarized:
Laches, Charmides, Meno, and

Lysis, Euthydemus, Gorgias, Theages, Cleitophon,
Republic.
the central tetrad right: once the purpose of Cleitophon is
Thrasyllus gets
recognized, Republic, Timaeus, and Critias are explicitly linked. The question is:
where to go from there? Readers of Thucydides have heard quite enough from
Hermocrates the Syracusan (e.g., Thuc. 6.76.2-77.1; cf. Criti. 108b8-4); there
is no Hermocrates least more than the is missing.
(at by Plato) any Philosopher
The dialogue that breaks off on the brink of its final speech ( Critias) precedes the
that does not begin at its own beginning. "Protarchus" as follower
only dialogue
(Phlb. llal-2) is but the firstanomaly of Philebus. But before proceeding—and
in recognition of the fact that the ROPD falls, as it were, off the edge of the
world at Critias 121c5—it is necessary to take stock. Only the most committed
of dramatic chronology will deny on the basis of its frame (not so Nails
proponents
2002: 320-321 and 308) that Theaetetus Between Critias and
precedes Euthyphro.
Theaetetus, there is room left for four dialogues. In alphabetical order, the dialogues
that remain are: Parmenides, Phaedrus, and Philebus. There are few
Cratylus,
dramatic or chronological indications to work with here but various "theoretical
and connections when Plato's proclivity to pair

metaphysical" emerge, especially
is taken into consideration. Taken as a pair, Cratylus and Parmenides
dialogues
the way for the yiyavxofiaxia described in 246a4): not only
prepare Sophist (Soph.
are Heraclitus (Cra. 411cl-5 and 440e2) and Parmenides presently considered
the principal poles of pre-Socratic thought (Guthrie 1965: 1) but it is probable

that Plato too regarded them in this light (Tht. 152e2). With a reference to
(but not Euthyphro), the {Cra. 396d5) is attracted to the end
Euthyphro Cratylus
of the while both Phaedrus and Parmenides take place outside Athens.33
quartet
Both of these also on a represented discourse. A more deliciously ironic
pivot
matched set is found in Phaedrus and Philebus: despite the sexy name Plato has
32 The could
assumption that Callicles (to say nothing of a modern reader influenced by Nietzsche)
not change his mind under the influence of Socrates in Gorgias (Beversluis 2000: 375) is unwarranted.
In the case of Plato and Callicles, compare As You Like It (IV.iii.135-137): "Twas I; but 'tis not I.
I do not shame to tell you what I was since my conversion so sweetly tastes being the thing I am."
Recognizing that Plato was fully aware of Socrates' and his own pedagogical effectiveness and the
is a good first step; many errors
literary immortality that would attend the two together (G. 527d2-5)
of interpretation could also be avoided by keeping in mind that Plato loved both Adeimantus and
Glaucon, his brilliant older brothers immortalized in Republic.
331 am grateful to Catherine Zuckert for bringing this connection to my attention. I have made
a deliberate decision not to revise this paper on the basis of my subsequent encounter with Plato's
for my review of this important book,
Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues (Chicago 2009);
see Polis 27 (2010) 147-150. Profoundly grateful to Zuckert for broaching the
ROPD question in
the context of a post-developmentalist reading which conceives all thirty-five dialogues as dialectically
of
coherent, I observe there that her order's dependence on dramatic chronology "has traded one form
chronological over-determination for another" (150).

44 PHOENIX
given the latter, it lacks both sex appeal (but see Wood 2007) and charm; .these
defects—but not others—are lushly redressed in Phaedrus?A
The results of this investigation may now be presented:
The Reading Order of Plato's Dialogues
Protagoras Timaeus
Alcibiades Major Critias

Alcibiades Minor Philebus
Erastai Phaedrus
Hippias Major Parmenides
Hippias Minor Cratylus

Ion Theaetetus
Menexenus
Euthyphro
Symposium Republic Sophist
Lysis Statesman
Euthydemus Apology
Laches Hipparchus
Charmides Minos
Gorgias Crito
Theages Laws
Meno
Epinomis
Cleitophon Phaedo
Republic stands at the center of the thirty-five interconnected (§2).

dialogues
Guided by the ROPD, Plato's student/readers follow a blazed trail (§3) through
terrain of gradually increasing difficulty(§1) that prepares them (§4) for the peak
experience at the mid-point of their journey (§5). Much like one of the imaginary
Guardians, the reader/student is led up to the sunlight (§6) and then, before being
sent back down into politics at the of thirty-five,35 is tested (§7)36—before
age
34
A serious problem needs further attention: on the basis of what
plausible conception of what
Plato expected his readers to know are we to distinguish Critias in Critias from Critias in Charmides
(Rosenmeyer 1949; Lampert and Planeaux 1998) and Cephalus in Parmenides from Cephalus in
Republic (Prm. 126al-4; cf. Miller 1986: 18-23).
35
Rep. 539e2-540a2 (Shorey): "For after that [îc. after the Guardians reach the age of thirty-five]
you will have to send them down [Katapipaaxsoi] into the cave again, and compel them to hold
commands in war and the other offices suitable to youth, so that they may not fall short of the other
type in experience either. And in these offices, too, they are to be tested [[iaaaviaxéoi] to see whether
they will remain steadfast under diverse solicitations or whether they will flinch and swerve."
36
Rep. 537d3-8 (Shorey modified): "when they have passed the thirtieth year to promote them,
by a second selection from those preferred in the first, to still greater honors, and to examine,
testing [paacmÇovca] by the capacity for dialectic [-cf)xoû ôiaXéyecsQai Sovâ|a£i], who is capable of

leaving "the Academy"—as to the strength of her commitment to the Idea of the
Good.37
By way of a conclusion, it is only natural that a discussion of the ROPD should
end with 7.38 In a single conditional sentence—so long that it will be

Republic
considered in three installments—Socrates offers the student/reader a preview
of Plato's pedagogy. In the first part of the sentence's protasis,

post-Republic
Socrates elucidates the negative characteristics of the inadequate Guardian in such
a manner as to bring (or begin to bring) the true philosopher into sight:
And is not this true of the good [xoû àyciBoG] likewise—that the man who is unable to
define [ôiopîaaaBai] in his discourse [xq> X6y(p] and distinguish and abstract from all
other things [arab xcov aM-oov tkxvtcov â<|>eA,à>v] the aspect or idea of the good [xf)v xoû
àyaGoô i5éav] ... {Rep. 534b8-cl; Shorey)
Applied to the ROPD, these words indicate that: (1) if the Good is present in
the dialogue (tcp Xôycp)39but hidden, the student must find it; (2) if the presence
of the Good is merely the student must expose this appearance as
apparent,
fraudulent; (3) if the Good is entirely absent, that is decisive for anything else the
discourse and (4) if the Good is present, the student must cleave to it.
my contain;
... and who cannot, [kcù coarcep âv

as if in battle through all refutations emerging
[ôià JKXVTCOVèXéyxcov SieÇicov], not eager to refute by recourse to opinion but to essence
Ijari Kotxà Soâv àXXà Kax' oùaîav jtpoGoiaoûpevoç êAiyxeiv], proceeding throughout
its way [SiaJtopsûrixat] in all of these [èv nâoi xouxoiç] [if. refutations] with the discourse
[â7txrôxt xcp À,6ycp] ... (Rep. 534cl-3; translation mine)
untoppled
itself [en* aùxô to ov] along with truth.

disregarding eyes and the other senses and go on to Being
And it's no doubt a task for careful guarding, my dear fellow."
we have to consider is whether the greater and more
37Rep. 526d8~e7 (Shorey modified): "What
advanced part of it tends to facilitate the apprehension of the idea of good [ttjv too ayaGoo ISeav].
That tendency, we affirm, is to be found in all studies that force the soul to turn its vision round to
the region where dwells the most blessed part of reality [tô £05ai|a0véaTa.T0v too Ôvtoç], which it is
he said. "Then if it compels the soul to contemplate
imperative that it should behold." "You are right,"
Being [oocnav], it is suitable; if Becoming [ysveaiv], it is not."
38 the Letters should be read in tandem with Republic,
Although not included here in the ROPD,
perhaps between Books 5 and 6, in order to cut off the second ("Sicilian") alternative at Rep. 473cll
d2. On the other hand, Rep. 434e4-435a2 needs to be read (or reread) in the light of Ep. 7.341c4-d2
(see above, 23, n. 7). Either way, the Letters should be read as an integrated literary work—with
its most important component artfully placed in the center (there are thirteen Letters)—contrived
for a stricdy pedagogical purpose, not as a collection of alternately accurate or inaccurate historical
documents whose veracity we are challenged to determine. See Strauss 2001: 586; Dornseiff 1934;
and Wohl 1998.
39
It will be noted that, although I have retained Shorey s translation for this first section (I will
be using my own translations for the next two), his rendering of tco Xoytp as "his discourse" is too
restrictive. I am suggesting that the student, not while speaking his own speech but while reading
any particular dialogue (as if it were TCp [too nÀ.àTCûvoç] À,ôycp) must be able to separate (i.e., to
ÔiopiaaaGai by à<J>£Àà)v) the wheat (i.e., ttjv too àyaGoG iôeav) from the chaff (i.e., àjiô tcdv aAAcov
rcavTcov), all explicitly named, defined, and treated as such.

46 PHOENIX
Interpreting most of the dialogues in the ROPD (the

post-Republic exceptions
being the dialogues of Tetralogy I) will be to war. Wherever the
analogous
between and
%copicT|i6c Being Becoming (defined by the unitary and transcendent
Idea of the Good) is passed over (Phlb. 23d9-10) or attacked (cf. Gadamer
1986: 13)—as it will be in various ways by Timaeus, Parmenides, the Eleatic
and Athenian Strangers, even by Socrates himself {Phlb. 27b8-9; cf. Westerink
1990: 39.26-29)—the student/reader must defend it ôià Ttavxcov cXcyyav. In
evaluating the arguments of men like these—venerable, and

intelligent, impressive
gentlemen—the student/reader must judge and criticize on the basis of Being
only
(kcit' oùmav) and not according to what seems to be reputable (pt] tcaià ôoçav),
even if that means refuting (sAiyxeiv) Socrates himself. Students must prove
themselves able to proceed through all of these tests (èv nam xoûxoiç) with what
Socrates calls "the discourse intact." The stakes are as the
high, apodosis finally
reveals:
the man who lacks this power, you will say, does not really know the good itself [aôxô to
àyaGôv] or any particular good [ooxe akko àyaGôv ooôsv] but if he joins himself in any
way to some image [àXV eX JtfleIScoàou xivôç èijiàrtxexaij he does so by reputation but not
knowledge [56^, oûk sjncrcrmfl È<|>àjrtsc70tti.]. translation mine)

{Rep. 534c4-d6;
This conditional sentence is the "Battle of the It must sound in

Hymn Republic"
the ears of the reader/student amidst the "severe studies"40 that follow in
Republic
the ROPD.
There is one final point. Regardless of the role the ROPD played when Plato
himself presided over the there is some indication in Republic 7 that
Academy,
others the of it have been intended
leaving pleasure reconstructing may by its
creator to become of an eternal curriculum,41 hidden in
part plain sight (Rep.
432d7-e3). This question turns on how broadly one interprets xâ pa0r|(j.axa at
Rep. 537b8-c3.42 If it applies only to the five mathematical sciences of Book 7,
40
Rep. 535b6-9 (Shorey): "They must have, my friend, to begin with, a certain keenness for
study, and must not learn with difficulty. For souls are much more likely to flinch and faint in severe
studies [âv ia/upoic fiaOrîaaiv] than in gymnastics, because the toil touches them more
nearly,
being peculiar to them and not shared with the body."
41
Rep. 531c9-d4 (my modification of Shorey): "And I'm thinking also that the investigation of
all these studies we've just gone
through [r| tootcdv Ttavxcov a>v SiE^WiOanEV nÉ0o5oç], if it arrives
at the connection between them [ÈJtî tr|v àM.r|taov Koivcovîav
àijiÎKTiTai] and their common origin
[aoyyéveiav] and synthesizes [ouXAoyicrSfl] them with respect to their affinities with each other
[rj
ecttiv àÂ>,r|Àoiç oÎKEÛx], then to busy ourselves with them contributes to our desired
end, and the
labor taken is not lost; but otherwise it is vain."
A2Rep. 537b8-c3 (Shorey): "'Surely it is,' he said. 'After this period,' I said, 'those who are
given preference from the twenty-year class will receive greater honors than the others, and they will
be required to gather [auvaKtéovJ the studies which
they disconnectedly [xâ te xûôrjv âOrâia]
pursued as children in their former education into a comprehensive survey [siç oôvov|/iv] of their
affinities with one another [oîk£i6tt|t6ç te àM.r|Xa>v tSv
paOrinaTtov] and with the nature of things
[koù ttÏç toû ôvto, <|)6cte(ûç]'." What Socrates here calls a cjûvoyiç I am calling the ROPD: a
comprehensive vision of the only surviving Platonic nuOriuu :a the reconstruction of which would

it is hard to say why Socrates—who has been very careful to discuss these in the
order 528a6-b2)—refers to them as xâ %68r|v |xaOr|fj.a'ca: it is not

proper {Rep.
the five sciences as taught to the imaginary Guardians but the thirty-five dialogues
as they have come down to us that are "scrambled" (xu5r|v). In either case, the
search for the ROPD has and will long remain a delightful and perfectly harmless
exercise in dialectic as described by Socrates.43 But even if the reconstruction of
the ROPD could be considered more serious than a merely pleasant pastime, one
must never lose sight of the playful Plato, he who created the most beautiful flute
girls who ever danced, eternally interwoven, arm in arm.
Depto. Filosofia
Campus Universitârio, Trindade
Florianôpolis 88.010-970
Sta. Catarina, Brasil whfaltman@gmail.com
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Altman, W. H. F. 2007. "Leo Strauss and the Euthydemus," CJ 102: 355-379.

2009. "Altruism and the Art of Writing: Plato, Cicero, and Leo Strauss," Humanitas
22: 68-98.
Annas, J. 1977. "Plato and Aristotle on Friendship and Altruism," Mind n.s. 86: 532-554.
1999. Platonic Ethics, Old and New. Ithaca.
as Drama. Lanham.
Arieti, J. A. 1991. Interpreting Plato: The Dialogues
von Arnim, H. 1914. Platos Jugenddialoge und die Entstehungszeit des Phaidros. Berlin.
Badian, E. 1987. "The Peace of CalliasJHS 107:1-39.
Bailly, J. A. 2003. Plato's Euthyphro and Clitophon. Newburyport.

Beversluis, J. 2000. Cross-Examining Socrates: A Defense of the Interlocutors in Plato's Early
Dialogues. Cambridge.
Bowe, G. S. 2004 "Review of Jacques A. Bailly, Plato's Euthyphro and Clitophon." BMCR
2004.05.12 (http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2004/2004-05-12.html).
Bremer, J. 2002. Plato and the Founding of the Academy. Lanham.
Bruell, C. 1974. View of Athenian Imperialism," American Political Science
"Thucydides'
Review 68: 11-17.
1999. On the Socratic Education: An Introduction to the Shorter Platonic Dialogues.
Lanham.
Burnet, J. 1900-1907. Platonis Opera. Oxford.

Cawkwell, G. L. 1981. "The King's Peace," CQ n.s. 31: 69-83.
2002. "Plato's Form of the Beautiful in the Symposium versus
Chang, Kyung-Choon.
Aristotle's Unmoved Mover in Metaphysics (A)," CQ n.s. 52: 431-446.
fulfill the mandated auvaKiéov in accordance with both oIksiotti (i.e., the various links he uses to
join the dialogues) and fj xou Ôvxoç (|)ucjiç (sc. the dualistic metaphysics of Republic 7, i.e., Platonism).
43 instruction that abides [r]
Rep. 537c4-7 (Shorey): "That, at any rate," he said, "is the only
xoiauxri |ià0r|aiç pépaioç] with those who receive it." "And it is also," said I, "the chief test [peyiaxti
For he who
ye ... TtEÎpa] of the dialectical nature and its opposite [8iaA.sKxiKrjç <j)6a£(oç kou |ir|].
can view things in their connection is a dialectician; he who cannot, is not [ô |ièv. yap guvo7txikôç
ôiaÀ.8Kxucoç, ô ôè firi ou]."

PHOENIX
Cherniss, H. 1945. The Riddle

of the Early Academy. Berkeley.
Cooper, J. M. and D. S. Hutchinson (eds.). 1997. Plato: Complete Works. Chicago.
Cornford, F. H. 1967. The Unwritten Philosophy and Other Essays. Ed. W. K. C. Guthrie.
Cambridge.
1971. "The Doctrine of Eros in Plato's Symposiumin G. Vlastos (ed.), Plato: A
Collection of Critical Essays 2. Notre Dame.
Coventry, L. 1989. "Philosophy and Rhetoric in theMenexenus"JHS 109: 1-15.
Cropsey, J. 1995. Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos. Chicago.

Danzig, G. 2005. "Intra-Socratic Polemics: The Symposia of Plato and Xenophon," GRBS
45: 331-358.
Dean-Jones, L. 1995. "Menexenus—Son of Socrates," CQ n.s. 45: 51-57.
Denyer, N. ed. 2001. Plato: Alcibiades. Cambridge.

Dodds, E. R. 1959. Plato, Gorgias; A Revised Text with Introduction and Commentary.
Oxford.
Dornseiff, F. 1934. "Platons Buch 'Briefe'," Hermes 69, 223-226.

Douglas, A. E. 1966. M. Tulli Ciceronis: Brutus. Oxford.
Dover, K. J. 1965. "The Date of Plato's Symposium," Phronesis 10: 2-20.
Dunn, M. 1974. "The Organization of the Platonic Corpus Between the First and Second
Century a.d." Diss., Yale University.
—— 1976. and the Reading order of the Platonic Dialogues,"
"Iamblichus, Thrasyllus, in
R. B. Harris (ed.), Studies in Neoplatonism: Ancient and Modern 1. Albany. 59-80.
Ehrenberg, V. 1947. "Polypragmosyne: A Study in Greek Politics," JHS 67: 46-67.
Fantham, E. 2004. The Roman World of Cicero's De Oratore. Oxford.
Ferrari, G. R. F. 2003. "Comments on Nightingale and Szlezâk," in A. N. Michelini (ed.),

Plato as Author:
The Rhetoric of Philosophy. Leiden. 241-245.
Festugière, A. J. 1969. "L'ordre de lecture des dialogues de Platon aux Ve/VIe siècles,"
Mus. Helv. 26: 281-296.
Finley, J. H. Jr. 1938. "Euripides and Thucydides," HSCP 49: 23-68.
Forde, S. 1986. "Thucydides and the Causes of Athenian Imperialism," American Political
Science Review 80: 433-448.
Frede, M. 1992. "Plato's Arguments and the Dialogue Form," in J. C. Klagge and N. D.
Smith (eds.), Methods of Interpreting Plato and his Dialogues. Oxford. 201-219.
Gadamer, H.-G. 1986. The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian Tr. P. C.
Philosophy.
Smith. New Haven.
Gaiser, K. 1963.
Platons ungeschriebene Lehre: Studien zur
systematischen undgeschichtlichen
Begriindung der Wissenschaften in der Platonischen Schule. Stuttgart.
Geier, A. 2002. Plato's Erotic Thought: The Tree of the Unknown. Rochester.
Gonzalez, F. J. 1995. "Plato's Lysis: An Enactment of Philosophical Ancient
Kinship,"
Philosophy15: 69-90.
2000a. "Socrates on Loving One's Own: A Traditional of <MAIA
Conception
Radically Transformed," CP 95: 379-398.
2000b. "The Eleatic Stranger: His Master's Voice?," in G. A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks
for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity. Lanham.
Griswold, C. L. Jr. 1999. "E Pluribus UnurrP. On the Platonic Ancient Philosophy
'Corpus',"
19: 361-397.

2000. "E Pluribus Unum? On the Platonic 'Corpus': the Discussion Continued,"
Ancient Philosophy 20: 195-197.
2008. "Reading and Writing Plato," Philosophy and Literature 32: 205-216.
Grote, G. 1865. Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates. London.

Grube, G. M. A. 1931. "The
Cleitophon of Plato," CP 26: 302-308.
Guthrie, W. K. C. 1965.
A History of Greek Philosophy 2. Cambridge.
1969. A History of Greek Philosophy 3. Cambridge.
Halperin, D. M. 1985. "Platonic Eros and What Men Call Love," Ancient Philosophy 5:
161-204.
1986. "Plato and Erotic Reciprocity," Class. Ant. 5: 60-80.
1990.
'Why is Diotima a Woman?," in One Hundred Years of Homosexuality and Other
Essays on Greek Love. New York. 113-151.

1992. "Plato and the Erotics of Narrativity," in J. C. Klagge and N. D. Smith (eds.),
Methods of Interpreting Plato and his Dialogues. Oxford. 93-129.
2005. "Love's Irony: Six Remarks on Platonic Eros," in S. Bartsch and T. Bartscherer
(eds.), Erotikon: Essays on Eros Ancient and Modern. Chicago. 48-58.
Hamilton, E. 1930. The Greek Way. New York.
Heidel, W. A. 1896. Pseudo-Platonica. Baltimore.
Hoerber, R. G. 1959. "Plato's Lysis," Phronesis 4: 15-28.

Howland, J. 1991. "Re-Reading Plato: The Problem of Platonic Chronology," Phoenix 45:
189-214.
Joyal, M. 1994. "Socrates and the Sicilian Expedition," LAntiquitê Classique 63: 21-33.
Kahn, C. H. 1963. "Plato's Funeral Oration: The Motive of the Menexenus," CP 58:
220-234.
1981a. "Did Plato Write Socratic Dialogues?," CQ n.s. 31: 305-320.
1981b. "Aristotle and Altruism," Mind N.s. 90: 20-40.
1988. "Plato's Charmides and the Proleptic Reading of Socratic Dialogues," fournal
of Philosophy 85: 541-549.

1993. "Proleptic Composition in the Republic, or Why Book 1 Was Never a Separate
Dialogue," CQ n.s. 43: 131-142.

1996. Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of Literary Form.
Cambridge.
-—— 2000. to Griswold," Ancient Philosophy 20: 189-193.
"Response
Kramer, H.J. 1959. Arete bei Platon und Aristoteles. Heidelberg.
Kremer, M. 2004. Plato's Clitophon: On Socrates and the Modern Mind. Lanham.
Lamm, J. 2000. "Schleiermacher as Plato Scholar," fournal of Religion 80: 206-239.

Lampert, L. and C. Planeaux. 1998. "Who's Who in Plato's Timaeus—Critias and Why,"
Review of Metaphysics 52: 87-125.
Mansfeld, J. 1994. Questions to be Settled Before the Study of an Author, or a

Prolegomena:
Text. Leiden.
Miller, M. H. Jr. 1985. "Platonic Provocations: Reflections on the Soul and the Good
in the Republic," in D. J. O'Meara (ed.), Platonic Washington, D.C.

Investigations.
163-193.
1986. Plato's Parmenides: The Conversion of the Soul. Princeton.

PHOENIX
Monoson, S. S. 1994. "Citizen as erastes: Erotic Imagery and the Idea of Reciprocity in
the Periclean Funeral Oration," Political Theory 22: 253-276.
1998. "Remembering Pericles: The Political and Theoretical Impact of Plato's
Menexenus," Political Theory 26: 489-513.
Morrison, J. S. 1964. "Four Notes on Plato's Symposium," CQ n.s. 14: 42-55.
Morrow, D. R. 1960. Plato's Cretan City: A Historical

of the Laws. Princeton.
Interpretation
Nails, D. 1994. "Plato's 'Middle' Cluster," Phoenix 48: 62-67.
—-— 2002. The
People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics. Indianapolis.
2006. "Tragedy Off-Stage," in J. H. Lesher, D. Nails, and F. C. C. Sheffield (eds.),
Plato's Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception. Cambridge, MA. 179-207.
Nightingale, A. W. 1993. "The Folly of Praise: Plato's Critique of Encomiastic Discourse

in the Lysis and Symposium," CQ n.s. 43: 112-130.
O'Neill, W. 1965. Proclus: Alcibiades

I. A Translation and Commentary. The Hague.
Orwin, C. 1982. "The Case

against Socrates: Plato's Canadian Journal
Clitophon," of
Political Science! Revue canadienne de science politique 15: 741-753.
Osborne, C. 1994. Eros Unveiled: Plato and the God of Love. Oxford.
Pakaluk, M. 1998. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII and IX. Translated with a
Commentary. Oxford.
2005. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: An Introduction. Cambridge.
Pangle, T. L. ed. 1987. The Roots of Platonic Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic
Dialogues, Translated, with Interpretive Essays. Ithaca.
Penner, T. and C. Rowe. 2005. Plato's Lysis. Cambridge.
Planeaux, C. 2001. "Socrates, an Unreliable Narrator? The Dramatic Setting of the Lysis,"
CP 96: 60-68.
Poster, C. 1998. "The Idea(s) of Order of Platonic Dialogues and Their Hermeneutic
Consequences," Phoenix 52: 282-298.
Press, G. A. 1993. "Principles of Dramatic and Non-Dogmatic Plato Interpretation" and

"Introduction" to G. A. Press (ed.), Plato's Dialogues: New Studies and Interpretations.
Lanham. 107-127.
2007. Plato: A Guide for the Perplexed. London.
A. W. 1989. Love and
Price, Friendship in Plato and Aristotle. Oxford.
Reale, G. 1990. Plato and Aristotle. Ed. and tr. J. R. Catan. Albany.
Renault, M. 1956. The Last of the Wine. New York.
M. 2001. "Is Goodness
Reuter, Really a Gift from God? Another Look at the Conclusion
of Plato's Meno," Phoenix 55: 77-97.
Rosenmeyer, T. G. 1949. "The Family of Critias," AJP 70: 404-410.
Rowe, C. 2000. "Cleitophon and Minos," in C. Rowe and M. Schofield (eds.), Cambridge
History of Greek and Roman Political Thought. Cambridge.
Ryle, G. 1966. Plato's
Progress. Cambridge.
S. G. 1993.
"Socrates' Oration: The
Salkever, Aspasian Play of Philosophy and Politics in
Plato's Menexenus," American Political Science Review 87: 133-143.
Salman, C. 1991. "Anthropogony and Theogony in Plato's CJ 86: 214-225.
Symposium,"
Sayre, K. M. 1995. Plato's Literary Garden. Notre Dame.
Shanske, D. 2007. Thucydides and the Philosophical Origins of History. Cambridge.
Scott, G. A. 2000. Plato's Socrates as Educator. Albany.
Sheffield, F. C. C. 2006. Plato's Symposium: The Ethics of Desire. Oxford.

Sharey, P. 1903. The Unity of Plato's Thought. Chicago.

Slings, S. R. 1999. Plato: Clitophon. Cambridge.
Snyder, H. G. 2000. Teachers and Texts in the Ancient World: Philosophers, Jews and
Christians. London.
Souilhé, J. 1949. Platon: Oeuvres Completes 13.1. Paris.
Stenzel, J. 1928. Plato der Erzieher. Leipzig.
Strauss, L. 1946. "On a New Interpretation of Plato's Political Philosophy," Social Research
13: 326-367.
1953. Natural Right and History. Chicago.
1983. Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy. Chicago.
1987. "Plato," in L. Strauss and J. Cropsey (eds.), History of Political Philosophy3.
Chicago. 33-89.
2001. Gesammelte Schriften 3: Hobbes'politische Wissenschaft undzugeh'orige Schriften—
Briefe. Ed. H. Meier, with W. Meier. Stuttgart and Weimar.
Szlezâk, T. A. 1999. Reading Plato. Tr. G. Zanker. London.
Tarrant, H. 1993. Thrasyllan Platonism. Ithaca.

Tejera, V. 1999. Plato's Dialogues One By One. Lanham.
Thesleff, H. 1978. "The Interrelation and Date of the Symposia of Plato and Xenophon,"
BICS 24:157-170.
Westerink, L. G. ed. 1990. Prolégomènes à la philosophie de Platon. Tr. by J. Trouillard with
A. P. Segonds. Paris.
Wirth, A. 1895. "Lysidem post a. 394 a. Chr. n. compositum ess t," AJP 16: 211-216.
Wohl, V. 1998. "Plato avant la lettre: Authenticity in Plato's Epistles," Ramus 27: 60-93.
2002. Love Among the Ruins: The Erotics of Democracy in Classical Athens. Princeton.
Wood, J. L. 2007. "Politics and Dialogue in the Philebus," Interpretation 34: 109-128.
Zappen, J. P. 2004. The Rebirth of Dialogue: Bakhtin, Socrates, and the Rhetorical Tradition.
Albany.
Ziolkowski, J. E. 1999. "The Bow and the Lyre: Harmonizing Duos in Plato's Symposium
CJ 95: 19-35.
Zuckert, C. H. 1996. Postmodern Platos: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer, Strauss, Derrida.
Chicago.


The - Reading - Order of Platos Dialogues

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The - Reading - Order of Platos Dialogues

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

THE READING ORDER OF PLATO'S DIALOGUES

Author(s): William H. F. Altman

This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 3 Jan 2014 14:11:25 PM

"a methodological prolegomenon to Platonic hermeneutics," classified four ways

my purpose to offer a twenty-first century reconstruction—agnostic with respect

and twentieth-century Platonic scholarship (Howland 1991)—of "the reading

will be viewed through the lens of pedagogical considerations. After reviewing

project will be introduced (section i); four of these—beginning with Charles H.

Aspasia's intentionally anachronistic oration in Menexenus precedes in

I. RECONSTRUCTING THE ROPD

Our edition of Plato is from the search, once of considerable

To my wonderful teachers at the University of Toronto,

Phoenix, Vol. 64 (2010) 1-2.

This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 3 Jan 2014 14:11:25 PM

advantages of "dramatic chronology," whereas a cycle of dialogues culminating in

This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 3 Jan 2014 14:11:25 PM

from the metaphysical ofNeo-Platonism, any pedagogical justification for

The growing interest in Cleitophon is a case in point,3 especially because it affords

appears to be incomplete and inauthentic. Considered as authentic but

(Kremer 2004). But it is of great pedagogical importance when considered as

an authentic introduction to Republic (cf. Bowe 2004; Souilhé 1949: 179), as

be considered inauthentic a priori; indeed, a new criterion for authenticity is

being employed: a dialogue is authentic when it is snugly joined—by dramatic,

The third principle is that dramatic considerations—having been detached

from various preconceptions about their philosophical significance (Griswold

speculative principles in cases of conflict: the difficult Protagoras thus precedes

present in the house of Callias, Socrates never to Alcibiades in

dialogues need not always be chronological; a much broader conception of

Bailly 2003; and Kremer 2004.

This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 3 Jan 2014 14:11:25 PM

in an ultimately salutary manner, i.e., about things that it is pedagogically useful

justice only discovered by returning to the Cave.

The fifth principle is the absolute centrality of Republic in the ROPD.5

when read in the order. Most importantly, "(3)" reveals the

the other that in my reconstruction of the ROPD. In

is in case a philosopher, an idealist, and a teacher: a teacher who, while

This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 3 Jan 2014 14:11:25 PM

richly diverse and dialectical curriculum6 is recognized—continues to do just that

his dialogues as a sixth principle.

This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 3 Jan 2014 14:11:25 PM

The foregoing seven principles, hereafter to be cited by numbers alone (e.g.,

§1. Pedagogical Effectiveness: elementary dialogues precede complex ones.

§4. Proleptic Composition: confusing students first in a pedagogically useful way.

II. THE CITY OF GOOD MEN ONLY

Socrates introduces the City of Good Men Only (hereafter "CGMO") in

response to Glaucon's first interruption 347a7): Plato represents his elder

by worse men (Rep. 347c3-5).

(Rep. 347d2-8; Shorey)

be philosophizing, those cities will be badly ruled (Rep. 520e4—521a2). Moreover,

because it leaves the free to consider that thing alone which

This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 3 Jan 2014 14:11:25 PM

city as it does in ours. It follows, therefore (claims Socrates provocatively), that

no one would rule in the CGMO: no one would be willing to do so.

Mem. 2.10.3), he is describing a moral universe where no parent would take

portion of the CGMO—where the willingness of a good man to rule is explicitly

This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 3 Jan 2014 14:11:25 PM

ruling, but every man of understanding prefers to be benefited (ax|)sA,sta0ai)

in the context of the ROPD is particularly well prepared to interrupt—as Glaucon

benefited than to benefit others.

suffering it," G. 482d8; translation mine). Anyone selfish enough to uniformly

àôiKEiaOm. But as a matter of logical the argument in

The between the two active/passive pairs is therefore extremely

it is aïcrxiov ("more shameful") to prefer oj<t>£/.£Î<T0ca to di)<j>£Xcov. In other