The Other Plato: The Tübingen Interpretation of Plato’s Inner-Academic Teachings

234 Pages·2012·9.31 MB·English

by  Dmitri Nikulin (Editor)

Edited by Dmitri Nikulin
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I The Other Plato
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V The Tübingen Interpretation

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of Plato’s Inner-Academic Teachings
THE OTHER PLATO
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SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy
—————
Dennis J. Schmidt, editor
SUNY series in Ancient Greek Philosophy
—————
Anthony Preus, editor
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THE OTHER PLATO
The Tübingen Interpretation of
Plato’s Inner-Academic Teachings
Edited by
DMITRI NIKULIN
State University of New York Press
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© 2012 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic,
magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the
prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact
State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Laurie D. Searl
Marketing, Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The other Plato : the Tübingen interpretation of Plato’s inner-academic teachings /
Dmitri Nikulin.
p. cm. — (SUNY series in contemporary Continental philosophy)
(SUNY series in ancient Greek philosophy)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-4409-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Plato. I. Nikulin, D. V. (Dmitrii Vladimirovich)
B395.O75 2012
184—dc23 2011050354
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
1. Plato: Testimonia et Fragmenta 1
Dmitri Nikulin
2. Epekeina te¯s ousias: On Plato, Republic 509B 39
Hans Joachim Krämer
3. Plato’s Unwritten Doctrine 65
Hans Joachim Krämer
4. Plato’s Synopsis of the Mathematical Sciences 83
Konrad Gaiser
5. The Idea of the Good as Arkhe¯ in Plato’s Republic 121
Thomas Alexander Szlezák
6. Monism and Dualism in Plato’s Doctrine of Principles 143
Jens Halfwassen
7. Plato’s Foundation of the Euclidean Character of Geometry 161
Vittorio Hösle
Bibliography 183
Index Locorum 205
Index 221
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ACKNOwLEDgMENTS
The essays included in this collection have been previously published as:
H. J. Krämer. ΕΠΕΚΕΙΝΑ ΤΗΣ ΟΥΣΙΑΣ: Zu Platon, Politeia 509B. Archiv
für Geschichte der Philosophie 51 (1969): 1–30.
H. J. Krämer. Platons ungeschriebene Lehre. In Platon: Seine Dialoge in der
Sicht der neueren Forschung, ed. T. Kobusch and B. Mojsisch, 249–275.
Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1996.
K. Gaiser. Platons Zusammenschau der mathematischen Wissenschaften.
Antike und Abendland 32 (1986): 89–124.
Th. A. Szlezák. Die Idee des Guten als arche in Platons Politeia. In New
Images of Plato: Dialogues on the Idea of the Good, ed. G. Reale and S.
Scolnicov, 49–68. Sankt Augustin: Academia, 2000.
J. Halfwassen. Monism and Dualism in Plato’s Doctrine of Principles. Gradu-
ate Faculty Philosophy Journal 23 (2002): 125–144.
V. Hösle. Platons Grundlegung der Euklidizität der Geometrie. Philologus
126 (1982): 184–197; rpt. Platon interpretieren, 145–165. Paderborn:
Ferdinand Schöningh, 2004.
I would like to thank the publishers, Academia Verlag, De Gruyter, Ferdi-
nand Schöningh Verlag, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, and the Gradu-
ate Faculty Philosophy Journal for permission to include translations of the
essays in this volume.
I am also grateful to Mitchell Miller and Burt Hopkins for their very
helpful comments on the manuscript, to Mario Wenning for exemplary
translation of five articles included in this collection, and to Duane Lacey,
Erick Raphael Jiménez, and Joseph Lemelin for their help and dedication
with the editing of the manuscript. Without their persistence, as well as
without the generous support of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung in
the form of research grants at the universities of Tübingen and Heidelberg,
this book could not have been published.
vii
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ONE
PlatO: tEstimONia Et fragmENta
Dmitri Nikulin
Plato is a unique character among the dramatis personae in the history of
philosophy. No other thinker arouses so much emotion and dissent among
readers and interpreters. Passions are inevitably stirred when one tries to
answer a simple question: What does Plato want to say, and what does he
actually say? Plato wrote dialogues, which are fine pieces of literature and
reasoning but which may always be read and interpreted differently, espe-
cially since the speakers often do not commit themselves to any particular
philosophical position and the question discussed frequently remains unan-
swered and sometimes not even explicitly asked. Moreover, it is neither
easy to discern Plato’s own position at any given moment in the discussion,
nor who is speaking behind his characters. When Socrates is engaged in a
dialectical debate of a subject (such as wisdom, courage, love, friendship,
temperance, etc.) does he really mean what he says, if one takes into account
his undeniably ironic stance? And is it Plato who speaks through Socrates,
Socrates himself, or an anonymous voice ascribed to Socrates, made to say
what he has to within the logic of the conversation? Plato appears to always
escape and defy any final and finalized conclusion, being an Apollo’s bird,
the swan that, as Socrates predicted, still remains not captured by genera-
tions of later readers and interpreters.
Because of the seeming uncertainty of what has actually been said,
reading Plato is a fascinating yet risky enterprise, for we might need to
reconsider not only our understanding of a text but also the very principles
of philosophical reading and interpretation. It is perhaps not by chance that
modern hermeneutics arises with Schleiermacher and flourishes in Gadamer
1
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