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Search - Socratic Discourses - Plato & Xenophon

Socratic Discourses Plato Xenophon
Author: Plato

CLASSICAL SOCRATIC DISCOURSES BY PLATO AND XENOPHON INTRO DUCTION BY A. D. LINDSAY, LL. D. SOCRATES DISCOURSES PLATO L XENOPHON o LONDON J. M. DENT SONS LTD. NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON CO. INC. INTRODUCTION ARISTOTLE in the Poetics refers to Socratic discourses as a form of poetic imitation, and he seems to regard them as genuine poetry in spite of t... more »heir not being written in metre. Other evidence makes it abundantly clear that in the first half of the fourth century this new form of literature sprang into being, the writings of those whose habit was to praise Socrates, as Isocrates calls them. Xenophon refers to them in Memorabilia IV, c. in. We know some of their names Alexamenus, Antisthenes, schines, Polycrates, Phaedo. But of all this mass of literature which centred round the character of Socrates, only two writers have left discourses which have come down to us Plato and Xenophon. This volume contains the Memorabilia, Apology, and Symposium of Xenophon and five dialogues of Plato. These are but a minority of the discourses written round the name of Socrates by Xenophon and Plato, and only a very small part of the literature of which Socrates was the source. It is, perhaps, unique in literary history that a single life should form the subject of a new form of writing. The Gospels are the nearest parallel. We know from the opening words of St. Lukes Gospel that many took in hand to set forth in a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us. But the Gospels had, as these words witness, primarily a historical or strictly biographical pur pose. The Socratic discourses were poetry, not history. No doubt all went back somehow to the historical Socrates, but the dialogues we possess are enough to prove that they must have done so in very different ways. The philosophy of Plato is contained in dialogues in all of which, with one exception, Socrates is a speaker. For the Socratic discourse became in his hands the medium of his philosophical expression. Xenophon also expresses his own opinions in the form of a Socratic conversation in the Economist. The discourses contained in this volume have been chosen for their biographical interest because they in especial seem to viii Introduction furnish materials to help us to get beyond Plato and Xenophon to the real Socrates, but they are not biographies. An attempt has often been made to divide the writings of Plato into Socratic and Platonic dialogues as though in the first he was merely representing the historical Socrates, in the second using him merely as a vehicle for his own opinions. The dis tinction has partial justification. There is little doubt that some dialogues represent more nearly than others the way in which Socrates talked and the principles of tiis philo sophy, while in others there are put into the mouth of Socrates doctrines which are Platos own. To deny this would be to deny the existence of a Platonic philosophy. But the distinction breaks down when we try to force it. Some of those dialogues which seem to tell us most about Socrates, the Ph do or the Meno, for example, contain doctrines which we must almost certainly attribute to Plato as distinguished from Socrates. There are no dialogues which are not Platonic, as there are none which are not Socratic. It is almost as hard to distinguish between Socrates and Xenophon. For the Memorabilia is as much a work of art as any Platonic dialogue, though the manner of it is as different as was Xenophon from Plato. We are only better off because Xenophon wrote much besides his Socratic dis courses...

ISBN-13: 9781406770629
ISBN-10: 1406770620
Publication Date: 3/15/2007
Pages: 400
Rating:

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Publisher: Barzun Press
Book Type: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
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