Critical Discussion

PLATO AND ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY

Kutschera, Franz, von,Platons Philosophie I: Die fruhenDialoge,Mentis,Paderborn, 2002, 236 pp. e 29.80 (paper). ISBN: 3-89785-264-0.

Kutschera, Franz, von, Platons Philosophie II: Die mittleren Dialoge,Mentis, Paderborn, 2002, 239 pp.e 29.80 (paper). ISBN: 3-89785-265-9.

Kutschera, Franz, von, Platons Philosophie III: Die spaten Dialoge,Mentis, Paderborn, 2002, 274 pp.e 29.80 (paper). ISBN: 3-89785-266-7.(together also available as)

Kutschera, Franz, von, Platons Philosophie I-III, Mentis, Paderborn,2002, 749 pp., e 78,- (paper), ISBN 3-89785-277-2.

The above mentioned books are outstanding for more than onereason: Firstly, nowadays there are more publications on Plato thaneven the most dedicated researcher can cope with, but this set of threevolumes aims at nothing less than a presentation of the entirephilosophy of Plato, something that only very few scholars haveundertaken in the past. The (hopefully still) well known names are:Ritter (1910), Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (1919), Friedlander (1928–1930), Brocker (1964) and Guthrie (1975, 1978). Secondly, a newbook by one of the leading and internationally renowned scholars inthe field of ‘‘analytic philosophy’’, Franz von Kutschera, is in itself ofinterest. Thirdly, it is precisely the combination of these two factorsthat is so intriguing, for former attempts to interpret Plato’s philos-ophy in all of its breathtaking depth and variety have been writtenfrom a more or less philological or doxographic point of view.Especially the German tradition has contributed to that tenet in theresearch literature, e.g. Friedlanders three volumes, in which hepaints a very subtle picture of Plato but uses only the colours pro-vided by Schleiermachers (philological) ‘‘romanticism’’ (E. Heitsch,

Erkenntnis (2005) 62:263–275 � Springer 2005DOI 10.1007/s10670-005-7487-y

personal communication). But also the english literature does notprovide us with an analytic account of Plato: Apart from Guthriesimpressive work I can only think of two older (and considerablyshorter) studies by Shorey (1903, 1933) and Taylor (1926). They allhave the purely doxographic aim in common, but they are quite dif-ferent in style and method: Whereas Taylor and Guthrie are workingtheir way through Plato dialogue by dialogue, Shorey underlines hisstrict unitarian interpretation by providing us with a first attempt at asystematic overview. To be sure, here ‘‘systematic’’ does not mean anymore than an interpretation structured in accordance with philo-sophical topics (e.g. ethics, ontology etc.), instead of a chronologicalapproach von Kutschera presents something very similar, but a greatdeal more elaborate: At the end of volume III (pp. 173–236), the readerfinds a topic-centred overview, which summarizes Plato’s philosophyunder ten subjects (1. The character of Plato’s philosophy, 2. Forms, 3.Dialectics, 4. Doctrine of principles, 5. Theology, Teleology, Theodicy,6. Dualism, 7. Perception and Knowledge, 8. The good life, 9. TheState, 10. Philosophy). So far, however, I have only pointed out thatKutschera’s books belong to a very distinguished class of literature onPlato but even within this very small group they are special, because incontrast to all the mentioned predecessors he pursues a quite differentapproach. This has to be examined in detail.

It is worthwhile to pay careful attention to the preface, for itincludes more than the usual expression of thanks and announcementof text-editions being used. In fact the first pages develop a meth-odological framework for interpreting ancient philosophical textswith special regard to Plato. The author dismisses the common no-tion of a history of philosophy with purely doxographic aims as‘‘necrophilism’’ (I; p. 10) and presents four arguments, the first two ofwhich are linked more specifically to Plato:

(1) Plato himself was highly interested in the truth of his asser-tions, so even if we are doing history of philosophy, we should takehis intention seriously and ask ourselves what the truth is with regardto the philosophical problems he raises.

(2) Plato wants his readers to think independently, for he con-sidered his texts only to be ’tpolv�glasa (memorials) for those ‘‘whofollow the same path, and he will be pleased when he [the writer] seesthem putting forth tender leaves’’ (Phaedr. 276d). Thereby claim (1) isextended and justified, firstly, through Plato’s use of the dialogueform and, secondly, through his suspicion against written philosophy(I; pp. 9, 47–51).

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The second two arguments are of general importance and morechallenging:

(3) Considering the true answer of a question does not only helpto describe Plato’s answer to it, it is a necessary condition of doing socorrectly. This, certainly, is a more striking and stronger claim, but itis substantiated by a very neat and surprisingly concise argument: Ifwe want to stick to the charity principle of interpretation and if we,accordingly, strive to present an author as holding true and sensiblepositions, we first of all have to tackle the question of what might be atrue and sensible position. Needless to say, this does not amount tofree Plato from all failures. (I; 10).

But one might argue that von Kutschera is simply aiming too high.Isn’t the entire history of philosophy including modern branches likeanalytical philosophy all about trying to defend various notions oftrue and sensible positions? The assumption that considering the trueanswer of a question is a necessary condition of describing the answergiven by some other (historical) philosopher seems to imply theambitious claim to have found the truth. Even if we think that to bepossible we would expect Kutschera to present the true answer to aphilosophical question and than – in the light of this truth –providesus with a description of Plato’s position. But that is not what thereader gets. For good reasons, because this method seems to rely on acircle: In order to find out what questions (and answers) are ofinterest to Plato we got to read him, but in order to read him, we needthe true answer to his question. In the final paragraphs of this essay Iwill come back to the fact that von Kutschera with a few exceptionsnever strays very far from Plato’s text. In the end the reader willwelcome his actual procedure, which manly consists in confrontingPlato’s texts with a modern conceptual apparatus in hope of mutualbenefit. This leads me to his next claim.

(4) We do not have to apply modern concepts and distinctions ofvarious modern notions to Platonic texts, but if we wish to estimateand evaluate Plato’s theories, it is vital to use our modern conceptualframework. Therefore we have to rely on modern distinctions whilereading Plato.

Does that amount to the anachronistic fallacy, as might be sus-pected? Not necessarily, as von Kutschera is not trying to force laterdistinctions in an old text, for sometimes he recognises that in thelight of Plato’s argumentation these modern distinction turn out to beinadequate. Examples of that will be given below.

According to von Kutschera, modern distinctions concerningtruth are methodological tools which have to be used for a better

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understanding of Plato. But ancient texts can also be read for thesake of developing modern theories! In fact, Ryle has called for anapproach (Ryle 1954, p. 14), in which the ancient texts function as astepping board or a quarry for arguments. These two ways of readingancient texts do not exclude each other. Before I discuss thesequestions referring to various interpretations of book II of Plato’sRepublic, I will have to explain why I am focussing on this kind ofproblem, i.e. the use of modern distinction in the interpretation ofPlato.

(a) It is precisely the approach explained above which makes vonKutscheras books so interesting. (b) Plato has written 26 dialogues(plus two presumably spurious but relevant ones, the Greater Hippiasand the Alcibiades) and they are jam-packed with arguments dealingwith nearly all of the still prominent philosophical questions. Now,von Kutschera has written almost 900 pages, hence there is not muchof a chance to discuss even the most important problems and inter-pretations, which would be necessary, however, to do justice to thescope of Plato’s and von Kutschera’s work. (c) Surely, analytic dis-tinctions have been used in the interpretation of Plato before, butthey have rather been ‘‘used’’ than defended on an explicit method-ological level. (d) I hope that my main question will be of interest tothe readers of a journal which is committed to analytic philosophy.(e) With regard to the methodological problem the research literatureon ancient philosophy leaves a significant gap, which I would like todelineate now (van Ackeren/Muller 2005).

Since its founders, Anaximander and Thales, ancient (if not theentire western) philosophy is characterised as the quest for ’aqva�i anda’is�iai (reasons, causes and principles). There are two aspects involvedhere (Graeser 1992, pp. 14–15): On the one hand, what is sought inphilosophy can be understood as causes which explain why some-thing is the case or a fact (rationes essendi) or, on the other hand, assomething that gives us a reason why we our thoughts about theworld can be regarded as knowledge (rationes cognoscendi). TheSocratic-Platonic kocov didovai (giving an account) stresses that theaim of argumentation is we ourselves (La. 187e--f; Phaed. 89c--91c;Rep. 484b and the famous passage 534b--d): The argument that givesan account justifies our own assumptions and actions. Given thatthis is one of the most fundamental tenets in ancient and especiallyPlatonic philosophy, one can only wonder that there is almost nostudy in which scholars explicitly explain how, methodologicallyspeaking, they interpret ancient texts. A major part of this desideratum

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is the question if and to what extent we need modern terminologywhen interpreting ancient texts.

Let us have a closer look at book II of the Republic, for vonKutscheras interpretation is pretty representative of his overallstrategy. Additionally it has to be kept in mind that this text isextremely important, for here Socrates is confronted with the chal-lenge to prove that the just person lives more happily than the unjust.The challenge seems to be connected to a threefold division of goods.Apart from the fact that such a division is in itself highly interesting,it is crucial to understand the relation between the division and thechallenge in order to read the entire Republic as Socrates’ answer andto see how it constitutes the remaining books. The three types ofgoods are (cf. Rep. 357b--d): (1) things we find desirable in themselves(e.g. harmless pleasure), (2) things we find desirable in themselves andfor their consequences (e.g. knowledge, sight and health), (3) thingswe find desirable only for their consequences (e.g. physical trainingand medical treatment). Justice is commonly placed in the third class,but Socrates would like to see it in the ‘‘fairest’’ one, the second class.Then the challenge is refined: Socrates has to praise justice regardlessof certain consequences, namely the rewards and (social) reputationthat follows from somebody being just or merely appearing to be so(cf. Rep. 367b). Now, this kind of consequence may be called artificial(because it is rooted in human conventions), whereas Socrates isallowed to take natural consequences into account. But this distinc-tion does not fit in with the division of goods: The examples of thesecond class -- knowledge, sight and health -- have natural but noartificial consequences. Additionally, the elements of the third classdo not have artificial consequences, e.g. enduring medical treatmentdoes not bring about fame (Annas 1981, pp. 66–71). Many authors(Foster 1938; Sachs 1963; Irwin 1977; White 1984; Pappas 1995) haveaccused Plato of being confused or they tried to downplay theimportance of the division in order to avoid a conflict between thedivision and the challenge (Kirwan 1965). Is Plato really confusedhere, or did we simply apply a distinction which makes him lookconfused? Both questions are to be denied, as the challenge can beinterpreted along the lines of the distinction between artificial andnatural consequence, but the division cannot. But is this a problem?Socrates was asked to prove that justice belongs to the second class,thus he had to praise justice for its own sake and for its consequences.Then the challengers argued that Socrates is not allowed to take aspecial form of consequences, i.e. rewards and reputation, intoaccount, because these could follow from the appearance of justice

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just as well as from true justice. (Annas 1981, ch. 3; Williams 1997).Still, why have commentators been dissatisfied with Plato? Here theproblem is not to interpret a certain passage of Plato using a moderndistinction, but to resist the temptation to expect a systematic appli-cability of that distinction, i.e. that it can be used in the interpretationof other passages. The fact that the division of goods does not fit in thedistinction of artificial and natural consequences, does not weakenPlato’s argumentation at all. Therefore the modern commentatorshould look for different modern distinctions which may help tointerpret the different steps of Plato’s argumentation.

The argument in book II also entails valuable information aboutthe type of arguments that Plato wants to use within his ethics.Justice, later identified as virtue and health of the soul (Rep. 444d–e),is defended as a good which is desired in itself and for its conse-quences (like the health of the body). We are used to distinguishbetween deontological and consequentialist ethical arguments. I referto arguments not as theories, for nowadays there are not many the-ories which entirely rely either on deontological or consequentialistarguments. Most theories combine both types of arguments on dif-ferent levels or in different realms (Mackie 1977, ch. 7). But are weallowed to assume that every ethical argument in the history ofphilosophy has to be either deontological or consequentialist? Platohas been severely criticized (Foster 1937, 1938; Sachs 1963) for pur-suing a strict consequentialist, namely a utilitarian approach or inother words: the Republic is supposed to lack a moral argument, i.e.one which brings duty or obligation into account (Mabbott 1937).But both the division of goods and the challenge suggest that Platohas neither a deontological nor a consequentialist argument in mind,but something that comprises aspects of both types: Firstly, Socratesinsists on putting justice in the second class. Secondly, according tothe challenge Socrates is asked to praise justice strictly for what it is(a ’tso jah’ a ’tso; Rep. 358b and d, 361b–c), and ‘‘what potency andeffect it has in and of itself dwelling in the soul’’ (Rep. 358b). Onlyconsequences such as social rewards and reputations are excluded.The challengers make it quite clear, that the two aspects can not beseparated. Of course it would be possible to assume that there aregoods which sometimes or under some circumstances are goods de-sired in themselves, and which in other cases are desired for theirconsequences. But Socrates is challenged to show that justice is to beplaced in the second class, which means showing that justice is to bedesired in itself and also, not alternatively, for its consequences (cf.Rep. 367c–d). This is not the place to discuss Plato’s answer in detail,

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(van Ackerman 2003) but it is obvious that Plato’s ethical argumentin the Republic is supposed to be neither purely deontological norconsequentalist. B. Williams has pointed out that the notion of ajustice desired for its own sake should not lead to further exceptions.For example the hope that we will find an special intrinsic, i.e. moral,value of justice ‘‘which vindicates itself and cannot in principle bemeasured by any sort of consideration... . The question of its value,rather, is the question of what makes life worth living.’’ (Williams1997, p. 61), Maybe Plato’s answer can be summed up as follows: Ifyou desire justice for its own sake it will have value, i.e. the conse-quence of making your life a good and happy one.

Von Kutschera’s reading of the passage in book II of the Republicis striking, particularly with regard to his comparison of Plato’s typeof ethical argument with our modern distinction between conse-quentalist and deontological arguments. He is using this distinctionand, of course, sees that Plato tries to present an argument which isneither purely consequentialist nor deontological. But it is decisive thathe does not regard Plato as confused or as not arguing according to themodern state of the art. Instead, he writes, Plato presents a solution (tothe problem of) how to ‘‘overcome the conflict between morality andinterest’’ (II, 69). Thus it becomes clear that von Kutschera’s use ofmodern terminology, which was set out to interpret an ancient text,can, in turn, be beneficial to our own philosophical arguments.

As von Kutschera shows, the critical approaches I have discussedabove can be refuted: First of all, the most effective protection againstwrong interpretations is the careful reading of the text. The wholestructure of his study shows that von Kutschera is taking Plato’swork more seriously than the modern terminology at hand: The firsttwo chapters provide a short, but valuable introduction into Plato’steacher Socrates. Part I, chapter 1 is an excellent description of theintellectual background, especially of the sophistic movement.Chapter 2 provides a biography of Plato (I, ch. 2.1) and veryimportant instructions for reading the dialogues (I, ch. 2.4). This isfollowed by an interpretation of each and every dialogue, and acareful analysis of the interpretational problems involved in dealingwith the so called Unwritten Doctrine (III, ch. 7.1--.2). Instead ofsticking to the neoplatonic line, von Kutschera argues that theUnwritten Doctrine is centred around a logical definition of numbers(III, ch. 7.3--5). His reading of the dialogues is concluded by theabove mentioned topical synopsis (III, ch. 8), which entails a mar-vellously clear description of the various aspects of Plato’s theory offorms, and which maybe can compete with former attempts by

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Moravscik (2000, ch. I. 5) or Graeser (1982). The author’s attempt topresent a clear picture of Plato’s philosophy is endorsed by the reallyoutstanding clarity of style and argumentation. In what follows I canoutline but a few of the significant theses that are developed in vonKutschera’s study:

(a) The famous passage 446a–470c in the Gorgias provides us withthe first theory of action in the history of philosophy (I, 99): Everyaction is wanted as a means to some end. This tenet, however, entailsa theory which is likely to confuse the modern reader, for Plato’sconcept of will is very different from our notion of a free will. Platodistinguishes between (i) what humans want ( ’�a bo�tkovsai) and (ii)what we only believe ( ’�a dojei a ’tsoi1) to be good. Socrates then arguesthat we wanted an action and have power (d ’tvali1), only if an actionleads to something truly good. Otherwise we have just done what webelieved to be good. Plato uses ’acahov/’�aleivov (good/better) assynonymous with x’u�ekilov (beneficial), vq�grilov (useful),rtlu�eqov, (advantage) ktrisekotv (profit, gain) (Charm. 171d--176a; Gorg. 468b; Rep. 333c ff., 338c, 339c, 505a; Pol. 297a; Brick-house and Smith 1985). Former commentators have tried to describethe Platonic distinction using modern ones, namely between an actualobject (de re) and an intended object (de dicto) of desire (Santas 1979,p. 186; Vlastos 1991, pp. 150–154). But this blurs the crucial point ofPlato‘s argumentation, for Socrates argues that we want an action togain something truly good (opposed to an apparent good). Onlysomething that is truly good leads to a truly good, i.e. happy life, andnobody wants to be apparently happy instead of being truly happy(Penner 1991). The distinction between an actual object (de re) and anintended object (de dicto) of desire cannot account for this existentialaspect (Kahn 1996, p. 139), and this may have lead to an interpre-tation in accordance with Aristotle’s position (cf. E.N. 1113a32-2),which claims that the object of the will is a good, in the sense that wethink of it as a good, regardless whether it is a true good, or in factsomething bad. Thus it would be possible to describe Plato’s positionusing the distinction between an actual object (de re) and an intendedobject (de dicto) of the will, but only if we say that the intended object isalways something truly good. Von Kutschera recognises the peculiarityof Plato’s position stressing that the distinction between a true and anapparent good forces us to pursue knowledge of the good and actaccordingly. He then embeds his analysis in a description of Plato’snotion of philosophy as a way of life using the concepts ‘‘value’’ and‘‘preference’’ (Kutschera 1999, ch. 1.2 and 1.4). Plato’s position, heargues, can be understood as the assumption (i) that there is an objective

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order of values, which exists independently of time and persons, (ii) thatsomething objectively valuable is also subjectively beneficial, and (iii)that Platowants us to transformour preferences (our subjective order ofvalues) via knowledge of the objective order of values in accordancewith that knowledge (I, pp. 109–114) and to lead a life of reason.

(b) Regarding the first two points it can only be mentionedbriefly that in contrast to many other commentators (e.g. K. Albert,R. Ferber, J. Halfwassen, H. Kramer) von Kutschera traces thequestion of the good life; and whether we, according to Plato, pursue(the knowledge of) the good for its own sake or for our own (prac-tical) advantage through a couple of dialogues (I, ch. 11.2; 1.3; 12.4;13.3; II, 2.3; 3.2; III, 5.5; 8.1; 8.8). He thereby provides the readerwith a fair representation of Plato’s philosophy. This connectionbetween knowledge and our life, von Kutschera stresses, is in fact themost fundamental tenet in Platonic philosophy (III, 173–4). But healso carefully treats the more theoretical aspects:

(c) Every reader of the Parmenides will ask himself: What is all thisabout? The next set of questions will be: Is it just an exercise, a playfulrefutation of self contradictory theses or does it entail any positivedoctrine of Plato? Many commentators have positively answered thelast question but von Kutschera’s analysis is particularly striking:Basically he assumes (well founded) that the second part is about therelation of ideas (joivov�ia ’idexv) and that the eight hypothesis can beunderstood in in the light of a logical theory regarding parts andwholes (mereology). It is impossible to discuss his analysis (II,pp. 185--198) in detail (von Kutschera 1995; Graeser 1997), but it isnoteworthy that he is carefully defending his interpretation againstcriticism. (i) The logical mereology is something that tacitly governsthe argumentation in the second part, it is not explicit but it is used byPlato (II, p. 187). (ii) Due to his interest in mathematics Plato wasable to develop such a theory (II, pp. 198--199). I will refer to hisother defending arguments later.

(d) The chapter concerning the Unwritten Doctrine (III, p. 7.) isworthy of note for two reasons. Firstly, it starts with a very concise andparticularly neutral description of the topics and problems involved(III, 7.1), something that was missing in the rather hot-temperedGerman discussion centred around the so-called Tubingen School.Secondly, his own interpretation of the principles (’aqva�i), taking thePythagorean and therefore mathematical roots of this notion seriously(III, pp. 155--156), links Plato’s Unwritten Doctrine with a theory ofnumbers, according to which different types of numbers, i.e. mathe-matical numbers, form numbers, which are in turn used to explain how

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an infinite amount of objects can be genereted from one single startingnumber (‘‘Anzahlen’’) and numbers which measure (III, pp. 167--171).

His interpretation of the Parmenides and the Unwritten Doctrineshare the same advantages: Luckily, they are in sharp contrast withthe virulent literature interpreting Plato along theological and neo-platonic lines. And they set the path for new research in a verycomplicated field of Plato’s philosophy, i.e. the growing importanceof mathematical concepts in the late dialogues (Frede 2004).

Unfortunately they also share the same disadvantage. Any inter-pretation of the Unwritten Doctrine is bound to be highly speculative,for the sources we have are rare and not very reliable. It is acknowledgedby von Kutschera that the best sources are still the dialogues (III,p. 159), but they simply do not say enough about different types ofnumbers in order to reconstruct a theory of (different) numbers. Theproblem concerning the logical theory of mereology faces a similarproblem, which does not simply arise from the fact that it is not intro-duced openly. But if Plato has used this logical theory, one wonders whyit does not re-occur in the dialogues after the Parmenides, or whyAristotle does not mention it. Again, von Kutschera recognises bothof these questions, but defends his interpretation as follows. He arguesthat Plato did not teach this logical theory, so Aristotle simply did notknow of it. In any case, he continues, Aristotle’s logical approach wasso different that he simply elaborated a completely different one,instead of tackling his teacher’s logic (II, p. 200). But only the firstargument can account for the fact that Aristotle does not mention thelogical mereology, for even if Aristotle developed a different logic fordealing with the same problems he probably would have criticizedPlato’s solution. And it seems highly unlikely that Plato kept all thisentirely to himself. Further, if the logical theory of mereology is usedso obviously, as von Kutschera stresses, then Aristotle would havenoticed it, even if Plato was not lecturing it. The fact that the logicalmereology does not reoccur is explained by stating that the later dia-logues deal with problems for which the logical mereology could not beused. This is not very plausible, especially with regard to the central partof the Sophist, in which various aspects of the relation of ideas play amajor role. But let us assume that von Kutschera is right and Plato’smereology does not appear in later dialogues, his interpretation maybe justly called ingenious, but it rests on a very thin textual basis.

It is probably obvious that a study of such scope will inspire newinterpretations as well as criticisms. Here are then a few other criticalpoints that could be raised:

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(i) In his preface von Kutschera argued that we have to considerthe truth regarding the problems Plato raises independently, in orderto gain a better interpretation. But some parts of the books areparaphrases which stick perhaps to closeley to the text. Furthermore,not all the dialogues have found von Kutschera’s interest: In theApology, Hippias Minor and also in the Statesman he cannot findmuch philosophical content. According to him the Apology does notentail any worthy epistemological considerations about self-knowledgeor the problem of knowing what one does not know (I, p. 81).According von Kutschera the only import aspect of the Hippias Minoris its relative chronology (I, p. 66). He thinks that the Statesman justrepeats what the Sophist had to say about ‘‘dihairesis’’ and that what issaid about the Statesman is ‘‘unimportant compared to former dia-logues’’ (III, 29). I am afraid, that in all three cases one can onlywonders how in light of the enormous amount of literature (e.g.Brickhouse and Smith 1989; Weiss 1992; Rowe 1995) von Kutscheracan write something so false.

(ii) Given that von Kutschera’s way of interpreting seems to be suc-cessful in general and rewarding when he applies modern terminology toPlato’s philosophy, the reader would simply wish to have more of thelatter and perhaps less of the mainly paraphrasing passages.

(iii) The interpretation of the dialogues is said to aim at philo-sophical topics alone (I, p. 9), but von Kutschera pays a lot ofattention to the question of the chronology of the dialogues. Andalthough he puts forward excellent arguments for his chronologicalcase, he leaves the task of drawing the conclusions with regard to thephilosophical implications to his readers.

(iv) This criticism might be extended to von Kutschera’s secondmethodological principle: He explains that he has written about theentire Plato because in many cases interpreting one dialogue simplywould not do, for sometimes the arguments in one dialogue aresketchy or should be seen in light of later dialogues in which the sameissue reoccurs (I, pp. 10–11). But again, he does not apply this prin-ciple of interpretation as much as he possibly could have done, so thequestion why he devotes so much space to the temporal order of thedialogues becomes even more urgent. Von Kutschera’s claim tointerpret dialogues in the light of others is linked to a again heateddiscussion of unitarianism (e.g. Gill 2000, 2003). But as he does notdefend his claim or makes much use of it, his work unfortunatelydoes not give an new arguments for that important ongoing debate.

In sum we have to conclude, then, that this study by von Kutsc-hera leaves the reader with a desire to go into a more detailed study of

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Plato, but more or less this has to be regarded as von Kutschera’sachievment, not his failure.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am very thankfull to Gabriela Carone (University of Boulder,Colorado). She has read an earlier version and helped me with manycorrections, helpful comments and futher ideas!

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Ruhr-Universitat Bochum MARCEL VAN ACKERENInstitut fur Philosophie

44780, Bochum, GermanyE-mail: Marcel.v.Ackeren@ruhr-uni-bochum.de

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