dramatic frame and philosophic idea in plato - w. a. johnson

8/12/2019 Dramatic Frame and Philosophic Idea in Plato - W. a. Johnson

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Dramatic Frame and Philosophic Idea in Plato

Author(s): William A. JohnsonSource: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 119, No. 4 (Winter, 1998), pp. 577-598Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1561918.

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DRAMATIC FRAME AND PHILOSOPHIC IDEAIN PLATO

William A. Johnson

In a minority of plato's dialogues the central philosophie dis?course is presented indirectly, refracted through the lens of a dramaticframe of more or less complexity.1 Scholars typically divorce the ques?tion of the dramatic frame from the philosophy of the dialogues: theframe is often simply set to one side by analytic philosophers, and tendsto be considered in terms of characterization, narrative technique, in-tratextual associations and the like by students of the literary Plato. 2I here consider the four dialogues that mark Plato's most ambitious ex-periments in construction of a complex narrative frame: Phaedo, Sym-posium, Parmenides, and Theaetetus. By focusing on the effect that theindirect narration has on the reader, I construct a view of these narra?tive experiments that puts them together with the philosophie programof the dialogues. Baldly stated: I argue that the elaborate indirectness ofthe dramatic frame means to reflect, and to make vivid for the reader,not only the remove between written representation and the doing ofphilosophy, but also the remove between perceptible and Ideal world assuggested in Plato's vision of the Ideas.

Useful discussions of the dramatic frame: Bacon 1959; Brumbaugh 1961, 26-32;Klein 1965, 1-31; Hyland 1968 (closest to the position argued here: 43); Rosen 1968,xi-xxxviii; Krentz 1983;Prufer 1986;Clay 1992;Halperin 1992;Frede 1992;Gill and Ryan1996, 4-7.2The insistence that dramatic form and philosophie content be considered togetheris increasingly prominent and has of course a long history, going back at least to Proclus'commentary on Alcibiades 1 (see Friedlander 1958-69, I 232) and associated in moderntimes with the differing views of Schleiermacher, Friedlander, and Strauss, to name onlythe most prominent: for summary and bibliography see Klein 1965, 19 and n. 51; Krentz1983,44-45 n. 3; Desjardins 1988, 283-84 n. 21;Gonzalez 1995.Despite notable exceptions(e.g., Klein on Meno, Burger 1984 on Phaedo, Halperin 1992 on Symposium) there re?mains, however, a substantial gap between the theoretical accord on this issue and actualinterpretation.

AmericanournalfPhilology191998)77-5981998yTheohnsopkinsniversityress

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578 WILLIAM A. JOHNSON

PHAEDO

At the beginning of Plato's Phaedo, Echecrates asks Phaedo to tell himabout the last hours of Socrates' life. He points out, None of the peo?ple in Phlius go to Athens much these days, and it is a long time sincewe had any visitor from there who could give us any definite informa?tion, except that he was executed by drinking hemlock (57a-b).3 Thereader thereby comes to realize: (1) the conversation is situated inPhlius, a somewhat remote town on the Peloponnesus far from Athens(and far from anyone who might be able to correct or verify Phaedo'saccount); (2) since no Phliasian goes to Athens much these daysand it is a long time since we had any visitor from Athens who couldgive us any definite information, Phaedo's arrival in Phlius comes at asignificant temporal distance from Socrates' death; (3) on the samegrounds, the reader is led to wonder how long a time might have lapsedbetween this conversation and its report to Plato back in Athens (if in?deed this is based on a report, on which see below); (4) on the otherhand, Phaedo, as an intimate of Socrates, is presumed to be able toprovide definite information (oafyec, xi). Echecrates goes on to askPhaedo to be kind enough to give us a really detailed account (obgoafyeoxaxa, 58d2) of Socrates' last day. When Phaedo says that he iswilling, Echecrates urges again: Now try to describe every detail ascarefully as you can (cog av 6uvr) axoiPeoxaxa, 58d8). The bulk ofPhaedo will be this account, told by Phaedo to Echecrates. The desirefor accurate detail is emphasized. But Echecrates' insistence on accu?racy sits uneasily with the spatial and temporal remove introduced atthe beginning. How accurate, really, is Phaedo's account?

The answer to this question?is the account accurate??is, how?ever, not at issue here. What is more interesting, or at least what inter-ests me, is the fact that the dramatic frame seems designed to bring suchquestions into play. Bald historical questions (Did Socrates really saythat? How does Plato know? Is Phaedo's memory accurate?) may seemunsophisticated, but they are natural questions for the reader to pose?as generations of readers and commentators attest. The questions arenatural only in the sense that the text is constructed so as to prompt

3Here as elsewhere translations are based on those assembled in Hamilton andCairns 1963 (Hugh Treddenick for Phaedo, Michael Joyce for Symposium, F. M. Cornfordfor Parmenides and Theaetetus).



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bring to the fore the author's voice, to remind us that these are thewords of Plato, even as we are told that Plato was (probably) not pres?ent in the prison, and as we infer that he is also not part of the audiencein Phlius. Even though the speaker, Phaedo, was present, and presents adramatically compelling account, the Platonic words have, at best, anindirect relation to the actual conversation of Socrates.

The dialogue is constructed as a report or dramatization (byPlato) of a conversation (in Phlius, between Phaedo and Echecrates)which itself is a report (by Phaedo) of a conversation (in Athens, be?tween Socrates and, principally, Cebes and Simmias). The third-personnarrative of the events in the prison continuously recalls to mind thatthe central dialogue is in the voice of Phaedo. To remind the readerthat Phaedo's words are themselves part of an ongoing conversation,Echecrates will twice burst into Phaedo's narrative with an enthusiasticcomment (88c-89a, 102a), to which Phaedo will respond before contin-uing with his story. The dramatic frame seems deliberately constructedto introduce, and insist upon, distance, indirectness?and uncertainty.Working against the intimacy and emotional pull of the dramatic scenein Athens, the frame serves to expose the wide gulf between the read?er's experience and the Socratic conversation.

I do not mean to oversimplify the mechanism of the dramaticframe. Certainly there are crosscurrents. For instance, when Phaedosays, Nothing gives me more pleasure than recalling the memory ofSocrates, either by talking myself or by listening to someone else, andEchecrates replies, Well, Phaedo, you will find that your audience feelsjust the same about it (58d), surely we too feel drawn into the circle ofthat audience (xoug axouoojievouc;). The ancient audience, often lis?tening to the dialogue as it was read by a lector to a small group, willhave felt yet more strongly this sense of identity with the audience ofEchecrates and his fellow Phliasians.6 When Phaedo goes on to describeto his audience the marvelous things (0ou|idoia) he felt at the time(58e-59a), we too begin to be swept towards the bittersweet emotionsthat inform the reader's response to the dialogue. Such is the power ofthe drama. And as the story unfolds, we are caught up in the events and

6Echecrates, like Cephalus in Parmenides, acts as a spokesman for a small group offellow devotees to philosophy. Only Echecrates speaks, but Phaedo addresses a plural au?dience at 58al {ekvQeoQe;cf. Echecrates at 58d7), and Echecrates consistently speaks ofwe and us (58a3, 58d2, 58d7,102a8).



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DRAMATIC FRAME AND PHILOSOPHIC IDEA 581

tend (except when reminded) to lose sight of the setting in Phlius. Butwhat I want to focus on here is the intricacy of the frame, and in partic?ular the complex structure that Plato devises for the relationship be?tween the reader and the conversation of Socrates. Why does Plato cre-ate such an exaggeratedly distant and indirect relationship?

SYMPOSIUMThe dramatic frame to the Symposium is similarly complex.7 The action,speeches, and conversations of Socrates and his fellow symposiasts arepurportedly given in the words of a certain Aristodemus ( a little fellowwho used to go about barefoot )?not, notably, in his voice, but as re?ported by Apollodorus to an unnamed friend. The problematics of thisindirect report are explored in the opening words of the dialogue. Apol?lodorus tells his friend that just the other day, as he was walking fromPhaleron to Athens, he was stopped by his friend Glaucon and askedabout this very symposium; thus his memory on the subject is fresh. Thereport to the unnamed friend will in a curious way act as a re-perfor-mance of his report the other day to Glaucon. Note, however, that whatis fresh in Apollodorus' mind are not the words of Aristodemus (muchless those of Socrates or the symposiasts), but rather the account thathe had recently given to Glaucon, an account given on the road fromPhaleron to Athens, where, as in Phaedo, no follower of Socrates wouldbe present to correct or verify the tale.

Glaucon, like Echecrates in Phaedo, is emphatic in his desire foraccurate information. He learned of the symposium from a fellowwho'd been talking to Phoenix, but this fellow's information was not atall clear (ovbEv oa


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DRAMATIC FRAME AND PHILOSOPHIC IDEA 583words of Aristodemus. The report by Socrates of his conversation withDiotima is in yet a different form, a third-person narrative, so that onceagain the syntax continually recalls the added level of indirectness. Andfrom time to time Apollodorus intrudes in his own voice, usually witha comment on Aristodemus (as at 178a2, 185c5, 198al, 199c2, 223b8,223dl), thus reminding the reader that the indirect narrative is itselfnot Aristodemus' eyewitness account but rather Apollodorus' report ofAristodemus' account. And add to all this the recurring hints of inaccu-racy: neither Aristodemus nor Apollodorus can recall the speeches ver-batim (178a); Aristodemus omits some speeches altogether (180c); Aris?todemus fell asleep at the end, missing most of the final arguments(223c-d). Once again, the narrative is constructed so as to create anelaborately indirect, distant, and distancing relationship between readerand philosophie discourse.

PARMENIDESParmenides in its brief dramatic introduction sets up another complexof levels of indirectness. It begins simply enough, as the reader is imme?diately drawn into a first-person narrative: After leaving our home inClazomenae we arrived at Athens and met Adimantus and Glauconin the marketplace. The speaker, as we soon find out, is Cephalus.Cephalus is otherwise unknown, but Adimantus and Glaucon are Pla?to's brothers (as Athenian readers will have known) and thus at oncethe author's voice, as in Phaedo, subtly asserts itself. Here, we are re-minded, is Plato's report (or dramatization) of a conversation betweenCephalus and Plato's brothers. Probably, we infer, Plato knows of thisconversation because it has been reported to him by his brothers. Onceagain, the crudely historical question of how Plato comes to know ofthis conversation may seem uninteresting or even silly, but?the focushere?the mention of Plato's brothers (otherwise of no particular rele-vance to the dialogue) seems to lead the reader towards such reflec-tions. In any event Cephalus, who emphasizes that he has not been toAthens for a long time (126b2-4), has come with some fellow lovers ofphilosophy to look for Adimantus' half-brother Antiphon?also, ofcourse, Plato's half-brother. Antiphon, they have heard, has spent timewith Pythodorus, a friend of Zeno's, and from Pythodorus knows a con?versation that Socrates once had with Zeno and Parmenides. IndeedAntiphon (so the report goes) heard the story so often from Pythodorusthat he can recall it by heart ([Avxi


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0o6o)QOu &JTO|ivri|ioveuei, 126c3). In reply, Adimantus at first seems toconfirm Antiphon's ability to give an accurate report. Antiphon prac-ticed assiduously the recall of this conversation (eu (idtax biE[ieXexr\OEv,126c6). But, in the same sentence, Adimantus notes that this did nothappen recently, but when Antiphon was a youth. Nowadays Antiphon,like his grandfather Antiphon (who, notably, is not Plato's grandfather),is interested mostly in horses?and therefore not, it would seem, veryinterested in philosophy. How long, one wonders, has it been since An?tiphon rehearsed Pythodorus' account of the conversation?The whole group now repairs to Antiphon's house in Melite. Theyfind Antiphon busily engaged with a smithy on the matter of a bridlebit?a vivid (and, given Socrates' fondness for the example of theblacksmith, ironic) reminder of Antiphon's current lack of interest inthe philosophie life. Only after he is finished with the matter of the bitdoes Antiphon turn to his visitors, and with this as an introduction wehear that Antiphon agrees, but reluctantly, to recount the conversationbetween Parmenides and Socrates. Though the dramatic introduction toParmenides is more compressed and less explicit about the need for ac?curacy, here too a clear tension develops between, on the one hand, thehistoricity of the account (implied by a witness so potentially reliable asPlato's half-brother, and by Antiphon's reported attention to the mem-orization) and, on the other hand, the extraordinary indirectness anddistance (both from the act of memorization and from the event itself,which happened decades before, when Socrates was young) and An?tiphon's current uninvolvement in philosophie affairs (following thelead of his paternal grandfather, thus the impulse of the un-Platonichalf of the half-brother relation).

Parmenides is constructed, then, as a report or dramatization (byPlato) of a conversation (in Melite, between Cephalus and Antiphon)which itself is a recollection (by Antiphon) of a report which Antiphonmemorized many years before (from Pythodorus), a report which Py?thodorus gave of a conversation which he witnessed many years beforethat (mostly between Zeno, Parmenides, and Socrates). The indirect?ness of the central philosophie discourse is starkly encapsulated inCephalus' abrupt lead-in at 127a7-8: Antiphon said that Pythodorussaid that... (ecjnj 5e 6f| 6 'Avxujxftv Xeysiv xov nu966ooQOv oxi, xxX.).The conversation is mostly reported in indirect speech, which serves torecall to the reader throughout the indirectness of the report, and at acritical moment (where the baffling second part of the dialogue islaunched) we are reminded once again that this indirectness is not of a



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simple kind: so stated Zeno, as Antiphon said that Pythodorus said(ecj>r|6 Avtl(()(ov ((xxvat xov ITu066a)QOv, 136e5-6).

THEAETETUS

Theaetetus also establishes a complex relationship between the centralphilosophie discourse and the opening scene, but this dialogue repre?sents a special case. The opening scene contains many of the now famil?iar elements. The dialogue begins as a conversation between Terpsionand Euclides in Megara about Theaetetus, recently fallen in battle andonly barely alive. Euclides, it turns out, once wrote down a conversationbetween Socrates and Theaetetus (and the mathematician Theodorus)that took place when Theaetetus was little more than a boy (142c6).Euclides had heard the narration of this conversation from Socrates.Since the conversation between Socrates and Theaetetus happenedshortly before Socrates' death (142c6), and Theaetetus is now a man, infact himself apparently on the verge of death, Socrates' report to Eu?clides must have happened many years before. As in the other cases,the spatial and temporal distance is complex and emphatic. The conver?sation between Euclides and Terpsion (in Megara) will result in the re?port of a conversation narrated to Euclides by Socrates many yearsbefore (in Athens), which Euclides wrote out at his home in Megaraand whose details he checked when he had occasion to go to Athens(143a3). What is special, though, is the fact that Euclides gives his re?port not from memory?he specifically disavows the ability to remem-ber the conversation (142d6). Instead the report here will be a readingby a slave from the written record Euclides created at the time.

As in the other examples (but less emphatically), Euclides' state?ments on the accuracy of his report may raise questions of authorityfor the reader. On hearing Socrates' narration of the conversation, hewrote down notes (i)jro|ivf||iaxa, 143al) immediately on returninghome to Megara; later, at his leisure, he wrote out the whole from mem?ory; whenever he went from Megara to Athens (note the emphasis onthe distance) he asked Socrates about points he could not recall andmade corrections on his return home. The emphasis on the physical dis?tance, and the three stages of recollection (notes, later draft, even latercorrections) makes the reader unsurprised at Euclides' qualified conclu?sion: that nearly (o%Ebov) the whole of the argument (koyoq) was tran-scribed (143a4f). Here then is the written record of Euclides' recollec-



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tion (checked for accuracy at several points) of Socrates' report of aconversation with Theaetetus. The text itself, if the reader allows theauthor's voice to intrude, can be regarded either as Plato's copy of Eu?clides' text, or Euclides' text as remembered by Plato, and retranscribedfrom memory. It is in any event not Plato's own account.

We as readers are simultaneously convinced of the essential accu?racy of the report even as we are reminded that this is not a verbatimaccount. In what now seems a characteristic passage, the last words ofEuclides before he hands over the text to the lector will give us finalevidence of his scrupulous honesty at the same time that we are toldthat the account is not exactly as Socrates narrated it. For Euclides, withmeticulous and somewhat pedantic precision, explains that he has delib?erately changed the form of the report from a narrative by Socrates to adialogue expressed in direct speech (143b5-c5). The similarity betweenEuclides' recording and reworking activity and that of Plato's own writ?ings is not likely to escape the reader. The opening scene, as it were,asks the reader to recall, when picking up and reading a Socratic dia?logue, that any such dialogue is at best a verified recollection of a reportof the actual conversation.

DRAMATIC FRAMES IN OTHER DIALOGUESIn a couple of other dialogues, a simpler frame is constructed. In Pro?tagoras an opening conversation between Socrates and an unnamedfriend serves to introduce Socrates' narrative of the day he has justspent with Protagoras. The frame is then left to one side, excepting abrief mention early on in the narrative (316a4). Similarly, in Euthyde?mus a brief conversation between Socrates and Crito introduces Socra?tes' narrative of his encounter the day before with the Sophists Euthy?demus and Dionysodorus. Here the frame reintrudes in the middle ofthe dialogue, when Crito interrupts (290e-293a), and once again at theend (305b-307c).

In both of these dialogues the frame serves to introduce majorthemes in relatively straightforward ways. In Protagoras the frame helpsto draw attention to the importance of Alcibiades (whose presencemight otherwise seem incidental)10 and to the attraction of the virtue of

10Moreshould be done with the figure of Alcibiades in Protagoras, but the essen-tials are sketched in Friedlander 1958-69, II 5-6.



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wisdom over that of physical beauty, and hence to the question of thenature of wisdom and its attraction. In Euthydemus Crito's opening re?marks bring out vividly the intense interest of the crowd (which helps tospark our own interest); Socrates' ironic remarks at the expense of theSophists set the tone (Socrates wishes to be their student, 272b2; theirscience of disputation is a wonderful one, since it takes only one or twoyears to acquire, 272b9); Crito's intellectual nai'vete makes it clear whya sharp differentiation between eristic and dialectic is important;11 andthe return to the frame in the middle and at the end affords Crito andSocrates further useful (and at the end fairly damning) commentary onthe eristic science. The return to the frame at the middle of Euthyde?mus serves to bring up the question of the verbatim accuracy of the nar?rative (290e, where Socrates admits that he is not always sure who saidwhat), and the frame achieves a slightly greater distancing from theevents, but we are far from the exaggerated sense of indirectness andremove that characterizes the complex frames in Phaedo, Symposium,Parmenides, or even Theaetetus. In fact, the comparison makes all themore clear how very extraordinary these more complex frames are. Inthe end, the effect of the narrative strategy in Protagoras and Euthyde?mus does not distinguish itself strongly from dialogues like Charmides,Lysis, and the Republic, which are told as narratives in the voice ofSocrates.

Other Platonic dialogues, though formally straightforward as dra?matic dialogue or narrative, also sometimes exhibit complicating fea?tures that make the opening scenes function in a way more or lessanalogous to the frames discussed here?indeed this could be arguedfor all three of the Socratic narratives just mentioned. But, with the pos?sible exception of Timaeus,n these are all of a simple sort. Simple fram?ing devices do not, to my mind, raise essentialist questions. Effective as

uFriedlander 1958-69, II 193. Similarly, in Parmenides the narrator, Cephalus, ischaracterized as a politician who speaks with marked casualness and lack of precision (cf.Gill and Ryan 1996, Parmenides 6-7). The presence of Cephalus as narrator cannot meanto suggest that this difficult dialogue is meant for a general audience; rather, it serves toindicate the dangers of popular interest in the sort of conversation that follows, in whichproper and improper use of dialectic is mixed.^Though formally a dramatic dialogue, the bulk of Timaeus is not a dialogue at all,but a monologue by Timaeus, and the dialogue at the front serves as a prelude to Ti?maeus' speech (and to what was planned as a trilogy of volumes). The opening scene actsthen as a framing device, to which Plato returns at the beginning of Critias. The centralpart of the opening scene is itself a lengthy tale by Critias, his report of a tale told by



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a means of involving us in the drama, they also (as in Euthydemus) canprovide a mechanism for introduction and commentary on the scene,people, and arguments that form the core of the dialogue. The openingscenes are not wholly simple in relation to the philosophie discourse?the intratextual interactions can of course be very complex?but the es?sential function is not at issue. Such opening scenes can be reasonablyseen as basic narrative technique, a part of the process of turning philo?sophical dialectic into protreptic dialogue (though that need not be theonly purpose). But the complex narrative structures we began with arenot so easily analyzed in this way. What narrative advantage is got byintroducing something as a series of recollections within a recollec-tion ?13

WHY THE COMPLEX DRAMATIC FRAMES?Several scholars have offered general answers to the question of whyPlato constructs such elaborate narrative frames. The frames help tostress the temporal distance; they suggest the fictional nature of the ac?count; the intricacy of the frames is an outstanding example of Platonicplayfulness (paidia).14 These answers have truth, more or less, but seem

priests in Egypt to Solon; Solon told it to Critias' grandfather (also named Critias), whorecalled the story and passed it on to his grandchild when he was very old and Critias veryyoung. Once again, there is the familiarly elaborate indirectness and remove that charac-terizes the assertion of authority to the tale?that is, the tale is based on records in Egypt(but note the distance) and the informant, Solon, is presumably reliable (to the minds ofan Athenian audience), but the final account is itself a recollection (by Critias) of a reportgiven to him many years before (by grandfather Critias) of a report (by Solon) of thepriests' narrative. Despite Critias' protestation of the story's legitimacy (which, in theusual way, somewhat undermines itself: 26a-c), it is hard not to read as ironical Socrates'statement that the tale is particularly suitable for the festival of the goddess since it is factand not fiction ([ii] nXaoQevxa[ivQovaKk'd^nSivov Xoyov,26e4-5; cf. 26a4-5). Timaeus'own account of the origins of the universe is in a curious way subsumed to the tale gotfrom Solon?as Critias introduces it (27a-b), Timaeus' account will function as a sort ofprotohistory intended to dovetail with Solon's account of Atlantis, whose details will betold by Critias in the dialogue that bears his name.^Rosen 1968, 2.14Distance: Bacon 1959, 417-18; Clay 1992, 117,cf. 124-25; Gill and Ryan 1996, 4.Fictional nature: Gill and Ryan 1996, 4-5; cf. Krentz 1983, 33, and Dover 1980, 9 (Platomay have intended an oblique suggestion that his portrayal should be judged?likemyths or moralizing anecdotes?more on its intrinsic merits and the lessons to be learned



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finally unsatisfactory, even trivializing. Plato went to great lengths tofashion the convolutions of these complex frames. Was all this reallynecessary simply to emphasize temporal remove, to suggest a fiction, toindulge in playfulness? It has also been suggested, wrongly I think, thatthe frames generally act so as to lend authority to the historical natureof the account, or to give the story a universal validity and interest.15

For the individual dialogues, various arguments have been madeabout the interaction between the text and the historical characters pre-sented in the frame, perhaps rightly.16 As already noted, in all of theframes, simple or complex, one finds the sort of subtle introduction oftheme and intratextual weaving that we come to expect from Plato.17And then there are more embracing arguments specific to the dia?logues: Prufer's idea that the frame in Phaedo represents the mediationbetween soul and Idea through logos; or Halperin's suggestion for theSymposium of an erotics of narrativity. Both suggestions may havemerit for the interaction of the frame within the specific dialogue, butseem less convincing when one considers the phenomenon of the com?plex frames more generally.18

from it than on its truth to fact ). Platonic paidia: Krentz 1983, 43; more generally cf.Rutherford 1995, 25-26.^Historical accuracy (contrary to the arguments here presented for the specificdialogues): F. C. Bauer, cited with disapproval by Clay 1992, 118;cf. Dover 1980, 9 ( con-ceivably Plato wished to give authority to his portrayal of Socrates by implicitly invitingus to check it against an independent tradition ); Friedlander 1958-69, III 145-46. Uni-versality: Brumbaugh 1961,29 and n. 25, suggests (adducing Conrad's Heart of Darkness)that the frame is a familiar aesthetic technique for showing a universality of truth, ap-plicability, or interest, of the story narrated. But this seems unhelpfully vague, and isprobably false. Do we wish to deny that the other dialogues lack universal truth, applica-bility, interest?16OnParmenides see Brumbaugh 1961,26-32; on Symposium, Halperin 1992,100, adevelopment of Brentlinger 1970, 5-6.17Clay 1992 gives such an interpretation for the frame of Phaedo; on Theaetetus seeKlein 1965, 28; on Parmenides, Miller 1986, 15-18; on Symposium, Halperin 1992, esp.100-106.

18Prufer1986;Halperin 1992, esp. 106-8. Halperin's suggestion could conceivablybe generalized, given the broad importance of eros in Platonic thinking. I do not in anycase think his analysis at odds with the one presented here: there are many dimensions toPlatonic interpretation. Prufer's interesting suggestion unfortunately leads him towardsthe conclusion that the dialogue intends to present the immortality of the Socratic lo?gos, immortal in the sense of an irrefutable argument about immortality?a static viewof the logos that seems to me wholly un-Platonic.



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More essentially, I think, the elaborate framing of the dialogueshas been seen as a means of undermining the authority of the text, oftrying to prevent the text from becoming a quotable authority.19 In thisview, the words of Socrates are reported with elaborate indirectness inorder to discourage the reader from taking the words of the text as ver-batim dogma. Moreover, as Halperin points out (for the Symposium,but this is generally true for the framed dialogues), the narrators of theframe act as negative exempla: for these narrators, philosophy seemslargely to consist in a personal, not to say idolatrous, cult of Socrates.Instead of engaging in Socratic enquiry, they tell stories about Socra?tes. ... Plato never represents ... his narrators doing philosophy: wenever see... them advancing or examining philosophical claims; weonly see them recapitulating uncritically the philosophical claims madeby others, most of all by Socrates. 20 The narrative strategy of the com?plex frame then is related to Plato's philosophie program insofar asPlato wishes to warn against the notion that the fixed words of Socrateshave ultimate authority, and to insist upon the necessarily continual andchangeable pursuit of truth embodied in the process of dialectic. Thisview is, I think, on target and substantially correct, but the focus can besharpened considerably.

In the analyses of complex frames presented above, we found inevery case that the reader seems directed towards a consideration ofthe tension between accuracy of account and remove from the philo?sophie discourse. But note that the distancing mechanisms of the framedo not simply undercut or negate the authority of the account. The ten?sion is challenging, but not, I think, deconstructing. As we have seen,Plato clearly, emphatically, and deliberately introduces details that seemto validate the authority of the account even as he goes about con-structing a frame that seems to challenge that authority. This unresolvedtension is, I think, fundamental. One may think here of Platonic paidia,or, more helpfully, of Socratic irony. But more to the point, I think, is

19Halperin(1992, 118-19), relying on Helen Bacon; cf. Klein 1965, 11-12.1 am in-debted to Heinrich von Staden for first drawing my attention to this important point.20Halperin (1992, 117), relying partly on Martha Nussbaum. Similarly, Burger(1984, 16) argues for Phaedo that the frame gives a warning of the emotionalism and So?cratic cultism that must be overcome. In Parmenides, ironically, the followers of Socrates

give, again, the negative exemplum, while the positive exemplum?of using a written textas the impetus towards live philosophie discourse?is afforded by the use made ofZeno's written treatise.



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the nature of the relationship between the ultimate authority (or truth)of the philosophie discourse and the text presented to the reader.

Understanding (and hence virtue) is presented in Phaedo andelsewhere as a graduated scale, ranging from the ignorance of a mandeeply rooted in the sensate world to the imperfect understanding ofthe lover of wisdom in this world to the ideal Understanding achievedby the philosopher in the world hereafter. Socrates famously asserts inPhaedo that ideal Understanding can come only after death, after therelease of the philosopher from the material and into the ideal world.But Plato does not mean by this to suggest that our striving towards un?derstanding, however imperfect, is a fruitless task: in Phaedo we findthat ideal Understanding in the world beyond (that is, full separationfrom the material) is possible only for the man who pursues philosophyduring his life (114c; cf. 69a-d, 67c-d). The pursuit of understanding?philosophy?is real, necessary, and valid (just as beauty or material ob-jects are a real part of our sensate world), even though philosophy islimited in its ability to approach the Ideal (again, just as beauty or ob-jects in the perceptible universe are far removed from the Ideas). Thereexists then a tension between the real, material world which for Plato(unlike Parmenides) remains real even though it is less real than theideal world, and the ideal, intelligible world which for all its ultimaterealness remains finally unintelligible in the world of the living.Thus the accuracy of reported Socratic conversations remains im?portant, since the model of Socratic dialectic is essential for those whostrive towards Understanding. In the context of the material world, theidealized Socrates represents real authority, if also an authority limitedby material experience. But the reader is encouraged to reflections be?yond the material world. The indirectness and distance constructed bythe dramatic frame emphasize the remove between the actual experi?ence of dialectic (what it was like to participate in a conversation withSocrates) and our experience as readers (a static and imperfectly accu?rate account of the dialectic experience). But it can also remind thereader of the parallel remove between the act of understanding in thematerial world and the true Understanding of the Ideal world. This re-lates closely to why Plato is so eager to experiment with ways of deny-ing the reader a clear and stable canon of Socratic (or Platonic) philo?sophie doctrines. For not only is it true that understanding is foundedon a process of striving towards the truth (for which accuracy of modelis essential), it is also true that the process of understanding is itselfalways imperfect, and even at its best (as in the case of dialectic with



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Socrates) at a considerable remove from the ideal Understanding in theworld beyond. The structure of the narrative frame is meant, I think, tolead the reader towards reflection on the nature of the relationship be?tween report, event, and Ideal in the doing of philosophy?on the na?ture, that is, of authority, and what truth or Truth a given authority isable to represent.

Plato's concern with the remove between understanding and Un?derstanding is fundamental, and this concern drives his recurring explo?ration of the nature of the Ideal world. Commenting explicitly on thefallibility of even the most careful results of philosophie investigation,Socrates at Phaedo 107b is reported to say: first principles, even if theyappear certain, should be carefully considered; and when they are satis-factorily ascertained, then, with a sort ofhesitating confidence in humanreason, you may, I think, follow the course of the argument (logos)(trans. Jowett). But even the most careful logos can only approach, andnever achieve, perfect Understanding. To bridge the gap Plato, moresurprisingly to us than to the Greeks, often deploys the divine mad?ness of mythos (as he goes on to do in Phaedo). Yet the authority ofthe myth is also presented so as to raise essential questions. At the endof the myth in Phaedo Socrates remarks, Of course no reasonable manought to insist that the facts are exactly as I have described them. Butthat either this or something very like it is a true account of our soulsand their future habitations?since we have clear evidence that the soulis immortal?this, I think, is both a reasonable contention and a beliefworth risking (114d). In the Symposium Diotima is introduced as awoman deeply versed in many fields of knowledge but Socrates offersas proof the incredible evidence that she was able to delay the greatplague at Athens for ten years (201 d): thus she is a mantic or magician,not a philosopher. And the myth itself, as already remarked, is (unlikethe other speeches at the symposium) interspersed with two levels ofsyntactical markers that continually remind us of the multiple indirect?ness of the report. Indeed it can be said that the simultaneous assertionand questioning of authority (for instance, that Socrates is the wisestman yet also explicitly ignorant) is a characteristic strategy in Platonicnarrative and thought, elemental to Plato's very serious playfulness.Plato is open to multiple, complementary means to approach Under?standing?not just logos but mythos, etymology (such as the nexusamong ei5(oXov, image, ei6(og, knowing, and ei6og, Form/Idea), andalso a host of what we might describe as literary significances builtupon intra- and intertextual associations. But for all methods of philo-



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?a>vxa) complained of at Phaedrus 276a.22 Most essential is not the mi?metic aspect, nor the duality between written and spoken word, butrather the relationship between philosophie discourse and perfect Un?derstanding. The critical problem, that is, is the inadequacy of language(cf. Seventh Letter 341c, 342a-343c, esp. 343a: language is inadequate forgrasping true being). Just as our sensate experience with beds can helplead us towards (but not to) an apprehension of Bed, and our experi?ence with beautiful objects helps us towards an apprehension of Beauty,so philosophie discourse, for all that it reflects a world as finally unrealas bed and beauty, is the starting point in our struggle towards appre?hension of Understanding. Thus the Platonic dialogues may be used tolead us towards an apprehension of doing philosophy and from theretowards Philosophy, even though the dialogues are not, strictly speak?ing, either the doing of philosophy or Philosophy itself.

We have found, then, a variety of truths to account for the com?plex narrative frames that Plato fashions for Phaedo, Symposium, Par?menides, and Theaetetus. Not explored here, but acknowledged, are themany and important intratextual associations set up by these openingscenes. And there are general truths (or at least truisms) in the recogni?tion of temporal remove, Platonic paidia, and the like. But the emphasishere has been on characteristics of the dramatic frame that seem gen?eral and essential to the philosophie reading of Plato's texts. To summa-rize: even while the text offers a valid representation of the nature andcontent of philosophie dialectic, the complex narrative frame functionsto suggest the gap between our passive role as readers and our potentialrole as active participants in the doing of philosophy, hence also to denythe reasonableness of treating the text as quotable authority. In all thedialogues, the drama of the philosophie discourse draws the reader to?wards silent participation, but the frame at the same time seems toattack the allure of the mimesis, and to remind the reader of the inade?quacy of this sort of participation.23 But more: the active doing of phi?losophy is essential, but is inherently imperfect and removed from the

22See Desjardins 1988, 111,and cl Phaedo 99c-100a, with commentary by Burger(1984, 144-47). With Desjardins, I depart here from the common assumption that spokenphilosophie discourse is unimitative and unproblematic. For other points of view on theproblematics of the written form of the dialogue see Griswold 1988, esp. the essay byGriswold himself.23On reader as silent participant in the dialogue see Klein 1965, 6; more generallyon the workings of theater in Plato see Nussbaum 1986,122-35.



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Ideal, and the complex narrative frame also serves to suggest this. Forthe structure of the frame implies not only the remove between writtenrepresentation and the doing of philosophy, but also the remove be?tween material and Ideal world as suggested in Plato's vision of theIdeas. That is, we as readers stand at a remove from actual dialecticwith Socrates, a dialectic which itself remains at a remove from idealUnderstanding, and just so the men chained in the cave see only theshadows on the wall of crafted images that are themselves at a removefrom the Ideas?a relationship that is distant and elaborately indirect.In this view it is thus not coincidental that the dialogues with complexframes contain some of Plato's most positivistic explorations of the na?ture of the perceptible and Ideal worlds, as well as repeated insistenceupon the need for dialectic?and not eristic, or rhetoric?in the pursuitof Truth.

But, it may be objected, if we see in the dramatic frame a struc?ture isomorphic to the relation between representation, particular, andIdea, how can it be that the dramatic structure is variable? That is, bythe analysis here, the dialogues exhibit differing levels of remove fromthe central discourse. In schematic terms (and ignoring for the momentthe important side- and cross-currents), the Chinese box structuresof these dialogues can be crudely represented as:

Phaedo: [Plato[Phaedo and Echecrates

[Socrates and Simmias and Cebes]]]Symposium: (Plato?

[Apollodorus and friend[Aristodemus to Apollodorus[symposiasts and Socrates

[Diotima and Socrates]]]])Parmenides: [Plato[Cephalus and Antiphon

[Pythodorus to Antiphon[Socrates and Parmenides and Zeno]]]]Theaetetus: (Plato?

[Euclides and Terpsion[Euclides' written record[Socrates and Theaetetus and Theodorus]]])

Even if we grant the additional level of remove afforded by the dra?matic mimesis, we may well ask why, if Plato has in mind the Ideas, do



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the levels of remove differ? Here is not the place to enter into a broaddiscussion of Plato's conceptions of the Ideas. Suffice it to say that Platoseems himself uncommitted as to the exact nature of the indirect rela?tionship between the material and ideal worlds. He can be contradic-tory on this point even within a given work. In the context of the dis?cussion in book 10 of the Republic, Plato is clear that the artist makesa copy of a copy, that the material item copied by the artist is itself a

copy of the Idea (thus two removes from truth, 597e). But in themyth of the cave in book 7 (514-515) the chained man watches on thewall of the cave not the shadows of objects in the real (Ideal) world,but rather shadows of artificial objects held up above a wall. The un-chained man led into the sun (516a-c) at first sees only shadows andlikenesses of things in water, then the things themselves, and thencomes to contemplate the heavens, and finally to look directly upon thetrue nature of the light (the sun, whose ultimate cause is the idea of theGood, 517b-c). In this image (and compare the differently complex im?age of the divided line at the end of book 6), clearly Plato has in mindan indirect relationship between material and Ideal world that is con-siderably more complicated than simply that of original to copy.24In the matter of the complex dramatic frame, the duality that oftenplays out in the minds of critics between the literary Plato and the

philosopher Plato is unnecessary, even counterproductive. The elabo-rately indirect relation between frame and philosophie discourse func?tions as an analogue to the indirect relation between perceptible andideal worlds that forms the heart of the philosophie content of thesedialogues. And the tension between accuracy and inaccuracy in report-ing the Socratic conversation reflects the ambivalence, fundamental toPlatonic thinking, between the philosopher's need to work with au?thoritative models (of Socratic argument and method) and the recogni?tion of how far such models necessarily diverge from perfect Under?standing. The narrative frame helps then to vivify for the reader thein-betweenness that informs Plato's universe, that is, between the per?ceptible world (where striving for accuracy in argument and method isessential if we are to understand) and the Ideal world (where logos,

24Phaedo,much to the vexation of philosophers, is studiously noncommittal as towhether the particular even resembles the Idea. See Bostock 1986, 91,198-99.



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DRAMATIC FRAME AND PHILOSOPHIC IDEA 597however accurate, is found inadequate for Understanding). It was, afterall, that selfsame philosopher?bitten by philosophy to the core of hisbeing?who chose to experiment with this narrative technique, and weshould expect to find, as we have, no less than full identification be?tween Plato's philosophie and literary enterprise.25Bucknell Universitye-mail: [email protected]

BIBLIOGRAPHYBacon, Helen H. 1959. Socrates Crowned. Virginia Quarterly Review 35:415-30.Bostock, David. 1986. Plato's Phaedo. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Brentlinger, John A. 1970. Introduction. In The Symposium of Plato, trans?lated by Suzy Q. Groden, 1-31. Amherst: University of MassachusettsPress.Brumbaugh, Robert S. 1961. Plato on the One: The Hypotheses in the Parmeni?des. New Haven: Yale University Press.Burger, Ronna. 1984. The Phaedo: A Platonic Labyrinth. New Haven: Yale Uni?

versity Press.Clay, Diskin. 1992. Plato's First Words. In Beginnings in Classical Literature

(= Yale Classical Studies 29), edited by Francis M. Dunn and ThomasCole, 113-29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Desjardins, Rosemary. 1988. Why Dialogues? Plato's Serious Play. In Gris?wold 1988,110-25.Dover, Kenneth, ed. 1980. Plato: Symposium. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.Frede, Michael. 1992. Plato's Arguments and the Dialogue Form. In Klaggeand Smith 1992, 201-19.Friedlander, Paul. 1958-69. Plato: An Introduction. 3 vols. Translated by H.

Meyerhoff. New York: Bollingen Foundation.Gill, Mary Louise, and Paul Ryan, trans. 1996. Plato: Parmenides. Indianapolis:Hackett.

25 Literary s set in quotes because there is no Greek equivalent.I am pleased to record here my debt to Heinrich von Staden, whose lectures firstled me to consider the problem of narrative frames in Plato. I also thank Scott Carson andSteve Hays for helpful discussion and comments.



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Gonzalez, Francisco J. 1995. A Short History of Platonic Interpretation and the'Third Way.' In The Third Way: New Directions in Platonic Studies,edited by F. J. Gonzalez, 1-22. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Griswold, Charles. 1980. Style and Philosophy: The Case of Plato's Dialogues.Monist 63:530-46.-, ed. 1988. Platonic Writings, Platonic Readings. New York: Routledge.Halperin, David M. 1992. Plato and the Erotics of Narrativity. In Klagge andSmith 1992, 93-130.Hamilton, Edith, and Huntington Cairns, eds. 1963. The Collected Dialogues ofPlato. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Hyland, Drew A. 1968. Why Plato Wrote Dialogues. Philosophy and Rhetoric1:38-50.Klagge, James G, and Nicholas D. Smith, eds. 1992. Methods of InterpretingPlato and His Dialogues. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy Suppl.Oxford: Clarendon Press.Klein, Jacob. 1965. A Commentary on Plato's Meno. Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press.Krentz, Arthur A. 1983. Dramatic Form and Philosophical Content in Plato's

Dialogues. Philosophy and Literature 7:32-47.Miller, Mitchell H., Jr. 1986. Plato's Parmenides: The Conversion of the Soul.Princeton: Princeton University Press.Nussbaum, Martha. 1986. The Fragility of Goodness. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.Prufer, Thomas. 1986. The Dramatic Form of Plato. Review of Metaphysics39:547-51.Rosen, Stanley. 1968. Plato's Symposium. New Haven: Yale University Press.Rutherford, R. B. 1995. The Art of Plato: Ten Essays in Platonic Interpretation.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

dramatic frame and philosophic idea in plato - w. a. johnson

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