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WHAT DID PLATO READ?


Plato was a prose writer. He employed a full palette of artistic colors. In order to craft a
language suitable for philosophy he stretched preexistent literary usage to its limits. In his
work one can find very specific tropes and linguistic formulations that can only be suited
for prose and are typical of former prose compositions. The premise that Plato read and
read widely, then, merits examination. Despite the reservations about writing that Plato
has Socrates express in Phaedrus 274b-277a, Plato himself was likely a reader with a
range of literature available to him. While the philosophical implications of writing may
have seemed questionable to him, both the written ideas of his predecessors and the
formal elements of writing influenced him. In fact, some of his perceptions of the
inadequacy of writing probably came from his own struggle to perform a transforming
alchemy on a language that heretofore had a limited philosophical conceptual lexicon.
Intent upon philosophical priorities, he worked hard to force the extant coinage to fit his
restless inquiries. Whether Platos dialogues are discussed as dramas or as doctrine
(esoteric or exoteric) they embody a compendium of the prose legacy of the preceding
two centuries. (1)

The influence of poetry on Plato is a subject in and of itself. Here I will examine the
premise that technical, scientific and historical prose writing was an important
determinate of Platos written efforts. The international language-literary Ionian-was used
about 425, the time of Platos birth, by learned men of diverse origins: Sicily, Asia
Minor, the Aegean islands, northern Greece, both Ionians and Dorians. Thomas Cole
points out that there might have been little need for written texts in the metropolitan
atmosphere of the agora where the latest scientific theories and discoveries, historical and
Sophistic epideixis, were read to all. Ionian intellectuals, Cole explains, were widely
scattered throughout the islands and coasts of the Aegean and had limited opportunities
for coming together for the exchange of ideas. If the research or speculation conducted
in Miletus or Ephesus were to be made available to other areas there would have to be
texts for consultation and eventually reading.(2) This type of text existed from the sixth
century. Cole argues that these writings abandoned poetic meter and diction and became
more obviously a written prose, composed to be studied and deciphered by the eye as
well as heard by the ear. He bases this observation on the compactness, precision,
regularity and complexity that he finds in late fifth century texts. These are works
composed for perusal at leisure rather than heard in performance. Plato who was in
communication with traveling scholars had access to a wide selection of prose writing
extant during his time and formulated new figures of speech and terminology based on
them.

Plato as Reader

There is documentation from a number of sources that Greece was a literate society well
before Platos time. Alfred Burns and Debra Nails both challenge the idea that literacy
was a newfound phenomenon of the fifth and fourth centuries. The majority of Athenian
citizens were literate by then and there was a prose literature from the end of the sixth
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century B.C. (3) Burns cites a group of nine writers who fall into the late sixth and first
half of the fifth century, and a second group contemporary with Herodotus and
Thucydides who wrote treatises. He cites evidence for extensive prose literature,
particularly by logographers writing about the legendary past. Pherecydes of Syros,
Anaximander, Anaximenes and Hecataeus all wrote books in prose before Herodotus
Histories.(4) The title of Pherecydes book The Seven Recesses (heptamychos) is
documented in the Greek tradition and in Diogenes Laertius quote of the beginning
words. Nails also cites works by the sixth and fifth century naturalists. (5) Theophrastus
gives a prcis of the natural philosophical views of Anaximenes of Miletus (586-526) and
it is generally assumed he wrote a book from which Theophrastus was working.
Xenophanes of Colophon (ca. 570-ca.475) wrote on philosophical subjects. By 430 there
were eight or nine natural philosophers whose books where available. Philolaus of Croton
a contemporary of Socrates wrote treatises as did Leucippus of Miletus (fl. 440-435) and
Democritus of Abdera (b. ca. 460-457). Theophrastus gives evidence for a body of
writings when he attributes the Great Diakosmos to Leucipupus. This is also given in the
lists of Democritus works suggesting that there was a body of writings coming out of the
school of Abdera. Later these were all attributed to Democritus. Xenophon ascribes a
library to Euthydemus (Mem. 4.2). Euripides (fl ca 445 BCE) is lampooned as a
bibliophile in Aristophanes Frogs and apparently had a personal library as well. In
Aristophanes (fr. 580) an apprentice, Cephisophon is identified who may have assisted
Euripides in the actual production of books. (6)

As far as writing itself is concerned, it is now believed, certainly by Debra Nails, that
reading and writing was common place in the fifth and fourth centuries and probably
earlier. Turner contends that the excavations in the Athenian agora of large quantities of
ready made ostraka with incised lettering (as well as on Athenian vases) documents
general literacy. (7) Turner also cites the discussion in Platos Laws (810) where there is
an allusion to the elementary education of children. Reading and writing is taught at the
age of ten, but speed in calligraphy is not encouraged until later. Turner suggests that an
everyday business hand or cursive writing, in which speed was a factor, was in
widespread use in contemporary Athens and elsewhere in Greece. He contends that easy
and legible writing would not have sprung up suddenly, and concludes that reading and
writing is a normal part of everyday Athenian education. Plato suggests that should the
guardian of the laws come across compositions similar to these laws, it should be
committed to writing (graphesthai) (811e5). Herodotus, Burns reports (381), takes it
for granted that the Greeks have been literate ever since the Ionians acquired the alphabet
from the Phoenicians (Hist. 5.58). Demosthenes sneers at Aeschines helping his
mother to keep school by performing the task of grinding the ink.

First and foremost, however, we must pay attention to Platos own citations regarding the
easy use of books. In Apology we learn that Anaxagoras cosmological treatise (or at
least a doctrinal synopsis of it) could be bought for one drachma from the stalls in the
Orchestra (Apol. 26d-e). Zenos appearance in Athens with his written composition
(grammata) in tow at the beginning of Parmenides documents a matter of fact use of
texts. If one accepts the authenticity of Diogenes Laertius, he reports that according to
some authorities Plato wrote to Dion and persuaded him to purchase three Pythagorean
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treatises from Philolaus for 100 minae and on the basis of these texts he wrote Timaeus.

(8) In the Phaedo (98b4-6) Socrates is described as having such high hopes for
Anaxagoras books to enlighten him on astronomy and physics that he, made haste to
get hold of the books and read them as quickly as I could.

His disappointment after
reading them suggests a restless mind seeking knowledge in any form that it could be
acquired, perhaps ascribing to Socrates his own experience with reading. Friedlander
discusses the stages of Platos own philosophical and/or political development as
possibly analogous to what he ascribes to Socrates in this passage. He finds parallel
terminology in Platos description of his political development but does not find any hint
of the philosophical development in the Seventh Letter. He points out that Plato does
briefly discuss a progression (diag!g") through four definite stages of knowledge.

(9) In
the Critias (113b), Plato has Critias mention writings concerning the meaning of names
that were in the possession of his grandfather and which he now owned (though it is not
clear whether these were in fact books or a record of an inscription). In Hippias Minor,
there is a description of Hippias arriving at the Olympian festival; carrying poems, epics,
tragedies, dithyrambs and all sorts of prose works (368c11-d1) katalogad"n pollous
logous kai pantodapous sugkeimenous). At the beginning of Theaetetus Eucleides
presents Terpsion with a book (biblion) in which he wrote the conversation he had with
Socrates. He describes it as corrected and edited for awkward constructions. Phaedrus has
been trying to memorize Lysias erotic speech from the book he is holding beneath his
cloak. In Laws (811e5), the educator is to select appropriate material for the lessons in
literature. In the Seventh Letter, Plato mentions that Dionysius wrote (yegraphevai) a
treatise on the subjects which he, Plato, had instructed him on and composed it as though
it were his own invention (341b3-5). Plato was in a milieu of readers, book collectors and
writers and may have read what we always assume that Plato heard. Xenophon
corroborates Platos vignettes by giving us a little glimpse of a fifth century reader when
he describes Socrates as turning over and perusing with his friends the treasures of the
wise men of old, which they have left written in books. (10) In the Symposium (4.27)
Charmides says he has seen Socrates and Critobulus huddled over a book (biblion).

Technical Writings

Root concepts for philosophy cannot occur without precedent, but carry a residue of
meaning from the contexts from which they emerge. The intellectual history of
philosophy can be found, not only in the panoptic scope of Greek scientific vision, but in
the increasingly sophisticated technology that one finds in early cartography, astronomy,
cosmology, architecture, medicine and mathematics. Many of the early authors were
polymaths and the different disciplines were not as clearly separated from one another as
they are today. Plato mentions the separate crafts if not separate reference manuals, and
proposes separate disciplines for education (astronomy and geometry (Rep. 528d) for
example). Certainly architecture was one. Hahn considers Anaximander to be the author
of the first specifically philosophical book in prose (c. 548-547 BCE). During this same
period Theodorus (the architect of the archaic Samian Heraion) and
Chersiphron/Metagenes (the architects of the archaic Artemision) wrote practical guides
aimed at temple builders. Medicine had its own literature as well. Thomas Cole
differentiates between texts such as the speeches of Antiphon and Thucydides and
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reference texts for consultation. The latter are written compendia of information for
those who might need expert technical advice or opinion and who could not consult an
expert in person.

(11) He contends that reference texts such as these were produced in
some abundance. Gerald Naddaf points out that writing was not just an aide memoire but
a sine qua non for reflective analysis. The content of many writings was far too complex
to digest in a single performance, and thus did not belong to the oral tradition.

(12)
Reading Plato would have in his repository of technical writing: the medical works of
Hippocrates, the geography and cartography of Anaximander, architectural and
mathematical treatises as well as works on the musical canon. Boundaries between
disciplines in the sixth to fourth centuries were more fluid, and they embodied certain
common approaches. Principles of proportion, for instance, are applied across technical
genres. Attempts to set down the rules of proportion and make precise measurements are
found in sculpture, architecture, musical theory, and mathematics. There was an
atmosphere of increasing scientific precision and exchange of ideas. Hahn points out that
the common thread that unites Thales and Anaximander, Theodorus and Rhoikes,
Chersiphron and Megegenes are projects in applied geometry. (13) The extant fragment
of Philolaus specifically mentions geometric proportion. Eudoxus, in the fourth century,
entitled his book On Speeds, and explained how he was able to calculate the periods of
the planetary revolutions without error.

Prose compositions regarding the arts that relied on principles of proportion can be
documented as well. Vitruvius reports that there was work on perspective and reports that
an Agatharchus, a painter of stage scenes at Athens during Aeschylus time, had left a
treatise on the subject. It served as a guide to Democritus and Anaxagoras, who both
discussed problems of perspective and wrote about them.

(14) Nails mentions several
books of which we have mostly titles: Sophocles, On the Chorus; Ictinus, On the
Parthenon; Polyclitus, On the Symmetry of the Human Body, Meton, On the Calendar
and Hippodamus, On Town Planning.

(15)

Musicology is one technical field that yielded all kinds of speculation related to the
cutting of the Kan!n, that is, the techniques necessary to achieve harmony in the musical
scale. Archytas divisions were in the service of attunements in practical usage.
Philolaus discusses this as well. Plato incorporates the divisions of the Kan!n and
converts them to a theory of proportion in the Timaeus. These numbers measure
corresponding lengths of a single long strip of soul stuff. The intervals in the strip are
filled in by a pattern representing musical notes at intervals of a tone or a semitone and
this corresponds to the mechanics of geometrical promotion. According to Cornford,
Platos applications depart from plausible musical harmony because Plato strives to make
an analogy with the solid numbers. He stops at the cube symbolizing the body in three
dimensions. Continuous geometrical proportion is chosen as the most perfect bond to
connect four solid bodies forming the whole body of the world due to theories about
nature of number and the soul. They do not correspond to the construction of a musical
scale with any accuracy. (16) Kahn argues that the diatonic scale of the Timaeus
resembles that of Philolaus rather than Archytas.

(17) Although, the specifics of the use
of the musical scale have been a subject of debate in the literature, the important point is
that Plato incorporates divisions native to the theory of harmony in his cosmological
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dialogue. In applying these divisions to the very creation of the material universe, Plato
sees the possibility of a kind of universal mathematics of proportion as a paradigm for
physical phenomena. All portioning begins with a limiting parameter within which
further limits are imposed by formulae. The result is that ultimately all difference is
consonant.

(18) Symmetry thus determines consonance in musicology as a finite and very
specific set of consonances producing rational sound. Analogously, all material
appearance presupposes the limit of ratio as a precondition for being determinate as a
"this." For Plato, interval (diast"ma) is the infrastructure of determinate existence, as the
cutting of the Kan!n demonstrates.

Plato uses the word intervals (diastemata) for the
segments which are created by the tetratkys like portioning of the Soul stuff. This word is
the same used by ancient musicologists. Intervals are the extensions which exist in the
space created by the distribution of the original whole now apportioned according to
ratio. The cutting of the Kan!n and the determination of constant ratios, then, is a model
schema that is heuristic for scientific theory. (19) It demonstrates he fact that Limit
(peras) has to do with interval imposed upon the Unlimited (apeiron) according to ratio.
(20) Limit/Unlimited are ontological mainstays of Platos speculations (see especially
Philebus). In Platos hands this opposition has become far more sophisticated than it was
in the original Pythagorean table of opposites. Acoustics then, is a good example of the
kind of technical discipline that was pursued by polymaths such as Archytas, Philolaus,
and Archytas student Eudoxus, as well as other mathematicians of a younger generation.
Plato transmuted the mechanics of these studies into philosophical discourse.

Spherics had advanced by Platos time as well. J.L. Berggren has described how the
discussion of harmony in Republic is related to Platos assimilation of astronomy to
geometry and harmonics to arithmetic. (21) He cites Ian Muellers 1980 article in which
the latter argues that Platos view is not unreasonable, given certain Greek scientific texts
that make clearer the kind of astronomy and harmonics Plato has in mind in the Republic.
He refers to texts such as Theodosius Sphaerica, Autolycus De sphaera quae movetur
(the Rotating Sphere), De ortibus et occasibus (Risings and Settings) and Euclids
Phaenomena. They reflect, he contends, the disciplines as they were contemporaneous to
Plato. Berggren disputes the possibility that the two sphere model was available to Plato
as it was introduced between 372 BC and before 340 BC. Platos discussion antedates
the three texts Mueller addresses. For Plato it was merely an ideal rather than an
accomplished theory. These texts, however, probably did not spring up entirely
unprecedented, since the Republic, written before the year 370 BC, was not that far off in
time from their publication. Berggren suggests that there seems to be unanimity on
the central point that both Autolycus and Euclid rely on an earlier work for the basic
theorems of the subject. This work must have appeared anywhere from 360 to 320 B.C.

Herodotus applied the term (logopoioi) to early writers of narrative prose who conducted
historia (investigation) into historical events. (22) There were mythographic treatises
tracing the genealogies of families who claimed descent from a god or hero, geographical
works in the form of a periegesis or periplous describing areas and people met on a
coasting voyage and accounts of the founding of cities (ktiseis). A circular boundary for
the world was a common way of depicting the known world. It is found in Homers Iliad
(Shield of Achilles) and in the round map of oikoumen", first devised by Anaximander,
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with its circular limits. Star maps and armillary spheres were circular as well. The idea
that the inhabited earth or known world is contained by bounding limit suggests a
conceptual map of inner and outer geographical space. This construct promotes a whole
range of metaphysical possibilities implied by peirata (limits) and periodos (a line around
the borders of earth). In them the world is seen in the form of an organized totality for the
first time. In both mythical (Myth of Er of Rep. 617a-c) and in philosophical accounts
Plato presents a universe that is a limited bounded whole. It is found in the Timaeus
(33b1-8) where the universe is one in which the fitting shape for the containment of all
things is the sphere, perfect and self similar and in Parmenides. Parmenides establishes
that the One has limits in so far as the parts are contained (periechetai) by the whole
(144c-145a). These images recall writings on ancient geography and cartography where
oikoumen", with its circular boundaries was depicted in both diagram and word.

(23) In
Parmenides, the Parmenides poem with its depiction of the whole as a pantothen
eukuklou sphair"s (perhaps inspired by cartography and astronomical maps) promotes a
philosophical aporia. There is spatial imagery at 145c4-5 when the Athenian Stranger
and Theaetetus discuss whether the One (to hen) has a center and extremes and what this
means for being (to on). (24) Does the fact that the one has a center and extremes mean it
is not a whole; that it is not being? (145c4-5). The fact that the one, here, has the
aforementioned background helps clarify this aporia.

Architecture is an area that engendered prose writing from the sixth century on.
Theodorus, Rhoikes, Chersiphron and Metagenes, contemporaries of Anaximander, like
him, all wrote prose works. Hippodamus of Miletus was the mid-fifth century city
planner who rebuilt Rhodes in 404 and laid out the Piraeus as well as other ambitious
projects in city planning. Hahn speculates that he too must have left a prose treatise
behind, given that Aristotle could give a detailed account of his theories a century later.
He made his plans according to geometric layouts. Hahn points out that those making
drawings, building models, diverting rivers, inventing tools and applying geometrical
techniques all utilized theories of proportions.

(25) Burkert cites the accomplishment of a
whole series of technologists whose bridges, temple architecture and bronze casting
techniques all date from the end of the seventh century. Terminology such as g!nia
(corner, angle), tetrag!non (rectangular or square), gn!m!n (a carpenters rule) and
diabiab"t"s (compass) are technical terms in use in architecture and engineering. These
terms, he contends, are put to a more conceptual usage much before Plato. As early as
Theognis and Simonides they are used to symbolize impeccable truthfulness and
accuracy. This usage documents a very early precedent for the elevation of ideas,
from the realm of craftsmanship to the plane of the symbolic.

(26) The column is a good
example of the transposition of a technical architectural feat to a literary albeit mythical
component of an imagined cosmos. The column in monumental temple architecture has a
cosmic significance, as it symbolically separates and joins or interpenetrates heaven and
earth (Hahn). In the Myth of Er (Rep. 616b-c) Plato describes the cosmos as suspended
on a column-like axis. In doing so he makes use of both its technical function and its
symbolic significance. Platos usage of an architectural analogue goes even further when
he conceives of the activity of the Demiurge in creating the cosmos as a technical
fabrication. The demiurge is one who has fabricated (etekt"vato) the cosmos (Timaeus
33a6-b1) by keeping his gaze on the paradigm. Herodotus used the term paradigm, in an
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architectural reference to the project of rebuilding the temple of Apollo at Delphi, to refer
to a model. In the Timaeus, where the analogue is clearly construction, the use of the
term (paradeigma) may be more specific than the more general usage of paradigm that
can be found in Sophist and Statesman. Here it is possibly inspired by the extensive
blueprinting and drawing-up of elevation and other type plans and descriptions in
technical writings, or to architectural models based on them. In the Republic (500e) the
word is used as well. Socrates says that a city could never be happy other than by having
its outlines drawn by painters who use the divine paradigm. There seem to be both the
analogue to graphic use and the meaning of moral exemplar in this usage. Platos later
use of paradeigma in the Sophist and Statesman is more generalized. Gill finds usages
that can mean example or model, and Murr points out three distinct usages in Statesman.
(27)

The field of medicine was well advanced and known to Plato. He refers to Hippocrates of
Cos in the Protagoras (311b-c) and in the Phaedrus (270c1-5). In the latter Socrates cites
Hippocrates assertion that the correct method in medicine is to study the nature of the
whole. Socrates suggests that the correct method is to discern whether a thing is simple
or complex, whether it has the capacity for acting or being acted upon etc. Lloyd
speculates about which of the medical treatises Plato is citing when he refers to the
whole of nature. (28) Lloyd points out that the passage in the Phaedrus has often been
taken to refer to On Ancient Medicine and Airs, Waters, Places. Lloyd writes extensively
about the standards that medical writers set for causal analysis and rational inquiry,
specifically Hippocratic writers. (29) He documents the difference that arose between
temple medicine and other charlatanry (alaxoneia), and the more advanced type of
reasoning associated with the centers of medical training such as Cos or Cnidus.

(30)
Platos inquiries, in the Theaetetus in particular, regarding knowledge as perception (as
Lloyd points out) may relate to this view. Other middle dialogues concerning the
standards of valid reasoning and truth may have some precedent in the kind of distinction
these medical writers delineate. In another context, Plato uses illness as a metaphor for
the ignorant soul. In the Timaeus (88b5-6), when he says that unwillingness and lack of
ability to learn leads to amathia (ignorance), he calls this defect the greatest disease of the
soul (he megist" nosos). In the Charmides the analogue between the illness and ignorance
of the soul (nosos t"s psych"s, 228b7-8) is carried through much of the dialogue.
Therapies (therapeusthai de t"n psuch"n and pharmakon) are to provide intellectual
cures, provided they focus on the whole (to holon) (156d6-157a3).

Plato was most certainly taken with mathematics and stipulated in the seventh book of the
Republic that Arithmetic, Geometry, Stereometry, and Astronomy were essential in the
training of philosophers. His characters frequently use mathematical examples. Plato
emphasized the theoretical character of the mathematical sciences. (31) Mathematics both
served as an exemplar of stable knowledge and impressed upon him the possibilities of a
universal way of analyzing the physical world. It created, for him, a vision of the whole
that could be rationalized and idealized through the application of universal technical
schemata. In the Republic (527a6-b2) Plato points out that ". . . squaring and applying
and adding and the like, is a language of doing whereas the real purpose of the study is
for pure knowledge. In the Timaeus he presents a view of the physical world that is
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unified by mathematics. Were Plato to possess a library, then, it would certainly contain
mathematical treatises. Sr. Thomas Heath and others have contended that the completed
subject matter of Books I-II, IV, V, and VI perhaps III of Euclids Elements were extant
in the fifth century, if not yet compounded by Euclid himself. (32) Hippocrates of Chios,
for example, whose date is commonly put about 450 B.C. or a little later, is said to have
written the first Elements of Geometry. His idea of two mean proportions between two
straight lines had already appeared in his reduction of the problem of doubling the cube.

(33) Platos teacher in mathematics, Theodorus, had an influence on him as did
Theaetetus, another of Theodorus pupils and a younger contemporary of Plato.
Theaetetus investigated the regular solids, and these were what came to be known as the
Platonic figures. Theaetetus achievements included characterizing lengths and
studying commensurability in dunameis (square roots). He also worked on the similarity
(homoi!sis) of numbers which are not similar to one another by reference to their
participation in planes. These mathematical issues provide models for assimilation,
harmony and other Platonic ontological analogues. The use of symmetria (common
measure), a mainstay of the theory of commensuration of lines, and the use of that term in
relation to the soul as in the Meno (87c-88b) is a typical example of a term borrowed
from mathematics and applied in philosophical speculation. The clearest example of
geometrical terminology applied to cosmology is that of the Timaeus (31b5-32c5), where
it is claimed that that the most beautiful of bonds, whereby the universe holds together, is
analogia (proportion). The theory that triangles make up the elements of the physical
world obviously has a geometrical origin as well. Though Eudoxus was a younger
contemporary of Platos, he studied with Archytas whose extant fragment discusses
geometrical proportion, the type that Plato uses in the Timaeus for the creation of the
world soul. Eudoxus discoveries in proportion in mathematics provided Plato with a
mathematical example of diversity within unity. Burkert suggests that Platos
mathematical theory of the planes in the Laws, as well as in other allusions, must be that
of Eudoxus as well. The theory of proportion was well-known among professional
mathematicians. Similarly, Socrates assertion (Rep. Bk.VII, 529d1-d4) that the speed
and slowness of the revolutions of the heavenly bodies in true number is graspable by
reason and intelligence, but not by sight, it is a nod of approval to the new
mathematicians who concentrate on mathematical theory.

In both the Republic and the Laws astronomy is classified as one of the three subjects
crucial to everyones paideia. Platos extensive use of astronomy contributes to the
figures of speech with which he formulates ontological constructs as well. In the Laws
(897c5-9) Plato makes the analogy of right reason and the perfect circular motion that is
found in the heavens. He models the revolutions of reason in the immortal soul after the
revolutions of the celestial bodies. The circle of the 'Same' and the 'circle of the Other' of
the Timaeus are modeled on the ecliptic and equator. To make these allusions, Plato did
not have to harken back to the cosmologists. Eudoxus Phenomena and Henoptron (The
Mirror, presumably a descriptive image of the heavens) were contemporary works that
probably were in wide circulation. All the developments in the area of astronomy that
studied circular motion were sources of inspiration to Plato. Noetic stability interacts with
the moving life of the Universe in the figure of circular motion. There are supportive
passages for this already in the Republic (Bk. IV, 424a), where Plato alludes to the
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"cycle of growth of the state, and in the well known Myth of Er. Eschatological
/cosmological imagery based on astronomy continues in the Timaeus, Epinomis and
Laws. The kind of careful study that Plato made of astronomy, and his detailed
knowledge of the scientific terminology of the astronomers could well support an
argument that he made use of written texts. Platos deployment of this body of
knowledge in the service of promoting noetic rather than empirical truths gives witness to
his practice of reworking technical terms and methods of proof to take on metaphysical
and ontological significance.
Finally, mention must be made of the methodological advances that were achieved by the
historians. Gentili and Cerri point out that in Thucydides work mythical and imaginary
components present in the stories of the poets were rejected in the name of historical
truth.

(34) Plato makes the distinction between muthos and logos in the Protagoras and
reiterates it in the Sophist (259d-64b), explicitly stating that logos is defined as
falsifiable discourse while myth is unfalsifiable.

(35) Hecataeus of Miletus (6
th
to 5
th
c.
B.C.) relied on history and his own experience, and criticized myth. Thucydides writes
rational and accurate historical prose representing a rigorous search for truth. Herodotus
is a transitional figure who did at times depend on legend and unverified stories. He
himself contrasted his own work as more accurate with the earlier writers of chronicles,
(logoi) (Hist. 2, 99 ).

(36) Thucydides claims that he would investigate with the greatest
possible accuracyin the case both of the events in which I myself participated and those
regarding which I got my information from others (sorting out reports from witnesses
and eliminating bias). The criterion of accuracy is based on empirical or logical
verification. Gentili and Ceri point out (140) that vigorous investigation of the truth as a
standard contrasts with oral narration. The critical attitude toward oral culture that the
historians promoted, they suggest, is similar to Platos objections to the poetry of the
past. If written works meant for the consumption of readers are to be rational they must
be validly referential and when they refer to ideas must have stable meanings just as valid
history must be based on established event. It is precisely the fear that the written word
(not only in poetry) could not do this that Plato expresses in the Seventh Letter.

Plato the Prose writer


Charles Kahn has stated that when it comes to detailed observation for later reference,
whether of star risings, harbor entrances, temple dimensions or the symptoms and
progress of a disease , there is no substitute for writing and in the end, no substitute for
prose.

(37) Whether or not the Academy had its own library is a matter of debate. Books
were read aloud as well as read silently. Whichever the case, Plato was strongly
influenced by Ionic prose in both technical terminology and in style, as Denniston points
out.

(38) Prose literature is not equivalent to the oral exchanges that occur in conversation
or in literature meant for performance. There is a difference between prose composed for
serious study and performance and rhetorical compositions designed to be spoken at
public sessions. The sheer scope of Platos integration of previous literature causes one to
speculate that he had access to texts to examine and reexamine. It seems implausible that
he could have utilized such a wide range of material based only on oral exposure. Books,
after all, were increasingly composed to be read as time went on. At the end of the fifth
E. Kutash 10 of 20
century we find an example of a Greek writer self-consciously producing a discourse
designed only to be read. This is Thucydides famous claim to have written (egrapse) an
account of the Peloponnesian war that was meant to be of permanent interest (I, 22).
Plato wrote in the height of the fourth century, and in a cosmopolitan intellectual milieu.
He was able to be eclectic and make use of a wide range of literature. Plato had to craft a
suitable vehicle for the abstract ideas that are required for philosophical prose meant for
reading. He can be understood on entirely new grounds by understanding that his
extensive allusions to literature of the past are not a mere recording of others views but
are the background for reworking key concepts. This is a reorganization of knowledge
and a subordination of predecessors to Platonic values and ideas. For Homer Ocean is the
origin of the gods (Iliad 12.201). To Thales the origin and nature of things is water. To
Plato Being is. Thales uses a concrete noun in place of a mythical name to postulate a
common substance in all things; Plato is creating and using a philospheme.



Preexisting literature served another important function. Technical writing made its own
unique contributions to grammar. The definite article, for example, evolves from the
demonstrative pronoun into the generic article as prose writing develops. Snell gives the
example of the horse in Homer. It is never mentioned as the concept of a horse but
always as a particular horse. Hesiod also does not use the article characteristic of the
later scientific concept. In literary prose, on the other hand, the generic use of the article
is an entrenched fixture. Heraclites speaks of the act of thinking (112; 113) the universal
(2; 114) and the logos (tou logou) (fr. 1, fr.50 fr. 2), while Anaximander, as reported by
Aristotle, Hippolytus and Theophrastus, speaks of the infinite (to apeiron). (39) The
article is capable of making a substantive out of an adjective or a verb, and these nouns
serve as the stable objects of thinking. The definite article helps to make a noun of an
abstract entity, to promote it to the status of a universal, and to allow the philosopher to
make statements about it as a universal (The one, the whole, the soul etc.). Snell points
out that where Plato might speak of the just i.e. Justice, Hesiod speaks of a just act
(Works 226, 231). Similarly, the infinitive and the participles set the ground for verbal
noun-formation. Sophrosyn", for example is equivalent to the active infinitive. Further,
Snell contends that beginning in the fifth century verbal nouns ending in sis, for
example noesis, become prominent. A multitude of distinct formulations propagated a
multitude of words that were capable of referring to abstract ideas because of the addition
of this ending. Another prime example of prose innovation is the Parmenidean
identification of the copula is with existence. The connective is essential for logical
relation, but in philosophical writing it takes on an ontological implication.

Denniston points out the very important fact that in the expression of abstract ideas the
existing vocabulary was inadequate. He discusses extensively the abstract substantives in
Greek Prose and gives numerous examples of Platos prose innovations and the similar
usages in other fourth century prose. (40) He too mentions the large number of verbal
abstracts ending in -sis that appear in Thucydides and Euripides for the first time. To
kalon and to dikaion are other examples of neuter adjectives with the article, a
combination that is not in common usage and is specialized. Denniston gives many
examples of abstract subjects in philosophical prose which have a strong sense of
personification. Thucydides frequently uses the neuter article and adjective instead of an
E. Kutash 11 of 20
abstract substantive, while the article with infinitive is used by Demosthenes and other
orators as a substitute for the abstract substantive. A good example of the use of the
article that is capable of making a substantive out of an adjective or a verb is in
Heraclitus writing when he speaks of to aphronein (B113). Charles Kahn has presented
some interesting suggestions about the philosophical use of einai, esti or on where the
veridical nuance or construction is of importance. One peculiar feature of the
philosophic use is the negative form to m" on. He speculates that the veridical einai is
a usage exclusive to philosophers. He believes the first to do so was Parmenides.

(41)

Another source of influence upon Platos writing were rhetorical enhancements that
could be adapted to philosophical usage. The ubiquitous use of analogy as in Homeric
poetry is a formal element found in Platos own writing. Techniques of persuasion and
methods of argument in the written speeches of the Sophists led to development of logic
as G.E.R. Lloyd points out. (42) He cites J. Goodys suggestion that certain types of
writing (tables, lists, formulas, recipes) as aides-memoire may have stimulated certain
types of questions and problems such as those of classification. Plato often has his
characters working on a philosophical definition and beginning with placing the object of
definition within a class structure.

Written compositions must adhere to an ideal of
definable truths that have an inherent autonomy and permanence. Robb discusses this
practice and points out that it is different from the contradictory and unverifiable verbal
usages that one might find in paratactic oral presentations.

(43) Preserved oral
communication, according to Robb, reveals the following features: the prevalence of
rhythmic speech over prose, of event over the abstraction, and the prevalence of the
paratactic arrangement of parts (be they phrases, episodes, ideas) over alternative schema
possible in other styles i.e. synthetic, logical, causal, etc. Plato, judged by these criteria,
was clearly a prose writer. His own use of myth, fictional dialogue and at times counter-
intuitive examples (as in the idea that there is a form of mud etc.) to embellish his prose
writing is a subject of study in and of itself.

One compelling example of the process of transmuting earlier science to philosophy can
be found in Platos usage of Anaxagoras concept of Nous. Plato writes about Socrates
hope and then disappointment with Anaxagoras concept of Nous (Phaedo, 97b9-99d).
Though Platos Socrates critiques the concept, at the same time, Plato has crafted his own
version of Anaxagoras cosmological infrastructure. Anaxagoras use of alone by itself
(monos autos eph hautou estin) of Nous and the term metechai (share in, as in ta men alla
pantos moiran metechei, all other things share a portion of everything) is terminology
usurped by Plato.

(44) The transformation of trope to concept is a process that is ripe with
promising clues about the starting-points of metaphysics; metaphysics had to borrow its
coinage from preexisting language, and a more overtly figurative language at that.
Through Platos alchemy Anaxagoras images become terminology for a theory of
forms. The itself by itself existence of Forms, first asserted in the Phaedo (100b50-6
and 66a2) is a figure of speech used throughout the middle dialogues, and repeatedly in
the Parmenides, as in the examples of separate forms of justice, beauty and good
(dikaiou ti eidos auto kath auto) (130b10). Anaxagoras is not the only source for the use
of auto kath auto; fifth century medical literature employs it, as do other pre-Socratics.
This particular usage, however, honed toward the noetic separation of Nous in the case of
E. Kutash 12 of 20
Anaxagoras and of the ideas in the case of Plato, transforms it into specialized
philosophic terminology. As it turns out the use of itself by itself in relation to the
forms is more common in Platos dialogues than the usage of the term separate. In
Platos discourse, differences are explained, not by a Nous that mechanically mixes and
separates, but by participation in Ideas. Things have separate qualities and degrees of
difference through objects sharing in the forms to varying degrees and proportions.
Platos language of participation (metechei) is another example of Anaxagorean
influence. Sensible objects allegedly share in ideas, not in everything, as Anaxagoras
states. Plato finetunes Anaxagoras rhetorical coinage, and puts it to use to explain
change and at the same time to maintain noetic stability. Similarly, as Taylor elaborates
in Varia Socratica, by the time of Socrates the term idea (eidos, idea), which originally
referred to the human form, had become a technical term for the ingredients which mix
and unmix in the process of forming the world. (45) Democritus referred to his atoms as
Ideas. In the Hippocratic corpus this term can refer to symptoms as well. Plato makes his
own technical and idiosyncratic usage of this term in the theory of forms.



Plato, master prose innovator, was grappling with the changing technology of
communication. In an era preceding the invention of dictionaries, fixing definitions was a
process crucial to successful written communication and to knowledge, as Plato himself
writes in the Seventh Letter (9342bff). Reprocessing meanings and redefining words,
particularly those with abstract referents such as justice or good, amounts to subjecting
these words to consistent norms. Gill points out (46) that reflection on definition is
important to the Theaetetus. Theaetetus third definition of knowledge, an account
together with true judgment, comes closest to meeting the demand for a definition
(although all three methods taken together of perception, true judgment, and an account
together with true judgment may be the only adequate method as Gill has suggested).
These criteria for knowledge are similar to those found in many of the scientific and
historical treatises of the time, and in particular medical writings. In Theaetetus (179e-
183c ) there is a satire on the Heraclitean philosophy that would make a mockery of fixed
meanings and rule out the possibility of stability. If one were a Heraclitean one would
avoid the term is and always use becomes in order to avoid fixed meanings in
discourse (m" st"s!men autous t! log!). Determinant subjects and predicates become
impossible if everything is perpetually in motion and change. Radical flux destroys any
claim to truth as the subject of a sentence cannot hold its reference long enough for a
predicate to be attached to it. In such circumstances the indeterminacy of referring terms
precludes the possibility of definitions.

The last quarter of the fifth century was a time, as Dennistons book Greek Prose Style
documents, when fevered experimentation with language was not uncommon. Prodicus
conducted lectures on the correct use of words and held a complete course on grammar
and language. Socrates calls this the 50 drachma course and contrasts it with the one-
drachma course which was all he could afford and which taught him very little. (Crat.
384b-c). Antiphon the Sophist gave lessons on the principles of word formation and new
compounds were being formed with great freedom. Isocrates, a contemporary of Plato
E. Kutash 13 of 20
was a determined prose craftsman and the master representative of the sophistic and
rhetorical culture that had flourished in the Periclean period. He stated a strong
preference for writing prose.
Conclusion
There has been a great deal of discussion about the shift from muthos to logos, oral to
written tradition that is alleged to have taken place in Ancient Greece. These views
presume that there was an intellectual revolution. Polymaths, however, thrived as early as
the sixth century. Theodorus, for example, architect of the first monumental stone temple
to Hera on Samos, c. 575 B.C., wrote the first architectural book in prose, predicted a
solar eclipse, measured the height of a pyramid estimated the distance and of ship at sea
and imported geometry from Egypt. Rigorous proof, second-order questioning and self-
conscious methodologies were a parallel development in the many areas of science and
technology, (As G.E.R. Lloyd has amply brought out in his many books and essays on
Greek science). Philosophy cannot be isolated as a self-contained, self-referential
discourse, but must be viewed in the context of its genesis out of a cultural, technological
and sociopolitical milieu. The extensive prose syngraphai of the sixth through fourth
century provide a mediating literature that helps us understand the evolution of
philosophical prose and its terminology.

Even in the absence of direct citation, it is quite evident that Plato was a reader of prose
treatises. In his own work he crafted verbal constructions geared to the expression of
abstract ideas. In the Phaedrus Plato displays his awareness of prose writing when he
calls it simple discourse and uses the expression like a prose writer or without verse
(metri! h!s poi"t"s " aneu metrou, h!s idi!t"s (Phdr. 258d10, 267a5, 277e7). (47) The
opposition is also found in Laws X (890a4). It is simple discourse that Plato makes the
vehicle for epist"m" (knowledge) and within its formulations he finds a language for
philosophy. Without the influence of former prose writing, albeit mostly in technical
fields, this advance could not have been possible. Platos use of Socrates in the Phaedrus
to express a mistrust of the written word, as well as his own remarks expressing doubts
about writing in the Seventh Letter seem to go against his own practices. Perhaps they
reflect his struggle with finding adequate formulations in the existing linguistic usage.
Plato in his own creative work, however, did not escape its influence. Speculation about
what Plato might have read, along with textual verification from his own writing, allows
us to place Plato more squarely in the intellectual milieu of sixth to fourth century B.C.
Greek literature.


Emilie F. Kutash
Boston University Center for the History and Philosophy of Science






E. Kutash 14 of 20

1. Brisson: 1995 reviews some of the issues involved in an esoteric interpretation of
Plato (not Leo Strauss kind); these theorists interpret Platos reservations about writing
as negative proof for the priority of oral doctrine.

2. Cole: 1992:80. Athens was central clearing house and high court and council
chamber (prytaneion) for everything that was said or thought in Greece (as Thucydides
and Plato himself describe).

3. Turner: 1977. Burns: 1981. Nails: 1995. (Knox, 1985 cited by Nails:1995:218)
believes the Academy to have had a library. Knox, as Nails points out (172 and 172 n.
38), believes that Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, and Hippias, contemporaries of Socrates,
all wrote prose treatises.


4. Herodotus (according to Harris 1989:80) completed his lengthy book in the 420s.
Burns (378-379 and n. 42-47) cites Hecataeus (first half of the fifth century); Acousilaos
of Argos (a long papyrus fragment of his work survives); Pherecydes of Athens (extant
fragments); Democles of Phygela (mentioned also by Strabo) and Ion of Chios (483-423)
as late fifth century writers. See Nails:1995:173. Kahn:1983:115, as well, argues that
sixth century treatises of a quasi-scientific type were more common than might otherwise
be supposed.


5. See Nails:1995:174-177 and Thesleff:1990 for discussions of what the pre-Socratics
wrote. See Kirk and Raven and Schofield:1983 for documentation and sources of pre-
Socratic fragments.

6. Nails:171 cites Davison 1962:219-220.

7. Turner:1977:8ff and Burns:1981. Burns cites literary references to fifth century
schools documented by Herodotus (Hist. 6.27.2).

8. Diogenes Laertius: Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (Platonis) Loeb:
1972:285, also contends that Plato transcribed a great deal from Epicharmus the Comic
poet, and he devotes quite a few pages to documenting the similarity between his and
Platos views. Wilamowitz disagrees with Diels about the authenticity of Epicharmus
writings.

9. Friedlander:1973:6 and 239-240. Dicks:1985:95 suggest that Anaxagoras' topics; the
sphericity of the earth and its position relative to the other celestial objects, relative
speeds connected with the Philolaic system, and other persistent crude astronomical
notions of the pre-Socratics were present well into the fourth century and Platos own
quest might be embodied in his remark about Socrates disappointing reading.


E. Kutash 15 of 20
10. Goody and Watt:1968:52 quote Memorabilia I, 6, 16.

11. Cole:1992:74. Hahn:2001:5

12. Naddaf:1998: xx.

13. Hahn:2001:83.

14. Heath:1981:174n.1, Vitruvius De architecture, vii, praef. 11. Heath cites Vitruvius
mention of Agatharchus treatise.

15. Nails:1995:171(citing Turner 1977:18).

16. Cornford:1935:66-68.

17.Kahn:2001:46

18. Brann:1975: Personal communication containing unpublished manuscript. Eva Brann
(1975) in The Cutting of the Canon points out that it is the business of the musical
canon to show that the consonant intervals can be put together or compounded
(suntithenai) and in the process, there is a successive reapportioning of the bounding
term, the octave being the greatest interval, 2:1.

19. Barker:1994:68-69 describes the musical revolution in the late fifth century. There
was extensive work on the cutting of the canon. He points out that the principles
underlying Platos musical divisions in the Timaeus are not specific to music, but belong
to the wider domain of number theory.

20. In Post Academic Platonism the relation that logos has to interval is a mainstay of
musical theory. See Barker:1994:50, n.2. Viz. Porphyrys Commentary on Ptolemy's
Harmonics (Ed. I During, Gotenborg, 1932.) Ptolemy discussed intervals in terms of
Pythagorean ratio theory. Porphyry develops the analogy between musical sound and
interval and geometrical point and line (173.18-21). Interval is the material posit (in a
particular space), expressing a ratio, which is the actualization of a power in harmonics.

21. Berggren:1991: 232-233.

22. See Ionian Logographers Predecessors of Herodotus, Oxford Classical Dictionary:
2003. This on-line account largely reviews material taken from fragments and testimonia
of FGrH (see index auctorum, 3.B.767 for individual names.) Hdt. 5.36. 125. Acusilaus,
Charon, Damastes, Euagon, Hellanicus, Pherecydes, Scylax and Xanthus can all be
considered contemporaries of Herodotus although the dates are uncertain. Some of the
controversies and complexities of dating issues is well documented by Joyce:1999.
Robert Fowler in his book Early Greek Mythography (BMCR review 2002.06.02) gives a
good sense of the chronology of these writers and repproducs the fragments of twenty
nine of them.
E. Kutash 16 of 20

23. Kutash:2001: 226.

24. Sayre:1983:51ff. notes the item by item correspondence of Parmenides arguments to
the attributes of the One that are found in Parmenides Way of Truth

25. See Hahn:2001:80-83: and 2003:78-86. Kutash: 2002:207-212.

26. Burkert 1972:418-19 and n.101, 102.

27. See M.L Gill: 2006, 2-16 and El Murr, D. E.:2006, 1-9.

28. Lloyd:1991:200-203.

29. Lloyd:1979, devotes quite a long section of his essay, The Criticism of Magic and
the Inquiry Concerning Nature to this theme.

30. Lloyd:1979:39. On page 135 of this same book Lloyd reports that On Ancient
Medicine attacked the use of method based on hypotheseis or postulates where it was not
clear whether what was said by the speaker was true or not (VM ch.1, CMG 1, 1 36.15)
Hippocrates demands that physical theories be verifiable sometimes by the sensations
(aesthesis) of the body itself (VM ch.9, CMG 1, 1. 41.2ff).

31. Heath:1981:284ff

32. Heath:1981: 297

33. Heath:1981:297

34.Gentili and Cerri:1968:140.
.
35. Soph. 259d-64b. This distinction, as has been pointed out by a reader of this paper,
first came from the Sophists. See also Brisson:1998:91.

36. Gentili and Cerri:1968:139.

37. Kahn:1983:118-119.

38. Denniston:1952: 5

39. Snell:1982:229

40. Denniston:1953: 20.

41. Kahn:2003:366.

E. Kutash 17 of 20
42. Lloyd:1987:73 and 73, n.90.

43. Robb:1970:23.

44. Kutash:1993.

45.A.E. Taylor:The word eidos. Varia Socratica ,Oxford, 1911.
See also: C.M. Gillespie, "The Use of Eidos and Idea in Hippocrates," Classical
Quarterly (1912) 6.

46. Gill:2006:2: n.3..

47. Brisson:1998:47

































E. Kutash 18 of 20

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