Plato (review)

Abstract

460 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY To the second question I am inclined to answer with a qualified no. Although the precision of modern thinking can sometimes genuinely contribute to the understanding of ancient thought, I do not think that in this case the truly puzzling features of Plato's account of the Receptacle and the Demiurge's transformations of its contents are really illuminated by contemporary paradigms. Why, for example, Plato thinks that the apparently mechanical distribution of the four kinds of body to four separate regions would take place even in chaos (Timaeus 53a) and does not represent a work of reason, is just one of the several questions complicated rather than clarified by Scheffers interpretation. Wrl.LlXMPOHLE Lehman College, CUNY J. B. Skemp. Plato. Greece & Rome: New Surveys in the Classics, no. 10. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976. Pp. 63. This is a flawed but useful bibliographical essay by a distinguished Plato scholar. Primarily a discussion of recent work (generally work in English) on Plato, the booklet is also Skemp's attempt to describe the current status of some important issues in Plato exegesis. There is an introduction (which discusses general works on Plato, bibliographies, editions, translations, and language studies), followed by chapters on the authenticity and order of the works; the Socratic question; Plato's political philosophy (emphasizing the debate initiated by Popper); the Theory of Forms; epistemology; psychology, aesthetics, and ethics; physics; theology; and the unwritten doctrines. The book suffers from being neither fish nor fowl. Skemp presents his own beliefs too often for the work to be taken as an objective survey of the issues. On the other hand, he seldom defends his opinions, which are often controversial and occasionally idiosyncratic; he offers them mostly as obiter dicta. Skemp denies at the outset Co. 3) that the book is a bibliography. Indeed, it would probably be impossible even to list in sixty-three pages the scholarly works on Plato of the last twenty years. Thus, he has been highly selective in discussing works. Still, it is chiefly as a "reader's report" from a learned scholar that this pamphlet will be valued. Regrettably, the volume is less reliable than it could have been, even given its wide scope and brief length. Works are often given incomplete and sometimes erroneous citations. Some of these are merely annoying: volume 50 of the Monist is cited as volume 1Co. 23); John Brentlinger is referred to as "J. A. Brenthinger" (p. 37) and "T. Brentlinger" (p. 48); John McDowell is "J. Macdowell" (p. 46); Vlastos's Platonic Studies is "Platonic Essays" (p. 49). Others could completely mislead the researcher: on the Third Man argument, the author cites an article by R. E. Allen, giving no title and a reference to "PhR 78 (1969), 74-8." The reference , however, is to an article by Vlastos; Allen's piece (presumably "Participation and Predication in Plato's Middle Dialogues") appeared in PhtTosophical Review 69 (1960) :147--64[ The exegesis of Plato is often questionable too. Skemp writes of the five Very Important Kinds of the Sophist: "note that they are called ~n~x,q,not 81~8t1"(p. 40). Yet they are called both: ~tStl at 254c2, and "t~vrl at 254d4. The discussion of issues varies greatly in quality; that concerning the Third Man is perhaps the worst in the book, that on the Timaeus the best. Despite its faults, this essay will prove useful to scholars, just because it fills (though imperfectly ) a need for bibliographical work on current Plato scholarship. It must be regarded as incomplete, sometimes erroneous, and certainly not definitive; but even experienced researchers will find information here that could not otherwise be obtained. WILLIAMJ. PRIOR University of Wisconsin ...