The Authenticity of the Eighth Platonic Epistle Reconsidered

Abstract

A vast amount of literature has been written on the authorship of the Platonic Epistles, especially of the very important and interesting Letters VII and VIII. During the last decennia the opinion that these two Letters were written by Plato himself prevailed, though it won by no means general acceptance. Recently, however, the late L. Edelstein in a thorough investigation*?) contested the genuineness of either. Two years later K. von Fritz 2) vigorously defended the Platonic authorship of Ep. VII, but threw serious doubt on the genuineness of Ep. VIII3). Because their arguments do not seem wholly convincing to me, I venture to reconsider the authorship of the Eighth Letter. As a rule the genuineness of Ep. VIII has been considered by reference to that of Ep. VII, and also in the studies of Edelstein and von Fritz comparison of the eighth with the seventh Epistles plays an important part in contesting the authenticity of Ep. VIII. However, it seems a sound procedure to reconsider first the Eighth Epistle as a document by itself, as G. Pasquali has done 4), and only after that to direct our attention to the relation of Ep. VIII to Ep. VII. Hitherto there seems no convincing stylistic evidence available for considering Ep. VIII spurious5). Though H. Thesleff in his recent investigation into the style of Plato's writings 6) on general ?) Plato's Seventh Letter (Philosophia Antiqua, 14, Leiden 1966). See for the 8th letter p. 145 ff. 2) Platon in Sizilien und das Problem der Philosophenherrschaft (Berlin 1968). See on this book my forthcoming article De wijsgeer en de praktische politiek, Ts. v. Gesch. 83 (1970). 3) Op. cit., no ff. 4) Le Lettere di Platone (2 Firenze 1967), 1 ff. 5) Cp. v. Fritz, op. cit., io about the analysis of the style of Ep. VII with the help of a computer. 6) Studies in the Style q/P/a/oj(Acta philosophica Fennica, 20, Helsinki 1967).