BMCR 2009.04.71: Bensen Cain on Scott, Philosophy in Dialogue: Plato's Many Devices

Gary Alan Scott (ed.), Philosophy in Dialogue: Plato's Many Devices.
Evanston:  Northwestern University Press, 2007.  Pp. xxxii, 264.  ISBN
978-0-8101-2356-4.  $59.95.  24.95 (pb).

Reviewed by Rebecca Bensen Cain, Oklahoma State University
([email protected])
Word count:  1825 words
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[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]

There are ten essays in this volume and each one puts forward a
substantive thesis related to  Plato as a philosophical writer who
develops his own brand of imagery, uses literary devices to sustain
complex levels of meaning, and experiments with methodological
techniques.  The book opens with an extensive introduction by the
editor, and ends with an appendix of dramatic dates, a section of works
cited , an index, and notes on the contributors.  The editor's
introductory essay plays a major role in three ways.  It offers
guidance to the hypothetical "new reader" (ix-xx), sets out the main
purpose of the anthology (xx-xxii), and reviews the subject matter of
the essays in the volume (xxiv-xxix).  The book aims to reexamine how
the dialogues "work" in light of Plato's literary devices (xx).  I
recommend the book as a rich resource of scholarly interpretations
which take account of Plato's creative imagery and develop all manner
of interconnections between the poetic and philosophical elements in
Plato's dialogues.

The editor explicitly endorses the hermeneutical approach of reading
the dialogues as dramas, grasping the arguments within their
situational contexts, and taking the character portrayals as relevant
to the dialogues' philosophical themes.  This approach provides the new
reader with the means to understand Plato's authorial intentions.  It
explores the reasons why Plato would so frequently rely upon visual
images and metaphorical language to communicate his thoughts to his
audience.  Unfortunately, the editor does not offer much in the way of
a preliminary account of what is meant by Plato's "myriad devices"
(xx).  While the distinctive nature of Plato's devices and their
frequent occurrences in the dialogues may be understandable to scholars
who already favor the hermeneutical approach to the interdisciplinary
Plato, these aspects of Plato's dialogues are probably not easily
accessible to the new reader.

The central motivation for the anthology is put into the context of the
need for an expanded sense of the term methodos which apparently
includes within it the emphasis that will be given to Plato's literary
and dramatic devices in the volume.   Methodos also involves the "tools
and practices" of Socrates and Plato's other characters as well as the
"interpretive methods" that Plato might expect his audience to employ
(xx). Undoubtedly, the editor is right to suggest that Plato deserves
to be appreciated and admired as a philosophical writer who is skilled
in his deployment of techniques that include narrative framing,
dramatic irony, metaphor, parody, punning, personification, analogy,
literary allusion, and visual imagery.  In keeping with the expanded
emphasis, the book needs a clear overview of the range and meanings of
the literary devices and explicit guidance from an experienced reader
about how to recognize Plato's complex use of them in the dialogues.
There is intermittent discussion of the use of dramatic devices and
their effects on the reader, taking the Phaedo as an example (xvii).
However, given the importance placed on reading the dialogues from the
literary perspective, more could have been said to explain the basic
meanings of the key concepts: images and devices.  The clearest example
of what is meant by "images" is provided in Jill Gordon's paper (136,
n.1).

I will offer a brief account of each paper in an effort to provide a
preliminary idea of what a reader can expect from the book as a whole.

Both the opening paper, by Nicholas Smith, and the closing paper, by
Jill Gordon, concern the role of images in Platonic texts.  The problem
that besets most commentators is how to account for Plato's disparaging
remarks on imitative poetry in Republic Books 3 and 10 while at the
same time recognizing that Plato is the image-maker par excellence.  On
Smith's account, the proper way to interpret Plato's use of imagery is
to associate it with the mathematical level of thinking as situated on
the divided line in Republic Book 6.  Mathematicians recognize the
ontological status of images in relation to the reality that they copy.
They make proper use of images as images for the purpose of grasping
what is beyond their reach (12).  Gordon surveys a wider range of texts
in her discussion of the "philosophical importance of Plato's
image-making" (213).  She offers a positive account of Plato's use of
images that requires a reexamination of the traditional approach to his
metaphysics in light of the value that he places on visual imagery.

In connection with Plato's creative use of images and how to interpret
them, Bernard Freydberg's paper explains how Plato adopts Homer's
language to create new meaning and thereby forms a kind of
intellectually fruitful partnership, e.g. Platonic-Homeric imagery.  In
the context of an expanded meaning of methodos, Freydberg develops the
idea suggested by a passage in Plato that there is a hyponoetic or
"underlying sense" to poetic speech that must be distinguished from its
literal meaning (Rep. 378d3-8).  The distinction turns out to be
crucial in showing how to split apart two possible interpretations of
Homer's discourse.

Three papers concern the dialogical presentation of ideas and Plato's
methodological strategies.  Phil Hopkins draws a convincing set of
comparisons between Plato and Thucydides.  The two thinkers share both
theoretical and practical concerns about how antilogical thinking and
oppositional positioning fueled the political antagonisms of the
Peloponnesian war.  Hopkins notes that readers would be puzzled by the
disparity between Thucydides' accounts of the events, as he narrates
them, and the content and manner of the speeches he presents.  In a
similar way, Plato's readers may experience a cognitive dissonance
between what takes place in the drama of a dialogue and the meanings
they gather from it.  In his paper, Christopher Long focuses on what he
calls the "erotic madness" of Plato's method.  Long describes three
textual strategies that Plato devises to achieve the desired effects of
critical distance, historical grounding and playfulness.  Anne-Marie
Bowery's paper gives a detailed examination of Plato's artful technique
of Socratic narration in five of the dialogues.  She argues that
Socrates' character is given intimacy and psychological depth when he
is understood in light of his narrative function.

As I mentioned, the underlying theme of the anthology is the expanded
conception of method needed to capture the versatility of Plato's
practice of philosophy and dialectical  thinking.  Both Freyberg and
Long began their essays with a discussion of the term methodos.  In her
paper, Martha Woodruff refers to the root meaning of "method" as "being
on or along a road or pathway" (153).  Her insights on the reflexive
style of the Philebus (following Gadamer), "it does what it says", are
valuable.  She notes that the way language is used, exemplified, and
referred to in this dialogue contrasts with the Parmenides.  The
Philebus shows a distinct awareness of itself, as if it were
personified and learning from itself, or at least, according to the
author, learning from the failures of the methods used in the
Parmenides.   Gerard Kuperus, in his paper, moves away from the
traditional model of Socratic method and the linear direction of
progress that is associated with arriving at true conclusions.  He
suggests that Plato's philosophical metaphors of navigating through
deep waters and finding one's way through a maze or labyrinth are
dramatically demonstrated in the methods used in the Protagoras and the
Phaedo.  These dramatizations are more apt descriptions of what
genuinely takes place in the dialectical thinking of Socrates and his
interlocutors.

Both Benjamin Grazzini and Mark Moes have written papers that explore
the possible analogies between the medical arts, Socratic dialectic,
and Plato's philosophical methods.  Grazzini's paper is the catalyst
for a renewed interest in Socrates' account of himself as a
practitioner of psychic midwifery in the Theaetetus.   He shows how
Plato uses this intriguing image of Socrates in connection with the
views of knowledge being proposed in the dialogue and with Socrates'
relationship of bondage with Theaetetus.  Moes's paper is, by far, the
longest and most ambitious; it is forty pages in length including
twelve pages of exasperating endnotes.  The average length of papers in
the anthology is twenty-five pages including four to five pages of
endnotes.

Moes's thesis is based on the familiar and plausible idea that Socrates
works with his interlocutors as a skilled physician would do with his
patients.  He describes Socratic dialectic as a kind of medical
practice, e.g. testing of symptoms, giving a diagnosis, and offering
therapeutic care.  He draws out the implications of this model and
considers objections to it.  Moes then applies the thesis to Socrates'
discussions with Glaucon in the Republic: he has been diagnosed as sick
like the feverish city that Socrates urges him to envision.  As part of
this discussion, Moes argues for a diagnostic reading of four proposals
put forth by Socrates and Glaucon in Book 3 of the Republic.  Finally,
Moes puts together the medical model that he has attributed to Socrates
with an appeal to Thucydides' application of Hippocratic medical
practices, to suggest that Plato may conceive of his own methods as
medically oriented.  I found the paper to be convoluted, overworked,
and unwieldy.  I was surprised to find that there was quite a bit of
overlapping in content (and in language) between this paper and two of
Moes' previously published articles.  Both articles were cited in the
endnotes of this paper.

I found that the editor's introduction contained several verbatim
summaries of papers that were drawn from the papers themselves without
due acknowledgement.  Also, contrary to the editor's remark that the
volume is a "collection of original essays" (xxiii), Jill Gordon's
paper is taken directly from chapter 6 of her book, as she mentions
(234, n.1).

The anthology will no doubt engage the reader who is looking for new
ways to read Plato's dialogues and would like to learn more about the
Greek literary tradition that influenced Plato's dramatic style and
methods of communicating with the audience.  The authors who
contributed to this volume are vibrant and engaging scholars.  Their
work will encourage an eye-opening reconsideration of Plato's
philosophical thoughts and his talent for putting them in writing.

Table of Contents
Introduction, Gary Alan Scott (ix-xxxii)
1. "Plato's Book of Images",  Nicholas D. Smith (3-14)
2. "'To Say What is Most Necessary'; Expositional and Philosophical
Practice in Thucydides and Plato", Phil Hopkins (15-40)
3. "Medicine, Philosophy, and Socrates' Proposals to Glaucon About
Gymnastike in Republic 403c-412b", Mark Moes (41-81)
4. "Know Thyself: Socrates as Storyteller", Anne-Marie Bowery (82-110)
5. "Homeric Methodos in Plato's Socratic Dialogues", Bernard Freydberg
(111-129)
6. "Of Psychic Maieutics and Dialogical Bondage in Plato's Theaetetus",
Benjamin J. Grazzini (130-151)
7. "Plato's Different Device: Reconciling the One and the Many in the
Philebus", Martha Kendal Woodruff (152-173)
8. "Is There Method in This Madness? Context, Play, and Laughter in
Plato's Symposium and Republic", Christopher P. Long (174-192)
9. "Traveling with Socrates: Dialectic in the Phaedo and Protagoras",
Gerard Kuperus (193-211)
10. "In Plato's Image", Jill Gordon (212-237)