BMCR 2009.06.18: De Brasi on Cerri, La poetica di Platone: una teoria della comunicazione (Terza edizione aggiornata e ampliata di Platone sociologo della comunicazione). Il vello d'oro 26

Giovanni Cerri, La poetica di Platone: una teoria della comunicazione
(Terza edizione aggiornata e ampliata di Platone sociologo della
comunicazione). Il vello d'oro 26.  Lecce:  Argo, 2007.  Pp. 175.  ISBN
9788882343910.  EUR 14.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Diego De Brasi, Otto-Friedrich-Universitaet Bamberg
([email protected])
Word count:  2331 words
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Table of Contents
(http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/casalini07/08031991.pdf)

[The reviewer apologizes for the delay in the submission of the
review.]

The book on review represents the third edition of Cerri's Platone
sociologo della comunicazione (1st edition 1991; 2nd edition 1996). As
the author explains (23), the book does not contain very substantial
variations from its previous edition, aside from the introduction of a
new chapter in the first part (ch. IV, 'Dalla dialettica all'epos: la
trilogia Repubblica, Timeo, Crizia'), which had been already published
2000 in a book edited by Giovanni Casertano.[[1]]

The book is quite short (175 pages) and, although it examines
insightfully two of the most disputed subjects of contemporary Platonic
research (relation between philosophy and poetry; importance of writing
within a general acceptance of unwritten doctrines), it could be read
easily and with profit by beginning students.

After a preface by Bruno Gentili (7-14), who begins with some
considerations about the Platonic contradiction of writing philosophy
within a deep criticism of writing itself and then focuses on the theme
of <greek>mu=qos</greek> in Greek literature and on the ambiguity of it
within Plato's dialogues, Cerri itemizes in his Introduction (17-21)
the leading ideas of the book: (1) Platonic scholarship has not yet
analyzed deeply enough Plato's interest in the different types of
discourse and their relation to different types of audience in the
Greek polis; (2) a precise examination of this aspect would lead to the
conclusion that Platonic criticism of mythos and poetry is directed
against traditional (Homeric and Hesiodic) epos and not against mythos
and poetry itself; (3) poetry and mythos  might acquire an educational
function, if they were considered under the perspective of
<greek>do/ca</greek>; (4) Plato's criticism of writing should be
understood within the broader frame of a criticism of persuasive
discourse (<greek>pei/qein</greek>), opposed to the
dialectic-demonstrative one (<greek>didaxh/</greek>): in this sense
both written discourse and poetry--once reformed by philosophy--are
meant to accomplish a positive role in the doxastic sphere.

The book is then divided in two unequal parts which develop at length
the analysis of some key passages in the Platonic dialogues under this
perspective: the first part (Mito e poesia, 25-95) engages with the
first three items, while the second part (Oralita\ e scrittura, visibly
shorter, 97-125) concerns the fourth.

The first chapter examines a long passage of the Republic (II,
376B11--III, 392C8). In disagreement with the common interpretation,
according to which the passage is simply moralistic censure of poetry,
Cerri proposes to read it within its dialogical-narrative context. The
discourse about poetry and myths starts--as Cerri notices--as the
elaboration of an educational system for children of the new Socratic
state. While considering which kind of music should be used for
children's rearing, Socrates introduces a distinction between true
(<greek>a)lhqh/s</greek>) and false (<greek>yeu=dos</greek>) discourse
and classifies tales for children as a false discourse which could
still contain elements of truth. These elements, although they cannot
be seen as historical or factual truth, have the power to fix in a
child's mind some <greek>tu/poi</greek>, i. e. characters which will
shape the individual personality. This should be interpreted, as Cerri
rightly argues, as a signs of Platonic interest in social psychology,
and above all, in the sociology of communication. Moreover, Plato's
sociology does not ignore a subconscious level of communication: the
<greek>tu/poi</greek> are, indeed, quite similar to subliminal
messages. Once the sociological interpretation of Plato's criticism of
myths has been grounded, Cerri proceeds with the analysis of the
remainder of the passage and notes that Plato assumes, in his
examination of Homeric and traditional poetry and mythos, that the
latter are more or less similar to children's tales in content and
therefore could be interpreted on the base of the same
psycho-sociological analysis as the former (31, Cerri quotes Rsp. II,
377C7-D1 to support his interpretation). Homeric and traditional poetry
and myths are, consequently, false discourses too and must be esteemed
for their intrinsic (moral) value. Plato uses the notion of
<greek>ei)ko/s</greek> to qualify the positive morality of myths: he
admits into Kallipolis' educational system only verisimilar myths, that
is, as Cerri defines precisely, myths which help to imprint in the mind
of the audience morally right beliefs. Cerri concludes his first
chapter (38):


Platone, e\ bene sottolinearlo, non condanna la poesia in assoluto:
condanna quasi in blocco la poesia del passato, ma presuppone la
possibilita\ di creare una nuova tradizione poetica. E ritiene
fermamente che la funzione paideutica primaria, la formazione della
struttura della personalita\ di base del cittadino, non debba passare
dalla poesia alla filosofia, ma debba invece restare alla poesia,
riformata dalla filosofia.


Chapter two (39-46) focuses on the search  for antecedents for Plato's
criticism of traditional poetry and sees one of them in Xenophanes'
elegy on the Symposium (Fr. 1 D-K=Fr. 1 Gentili-Prato). Cerri offers a
re/sume/ of Xenophanes' poem, an analysis of the lexical similarities
between it and Plato's expressions about poetry and, though finding a
certain subconscious interest also in the archaic 'philosopher',
recognizes as Plato's the discovery of the theory of
<greek>tu/poi</greek>.

Chapter three (47-58) examines the Platonic use of myths in the
dialogues. After recollecting the different interpretations which have
been offered through the 19th and 20th century (pedagogical function,
knowing process from mythic to logic, myth as discourse about becoming,
intuitive function, subsidiary function, psychagogical function), Cerri
underscores how myths within Platonic dialogues are of different types
and therefore could not be unified under a sing le label. Cerri points
out that, nonetheless, Plato himself seems to offer a theory of myths
within philosophical literature. Focusing again on the Republic
(412Bff.), Cerri argues that Plato strongly stresses the theme of
persuasion (<greek>pei/qein</greek>). The assumption underlying Cerri's
interpretation is the fact that myths present in the dialogues will
know mostly an oral diffusion after their appearance in written form.
This leads Cerri to the conclusion that myths, as they are used by
philosophical writers such as Plato, constitute for Plato an
independent way of acculturation or education not for the philosopher
but for the 'masses' and especially for the children. That is also the
reason why Plato, while creating new myths, utilizes old narrative
settings and structures: myths with a philosophical underground and
with a known narrative frame will be accepted more easily by the
audience.

Chapter four (59-77), one of the longest of the book, deals with book X
of the Republic, especially with the myth of Er. Cerri's starting point
is the problematic setting of the dialogue in its relation with Timaeus
and Critias. Cerri reminds the reader firstly that the Republic is a
narrated dialogue and secondly that, at the beginning of the planned
trilogy Timaeus, Critias, Hermocrates, Socrates ties clearly the
contents of the Republic with the continuation taking place in the
latter (Tim. 17A1-C2). These narrative suggestions are read by Cerri in
a very plausible way: Timaeus, Critias and Hermocrates constitute the
audience that the day before listened to Socrates relating the
discussion which builds up the Republic.[[3]] Within this dialogic
frame Cerri proposes his interpretation of the myth of Er. Primarily he
underscores that book X is absolutely separated from the analysis
<greek>peri\ th=s politei/as</greek> of the other books, and he notes
that Plato may have in mind to develop in a different way the
poetry-myths criticism of book II and III. Investigating the context of
the narrative of Er, Cerri stresses the fact that from a literary and
paideutic point of view the aim of book X could be to reintroduce
poetry and myths into the education of human beings. Cerri reads a
positive evaluation of myths in the criticism of poetry of book X. The
interpreter should be aware, argues Cerri, of Plato's twofold attitude
towards mythos and poetry: on the one side a strong criticism of
traditional (Homeric) poetry, on the other side the possibility  of
creating a new sort of mythmaking (67). Under this perspective the
closing myth of the Republic could be considered as an attempt to write
poetry according to the philosophical rules enucleated in books II and
III: the narrative of Er shows in a mythical, persuasive and doxastic
way why people should live justly; and the Timaeus's and Critias
narratives are part of this Platonic reformulation of mythmaking for a
broader audience.

Chapter five (78-95) concentrates on the esthetic/poetic concepts of
<greek>e)/leos</greek> and <greek>fo/bos</greek>. Beginning with the
Philebus, where Socrates discusses with Protarchus a 'phenomenology' of
the mixture of pleasures and pains, Cerri argues plausibly that the
Aristotelian theory of tragedy was actually already known before Plato,
as the  Philebus itself (48A) seems to prove. To support this
interpretation, Cerri quotes, apart from that later dialogue, also
passages from Gorgias' Encomium of Helen, from the Phaedrus and
moreover from the Ion. Of the latter Cerri proposes a more detailed
analysis, from which it emerges that the Homeric passages under
examination in the dialogue are all understandable under the categories
of <greek>e)/leos</greek> and <greek>fo/bos</greek>. Cerri claims that
the communis opinio about the <greek>ka/qarsis</greek> theory and about
the <greek>e)/leos</greek>-<greek>fo/bos</greek> theory  (Plato derives
from Gorgias the idea that poetry stirs up <greek>e)/leos</greek> and
<greek>fo/bos</greek>) should be challenged and substituted by weaker a
thesis (viz. the <greek>fo/bos</greek>-<greek>e)/leos</greek> theory,
implicitly present in traditional poetry, became explicit during the
5th century BCE) followed by a chain of questions without answer (e.g.
who made this theory actually explicit?). Moreover, Cerri underscores
the innovations Plato brought to this literary theory, as can be
inferred from the Philebus: 1) pleasure pertains to passions (i.e. the
audience feels pleasure listening to/reading poetry not because of
external poetic elements like rhythm or narrative structure but because
of the intrinsic pleasure of passions, which are, indeed, a mixture of
pain and pleasure); 2) pleasure is inherent in passions not only in
poetry and literature but also in life. Cerri notes at the end of the
chapter that Plato placed the first steps for the Aristotelian theory
of <greek>ka/qarsis</greek> but that he deliberately refused it, as he
was convinced that passions developed by poetry would lead the audience
not to purification but to assimilation with the fate of the hero or to
addiction to the felt passions.

The second part of the book is much shorter than the first (five
chapters in less than thirty pages) and deals with an essential problem
of Platonic scholarship of the last decades, namely the question of
Plato's criticism of writing.

After a short resume (99-101) of the different positions supported by
historians of culture (Turner, Havelock, Vegetti) and philosophy
(debate on the unwritten doctrines, Tuebinger Schule), Cerri presents
his own analysis of the question. He examines (102-106) the passage of
the Phaedrus (276A-E), where writing is criticized and underscores the
ambiguity of this criticism. Writing is called a 'game'
(<greek>paidia/</greek>) but also described as a memorandum
(<greek>u(po/mnhma</greek>). Beginning with this last, Cerri
underscores the role of memory (<greek>u(pomnh/sesqai</greek>) within
Platonic thought and supports it with an example from the Phaedrus
(277B). Although Cerri knows his interpretation could be easily
contradicted, he supports it with another example from the Seventh
Letter (344D3-E2), which he considers authentic: combining some aspects
of the Tuebingen interpretation and some of the cultural interpretation
of Plato's criticism of writing, he argues that for Plato it is only
the theory of principles that should not be written, while any other
philosophical or scientific doctrine needs a written memorandum.[[2]]

The next chapter (107-112) develops these premises within a broader
discourse. Examining the philosophical excursus within the Seventh
Letter (342A-343E), Cerri notes that this passage, which underlines the
weakness of human language, leads to a criticism not only of written
but also of structured discourse, i.e. of discourse which does not have
the open-endedness of philosophical <greek>diale/gesqai</greek>.
Cerri's opinion, which I share, is that the criticism of writing in the
Phaedrus should be integrated with and extended to a criticism of any
discourse which does not fulfill the expectations of dialectic. Reading
the Phaedrus, Cerri brings to light the closeness that for Plato exists
between the verb <greek>gra/fein</greek> (to write) and
<greek>suntiqe/nai</greek> (to compose) and rightly extends it to the
entire work of the philosopher. He concludes--rightly in my
opinion--that Plato upholds a distinction between 1) a philosophical,
open-ended discourse, which aims at the uninterested discovery of the
truth, and 2) a closed, highly structured one, which does not look for
the truth but for a rhetoric effect or a demonstration of a
preconceived thesis.

Chapter IX (113-119) sums up the acquisitions of the book and
generalizes them. Cerri reminds the reader that, for Plato, poetry
could be 'saved' if it is based on knowledge of the truth. The Phaedrus
allows him to extend this interpretation to rhetoric and, supported by
evidence from the Protagoras, the Symposium and the Nomoi, to laws,
too. Cerri argues that within the Platonic dialogues there is a
thoroughly positive attitude towards structured discourse and writing,
which, again, could be shown through a close examination of the final
pages of the Phaedrus. As Cerri concludes, this kind of discourse has
its place in Platonic society: its audience is not the philosopher but
the common people, like poetry. Within these coordinates (i.e. limited
to the level of <greek>do/ca</greek> and of persuasive discourse)
writing too has a positive value for Plato: the poet, lawgiver, or
rhetorician, who through the dialectic has reached the knowledge of the
truth, should write works aiming at the education of the masses but
should also always keep in mind that his writings are poorer than
<greek>diale/gesqai</greek>. The last chapter (120-125) examines some
passages from the Nomoi which exemplify Plato's positive attitude
towards writing and underscores again Plato's attention towards a
twofold kind of audience: the philosophers, who search for the truth,
and the common people, who need to be persuaded of the goodness of the
Platonic project.

An insightful, easy readable book in which Plato's criticism of poetry
and of writing are presented from a point of view which highlights the
philosopher's interest not only in the philosophical elite, but also in
the common people. That is in simple words what Cerri offers us.


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Notes:


1.   Casertano. G. 2000. La struttura del dialogo Platonico. (Napoli:
Loffredo), pp.7-34.

2.   Even though I do agree with Cerri's analysis about the importance
of writing for Plato, I should underscore that I do not accept the
conclusions of the Tuebinger Schule about the unwritten doctrines,
especially in "hardcore" version as presented by Giovanni Reale (the
unwritten doctrines are Plato's true philosophy). I opt for a stronger
interpretation of Cerri's theory: every philosophical theme could be
the object of writing (where 'writing' has both its connotation as
<greek>paidia/</greek> and as <greek>u(po/mnhma</greek>) while oral
discourse, which is 'better than writing', is only an argumentative
help and does not imply a deeper metaphysical knowledge.

3.   In 136, n. 8 Cerri lists some bibliographical references.