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A Discussion of Christopher Rowe, Plato and the Art of Philosophical Writing 1

N I C H O L A S  D E N Y E R

Through his philosophical career, Plato was a loyal follower of Socrates. His loyalty was more than an admiration for Socrates the man and an enthusiasm for his  dialectical  method. For  his loyalty included also a commitment to some more substantive views that  he took  himself  to  share  with  Socrates.

Among  these  views were:  the  world  is providentially governed; no wise person  ever harms  anyone;  a wise person  will know about  things  like beauty and  goodness;  beauty  and  goodness  are  not  identical  to  any  or all ordinary beautiful or good things;  all would  be well with  our lives if we were wise; attaining perfect  wisdom  is beyond  human powers.

Perhaps the most adventurous of these views concerned the motives  for action:  at bottom, we can desire  only one thing,  what is good for us, and therefore, in order  to act better, all we need  is better  information about what is good for us. Plato hardly  changed his views.

 His  largest  change  was not  so much  to abandon as to elaborate  his view about  the motives  for action:  he came to allow that in some respects and for some purposes, we can think of people as having desires  for something other  than  their  good. In those of his writings  where Socrates  is the main character, Plato tries to get us,  his readers, to  share  these  views with  him  and  Socrates. He does this by having Socrates  express these views to an interlocutor. Which  of these views he has Socrates  express,  and when and how, depends on the character and capacities of the interlocutor to whom he has Socrates  express  them.

Often  the  character and capacities of the  interlocutor are so far  from  ideal  that  they  limit,  or even distort, Socrates’ expression of these views; even so, Plato never has Socrates  say anything that  either  Plato  or Socrates  would  take to be downright false. Occasionally  Plato wishes to develop at length views  that  he  does  not  endorse  as firmly  as those  that  he  takes himself to share with Socrates. It is then that he writes dialogues in which the main character is not Socrates. Such,  in crude summary, are the main  contentions of Rowe’s book.

Link

Nicholas  Denyer 2009
1  C. Rowe, Plato  and the Art of Philosophical Writing (Cambridge, 2007), pp. ix +
290.

https://www.academia.edu/15761573/Reading_Platonic_Writing