Writing About Platonism

4 March 2023

Writing About Platonism

There is a vast body of secondary literature associated with the Platonic tradition.  These include commentaries on the dialogues of Plato and the Enneads of Plotinus, introductory work such as guidebooks or overviews, histories of Platonism or histories of philosophy in which Platonism is featured, appreciations, etc.  I enjoy reading this literature.  Most of the contemporary secondary literature comes from academia; but a surprising amount comes from outside that context.

Recently I have been reading a contemporary commentary on a dialogue of Plato by a philosopher who writes from the perspective of twentieth century analytic philosophy, as well as the Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy whose exact date is not clear, but it is likely in the early part of the common era.  This has given me a chance to see how the background of authors of secondary literature shapes the literature, how this background effects, and in some cases, determines how they interpret the author’s understanding of primary sources such as the Dialogues and the Enneads.  Here are a few observations:

1.  I decided to read a commentary on a dialogue of Plato by an analytic philosopher because I wanted to see how the intersection of the Platonic tradition and the modern analytic tradition worked.  Reading this analytic commentary is a strange experience.  The analogy I have come to is that reading this commentary is like listening to someone trying to play a melody who has no sense of rhythm.  The notes are all there, but there is an absence of coherence and it is difficult to actually hear the melody and what feeling or understanding the composer of the melody wanted to communicate.  When I say ‘all the notes are there’ I mean that the dialogue is quoted correctly, just as the arhythmic musician plays all the notes; but everything feels ‘off’, something is missing and what is missing is crucial.

2.  It is my view that the Platonic tradition communicates primarily through the use of allegory and other methods of ‘comparison’ (a word Plotinus used).  Although there are deductive arguments in Platonism, I see logic as a tool for unpacking the meaning of the comparisons, such as the allegory of the cave. 

But the analytic tradition argues that things like allegory, metaphor, and other methods of comparison, are not scientific, are not testable, and are, therefore, ‘meaningless’.  This was explicitly stated and was foundational for the analytic tradition’s rejection of metaphysics as an illegitimate discipline and approach.  What I see happening in the analytic commentary on a Platonic dialogue is that the allegorical dimension of the dialogue is not understood.  The consequence of this is an overemphasis on the ‘meanings’ of specific terms and discussions about whether Plato meant this meaning or that meaning or possibly some third meaning, etc.  This kind of critique doesn’t really get us anywhere.

I’m not saying there is nothing of value in the analytic commentary; the author has a firm grasp of logic and implication and does suggest some intriguing possibilities.  But the central point, the transcendental, the One, is not there and whatever insights are presented tend to be side issues that are not critical to what Plato is saying.

3.  In contrast, the Anonymous Prolegomena is clear about the use of techniques of comparison.  In a previous post I quoted the author of the Prolegomena as saying that Plato’s dialogues are like a cosmos, or a ‘kind of cosmos’.  This is metaphorical reasoning, a type of Plotinian ‘comparison.’  In another passage about why Plato uses the dialogue form, the anonymous author writes as follows:

“Another reason, given by Plato himself, is that a literary work is comparable with a living being, and therefore the most perfect literary work will resemble the most beautiful of living beings; the most beautiful living being is the world, and the dialogue can be compared with the world, as we have already said; consequently the dialogue is the most perfect of literary forms.”

(Anonymous, Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy, translated by L. WG. Westerink, Prometheus Trust, Wiltshire, UK, page 28, ISBN: 9781898910510)

Here we see that the use of comparisons is freely entered into, without hesitation.  Furthermore, these comparisons are considered meaningful.  In this specific quote the comparison is a complex unfolding.  First a literary work is compared to a living being, then the most perfect literary work is compared to the most beautiful of living beings, then the dialogue is compared to the world as the most beautiful of living beings.  This sequence contains the logic of comparisons, a sequence of metaphorical, as opposed to syllogistic, inferences.  These metaphorical inferences (technically similes) conclude with the word ‘consequently’, a substitute for ‘therefore’ in syllogistic.  But the sequence of inferences is a sequence of comparisons; I refer to this as ‘metaphorical inference’, an art that is well developed in Platonic Philosophy, but that has been lost to modernity.

4.  It has been observed by commentators on modernity that a feature of modernity is that modernity has lost the ability to think allegorically.  Allegory used to be a widespread literary form.  A good example of this is Pilgrim’s Progress, a 17^th century Christian allegory, written by John Bunyan, that was hugely popular in England. Today such allegorical presentations of religious and metaphysical matters are largely unread and for the most part misunderstood.  It is my view that the way Plato, and the Platonic tradition, presented their understanding of the cosmos was closer to John Bunyan rather than contemporary analytic philosophy.

5.  I don’t know if there can be a coherent interpretation of Platonism that eschews the central role of ‘comparisons.’  I am aware of attempts to present a ‘secular’ Platonism that still contains the teaching of the transcendental.  In my own mind, this strikes me as similar to attempts in the West to generate a ‘Secular Buddhism.’  I doubt either will work.  On the other hand, Platonism has proven remarkably adaptable to changing external circumstances.  I mean that Platonism has worn Pagan robes, Christian robes, the robes of mathematicians, and the external clothing of other traditions as well.  Not all of these have ‘worked’ equally well.  But I suspect that part of the unfolding process of the encounter between Platonism and Modernity, and specifically between Platonism and Analytic Philosophy, will be ongoing attempts to tailor Platonism to analytic philosophy’s purposes.  Again, I doubt this will work; but such attempts might serve to introduce Platonism to an audience that otherwise might have completely ignored the Way of Philosophy that leads to the ultimate, the transcendental source of all that exists.