Plato Common Logic And Reason Part One

By Author: Premkumar Nadarajan
Total Articles: 32
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The imagery and illustrations are poor in themselves, and are not
assisted by the surrounding phraseology. We have seen how in the
Republic, and in the earlier dialogues, figures of speech such as 'the
wave,' 'the drone,' 'the chase,' 'the bride,' appear and reappear at
intervals. Notes are struck which are repeated from time to time, as
in a strain of music. There is none of this subtle art in the Laws. The
illustrations, such as the two kinds of doctors, 'the three kinds of
funerals,' the fear potion, the puppet, the painter leaving a successor
to restore his picture, the 'person stopping to consider where three
ways meet,' the 'old laws about water of which he will not divert the
course,' can hardly be said to do much credit to Plato's invention. The
citations from the poets have lost that fanciful character which gave
them their charm in the earlier dialogues. We are tired of images taken
from the arts of navigation, or archery, or weaving, or painting, or
medicine, or music. Yet the comparisons of life to a tragedy, or of
the working ...
... of mind to the revolution of the self-moved, or of the aged
parent to the image of a God dwelling in the house, or the reflection
that 'man is made to be the plaything of God, and that this rightly
considered is the best of him,' have great beauty.

The clumsiness of the style is exhibited in frequent mannerisms and
repetitions. The perfection of the Platonic dialogue consists in the
accuracy with which the question and answer are fitted into one another,
and the regularity with which the steps of the argument succeed one
another. This finish of style is no longer discernible in the Laws.
There is a want of variety in the answers; nothing can be drawn out
of the respondents but 'Yes' or 'No,' 'True,' 'To be sure,' etc.; the
insipid forms, 'What do you mean?' 'To what are you referring?' are
constantly returning. Again and again the speaker is charged, or charges
himself, with obscurity; and he repeats again and again that he will
explain his views more clearly. The process of thought which should
be latent in the mind of the writer appears on the surface. In several
passages the Athenian praises himself in the most unblushing manner,
very unlike the irony of the earlier dialogues, as when he declares that
'the laws are a divine work given by some inspiration of the Gods,' and
that 'youth should commit them to memory instead of the compositions of
the poets.' The prosopopoeia which is adopted by Plato in the Protagoras
and other dialogues is repeated until we grow weary of it. The
legislator is always addressing the speakers or the youth of the state,
and the speakers are constantly making addresses to the legislator. A
tendency to a paradoxical manner of statement is also observable. 'We
must have drinking,' 'we must have a virtuous tyrant'--this is too much
for the duller wits of the Lacedaemonian and Cretan, who at first start
back in surprise. More than in any other writing of Plato the tone is
hortatory; the laws are sermons as well as laws; they are considered to
have a religious sanction, and to rest upon a religious sentiment in the
mind of the citizens. The words of the Athenian are attributed to the
Lacedaemonian and Cretan, who are supposed to have made them their own,
after the manner of the earlier dialogues. Resumptions of subjects which
have been half disposed of in a previous passage constantly occur: the
arrangement has neither the clearness of art nor the freedom of nature.
Irrelevant remarks are made here and there, or illustrations used which
are not properly fitted in. The dialogue is generally weak and laboured,
and is in the later books fairly given up, apparently, because unsuited
to the subject of the work. The long speeches or sermons of the
Athenian, often extending over several pages, have never the grace
and harmony which are exhibited in the earlier dialogues. For Plato is
incapable of sustained composition; his genius is dramatic rather than
oratorical; he can converse, but he cannot make a speech. Even the
Timaeus, which is one of his most finished works, is full of abrupt
transitions. There is the same kind of difference between the dialogue
and the continuous discourse of Plato as between the narrative and
speeches of Thucydides.
The perfection of style is variety in unity, freedom, ease,
clearness, the power of saying anything, and of striking any note in the
scale of human feelings without impropriety; and such is the divine gift
of language possessed by Plato in the Symposium and Phaedrus. From this
there are many fallings-off in the Laws: first, in the structure of
the sentences, which are rhythmical and monotonous,--the formal and
sophistical manner of the age is superseding the natural genius of
Plato: secondly, many of them are of enormous length, and the latter end
often forgets the beginning of them,--they seem never to have received
the second thoughts of the author; either the emphasis is wrongly
placed, or there is a want of point in a clause; or an absolute case
occurs which is not properly separated from the rest of the sentence; or
words are aggregated in a manner which fails to show their relation to
one another; or the connecting particles are omitted at the beginning of
sentences; the uses of the relative and antecedent are more indistinct,
the changes of person and number more frequent, examples of pleonasm,
tautology, and periphrasis, antitheses of positive and negative, false
emphasis, and other affectations, are more numerous than in the other
writings of Plato; there is also a more common and sometimes unmeaning
use of qualifying formulae, os epos eipein, kata dunamin, and of double
expressions, pante pantos, oudame oudamos, opos kai ope--these are too
numerous to be attributed to errors in the text; again, there is an
over-curious adjustment of verb and participle, noun and epithet, and
other artificial forms of cadence and expression take the place of
natural variety: thirdly, the absence of metaphorical language is
remarkable--the style is not devoid of ornament, but the ornament is of
a debased rhetorical kind, patched on to instead of growing out of the
subject; there is a great command of words, and a laboured use of
them; forced attempts at metaphor occur in several passages,--e.g.
parocheteuein logois; ta men os tithemena ta d os paratithemena; oinos
kolazomenos upo nephontos eterou theou; the plays on the word nomos =
nou dianome, ode etara: fourthly, there is a foolish extravagance of
language in other passages,--'the swinish ignorance of arithmetic;' 'the
justice and suitableness of the discourse on laws;' over-emphasis; 'best
of Greeks,' said of all the Greeks, and the like: fifthly, poor and
insipid illustrations are also common: sixthly, we may observe an
excessive use of climax and hyperbole, aischron legein chre pros autous
doulon te kai doulen kai paida kai ei pos oion te olen ten oikian: dokei
touto to epitedeuma kata phusin tas peri ta aphrodisia edonas ou monon
anthropon alla kai therion diephtharkenai.

The peculiarities in the use of words which occur in the Laws have
been collected by Zeller (Platonische Studien) and Stallbaum
(Legg.): first, in the use of nouns, such as allodemia, apeniautesis,
glukuthumia, diatheter, thrasuxenia, koros, megalonoia, paidourgia:
secondly, in the use of adjectives, such as aistor, biodotes,
echthodopos, eitheos, chronios, and of adverbs, such as aniditi, anatei,
nepoivei: thirdly, in the use of verbs, such as athurein, aissein
(aixeien eipein), euthemoneisthai, parapodizesthai, sebein, temelein,
tetan. These words however, as Stallbaum remarks, are formed according
to analogy, and nearly all of them have the support of some poetical or
other authority.
Zeller and Stallbaum have also collected forms of words in the Laws,
differing from the forms of the same words which occur in other places:
e.g. blabos for blabe, abios for abiotos, acharistos for acharis,
douleios for doulikos, paidelos for paidikos, exagrio for exagriaino,
ileoumai for ilaskomai, and the Ionic word sophronistus, meaning
'correction.' Zeller has noted a fondness for substantives ending in
-ma and -sis, such as georgema, diapauma, epithumema, zemioma, komodema,
omilema; blapsis, loidoresis, paraggelsis, and others; also a use
of substantives in the plural, which are commonly found only in the
singular, maniai, atheotetes, phthonoi, phoboi, phuseis; also, a
peculiar use of prepositions in composition, as in eneirgo, apoblapto,
dianomotheteo, dieiretai, dieulabeisthai, and other words; also, a
frequent occurrence of the Ionic datives plural in -aisi and -oisi,
perhaps used for the sake of giving an ancient or archaic effect.
To these peculiarities of words he has added a list of peculiar
expressions and constructions. Among the most characteristic are the
following: athuta pallakon spermata; amorphoi edrai; osa axiomata pros
archontas; oi kata polin kairoi; muthos, used in several places of
'the discourse about laws;' and connected with this the frequent use
of paramuthion and paramutheisthai in the general sense of 'address,'
'addressing'; aimulos eros; ataphoi praxeis; muthos akephalos; ethos
euthuporon. He remarks also on the frequent employment of the abstract
for the concrete; e.g. uperesia for uperetai, phugai for phugades,
mechanai in the sense of 'contrivers,' douleia for douloi, basileiai
for basileis, mainomena kedeumata for ganaika mainomenen; e chreia ton
paidon in the sense of 'indigent children,' and paidon ikanotes; to
ethos tes apeirias for e eiothuia apeiria; kuparitton upse te kai kalle
thaumasia for kuparittoi mala upselai kai kalai. He further notes some
curious uses of the genitive case, e.g. philias omologiai, maniai orges,
laimargiai edones, cheimonon anupodesiai, anosioi plegon tolmai; and of
the dative, omiliai echthrois, nomothesiai, anosioi plegon tolmai; and
of the dative omiliai echthrois, nomothesiai epitropois; and also some
rather uncommon periphrases, thremmata Neilou, xuggennetor teknon for
alochos, Mouses lexis for poiesis, zographon paides, anthropon spermata
and the like; the fondness for particles of limitation, especially
tis and ge, sun tisi charisi, tois ge dunamenois and the like; the
pleonastic use of tanun, of os, of os eros eipein, of ekastote; and
the periphrastic use of the preposition peri. Lastly, he observes the
tendency to hyperbata or transpositions of words, and to rhythmical
uniformity as well as grammatical irregularity in the structure of the
sentences.
For nearly all the expressions which are adduced by Zeller as arguments
against the genuineness of the Laws, Stallbaum finds some sort of
authority. There is no real ground for doubting that the work was
written by Plato, merely because several words occur in it which are
not found in his other writings. An imitator may preserve the usual
phraseology of a writer better than he would himself. But, on the other
hand, the fact that authorities may be quoted in support of most of
these uses of words, does not show that the diction is not peculiar.
Several of them seem to be poetical or dialectical, and exhibit an
attempt to enlarge the limits of Greek prose by the introduction of
Homeric and tragic expressions. Most of them do not appear to have
retained any hold on the later language of Greece. Like several
experiments in language of the writers of the Elizabethan age, they were
afterwards lost; and though occasionally found in Plutarch and imitators
of Plato, they have not been accepted by Aristotle or passed into the
common dialect of Greece.
Unequal as the Laws are in style, they contain a few passages which
are very grand and noble. For example, the address to the poets: 'Best
of strangers, we also are poets of the best and noblest tragedy; for
our whole state is an imitation of the best and noblest life, which we
affirm to be indeed the very truth of tragedy.' Or again, the sight
of young men and maidens in friendly intercourse with one another,
suggesting the dangers to which youth is liable from the violence of
passion; or the eloquent denunciation of unnatural lusts in the same
passage; or the charming thought that the best legislator 'orders
war for the sake of peace and not peace for the sake of war;' or the
pleasant allusion, 'O Athenian--inhabitant of Attica, I will not say,
for you seem to me worthy to be named after the Goddess Athene because
you go back to first principles;' or the pithy saying, 'Many a victory
has been and will be suicidal to the victors, but education is never
suicidal;' or the fine expression that 'the walls of a city should
be allowed to sleep in the earth, and that we should not attempt to
disinter them;' or the remark that 'God is the measure of all things in
a sense far higher than any man can be;' or that 'a man should be from
the first a partaker of the truth, that he may live a true man as long
as possible;' or the principle repeatedly laid down, that 'the sins of
the fathers are not to be visited on the children;' or the description
of the funeral rites of those priestly sages who depart in innocence;
or the noble sentiment, that we should do more justice to slaves than
to equals; or the curious observation, founded, perhaps, on his own
experience, that there are a few 'divine men in every state however
corrupt, whose conversation is of inestimable value;' or the acute
remark, that public opinion is to be respected, because the judgments
of mankind about virtue are better than their practice; or the deep
religious and also modern feeling which pervades the tenth book
(whatever may be thought of the arguments); the sense of the duty of
living as a part of a whole, and in dependence on the will of God, who
takes care of the least things as well as the greatest; and the picture
of parents praying for their children--not as we may say, slightly
altering the words of Plato, as if there were no truth or reality in the
Gentile religions, but as if there were the greatest--are very striking
to us. We must remember that the Laws, unlike the Republic, do not
exhibit an ideal state, but are supposed to be on the level of human
motives and feelings; they are also on the level of the popular
religion, though elevated and purified: hence there is an attempt made
to show that the pleasant is also just. But, on the other hand, the
priority of the soul to the body, and of God to the soul, is always
insisted upon as the true incentive to virtue; especially with great
force and eloquence at the commencement of Book v. And the work of
legislation is carried back to the first principles of morals.
No other writing of Plato shows so profound an insight into the world
and into human nature as the Laws. That 'cities will never cease from
ill until they are better governed,' is the text of the Laws as well as
of the Statesman and Republic. The principle that the balance of power
preserves states; the reflection that no one ever passed his whole life
in disbelief of the Gods; the remark that the characters of men are best
seen in convivial intercourse; the observation that the people must be
allowed to share not only in the government, but in the administration
of justice; the desire to make laws, not with a view to courage only,
but to all virtue; the clear perception that education begins with
birth, or even, as he would say, before birth; the attempt to purify
religion; the modern reflections, that punishment is not vindictive, and
that limits must be set to the power of bequest; the impossibility of
undeceiving the victims of quacks and jugglers; the provision for water,
and for other requirements of health, and for concealing the bodies
of the dead with as little hurt as possible to the living; above all,
perhaps, the distinct consciousness that under the actual circumstances
of mankind the ideal cannot be carried out, and yet may be a guiding
principle--will appear to us, if we remember that we are still in the
dawn of politics, to show a great depth of political wisdom.
The Laws of Plato contain numerous passages which closely resemble
other passages in his writings. And at first sight a suspicion arises
that the repetition shows the unequal hand of the imitator. For why
should a writer say over again, in a more imperfect form, what he had
already said in his most finished style and manner? And yet it may
be urged on the other side that an author whose original powers
are beginning to decay will be very liable to repeat himself, as in
conversation, so in books. He may have forgotten what he had written
before; he may be unconscious of the decline of his own powers. Hence
arises a question of great interest, bearing on the genuineness of
ancient writers. Is there any criterion by which we can distinguish
the genuine resemblance from the spurious, or, in other words, the
repetition of a thought or passage by an author himself from the
appropriation of it by another? The question has, perhaps, never been
fully discussed; and, though a real one, does not admit of a precise
answer.

lecturer at a private learning institution ( UTAR).