Sider, 'Il Platone di Tubinga. E due studi sullo Stoicismo'
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-v2n01-sider-il

2.1.14, Domenico Pesce.  *Il Platone di Tubinga. E due studi sullo
Stoicismo.* Brescia: Paideia Editrice, 1990. (Antichita classica e
cristiana 30)  Pp.107.  ISBN 88-394-0447-3 (pb.). Lire 20.000.
  Rev. by D. Sider
          [n.b. e-editorial liveware failure has introduced many
          run-on words in this review and some others of issue
          2.1.]

     Plato von Tubingen is of course the well known author of
Ungeschriebene Lehre, a best seller in Germany which has received
some attention in France and Italy, but which has not been well
received by il mondo anglosassone,where Plato is taken straight and
unmediated by later writers such asAristotle, Aristoxenos, Gaiser,
and Kraemer.  Harold Cherniss' criticism ofthe theory of Plato's
unwritten and esoteric doctrine (in The Riddle of theEarly Academy,
1945) has proved especially influential; and Vlastos' longGnomon
review (1963) of Kraemer's Arete bei Platon und Aristoteles
reinforcedCherniss with an attack directed specifically against the
Tubingen school. Less harsh but still unsympathetic is Guthrie's
History (5.418ff.). See alsoK. M. Sayre, Plato's Late Ontology 
(Princeton 1983) 73ff.  TheEnglish-speaking world has provided
little in the way of defense; cf. J. N.Findlay, Plato: The Written
and Unwritten Doctrine (London 1974) and G.Watson, Plato's
Unwritten Teaching (Dublin 1973 [1975]).  Pesce too issympathetic,
and like Findlay would continue to take the dialogues intoaccount.

   Schematically, the relationship between written dialogues and
unwrittenteachings may be put as follows:  Either  (I) what Plato
taught in theAcademy differs in no significant way from what is
found in the Academy (theAnglosaxon attitude); or (II) Plato
reserved his most important teaching fororal form because either
(a) it was esoteric or intra-academic doctrine meantfor his
students alone, and/or (b) as living thought it would lose all
forcewhen put into written form.  IIa alone suggests a jealous
attitude on Plato'spart, so IIb, as hinted at in the Phaidros and
Seventh Letter is a usualaddition. If for the purpose of a short
review, we unfairly divide studentsof Plato into philosophers (who
concentrate on argument alone) andclassicists (who are concerned
with literary form), we can say thatphilosophers who ignore the
evidence for oral doctrine must adhere to I.Classicists, however,
can allow for the significance of oral doctrine in theAcademy
without having to take it into account, on the grounds that
eachdialogue can, even must, be understood as a unity. What Plato
taught before,during, and after the writing of the dialogue in
question is as relevant asSophokles' actual attitude towards Apollo
while writing OT. Philosopherscannot be happy with an approach to
the dialogues that downplays theirlogical analysis (the dialogues'
and the philosophers'), but a classicist canagree with Tubingen in
allowing the dialogues to have, in addition tophilosophical
argumentation, a protreptic message that was designed tomotivate
the more intelligent readers to hasten to the Academy to sign
upwith Sokrates' heir.

   In answer then to the question, ``C'e un testo in quest'aula?'',
Pesce(who does not in fact put the question in this ichthyic form)
argues forpostion IIb above, agreeing essentially with many earlier
scholars on thispoint.  Plato, Pesce reasonably says, kept certain
things out of thedialogues not because he wanted to but because he
had no choice, given hisviews on the nature of the Good and its
apprehension by the human soul (seeesp. pp. 22-24 and 46-49).<<1>>
Pesce, furthermore, thinks that Plato'sreputation is not enhanced
(rather, the reverse) by attempts to recreate fromthe dialogues
themselves and from later accounts the so-called true beliefsof
Plato.  This book makes an attractive case for a middle ground
betweenextremes (without marshalling arguments that would convince
extremists), andso can be read as an introduction to the subject.

   The title essay (40 pp.) is followed by ``La struttura
concettualedell''etica di Epitteto'' (23 pp.) and ``Il senso dello
Stoicismo'' (28 pp.).

David Sider
Fordham University

1.  While writing this review, I read in an article in the New York
Timesthat many Native Americans ``feel ambivalent if not hostile
about writingtheir languages. Harold Dean Salway, president of
the...Ogala Sioux, has madeLakota the language of tribal
business....  But he does not like it writtendown. ``Writing it is
bad, I think,'' he said, ``because you have a tendencyto lose some
of the spirituality when it's down in black and white''.'' (Jan.8,
p.A12).  Plato would have understood.