Plato at the Googleplex
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3Woodruff, Thucydides ii, 36–42. I haven’t quoted the whole of the Funeral Oration as it’s rendered by Thucydides, which takes up ii, 35–46.
4Book II: 52.
5In the Gorgias, Plato has Socrates rebuke Pericles for needing to rebuke the Athenians. A good statesman would have made the citizenry progressively better, so ex hypothesi, Pericles must have improved the citizenry; but then why did they end up rejecting him? “[A]t first Pericles had a good reputation, and when they were worse, the Athenians never voted to convict him in any shameful deposition. But after he had turned them into ‘admirable and good’ people, near the end of his life, they voted to convict Pericles of embezzlement and came close to condemning him to death, because they thought he was a wicked man obviously.… A man like that who cared for donkeys or horses or cattle would at least look bad if he showed these animals kicking, butting, and biting him because of their wildness, when they had been doing none of these things when he took them over” (515e–516a). Plato is consistently contemptuous of the participatory aretē for which Pericles was so eloquent a spokesman.
6This acknowledgment of the resentment of the Athenian “allies” is in marked contrast to Pericles’ suggestion in the Funeral Oration of how grateful even Athens’ enemies must be to be conquered by a power so superior.
7Alcibiades is also presented by Thucydides as making the argument that an empire must grow if it is to survive.
8Book II: 60–64.
GLOSSARY
agathon: good
agora: the center of an ancient Greek city-state, in which the commercial and civic buildings were situated
akrasia: without strength, weakness of the will
anamnesis: theory that learning is recollection
aporia: impasse; an argument that ends with no resolution
archon basileus: the sovereign magistrate; oversaw religious ritual
aretē: excellence, virtue
aristos: literal meaning is “the best,” also refers to an aristocrat
asebeia: impiety
Attica: region of Greece in which city-state of Athens was located
axiarchism: the rule of value
bima: speaker’s podium
boulē: Council of 500 in Athens, who ran daily affairs; they were chosen by lot annually by each of the ten tribes
catamite: male sex slave
chitōn: a piece of tunic-like clothing, often belted at the waist, and with sewn sleeves
daimōn: a spirit, not at the status of a god
deme: a subdivision of Athens, including its outlying areas; under the reforms of Cleisthenes, who abolished the old tribes, citizenship was based on being on the citizens list of a deme; Attica was divided into 139 demes
demiurge: in Plato Timaeus, the deity who fashions order out of chaos
Dionysia: Athenian festival of theater
eikasia: the lowest stage of knowing according to Plato’s Analogy of the Divided Line; the state of the prisoners in the Myth of the Cave; ungrounded in the real
ekklêsia: the principal assembly of the Athenian democracy
epimeleia heautou: care of the self
epitaphios logos: funeral oration
epithumia: the appetitive part of the soul in Plato’s tripartite soul theory
erastês: older male lover of a younger male; one half of the pair: erastês and erômenos
erômenos: younger male beloved of an older male; one half of the pair: erastês and erômenos
euergesia: public benefit or service
euergetes: one who gives a public benefit
gnôthi seautón: know thyself; written on the temple of Apollo in Delphi
gymnasium: the place for training in athletics; from gymnōs, meaning “naked”
hesychia: keeping silent
himation: cloak
isegoria: equality of speech
isenomia: equality of the law
kallipolis: it means “beautiful city,” and was the name Plato gave to his utopia in the Republic
kleos: glory, renown; that glory which is heard; “acoustic renown”
Lethe: one of the five rivers in Hades, the underworld; the word means “forgetfulness” or “oblivion,” which is what is induced when a shade sips of it
logos: word or idea; in ancient Greek philosophy, a principle of order and knowledge; an account or explanation
maieutic: derived from Greek for midwife; the Socratic technique of asking questions to elicit the knowledge that is latent in one’s interlocutor’s mind; education
mēdèn ágan: nothing in excess; written on the temple of Apollo in Delphi
me mnesikakein: not to remember past wrongs; amnesty
metic: foreign resident; non-citizen in Athens
nous: mind; the intellectual part of the soul in Plato’s tripartite soul theory
oligarchy: rule by the few, quite often those who are wealthy or scions of a few chosen families
ompholos: navel; according to legend, Zeus sent two doves out to meet at the navel of the world; ompholos stones, denoting this spot, are scattered around the Mediterranean, most famously in Delphi
ostraka: broken shards of pottery, on which the names of those voted to be ostracized—banished for ten years from Athens—were scratched
paiderastia: the rules and norms governing erotic relationships between older and younger males
parrhesia: meaning literally “to speak everything” and by extension “to speak freely,” “to speak boldly,” or “boldness”
phronēsis: practical wisdom
Pnyx: a hill in central Athens where the assembly met in the open air
polis: ancient Greek city-state; pl.: poleis
prytaneum: town hall of a Greek city-state, housing the chief magistrate and the common altar
sophist: itinerant teacher of rhetoric
sunōmosia: a swearing together; a conspiracy
synegoroi: supporting speakers in Athenian court
tautology: from ancient Greek for “same word”; a proposition which is, given its meaning, trivially true. For example, “Either you will understand this definition of tautology, or you will not understand this definition of tautology.”
thaumazein: ontological wonder
thētes: the working poor; lowest class of citizen in Athens
tholos: round building
thumos also often written thymos: spiritedness; also expresses human desire for recognition; in Plato’s tripartite soul, it is our spirited part. Today in Greece thymos means simply “anger.”
to on: being
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I largely conceived this book while I was in residence at the Santa Fe Institute as a Miller Distinguished Scholar in the fall of 2011. There among the complexity theorists, I often felt as if I had wandered up onto Mount Olympus. I discussed the Pythagorean aspects of Plato’s thinking with the legendary Murray Gell-Mann, who brought in his collection of ancient Greek coins for me to examine. This was thrilling. Evenings, as I watched the sinking sun set fire to the mathematical equations scrawled on the windowpanes, I would think about Plato’s sense of the intimate connection between mathematical beauty and truth. I am grateful to both David Krakauer and Bill Miller for bringing me to SFI and to Jerry and Paula Sabloff for making me feel comfortable in my orthogonality.
I was also fortunate to be a Franke Visiting Scholar at the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University during the fall semester of 2012, and I am extremely grateful to Barbara and Richard Franke for their visionary optimism regarding the place of the humanities in the university and society. The beloved María Rosa Menocal was responsible for my appointment, and though her premature death while I was in residence cast a deep pall of sorrow over the center, her bold and magnanimous spirit still continued to hold sway. It was while visiting at Yale that I first hesitantly aired some of my more audacious ideas about the Greeks to the eminent classicist Emily Greenwood and will be forever grateful for her unblinking generosity in hearing me
out and then making valuable suggestions for refining my views. She read an early draft of the manuscript, and her comments were so helpful that my hope is that she would hardly recognize the version that is printed here. Conversations I had while at Yale with Stephen Darwall, Bryan Garsten, Tamar Gendler, Paul Grimstead, Verity Harte, Jane Levin, Alexander Loney, and Joseph Manning were also invaluable, both for the stiff skepticism they offered me (Verity is particularly to be thanked here) and for the encouragement.
I’ve been friends with Adina Schwartz since we were graduate students, and I knew that her highly honed critical skills would find much exercise in my views, and that my views would become the better for it. Debra Nails, to whom I wrote out of the blue because I was so smitten by the style and erudition of her books, overwhelmed me with her generosity, reading the whole of the manuscript and commenting copiously. Mistakes that remain are entirely due to my own pigheadedness. Still, I like to think that she helped me find my way to my better Plato. Joshua Buckholtz, of the psychology department at Harvard University, allowed me to participate in one of his experiments, so that I could experience what it is like to go into the magnet while performing various tasks in memorization and decision-making, exactly the experiment in which Plato participates. It was fun, and the wide-ranging conversation that Josh and I had about free will afterward was nothing at all like the one that Plato has with Shoket, since Josh is as thoughtful and open-minded as Shoket is not.
My interest in Plato has always been conditioned by my interests in philosophy of mathematics. But I always hoped that someday I might get closer to the remote figure of Plato himself. When I first mentioned such a hope to my literary agent, Tina Bennett, she immediately urged me to undertake a book that would realize this hope. I think the project would have remained in the realm of wishful thinking were it not for both her and my extraordinary editor, Dan Frank. Nothing could have been possible without an editor whose own love of philosophy is as pure and far-seeing as any Platonist could desire.
And now to my incomparable family. How lucky it is to have as one of my best friends and pretend sisters Margo Howard, whose actual profession is giving advice. Margo expertly played along with the shtick of “xxxPlato,” keenly interested in how her own advice would square with Plato’s. My two daughters were, as usual, invaluable as sources of encouragement and a whole lot more. Not for the first time did I have cause for rejoicing that they both had majored in philosophy in college. Yael Goldstein Love read the whole of the manuscript and gave me some of the soundest advice I received in terms of making the book accessible to a wider audience. Danielle Blau added her insights, most especially into the conflicts that raged within Plato between the philosopher and the poet. Not only did Steven Pinker read and comment on the whole of the manuscript, not only did he gamely accompany me on a trip to Greece, taking on my obsessions with grace and élan; he also has given me living proof that what Plato writes about romantic love is no overstatement: “There is no greater good than this that either human self-control or divine madness can offer a person.”
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
For the translations of Plato’s dialogues, I primarily relied on Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, associate editor D. S. Hutchinson (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1997). This means, in particular: Euthyphro and Crito, translated by G. M. A. Grube; Republic translated by G. M. A. Grube, revised by C. D. C. Reeve; Theaetetus translated by M. J. Levett, revised by Myles Burnyeat; Sophist translated by Nicholas P. White; Statesman translated by C. J. Rowe; Parmenides translated by Mary Louise Gill and Mark Ryan; Philebus translated by Dorothea Frede; Charmides and Euthydemus translated by Rosamond Kent Sprague; Protagoras translated by Stanley Lombardo and Karen Bell; Gorgias translated by Donald J. Zeyl; Menexenus, translated by Paul Ryan; Laws translated by Trevor J. Saunders; Epinomis translated by Richard D. McKirahan Jr.; Epigrams translated by J. M. Edmonds, revised by John M. Cooper. For Symposium and Phaedrus, I relied primarily on Plato’s Erotic Dialogues: The Symposium and Phaedrus translated with introduction and commentaries by William S. Cobb (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993). For those two dialogues I also frequently consulted the translations of Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff in Hackett 1997 and the older translation of the Phaedrus by R. Hackforth, in The Collected Dialogues: Plato, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Bollingers Series LXXI (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961). Unless otherwise indicated, however, the quoted translations are by Cobb. I also used the Princeton volume for the Letters, translated by L. A. Post, and used the Princeton volume as well for Meno, relying, unless otherwise indicated, on the translation by W. K. C. Guthrie. For Timaeus, I use the translations both of Donald J. Zeyl in Hackett 1997, but also, where indicated, the translation of Benjamin Jowett in Princeton, 1961. For the Apology I use both G. M. A. Grube in Hackett 1997, but also, when indicated, the translation of Hugh Tredennick in Princeton University Press, 1961. For Phaedo I quote from Hugh Tredennick’s translation in Princeton University Press, 1961.
For Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, I quote from the translation of Paul Woodruff, in Thucydides: On Justice, Power, and Human Nature: Selections from The History of the Peloponnesian War (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1993).
For Pindar’s epinician odes, I used Pindar’s Victory Songs, translated by Frank J. Nisetich with a foreword by Hugh Lloyd Jones (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990).
As far as secondary sources are concerned, the following are among the books I read which found their way into my writing:
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Brickhouse, Thomas C., and Nicholas D. Smith eds. The Trial and Execution of Socrates. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
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———. Ancient Mystery Cults. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.
Burtt, E. A. The Metaphysical Foundations of the Physical Sciences. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2004.
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Davidson, James. The Greeks and Greek Love: A Bold New Exploration of the Ancient World. New York: Random House, 2009.
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Dodds, E. R. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
Dover, K. J. Greek Homosexuality. Reissue. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.
———. Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1974.
Everson, Stephen, ed. Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Foster, Edith. Thucydides, Pericles, and Periclean Imperialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Frankfurt, Harry. On Bullshit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
Gildenhard, Indigo, and Martin Riverman, eds. Beyond the Fifth Century: Interactions with Greek Tragedy from the Fourth Century BCE to the Middle Ages. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010.
Gray, Vivienne. The Framing of Socrates: The Literary Interpretation of Xenophon’s Memorabilia. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998.
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br /> Greenblatt, Stephen. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. New York: W. W. Norton, 2011.
Greenwood, Emily. Thucydides and the Shaping of History. London: Duckworth, 2006.
Grene, David. Greek Political Theory: The Image of Man in Thucydides and Plato. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.
Grube, G. M. A. Plato’s Thought: Eight Cardinal Points of Plato’s Philosophy as Treated in the Whole of His Works. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958.
Hall, Jonathan M. Hellenicity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Hansen, Mogens Herman, and Thomas Heine Nielsen, eds. An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Hardy, G. H. A Mathematician’s Apology. Reissue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Holt, Jim. Why Does the World Exist: An Existential Detective Story. New York: Liveright, 2013.
Holton, Gerald. Einstein, History, and Other Passions: The Rebellion Against Science at the End of the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Kahn, Charles H. Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Lewis, Sian. Greek Tyranny. Exeter, UK: Bristol Phoenix Press, 2009.
Miller, Patrick Lee. Becoming God: Pure Reason in Early Greek Philosophy. London: Continuum International Publishing, 2011.
Murdoch, Iris. The Fire and the Sun. New York: Viking Press, 1991.
———. The Sovereignty of Good. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2001.
Nails, Debra. Agora, Academy, and the Conduct of Philosophy. London: Springer, 1995.
———. The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2002.