In Plato we find the first introduction, within a prose text, of the figure of the philosopher. The figure of the philosopher sometimes assumes the persona of Socrates, but at other times he appears under other names - or even as an un-named foreigner. Plato’s Socrates in particular has become the very emblem of the Philosopher, or the personified Philosopher. Our project will investigate how ancient notions such as mimesis (imitation), philosophia (love of wisdom), atopia (oddness, literally ‘placelessness’) and technê (art or craft), are incorporated in, or related to, Plato’s use of the figure of the philosopher in his dialogues.
In a concrete sense, this figure is portrayed by Plato as speaking and acting among other fictional characters. Yet he is given a specific role as philosopher. So considered, the philosopher of Plato’s dialogues may be considered not only as a literary figure, but also as one that embodies in specific ways the argumentative dimension of the dialogues. Questions both poetical and philosophical thus arise concerning the different ways in which Plato establishes this figure, which give rise, in turn, to a further question of the unity underlying these complementary aspects of the figure of the philosopher.
Morten Opsal’s project will consider this figure by focusing on the way Plato’s Socrates, in comparison with and contrast to Xenophon’s Socrates, emerges as a key element in the notion of philosophy itself. Its point of departure will be a reading of Xenophon’s Oeconomicus (‘expert at household management’), where Socrates, as in Xenophon’s works generally, is portrayed as an accomplished craftsman (technitês) within a specific field or area of expertise. Plato portrays a Socrates in significant regards different from Xenophon’s version, as a figure seeking to establish the notion craft or art (technê) more generally as a paradigm for all knowledge. However, it remains a question for the interpretation of Plato’s dialogues whether it is possible to maintain this technê-analogy for all knowledge in any thoroughgoing way. From this point of departure Opsal’s project will accordingly move to investigate the relationship between the philosopher and the expert craftsman, focusing upon the field of expertise as well as the oddness (atopia) of the two figures of the philosopher and the expert craftsman. Through this investigation Opsal will aim to shed light on the distinctive features of the philosophical argumentation in Plato’s dialogues that set these apart from Xenophon’s less properly philosophical Socratic works.
In Plato’s trilogy Theaetetus, Sophist and The Statesman, the question of philosophia is treated more directly and explicitly than in perhaps any other of his dialogues. Erlend Breidal´s project will be to analyze the two very different approaches of the trilogy’s two main charachters: Socrates and the Eleatic stranger. How are the differences between the two charachters to be interpreted concerning the figure of the philosopher and the concept of philosophia?
In the Theaetetus Socrates is investigating philosophia as “a kind of midwifery”. The main ability of this technê is to judge the soundness of other people’s theories and opinions. The philosopher is without wisdom, very atopos (out of place) and is consistently pictured in negative terms. Philosophy is here a fundamentally critical activity. But in the Sophist and The Statesman Plato depicts a more constructive philosopher. Here the Eleatic stranger takes on a challenge from Socrates in defining what a sophist, statesman and philosopher is. But he runs into numerous difficulties in his attempts to establish clearly defined and unambiguous topoi for these different figures. Many of these difficulties are created by all the metaphors the stranger is forced to use. The art of statesmanship is “defined” metaphorically as an art of weaving (weaving souls together in the state), and the sophist is “defined” as an ironic imitator who is aware that he does not have knowledge about that which he imitates. Does the stranger here confuse the sophist with the philosopher (Socrates)?
What does it mean that Plato in this trilogy depicts two almost opposite figures of the philosopher? Is the Eleatic stranger a positive and constructing, but false image of Socrates the philosopher? Or is Plato’s notion of philosophia pointing beyond the authority of the charachters to the dialogues itself, as investigating and self-reflecting, written works of art?
Charles Armstrong’s project will examine the figure of the poet-philosopher, with a focus on the works of the poet William Butler Yeats (1865-1939). In Yeats, Coleridge and the Romantic Sage, Matthew Gibson has claimed that the Romantic Samuel Taylor Coleridge laid the foundations for Yeats’ understanding of his own role as combining that of poetry and philosophy during the two last decades of his career. Arguably, however, Yeats' understanding of the interaction of poetry and philosophy should be approached from the vantage point of Ancient Greek thought, particularly through the precedent of Plato's dialogues. By closely addressing philosophy's functon of establishing an essential preparedness for death in dialogues such as Phaedo and the Apology, a deeper understanding of classic Yeats poems such as "The Tower", "Sailing to Byzantium" and "What then?" can be attained. In the process, readings of Yeats as an out-and-out Anti-Platonist poet can be corrected, contributing to a revision of the general impact of Platonic thought on twentieth century poetry. Much scholarship has over-emphasized Yeats' dependence on certain strains in Nietzsche's critique of Plato. By framing the reading of the relation between Yeats and the Greek philosopher not only with regard to other tendencies in Nietzsche's writings, but also other contemporary sources such as Walter Pater's lectures on Plato and Platonism and A. E. Taylor's Plato: The Man and his Works, anachronistic simplification of this relation can be avoided.