have long acknowledged the protreptic and paideutic functions of the dialogues. Theymay also consider the Plato who emerges here a more designing and demanding butmore impoverished writer than the author of the dialogues. Like Schleiermacher andKahn (1996), R. thinks that the corpus has an overall plan, that Plato means us toread all the dialogues and connect them. On this view the dialogues become texts foracademic seminar analysis, but their literary brilliance and dramatic subtlety becomepuzzling interpretative impediments. Thus some interpreters will consider Plato’s artof philosophic writing far richer than R. does here, including not only characters’thoughts and words, but also their actions and passions, the temporal and physicalsettings of their encounters, the jokes and stage-business, the verbal and structuralironies.

R.’s book should challenge and enrich discussions among analytical interpreters asits many insights will reward all who read it carefully. The arguments depend on closereadings of speciμc passages that are marvels of subtlety. His thorough criticismo¶ers a plausible alternative to the long-running story of Plato’s development. R.’suse of ‘literary’ aspects of Plato’s dialogues as part of his argument and hisrecognition of Plato’s rhetorical aims may provide a useful bridge between older andnewer modes of interpretation.

Hunter College & CUNY Graduate Center GERALD A. PRESSgerald.press@hunter.cuny.edu

ANCIENT INTERPRETATIONS OF PLATO

Tarrant (H.) , Baltzly (D.) (edd.) Reading Plato in Antiquity.Pp. x + 268, μgs. London: Duckworth, 2006. Cased, £50. ISBN:0-7156-3455-0.doi:10.1017/S0009840X08001820

This collection of essays builds on the μndings of several relatively recentscholarly works which focus on the ancient Platonist tradition of interpretingPlato1 and have demonstrated the historical and philosophical importance of thistradition. The historical importance lies in what it teaches us about the practiceof ancient philosophers; to a large extent, we learn, ancient Platonists, like ustoday, were often guided in their interpretation of Plato by their own philosophicalpreferences. As for the philosophical signiμcance of the Platonist tradition, welearn from the recent studies how many di¶erent positions can be justiμed withreference to Plato.

Ancient Platonists were in disagreement in two ways. First was the question ofhow Plato’s philosophy as a whole should be interpreted, namely as sceptical,dogmatic, or perhaps a blend of both. Second, within each of those currents therewere di¶erences regarding the sense in which Plato was sceptical or dogmatic, andespecially within the so-called dogmatic tradition of interpretation there was strongdisagreement as to how certain views expressed in Plato’s dialogues, taken to

The Classical Review vol. 59 no. 1 © The Classical Association 2009; all rights reserved

56 the classical review

1J. Annas, Platonism Old and New (Ithaca NY, 1999), H. Tarrant, Plato’s First Interpreters(London, 2000), J. Dillon, The Heirs of Plato (Oxford, 2003) and L. Gerson, Aristotle and OtherPlatonists (Ithaca NY, 2005), to mention some of the most prominent.

represent Plato’s own view, should be construed. This collection of essays focusseson the variations of interpretation within the dogmatic tradition of interpretingPlato’s philosophy.

The volume contains an introduction by the Editors and μfteen essays. Some ofthem discuss methodological issues about the use and interpretation of Plato, othersexamine the interpretation of speciμc passages or topics in Platonic dialogues, whileothers deal with the history of Platonism. Harold Tarrant’s essay ‘Platonic Interpre-tation and Eclectic Theory’, which opens the collection, falls in the latter category.Tarrant argues that the changes of direction within the Academy were not asdramatic as claimed by some Platonists and Pyrrhonists. He maintains thatArcesilaus may well have represented the spirit of inquiry and self-examination,practised also by Polemo and Crates, without being obsessed with the status ofbeliefs, as is often presented by later sources. This may be plausible, yet the samethesis becomes much less conceivable when we move to Carneades, Cleitomachusand Philo of Larissa. Tarrant is right to focus on Antiochus, who μrst argued for asubstantial change of direction in the Academy. Tarrant’s suggestion, as Iunderstand it, is that Antiochus interprets Plato, especially Plato’s theory ofrecollection, from a Stoic point of view (pp. 12–15), which means that Antiochusunderstands Plato’s innate ideas as equivalent to Stoic common notions. This seemsto be right. The question, though, is how this explains why Antiochus should not betaken seriously in his suggestion that the Academy underwent a dramatic change ofdirection with the Academic sceptics. Tarrant appears to maintain that Antiochus,like the Academic sceptics, viewed Plato as a whole and assumed consistency, andthat he disagreed with the sceptics about the ‘deeper understanding’ (p. 16) of Plato.Again this seems right, yet one is left wondering why Antiochus’ view about theproper understanding of Plato should not be considered as one that makes plausibleAntiochus’ view that the philosophical proμle of the sceptical Academy had beensubstantially di¶erent from that of the early Academy.

John Dillon’s paper examines the Middle Platonic commentary traditionand performs two services: μrst, it reviews the existing evidence of theMiddle Platonic commentaries and discusses their status; second, it compares thisevidence with Neoplatonic exegesis, arguing that the two are much closer thanwas previously assumed in terms of methods and substance, which once againshows that there are no divisions in the history of Platonism as sharp as thenomenclature suggests.

John Finamore’s paper on Apuleius’ conception of God argues that for him, thePlatonic God is both transcendent, in the capacity of the demiurge, and immanent,in the capacity of the intermediary divinities, which may be visible (e.g. stars,planets) or invisible, through which the highest God acts. Apuleius’ view resultsfrom a reading of Plato motivated by the common assumption of Platonists in lateantiquity that there is a hidden philosophical system in Plato’s dialogues that needsto be unveiled. Julius Rocca’s paper, which deals with Galen’s use of the Phaedrus inDe Placitis Hippocratis et Platonis 9, shows convincingly that Galen takes Platoto be an authoritative teacher who makes his doctrine unambiguously clear inhis work.

The next four papers deal with positions that Platonists take towards philosophicaltopics discussed in Plato’s work. John Phillips writes on the treatment of the origin ofevil, Atsushi Shumi focusses on Plotinus’ interpretation of inμma species, Luc Brissondiscusses the origin of the doctrine of the degrees of virtue, and Hayden Ausland

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examines the mathematical understanding of justice, as discussed in the Republic, forinstance, by Pythagoreans like Archytas and Iamblichus.

For his part, Phillips shows succinctly that Plotinus’ interpretation of Phaedrusregarding the origin of evil is ambivalent (and thus exposed to criticism later byProclus), but also challenging and original. Sumi’s paper is rich, but has su¶ered fromthe Editors’ demands for brevity and compactness; only in Section 4 does it becomeclear that the question is that of the inμnite species, which in turn raises the vexedquestion of individuals in Plotinus. Nevertheless, the paper succeeds in highlightingPlotinus’ philosophical resourcefulness in interpreting Plato.

Brisson’s paper should be read together with Dirk Baltzly’s contribution. Brissonreviews brie·y the ancient philosophical tradition in ethics before moving to Plotinusand then to Porphyry, arguing that with Plotinus ‘everything changes’, because hispurpose was to create a synthesis of all ethical views suggested by his time, whichbrings him to propose the doctrine of the degrees of virtue. This does not seem to beright. Plotinus and Porphyry, at least from their own point of view, do not try to makea synthesis of di¶erent views, but, as Brisson himself admits, to systematise di¶erentelements found in Plato’s dialogues, which is why they claim that this is a Platonicdoctrine. This is what Dirk Baltzly rightly emphasises, treating more fully thedevelopment of the doctrine of degrees of virtue by later Neoplatonists likeIamblichus, Marinus and Proclus. Baltzly advances the interesting thesis that thecathartic virtues are achieved not only through the purgation of false opinion but alsothrough ritual acts which purify one’s soul.

Three of the remaining papers deal with Proclus’ interpretation of Plato. TimBuckley discusses Proclus’ Platonic Theology, focussing on the question how Proclus’exegetical programme guides him to make selective use of the earlier Platonisttradition. John Cleary does a brilliant job in trying to identify Proclus’ exegeticalassumptions of the Timaeus. And Marije Martin examines thoroughly one centralaspect of Proclus’ exegesis of the Timaeus, his understanding of eikôs mythos, which isrevealing about his assumptions regarding the epistemological and, especially, theontological position of the Timaeus.

Another pair of complementary papers, those of Richard Sorabji and of LloydGerson, centre on the question how Aristotle was used to understand Plato. Sorabjimaps out the territory by listing the various tendencies of dealing with Aristotle inancient Platonism, while Gerson is more speciμc, taking up some of the mostimportant philosophical issues discussed by the Platonists who tried to bring Aristotleinto agreement with Plato. The volume ends with Ken Parry’s paper on how Procluswas read in Byzantium, which is very learned and interesting but outside the scope ofthis collection of essays.

This volume contains good scholarship on a vast, complex and philosophicallysigniμcant μeld. However, the μeld is explored quite unevenly. We count three entirepapers on Proclus, but nothing (except for a few references) on the scepticalAcademics, on Antiochus or Plutarch. This lack of comprehensive coverage isinevitable in collections of this kind, yet it is unfortunate that papers so clearlycomplementary (Brisson–Baltzly, Cleary–Martijn) do not refer to one another.Nevertheless, the Editors must be thanked for editing a volume with papers ofgenerally high quality, and for careful proofreading and indexing.

University of Crete GEORGE KARAMANOLISgkaramanolis@fks.uoc.gr

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