Harold Tarrant

Scepticism or Platonism? : the philosophy of the Fourth Academy

Preface List of non-standard abbreviations Introduction 1. Scepticism in the late Academy? 2. Charmadas 3. Fourth Academic epistmological doctrine 4. Anonymous In Theaetetum 5. Interlude: Antiochus in the New Academy 6. Gods thoughts as objects of knowledge Epilogue: the Academic heritage Notes Bibliography Index locorum Index of names.

Observations on the text of Olympiodorus on Plato's Gorgias

kind of detailed reading which is likely to suggest, or even demand, changes to the received text which have not been thought necessary by those only editing. While working on a translation of Olympiodorus5 commentary on the Gorgias recendy1), it not only became obvious to me that L.G. Westerinks careful edition of the text2), itself far superior to that of Norvin3), and able to benefit from a variety of other emendations proposed by reviewers of this earlier edition4), is not beyond improvement, but also that some possible improvements would have suggested themselves to any competent translator in due course. The received text was not originally in good shape, not so much because the text of M (Marcianus Graecus 196 Z), the only authoritative manuscript, had been handed down by a particularly incompetent succession of scribes, but rather because the text

Porphyry and ‘Neopythagorean’ Exegesis in Cave of the Nymphs and Elsewhere

Porphyry’s position in the ancient hermeneutic tradition should be considered separately from his place in the Platonic tradition. He shows considerable respect for allegorizing interpreters with links to Pythagoreanism, particularly Numenius and Cronius, prominent sources in On the Cave of the Nymphs . The language of Homer’s Cave passage is demonstrably distinctive, resembling the Shield passage in the Iliad , and such as to suggest an ecphrasis to early imperial readers. Ecphrasis in turn suggested deeper significance for the story. While largely content to follow Numenian trends in interpreting Homer’s cave symbolically and in relation to multiple belief-systems, Porphyry shows occasionally signs of wanting to adhere more closely to Homeric evidence, resorting to symbolic interpretation mainly when no more straightforward truth is on offer.

Plotinus, Origenes, and Ammonius on the ‘King’

In the early Roman Empire the theology of Platonist philosophers became increasingly concerned with a number of Platonic texts that appeared to offer some hope of settling debate over the kind of god(s) that Plato had postulated. Most of these seemingly authoritative texts were drawn from what we refer to as the ‘middle’ and ‘late’ dialogues, sometimes but not always considered in context. Small snippets of relevant texts could be quoted for a variety of purposes, not least in order to underline the erudition, authority, and perhaps orthodoxy of the teacher himself. In this regard it had much in common with emerging early Christian theology, withwhich it shared some interesting traits. These traits enabled some of the early Christian writers to find a surprising pre-Christian ally in Plato, while the similarities sharpened the need felt by others, both Christians and Platonists alike, to distance themselves from their rivals. The particular problem of Plato’s dialogues was that that they did not, in any straightforward manner, declare Plato’s beliefs; sometimes these seemed to emerge in question-and-answer materials, while at other times they appeared in myth, or when ‘Socrates’ adopted some unusual voice in response to a given source of inspiration. In all of these cases, hermeneutic disputes could easily arise. Since some seemed to have felt a deep need to penetrate to the true depths of Plato’s system and to require some lead from him concerning what was really important in the debated passages, material from the Seventh, Second, and Sixth Epistles seemed to offer the direct insights into Plato’s mind and into the reasons why the dialogues did not disclose the theological heart of his systemmore openly. In this paper I shall concentrate on Platonist authors of the third century CE and try to respond to a number of ongoing problems:

Plato’s Republics

Various ancient sources refer to the Platonic work that we know as Republic in the plural. Aristotle seems to have made it possible to refer to politeiai as ‘constitutions’, actual or written, and therefore some of our texts are best explained as references to Plato’s two written constitutions, Republic and Laws. One neglected reference that may perhaps be explained in this way occurs in the anonymous Antiatticista. A large number of references from the Alexandrian school of Platonism in late antiquity cannot be explained in that way, and should be understood with reference to the prevalent interpretation of the Republic, which gives equal weight to the internal (psychic) and external (civic) constitutions. The trickiest question is what it means in the titles of three commentaries dating from the early imperial era.

The origins and shape of Plato's six-book Republic

Abstract This paper argues that the six-book Republic used by the lexical author known as the Antiatticista is not, as hitherto conveniently assumed, our Republic arranged in fewer books, but a sub-final version lacking certain parts, most obviously VIII and most of IX, and possessing interesting variations. The argument rests on what would otherwise be a very high error-rate (38%) compared with the more reliable citations of other Platonic works, and with the citations of Herodotus and Thucydides. It demonstrates that VIII and most of IX belong stylistically to the opposite extreme from I, and may therefore be the last composed. It argues that the Platonic collection used by the Antiatticista antedates hiatus-avoiding dialogues, and belongs to a location other than Athens or Alexandria, and probably in Sicily or Italy. It concludes that one cannot trust any attempt to arrange our Republic by the notional six-book order.

The Dramatic Background of the Arguments with Callicles, Euripides' Antiope, and an Athenian Anti-Intellectual Argument

This paper does not aim to establish the ‘dramatic date’ of Platos Gorgias, nor does it seek to establish with any precision the date at which Euripides’ fragmentary Antiope was written. Nor does it aim to show that Athenian anti-intellectualism had some fixed beginning and conclusion rather than persisting, in some fashion, as long as intellectuals frequented its public places. It does, however, have aims that may easily be mistaken for these. First, while Plato was not too particular about fidelity to a dramatic date, he frequently shows a strong desire to supply an intellectual background for the views that his characters will propound and the debates that follow from them. In the case of dialogues that employ a single interlocutor that certainly tends to produce a reasonably coherent dramatic date, but what matters to Plato is not so much fidelity to history as the appropriate intellectual context.

Atlantis: Myths, Ancient and Modern

In this paper I show that the story of Atlantis, first sketched in Platos Timaeus and Critias, has been artificially shrouded in mystery since antiquity. While it has been thought from Proclus to the close of the twentieth century that Platos immediate followers were divided on the issue of whether the story was meant to be historically true, this results from a simple misunderstanding of what historia had meant when the early Academic Crantor was first being cited as an exponent of a literal rather than an allegorical interpretation. The term was then applied to straightforward stories that were told as if they were true. Iamblichus argued for a deeper meaning that did not exclude the truth, and Proclus’ belief in an inspired Plato leads him to assume that a Platonic historia must be true. Hence he misreads Crantor as having been committed to historical truth and opposes him to allegorical interpreters. Scholars have continued to see Crantor as a proponent of the historical Atlantis without adequate examination of the evidence, an indication of our own need to preserve the tantalizing uncertainties of such powerful stories.

Peripatetic and Stoic Epistemology in Boethus and Antiochus

Diogenes Laertius 7.54 gives an account of the Stoic criterion of truth, sometimes thought to derive from Diocles of Magnesia (7.48, but see n. 46). The passage gives unusual prominence to unorthodox views: an alternative Chrysippean account, which made sensation and preconception (πρόληψις) the criteria, possibly qua faculties of judgment; the view of some older Stoics as reported by Posidonius, that right rea-