The Reception of Plato’s ›Phaedrus‹ from Antiquity to the Renaissance PDF
Preview The Reception of Plato’s ›Phaedrus‹ from Antiquity to the Renaissance
TheReceptionofPlato’sPhaedrusfromAntiquitytotheRenaissance Beiträge zur Altertumskunde Herausgegeben von Susanne Daub, Michael Erler, Dorothee Gall, Ludwig Koenen und Clemens Zintzen Band 384 The Reception of ’ Plato s Phaedrus from Antiquity to the Renaissance Edited by Sylvain Delcomminette, Pieter d’Hoine and Marc-Antoine Gavray ISBN978-3-11-068363-9 e-ISBN(PDF)978-3-11-068393-6 e-ISBN(EPUB)978-3-11-068397-4 ISSN1616-0452 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2020933299 BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutscheNationalbibliografie; detailedbibliographicdataareavailableontheInternetathttp://dnb.dnb.de. ©2020WalterdeGruyterGmbH,Berlin/Boston Typesetting:IntegraSoftwareServicesPvt.Ltd. Printingandbinding:CPIbooksGmbH,Leck www.degruyter.com Contents Introduction 1 NicolasZaks TheinfluenceofPlato’sPhaedrusonAristotle’sRhetoric 9 TeunTieleman Galen’sSelf-UnderstandingandthePlatonicPhaedrus 25 AlexandraMichalewski TheCausalityoftheSelf-MovingSoul:PlatonicResponses totheObjectionsofDeAnimaI3 41 SuzanneStern-Gillet BeautyandRecollection:fromthePhaedrustotheEnneads 61 ClaudioMoreschini ThePhaedrusasTestimonyofaTheologyoftheGentilesaccording totheSchoolofAlexandria 87 GeorgeKaramanolis TheReceptionofPlato’sPhaedrusinEarlyChristianity 103 GerdVanRiel EchoesofthePhaedrusinAugustine’sDiscussionwithPorphyry 119 Pieterd’Hoine Plato’sPhaedrusasaManualforNeoplatonicHermeneutics:TheCase oftheAnonymousProlegomenatoPlato’sPhilosophy 131 Marc-AntoineGavray Plato’sPhaedrusasaManualforNeoplatonicHermeneutics:Inspired PoetryandAllegoryinProclus 153 SaskiaAerts HowtoLeadSoulstoBeauty:HermiasontheUnityofthePhaedrus 173 VI Contents SimonFortier ProclusontheClimaxofthePhaedrus(247c6–d1) 199 PantelisGolitsis MichaelPsellos’ExegesisoftheExpeditionofGodsandtheChariot FlightoftheSoul 219 GuyClaessens ThePhaedrusintheRenaissance:PoisonorRemedy? 229 Bibliography 249 IndexLocorum 265 IndexNominum 283 Introduction Plato’s Phaedrus is an extremely rich dialogue. It covers themes as diverse as thevalueofmythandallegory,religionandtheology,loveandbeauty,thees- senceandconditionofthesoul,teachingandlearning,metaphysicsandepiste- mology,rhetoricanddialectic,aswellastheroleandthelimitsofwriting.Itis alsoa literarymasterpiece, andalthoughup to now commentatorsstill debate about the unifying theme of the dialogue, it is hardly doubted that it at least aims to live up to the famous canon it itself introduces for any valuable dis- course,namelytodisplayorganicunity(Phaedrus264b–c). Itthuscomesasnosurprisethatthisdialoguehashadatremendousinfluence on Western culture since Antiquity. Especially its famous myth of the charioteer anditsaccountoflovehavehadanextraordinaryafterlifeintheWest;yetthedia- logue’s views on the nature of the soul, on beauty, on rhetoric and on writing have also provoked numerous reactions and reflections. The commentary on the Phaedrus attributed tothe fifth-centuryPlatonist Hermiasof Alexandria, the only extantcommentaryfromAntiquity,1bearsthetracesofalongexegeticaltradition, which began with the Middle Platonist Atticus (2nd century CE), if not earlier.2 Before Atticus, Philo of Alexandria (1st century BCE-1st century CE) treated the Phaedrus asoneof the keystounderstandingPlato’sphilosophy.3ThePhaedrus’ influence, however, was hardly limited to those whom we would now call Platonists.Thedialogue’sambitiontolaythefoundationsforaphilosophicalrhet- oricwasfurtherdevelopedbyAristotleandlaterpickedupbyanumberofLatin authors.LiterarywritersalludedtothePhaedrus’dramaticsettingandtreateditas a model for thelocus amoenus . The psychological ideas of the dialogue were knownand discussed notonly among Platonists, but alsobythe Church Fathers andbyphysicianslikeGalen,whoevendrewinspirationfromSocrates’teachings on the arts in general, and on medicine in particular. Its views on beauty were elaboratedbyPlotinusandhadaprofoundimpactonRenaissanceartistsandart theorists.ItsreligiouscontentwasreanimatedandadaptedintheRenaissance,a time when the criticism of writing developed in the dialogue also met with re- newedinterestthankstotheemergenceofmechanicalprinting. TheinfluenceofthePhaedrusfromAntiquitytotheRenaissancethusoffers an excellent perspective from which one can assess the diverse and profound influence of Plato on the history of ideas. Until now, however, no attempt has 1 SeethenewcriticaleditionbyLucarini&Moreschini2012. 2 SeeProclus,InTimaeumIII247.12–15Diehl=Atticusfr.14desPlaces. 3 SeeRunia1986,374. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110683936-001 2 Introduction beenmadetostudythetraditionofthePhaedrusfromAntiquityuptotheEarly Modernperiodinacomprehensiveway.Studiesonthissubjectareusuallylim- itedtospecificauthors ortexts thathave playedaprominentroleinthisstory (suchasPlotinus,Hermias,orFicino),toparticularareasofstudy(i.e.thehis- tories of philosophy, literature, religious studies or medicine), or to a specific period (i.e. classical Antiquity, late Antiquity, the Byzantine period, or Early Modern times).4 As a follow-up to a previous conference on the reception of Plato’s Phaedo,5 we therefore decided to explore the rich and multifarious re- ceptionofthePhaedrusfromAntiquitytotheRenaissanceataconferenceorga- nizedjointlybyKULeuven,theUniversitédeLiège(ULiège)andtheUniversité libredeBruxelles(ULB)attheRoyalAcademyofBelgium.6Thepresentvolume gathersmostofthecontributionspresentedatthisoccasion,oftensubstantially revised.7Wedonotclaimthatitexhauststhehistoryofthereceptionthismajor text,butwedohopethatitwillplaceitinabroaderperspectivethanisusually done. OurvolumeopenswiththePhaedrus’firstknownreaderandcritic,Aristotle. It is mainly in the field of rhetoric that the Phaedrus left its mark on Aristotle’s work. Nicolas Zaks shows that,contraryto a widely held view, Aristotle’s recep- tion of the dialogue is far from being merely critical, as is apparent in all three books of the Rhetoric. In Rhetoric III, Aristotle not only explicitly refers to the Phaedrus,butalsodrawsonkeypointsofPlato’sdialogue,suchasthecomparison betweenaspeechandalivingbeingandthecriticismofdivisionsofspeechmade in the rhetorical tradition. As a matter of fact, the very existence of Rhetoric III seems to be justified in terms of Socrates’ distinction between invention and ar- rangementatPhaedrus235e–236a.AsforBookII,NicolasZaksargues,controver- sially, that the study of passionsandcharacters inchapters 2 to 17 accomplishes 4 It was only after completing our manuscript that the volume Studies in Hermias’ Commentary on Plato’s Phaedrus, ed. by J.F. Finamore, C.-P. Maneola and S. Klitenic Wear, Leiden:Brill,2019,waspublished.ThisvolumetestifiestotherenewedinterestinHermias’ commentary,butcouldunfortunatelynotbetakenintoaccountinthepresentpublication. 5 PublishedasDelcomminette,d’Hoine&Gavray2015. 6 The conference received funding from the Belgian Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique(FNRS),theInstituteofPhilosophyatKULeuven,theFacultédePhilosophieet sciencessocialesoftheUniversitélibredeBruxelles(ULB),andtheFacultédePhilosophieet lettresoftheUniversitédeLiège(ULiège).Theconferencealsoreceivedfinancialandlogistic supportfromtheRoyalFlemishAcademyofBelgium(KVAB),andwasorganisedasa‘Contact forum’oftheAcademy. 7 Two other papers were delivered at the conference: “Plato’s Phaedrus and the Idea of Literary Scholarship”, by Richard Hunter (University of Cambridge), and “The Phaedrus in PhilostratusandtheSecondSophistic”,byDannyPraet(UniversiteitGent). Introduction 3 Socrates’ program for a scientific rhetoric exposed at Phaedrus 271a–b. Finally, Book I notably studies the relationships between dialectic and rhetoric in a way thatmightbelesscriticalthanisusuallythought,since,intheend,Aristotleen- dorsesratherthancriticisesPlato’sviewaccordingtowhichbeingacompetentdi- alecticianentailsbeingacompetentrhetorician. There are clues that the Phaedrus was read by the Hellenistic philosophers, buttheyarescarceandrathermarginal.8Matterschangefromthe2ndcenturyACE onwards,whenthePhaedrusbecameawidelycitedworkevenoutsideinstitution- alizedPlatonism,asTeunTielemanshowswithGalenofPergamum.Galen’sproj- ect consisted in the foundation of a medical philosophy and his admiration for Platoiswell-known.Againstthisbackdrop,itshouldcomeasnosurprisethatthe Phaedrus,inwhichPlatolaysanexplicitclaimonHippocrates(270c–d),becamea centraltextforGalen’sself-understandingasbothaphysicianandaphilosopher. ThisisillustratedbyTeunTielemanwithreferencetopassagesinvariousGalenic treatises.IntheninthbookofhisOntheDoctrinesofHippocratesandPlato,Galen drawsextensivelyonPhaedrus261a–274b,whichhetakestobedealingnotonly withrhetoricbutwiththecorrectmethodofanyart.Inaddition,Galenconsiders thissectionparticularlyrelevantfromanepistemologicalpointofview,becauseof theattentionPlatopaysheretosuchkey-conceptsastruthandverisimilitude,un- clarityanddisagreement.Themoralandreligiousdimensionoftheartofmedicine emergesfromapassageinBookIIIofGalen’sExhortationtoMedicine,which,as Teun Tieleman argues, alludes to the Phaedrus myth, i.e. the procession of the godsandhumansouls(247d–248a).ItthusseemsthatGalen’sself-understanding as a philosophically educated medical scientist and practitioner was in many waysinformedbyhisengagementwiththePhaedrus. Turning to the tradition of Platonism in a more narrow sense, Alexandra Michalewski analyses some key aspects in the debates between Platonists and Aristotelians of the imperial era. The focus of her paper, in which Atticus and Plotinusarethemainprotagonists,concernsthereceptionofthedefinitionofthe self-moving soul, presented at the beginning of the palinode of the Phaedrus (243e–257b). In the long fragment 7 (des Places) preserved by Eusebius, Atticus systematicallyusesthePhaedrusdefinitionoftheself-movingsoulinapolemical way to highlight the consequences of the Peripatetic doctrine of the soul. Plotinus, who is equally critical for the conception of the soul as an entelechy, doesnotlimithimselftoasimpleoppositionofPlatotoAristotle:healsoshows how the soul, being an impassible substance, is at the same time a self-moving principle,asourceofthebodilymotions. 8 SeehowevertheinterestingstudyofBrouwer2008. 4 Introduction SuzanneStern-GillettacklesPlotinus’receptionofthePhaedrusfromanen- tirely different angle. She argues that, contrary to a widespread claim in the scholarlyliterature,PlotinusdoesnotdepartfromPlatoin(mostly)dispensing with the concept of ἀνάμνησις (recollection). After a brief outline of the role that recollection plays in the Phaedrus, a dialogue to which Plotinus returns timeandagain,sheoffersacriticalreadingofthemostsalientpassagesinthe EnneadswherePlotinusmakesuseofthenotion.Shethenshowsthatthefunc- tion of ἀνάμνησις, in Plotinus’ understanding of the term, enables the embod- ied human soul to become aware of the presence in itself of riches she had previously been unaware of possessing, namely logoi of a reality higher than itself. Inbuilding a normativeelement intotheconcept of ἀνάμνησις, Plotinus madeitakeyfactorintheinwardprocessthroughwhichhumansoulscanre- verse the self-forgetfulness that had led them to become alienated from their ontologicalsource inIntellect.Intheend,despitehavingprofoundlymodified Plato’sconceptofἀνάμνησις,Plotinusremainedatonewithhiminpresenting theapprehensionofbeautyasthestimulusmostlikelytoleadthehumansoul backtohertrueselfinIntellect. ThereadingofthefirstPlatonistinterpretershadahugeimpactontheap- propriation of the Phaedrus by contemporary Christian thinkers, which is the focusofthenextthreepapers.Claudio Moreschiniprovidesasurveyofthere- ception of various aspects of the dialogue in the School of Alexandria, whose main representatives were Clement and Origen and which was contemporane- ouswithsomeoftheso-calledMiddle-Platonists.Inthiscontext,thePhaedrus was studied, above all, for certain doctrines that appeared important to both theMiddle-PlatonistsandtheChristians:theimmortalityofthesoulanditsfall toearthafteritscreationbyGod;thenatureofGodHimself;Histranscendence and His existence in the world beyond the heavens. The same problems were also of interest to Methodius of Olympus and Eusebius of Caesarea, who fol- lowedOrigeninthisrespect. George Karamanolis pursues the investigation on Clement and Origen and extendsittoGregoryofNyssa.TheevidenceregardingthereceptionofPlato’s Phaedrus by these early Christians shows that the dialogue greatly influenced boththelanguageandthethoughtofthesethinkers,especiallytheSocraticcri- tiqueofwritingandthepsychologysuggestedbythemythofthecharioteer.A typologyofthereceptionofthePhaedrusbyearlyChristiansincludesnotonly the integration of citations, images, and doctrines, but also a dialectical en- gagement with several aspects of the dialogue and their Christian appropria- tion,asisthecasewithClement’sreactiontoSocrates’critiqueofwritinginthe beginningofhisStromateisandGregory’sassessmentofthepsychologyof the partitesoulinhisDeanimaetresurrectione.
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