Why did Plato Write? Philosophy, Dialogue, and Dialectic

Rejecting writing as a philosophical practice, Sokrates insisted instead on an oral, improvisational mode that was directed toward the examination of self and other. Philosophy was a way of life, which was regularly renewed in dialogic conversation. Yet, Plato, Sokrates’s student, wrote an abundance of philosophical dialogues, in most of which Sokrates takes center stage. Why did Plato choose to do precisely what Sokrates rejected: to write? What are the differences between a life devoted to the immediacies and unpredictabilities of dialogue and a life devoted to writing—and to writing about Sokrates as the paradigm of philosophical practice?

In this course, we will examine Plato’s invention of the form of philosophical dialogue, while considering as well his principal competitors: the tragedians, the comic poets, the sophists, and the first Sokratics, who also wrote about Sokrates. In what ways did Plato take up—and radically transform—the work of his contemporaries? How did Plato “win” the contest for the meaning and memory of Sokrates? We will also take up Plato’s own criticism of writing and his elaboration of the representational limits of writing. Throughout our reading and discussion, we will give particular attention to Plato’s representation of philosophical dialectic, of philosophical friendship, and of education. Our readings will include “early” dialogues that, in various ways, foreground questions of writing, dialectic, and language—Euthydemus, Hippias Minor, and Lysis—and we will conclude with a close reading of the Phaedrus, Plato’s most extensive treatment of writing—and of eros. In addition, we will read brief extracts from the work of the Sokratics and the sophists.