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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
The Times Literary Supplement of November 8, 1917, contained, under the title of Socrates recognitns, a review of Plato's Biography of Socrates, a lecture delivered by Professor A. E. Taylor to the British Academy in the early part of last year. The opening sentence of the review is as follows: ‘Next to the problem of the Gospels ranks that of the Platonic dialogues amongst those most vital to the history of the human spirit.’ A little further down the reviewer says: ‘It is much to the credit of British scholarship—and especially to that of the University of St. Andrews—that it should have attacked these problems with untiring energy, and propounded solutions which, although they run counter to most of the traditional tendencies of historical and philosophical criticism, have not only challenged attention, but are carrying conviction even to unlikely quarters.’ And again, at the end of the article, we read this passage: ‘It is scarcely to be thought that the ground won by the scholars of St. Andrews will be held without counter-attack; but this is slow to mature, and in the meanwhile such essays as the subject of this notice, with which we may couple the paper recently read to the British Academy by Professor Burnet on the Socratic doctrine of the soul, serve to buttress and consolidate the position.’
page 124 note 1 Some reviews of Burnet, Phaedo of Plato: Waters, W. E., Class. Weekly, 1912Google Scholar; Gillieschewski, H., Wochenschr. für klass. Philologie, 1912Google Scholar; Raeder, H., Berlin, phil. Wochenschr., 1912Google Scholar; Williams, M. V., Class. Rev., 1912Google Scholar. Burnet, Thales to Plato: English, R. B., Class. Weekly, 1915Google Scholar. Reviews of Taylor, Varia Socratica: Natorp, P., Deutsche Literaturzeitung, 1911Google Scholar; Lortzing, F., Berlin, phil. Wochenschr., 1912Google Scholar; Goodrich, W. J., Class. Rev., 1911Google Scholar; Petrie, R., Mind, 1911Google Scholar (Aristoph. and Soc.); Gillespie, C. M., Class. Quart., 1912Google Scholar (The Use of εἶδος and ἰδ⋯α in Hippocrates); Ferguson, A. S., Class. Quart., 1913Google Scholar (The Impiety of Socrates); Field, G. C., Socrates and Plato (Parker and Co., Oxford, 1913)Google Scholar.
Except where mentioned in the text, I consulted these very slightly in preparing this paper, being desirous of forming an independent judgment. See also Adam, A. M., Plato: Moral and Political Ideals (Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature), 1913Google Scholar, Preface. I have not been able to see the reviews in the Class. Weekly.
page 124 note 2 Burnet, , Phaedo xlvGoogle Scholar.
page 125 note 1 Thales to Plato, p. 235.
page 125 note 2 Ib. p. 324.
page 125 note 3 Phaedo xxxvi.
page 125 note 4 Thales to Plato, Preface.
page 125 note 5 V.S. p. 268.
page 127 note 1 V. S. PP. 10, 23.
page 127 note 2 V. S. P. 31.
page 127 note 3 V. S. P. 6.
page 127 note 4 V. S. PP. 13 sq.
page 128 note 1 Thales to Plato, P. 191 n.
page 129 note 1 ProfessorBurnet, , Phaedo XXVGoogle Scholar., holds that Aristotle has here made a slip, owing to his habit of regarding the dialogues of Plato as ‘discourses of Socrates’.
page 129 note 2 V.S. pp. 60 sq.
page 129 note 3 V.S. p. 58.
page 130 note 1 V.S. pp. 156 sqq. et saep.
page 130 note 2 V.S. p. 63.
page 131 note 1 V.S. pp. 72 sqq.
page 132 note 1 V.S. p. 38.
page 132 note 2 v.S. pp. 68 sqq.
page 133 note 1 ProfessorBurnet, , Thales to Plato, p. 155Google Scholar, says: ‘Nothing can well be more explicit than the way Plato ascribes the doctrine [the theory of forms]to Sokrates. In the Phaedo it is spoken of (100b)as “nothing new,” but just what Sokrates is always talking about,’ and the notes in his edition refer to 76 D ά θρυλοÛμεν άεί But if Aristotle himself (according to Professor Burnet) is capable of confusing Plato and Socrates (see Phaedo XXV., quoted on p. 129 above) through ‘his habit of regarding the dialogues of Plato as “discourses of Socrates,”’ what is there here to show that anything more explicit is meant than ‘what we, the speakers in the Platonic dialogues, habitually discuss ’?
page 133 note 2 V.S. pp. 81 sqq.
page 134 note 1 Thales to Plato, pp. 91, 280.
page 134 note 2 Berlin, phil. Wochenschr., 1912.
page 134 note 3 Diels, , Fragmente der Vorsokratiker,2 II. p. 635Google Scholar.
page 134 note 4 V.S. p. 257.
page 134 note 5 V.S. p. 174.
page 137 note 1 Pp. 242, 247 sqq.
page 137 note 2 V.S. p. 146.
page 137 note 3 Plato's Biography of Socrates, p. 28 sq.
page 138 note 1 If I mistake not, ProfessorBurnet, , who in Thales to Plato, p. 154Google Scholar, dissents from this agreement, elsewhere lays stress on Lutoslawki's stylistic canons; see also ProfessorTaylor, , Mind, 1903, p. 20Google Scholar.
