Antiphon (Plato)

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Antiphon ( Greek  Ἀντιφῶν Antiphṓn , also called Antiphon of Athens ; * probably after 423 BC) was the son of Pyrilampes and the maternal Periktione , a half-brother of the famous Greek philosopher Plato .

Life

Antiphons mother Periktione was of distinguished origin. Among her paternal ancestors was Dropides ("Dropides II."), The Athenian archon from 593/92 BC. BC, a friend and relative of the legendary Athenian legislature Solon . Her first marriage was to Ariston , a distinguished Athenian. She had four children with him: the sons Adeimanto , Glaucon and Plato and the daughter Potone . After Ariston's death, around 423, Periktione married her maternal uncle, Pyrilampes, a respected Athenian who had been an envoy in Pericles' time. Only one child, Antiphon, emerged from this marriage. Pyrilampes had a son named Demos from a previous marriage . Antiphon got its name after his paternal grandfather, a wealthy horse breeder. In his youth he dealt, according to Plato, with philosophy and had a lot of contact with the elderly philosopher and general Pythodorus, who was a friend and student of the long-dead philosopher Zenon of Elea . Antiphon later lived in Melite , a posh district of Athens west of the Acropolis , and, like his grandfather, mainly devoted himself to horse breeding.

Role in Plato's dialogue Parmenides

In Plato's dialogue Parmenides , the antiphon plays a decisive role in the framework plot. He is visited by his half-brothers Adeimantos and Glaukon, who bring several visitors from Klazomenai in Asia Minor . One of them is Kephalos, who is the fictional narrator in Plato's work. Visitors want to find out from Antiphon what he heard from Pythodorus a long time ago about the conversations his teacher Zenon once had with the famous philosophers Socrates and Parmenides . Antiphon kept the details in his mind as he memorized them by listening to them frequently when he was with Pythodorus. Therefore, he is now in a position to give a detailed account of the course of such a discussion. He starts to talk. His report constitutes the actual content of Plato's dialogue. The plot is thus interleaved several times: the narrator Kephalos only knows the conversation, which he reproduces in detail, from a third hand, the reader finds out from a fourth hand.

According to Plato's literary fiction, the conversation took place in 450 BC. When Socrates was still very young, Parmenides about sixty-five years old and Zeno about forty years old. What is striking is the detail, accuracy and fluency of the antiphon placed in the mouth of very abstract and complicated trains of thought. The whole plot, like the conversation between Socrates, Parmenides and Zeno, is probably a free invention of Plato. The credibility of Plato's biographical information about his half-brother Antiphon need not therefore be questioned.

literature

  • Luc Brisson : Antiphon d'Athènes . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 1, CNRS, Paris 1989, ISBN 2-222-04042-6 , p. 245
  • Debra Nails: The People of Plato. A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics . Hackett, Indianapolis 2002, ISBN 0-87220-564-9 , p. 31 (and family table p. 244)
  • John S. Traill: Persons of Ancient Athens , Volume 2: Alexarchos to Apōnios. Athenians, Toronto 1994, ISBN 0-9692686-3-7 , pp. 299f. (No. 138330; compilation of the documents)

Remarks

  1. ^ Plato, Timaeus 20e and Charmides 155a. See John K. Davies: Athenian Property Families, 600-300 BC , Oxford 1971, pp. 322-326.
  2. ↑ Plato, Parmenides 126c; on grandfather see Debra Nails: The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics , Indianapolis 2002, p. 30 (Antiphon I).
  3. ↑ Plato, Parmenides 126b – c; on Pythodoros see Debra Nails: The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics , Indianapolis 2002, pp. 259f.
  4. ↑ Debra Nails: The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics , Indianapolis 2002, p. 31.
  5. ^ Plato, Parmenides 126a-127a. See Franz Dieter Ferfers: The first part of Plato's 'Parmenides' , Bonn 1978, p. 12; Michael Erler : Platon (= Outline of the History of Philosophy . The Philosophy of Antiquity , Vol. 2/2), Basel 2007, p. 223.
  6. ↑ Debra Nails: The People of Plato , Indianapolis 2002, pp. 308 f .; Franz Dieter Ferfers: The first part of Plato's 'Parmenides' , Bonn 1978, p. 15.
  7. ↑ Plato, Parmenides 127b.
  8. ↑ Michael Erler: Plato (= Outline of the History of Philosophy. The Philosophy of Antiquity , Vol. 2/2), Basel 2007, p. 225.
  9. ↑ Franz Dieter Ferfers: The first part of Plato's Parmenides , Bonn 1978, p. 13
personal data
SURNAME Antiphon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Antiphon of Athens
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Half-brother of the philosopher Plato
DATE OF BIRTH after 423 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 4th century BC Chr.