Demodokos (Pseudo-Plato)

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The beginning of Demodokos in the oldest surviving medieval manuscript: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Gr. 1807 (9th century)

Demodokos ( ancient Greek Δημόδοκος Dēmódokos , Latinized Demodocus ) is the common name for a group of four literary texts of antiquity that have been handed down together. They wereascribed tothe philosopher Plato , but certainly not from him. The inauthenticity was already recognized in antiquity. The title Demodokos originally only referred to the first of the four texts. With this, the other three were later merged into a collection, although there is no contextual connection.

The first text ( Demodokos 1 ) is a monologue by an unnamed philosopher - probably Socrates - whom the politician Demodokos of Anagyrus asked for his opinion. The fictional process takes place in the second half of the 5th century BC. From. The other three texts are reports by a likewise anonymous narrator of short conversations in which different topics were discussed.

Demodokos of Anagyrus was a historical person, an older contemporary of Socrates. He was the father of Theages, after whom the dialog Theages attributed to Plato is named. At Theages, Demodokos is one of the participants in the conversation.

content

In Demodokos 1 , the anonymous speaker replies to a request from Demodokos. He has asked him for a statement on questions that are to be debated at a popular assembly. Since the topic is treated in a Socratic style, the answering philosopher is probably to be equated with Socrates.

The philosopher deals with the question of the point of deliberation in a popular assembly. He points to a general problem of democratic decision-making. Since those assembled for this purpose, or at least some of them, are not competent with regard to the question to be decided, they need advice from someone who knows, a competent specialist. If no such is present, they cannot judge correctly due to a lack of expertise. If a knowing counselor attends the meeting, he can teach the ignorant by clarifying the matter to them. This enables a sensible decision to be made. In this case, however, collective consultation and majority decision-making is superfluous, because truth is not established by majority decision, but rather shown as an imperative by the explanations of those who know it. Thus, in both cases, the procedure of deliberation and subsequent vote is questionable. In addition, you can only judge the competence of a consultant if you yourself are so competent with the question to be decided that you actually do not need any advice. But since the assembled citizens are at least partially ignorant, they cannot assess the competence of the speakers who appear as advisors at the assembly. From this point of view, too, it is not possible to determine what is right by majority decision. On the one hand, the assembled people need advice with which to admit their ignorance, on the other hand, afterwards, as voters, they assumed the competence to make a correct judgment.

In the three subsequent talks that have nothing to do with Demodokos 1 , other topics are discussed. The rapporteur who reproduces the course of the conversation is probably Socrates. In Demodokos 2 is about the truth when word against statement. In Demodokos 3 the conversation revolves around the question of who made a mistake when a request was refused. It turns out that the one guilty of failure is always the supplicant. If his request was unjustified or impossible to fulfill, it was rightly refused; if it was justified and achievable, he failed in the task of convincing his concerns, although this would have been possible. In Demodokos 4 is discussed on the measure of the trustworthiness of a person.

Author and date of origin

All four texts were written in the vicinity of the Platonic Academy . Since Demodokos 1 does not contain any ideas from the time of the younger ("skeptical") academy, its writing probably falls into the era of the older academy. It is probably in the period after Plato's death, i.e. in the second half of the 4th or the first third of the 3rd century BC. To put. The author was obviously a Platonist . The three other texts are certainly not from the author of Demodokos 1 . They are probably in the 2nd half of the 3rd century or in the 2nd century BC. BC originated. What they have in common shows that they have the same author. This is presumably assigned to the Younger Academy.

reception

The beginning of Demodokos in the first edition, Venice 1513

Since the Demodokos was considered spurious in antiquity, it was not included in the tetralogy of the works of Plato. The historian of philosophy Diogenes Laertios listed it among the writings that were unanimously regarded as not coming from Plato. The merging of the four texts into a compilation probably only took place in the Roman Empire .

The oldest surviving medieval Demodokos manuscript was made in the 9th century in the Byzantine Empire . The Latin- speaking scholarly world of Western and Central Europe was unknown to the work in the Middle Ages; it was only rediscovered in the age of Renaissance humanism . In the early modern period there was no doubt about its inauthenticity . The first edition of the Greek text was published in Venice by Aldo Manuzio in September 1513 as part of the complete edition of Plato's works published by Markos Musuros . The Latin translation made by the humanist Willibald Pirckheimer and published by his printer Friedrich Peypus in Nuremberg in 1523 is based on this edition .

Editions and translations

  • Joseph Souilhé (ed.): Plato: Œuvres complètes , vol. 13, part 3: Dialogues apocryphes . 2nd edition, Les Belles Lettres, Paris 1962, pp. 36–54 (critical edition with French translation)
  • Franz Susemihl (translator): Demodokos . In: Erich Loewenthal (Ed.): Platon: All works in three volumes , Vol. 3, unchanged reprint of the 8th, revised edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-17918-8 , pp. 814-824 (only translation)

literature

Remarks

  1. ^ Debra Nails: The People of Plato. A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics , Indianapolis 2002, pp. 123f .; Carl Werner Müller: The short dialogues of the Appendix Platonica , Munich 1975, p. 107f.
  2. Carl Werner Müller: The Short Dialogues of the Appendix Platonica , Munich 1975, p. 107.
  3. Demodokos 380a-382e.
  4. Demodokos 382e – 384b.
  5. Demodokos 384b-385c.
  6. Demodokos 385c-386c.
  7. ^ Carl Werner Müller: Die Kurzdialoge der Appendix Platonica , Munich 1975, p. 127f .; Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, p. 325.
  8. ^ Carl Werner Müller: Die Kurzdialoge der Appendix Platonica , Munich 1975, pp. 266–271; Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, p. 326f.
  9. Diogenes Laertios 3.62.
  10. ^ Carl Werner Müller: The short dialogues of the Appendix Platonica , Munich 1975, p. 267.
  11. Parisinus Graecus 1807; see on this manuscript and its date Henri Dominique Saffrey: Retour sur le Parisinus graecus 1807, le manuscrit A de Platon . In: Cristina D'Ancona (Ed.): The Libraries of the Neoplatonists , Leiden 2007, pp. 3–28.
  12. On Pirckheimer's translation, see Niklas Holzberg : Willibald Pirckheimer , Munich 1981, pp. 301–311.