Glaucon (Plato)

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Glaukon ( ancient Greek Γλαύκων Glaúkōn , also Glaukon of Athens ; * before 428 BC; † after 382 BC) was an older brother of the philosopher Plato . He is said to have worked as a writer.

Life

Glaucon was the second eldest of the three sons of Ariston and his wife Periktione . It got its name after his maternal grandfather. His brothers were Adeimantos and Plato; Plato was the youngest. They had a sister named Potone .

The family was distinguished and wealthy. She lived in Kollytos , a district of Athens . Ariston considered himself a descendant of Kodros , a mythical king of Athens; in any case, one of his ancestors, Aristocles, was already 605/604 BC. BC Archon . Among Periktiones ancestors was a friend and relative of the legendary Athenian legislature Solon .

Glaukon was born no later than 429. After his father's early death, around 423 his mother married her maternal uncle, Pyrilampes , a respected Athenian who had served as envoy in Pericles ' time. From this marriage Antiphon , a half-brother of Glaukons, emerged. Pyrilampes had a son from a previous marriage, Demos , who became Glaucon's stepbrother.

According to Plato, Glaucon took part in the Peloponnesian War together with his brother Adeimantos in a battle at Megara , where he distinguished himself. If this is historical reality rather than literary fiction, it is probably the Battle of the Kerata Hills near Megara, which took place in 409.

Glaucon was interested in philosophy and belonged to the circle of the famous philosopher Socrates , whose pupil was his younger brother Plato. A student relationship between Glaucon and Socrates is not documented in the sources. In Plato's Apology of Socrates , a literary version of the defensive speech that Socrates gave as a defendant in 399, Adeimantos, but not Glaukon, is named among those present who may be exonerated witnesses.

The writer Xenophon , who was a pupil of Socrates, narrates in his memoirs of Socrates a lengthy conversation between the philosopher and the young Glaucon, who was not yet twenty years old, but who had set himself in mind that he would strive for a political leadership role to appear as a speaker in the People's Assembly for this purpose. His relatives and friends had tried in vain to dissuade him from the foreseeable embarrassment. It was only Socrates who succeeded in bringing about a change of heart in the young man by showing him his ignorance of state affairs.

As a young man, Glaucon had a homoerotic relationship with Kritias , who was a cousin of his mother and later played an important role as an oligarchic politician during the rule of the thirty (404-403).

Works

The historian of philosophy Diogenes Laertios claims that Glaucon wrote nine dialogues and gives their titles: Pheidylos , Euripides , Amyntichos , Euthias , Lysitheides , Aristophanes , Kephalos , Anaxiphemos and Menexenos . In addition, 32 other dialogues have been handed down under Glaukon's name, but they are considered to be spurious. Nothing of these works has survived. The people after whom the dialogues are named can be partially identified. In Euripides and Aristophanes is the famous playwright. Cephalos is probably either Cephalos of Klazomenai, the fictional narrator in Plato's dialogue Parmenides , or Cephalos of Syracuse, the father of the famous speechwriter Lysias , who lives in Athens . Cephalus of Syracuse is one of Socrates' interlocutors in Plato's Dialogue Politeia . Menexenos is probably the pupil of Socrates, after whom Plato's dialogue Menexenos is named.

Role in the works of Plato

Glaucon appears in three of Plato's dialogues . In Dialog Politeia he takes part in the conversation; there he and his brother Adeimantos are the main interlocutors of Socrates from the second book. All in all, the parts assigned to Glaucon are the most extensive and philosophically weighty among the statements made by Socrates' interlocutors in this dialogue. Glaukon is described there as having a love affair, courageous, argumentative and very determined in his demeanor. In conversation, he proves to be ambitious, optimistic, straightforward and successful. In Plato's symposium he only appears as a questioner in the framework plot. In the dialogue Parmenides he is involved in the general plot as a marginal figure.

literature

  • Debra Nails: The People of Plato. A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics . Hackett, Indianapolis 2002, ISBN 0-87220-564-9 , pp. 154–156 (and family tree p. 244)
  • John S. Traill: Persons of Ancient Athens , Volume 4: Auxanon to Gypsinis. Athenians, Toronto 1995, ISBN 0-9692686-5-3 , pp. 284f. (No. 277053; 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. ↑ On dating see Debra Nails: The People of Plato , Indianapolis 2002, pp. 154–156.
  3. ↑ Plato, Politeia 368a.
  4. ↑ Diodorus 13:65. On the battle, see Donald Kagan : The Fall of the Athenian Empire , Ithaca 1987, pp. 264f .; Bruno Bleckmann : Athens way into defeat , Stuttgart 1998, pp. 169, 202, 238f., 287 and note 69.
  5. ↑ Xenophon, Memorabilia 3.6.
  6. ↑ Debra Nails: The People of Plato , Indianapolis 2002, p. 155.
  7. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 2,124.
  8. ↑ Giovanni Reale (Ed.): Diogene Laerzio: Vite e dottrine dei più celebri filosofi , Milano 2005, pp. 1355f.
  9. ↑ See the overview by Thomas Alexander Szlezák (Hrsg.): Plato: Der Staat. Politeia , Düsseldorf 2000, p. 943.
  10. ↑ Plato, Politeia 357a, 474d, 548d.
  11. ↑ On Glaucon's personality and role in this dialogue see Mario Vegetti : Platone: La Repubblica. Traduzione e commento , Vol. 2, Napoli 1998, pp. 151-172; Leon Harold Craig: The War Lover. A Study of Plato's Republic , Toronto 1994, pp. 112-129.
  12. ^ Plato, Symposium 172a-173b.
  13. ^ Plato, Parmenides 126a.
personal data
SURNAME Glaucon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Glaucon of Athens
BRIEF DESCRIPTION ancient Greek philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH before 428 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH after 382 BC Chr.