Hermocrates (Plato)

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Hermocrates ( Greek  Ἑρμοκράτης Hermokrátēs ) is the title that the ancient philosopher Plato probablywanted to give toa dialogue he intended to write. The Hermokrates should follow the dialogues Timaeus and Critias of the third part of the trilogy are. But since Plato didnot complete Critias , it is unlikely that heever began Hermocrates .

Testimony of the dialogue plan

The planned dialogue should very likely be named after the interlocutor Hermokrates, who was supposed to play the main role. This dialogue figure is the Syracusan politician and troop commander Hermocrates , who was active on the side of the opponents of Athens in the Peloponnesian War .

In the Timaeus and Critias take four people from the call: Socrates , Timaeus of Locri , Critias and Hermokrates. In both dialogues Hermocrates only speaks briefly. The same four dialogue partners were apparently intended for Hermocrates . Since the main speaker in Timaeus and Critias , after whom the dialogue is named, gives a long lecture, it can be assumed that Hermocrates will appear as the main speaker in the third dialogue of the planned trilogy and hold a large monologue.

That Plato wanted to write the third dialogue and that Hermocrates was intended to play the main role can be seen from the relevant information in Timaeus and Critias . At the beginning of the Timaeus the reader learns that Socrates had already spoken to the group about his theory of the state the day before . It is now planned that the others, one after the other, will also have their say in detail and illuminate the issue raised by Socrates from their point of view. While the question of the best state was theoretically discussed the day before, the three lectures by Timaeus, Critias and Hermocrates will present empirical aspects. Using descriptions of the course of history, the practical implementation of Socrates' state-philosophical thoughts will be illustrated.

All three lectures take place on the same day at the same meeting; So Plato conceived the dialogues Timaeus and Critias and the planned Hermocrates not as three different conversations, but as three phases of one and the same conversation. It is possible that he did not originally plan three separate dialogues, but rather a single work. The three speakers agreed on the order of the presentations before the meeting. Timaeus is first in line; In the dialogue named after him, he takes on the task of reporting on the nature of the cosmos and of human beings and thus of describing the general conditions of existence in human society. The Timaeus ends with the conclusion of his speech . Then Critias speaks; How he got rid of his task is described in Critias , which is seamlessly linked to the Timaeus . Kritias has to give a lecture on early history, the history of ancient Athens, a lost state that resembles the ideal state designed by Socrates. At the beginning of Critias , Timaeus, exhausted from his lecture, gives the word to Critias. Socrates points out that Hermocrates will shortly give the last lecture, and at the beginning of his remarks Critias also refers to the fact that Hermocrates will speak immediately after him. Therefore, according to the prevailing research opinion today, there is no doubt that Plato wanted to reproduce the lecture of Hermocrates in a third dialogue or third part of a uniform work. Perhaps death prevented him from completing Critias first and then from realizing the further project; but it can also be that he gave up the plan while he was working on Critias .

Guesswork about the planned content

The theme of the planned Hermocrates results roughly from the structure that Plato apparently wanted to give the trilogy. His intention was to offer a description of the creation of the world as well as the nature of man and his position in the cosmos in the three presentations and, against this background, to deal with philosophically interesting aspects of the course of history, with the history of his hometown Athens being the focus. Perhaps he intended to take the historical account in the third part of the trilogy into the near past. He was not concerned with historical truth, but with an instructive description of the tests of the Athenian state under the aspect of relevance for its state philosophy. Since the subject of Critias is the mythical story of Ur-Athens, Plato must have given Hermocrates the task of telling in Hermocrates of later developments that occurred after the fall of Ur-Athens. Hermocrates was supposed to deal with the fate of the Athenian state that emerged after this catastrophe and has continued to exist up to the present. However, it is not known which epochs of Athenian history should come into focus.

One popular hypothesis was to show how, after a natural disaster that brought about the downfall of older civilizations, human society found a new beginning and gradually evolved towards the state familiar to its contemporaries. Since the emergence and development of social forms of organization after such a catastrophe is dealt with in the third book of Plato's late work Nomoi , research has suggested that the philosopher broke off work on Critias and abandoned the plan to write Hermocrates , and that instead he presented in the nomoi what was originally intended to form the content of the third part of the trilogy project .

According to another research opinion, Hermocrates should fall to the task of going into the Sicily expedition of the Athenians (415-413 BC), which ended with the fall of the Athenian armed forces. As a troop commander, who at that time was the focus of events in Sicily and contributed significantly to the defeat of Athens, he would be excellently qualified for such a lecture. However, it is hardly conceivable that Hermocrates after 413 BC B.C. as an honored guest in Athens, and the time of the fictional plot of the trilogy is set much earlier in research, so that a blatant anachronism would exist.

reception

In the 1992 video game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis , produced by LucasArts , the "lost dialogue of Plato" - Hermocrates - is sought and found; it contains information that makes it possible to locate the lost Atlantis in the Mediterranean.

literature

  • Laurence Lampert, Christopher Planeaux: Who's Who in Plato's Timaeus-Critias and Why , in: The Review of Metaphysics Vol. 52 No. 1, 1998, pp. 87-125, here: 100-107
  • Heinz-Günther Nesselrath : Plato: Kritias. Translation and commentary . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-525-30431-5 , pp. 51-54

Remarks

  1. ↑ To identify the dialogue figure with the historical figure, see Heinz-Günther Nesselrath: Platon: Kritias , Göttingen 2006, p. 50f .; on the historical Hermokrates Debra Nails: The People of Plato , Indianapolis 2002, p. 161f .; Michael Erler : Platon , Basel 2007, p. 263; Laurence Lampert, Christopher Planeaux: Who's Who in Plato's Timaeus-Critias and Why , in: The Review of Metaphysics Vol. 52 No. 1, 1998, pp. 87-125, here: 100-104.
  2. ↑ Whether Critias is the well-known oligarchic politician of this name (" Kritias IV ") or his grandfather (" Kritias III ") is disputed; see Debra Nails: The People of Plato , Indianapolis 2002, pp. 106-108; Heinz-Günther Nesselrath: Plato: Kritias , Göttingen 2006, pp. 43–50; Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, pp. 273f .; Warman Welliver: Character, Plot and Thought in Plato's Timaeus-Critias , Leiden 1977, pp. 50-57; Laurence Lampert, Christopher Planeaux: Who's Who in Plato's Timaeus-Critias and Why , in: The Review of Metaphysics Vol. 52 No. 1, 1998, pp. 87-125, here: 95-100; Luc Brisson : Platon: Timée, Critias , 3rd, revised edition, Paris 1996, pp. 329–334.
  3. ^ Plato, Timaeus 17a – c.
  4. ^ Plato, Timaeus 19b – 20d.
  5. ↑ Michael W. Haslam: A Note on Plato's Unfinished Dialogues . In: American Journal of Philology 97, 1976, pp. 336-339; Ernst Gegenenschatz: Plato's Atlantis , Zurich 1943, p. 8f.
  6. ^ Plato, Timaeus 27a – b.
  7. ^ Plato, Timaeus 25e – 27b.
  8. ^ Plato, Critias 108a – c.
  9. ↑ Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, pp. 264, 274; William KC Guthrie : A History of Greek Philosophy , Vol. 5, Cambridge 1978, p. 246 and note 1; Olof Gigon : Introduction . In: Rudolf Rufener (translator): Plato: Spätdialoge II (= anniversary edition of all works , vol. 6), Zurich / Munich 1974, pp. V – LI, here: L f .; Franz von Kutschera : Plato's Philosophy , Vol. 3, Paderborn 2002, pp. 87f .; Egil A. Wyller : The late Plato , Hamburg 1970, p. 133f .; Paul Friedländer : Platon , Vol. 3, 3rd, revised edition, Berlin 1975, pp. 330f., 356f .; Albert Rivaud (Ed.): Plato: Œuvres complètes , Volume 10, 3rd edition, Paris 1956, pp. 15-17; Heinz-Günther Nesselrath: Plato: Kritias , Göttingen 2006, pp. 51–53; Isabel-Dorothea Otto: The Kritias against the background of Menexenus . In: Tomás Calvo, Luc Brisson (eds.): Interpreting the Timaeus-Critias , Sankt Augustin 1997, pp. 65–81, here: 69. But cf. Diskin Clay: The Plan of Plato's Critias . In: Tomás Calvo, Luc Brisson (eds.): Interpreting the Timaeus-Critias , Sankt Augustin 1997, pp. 49–54, here: 49, Ephraim David: The Problem of Representing Plato's Ideal State in Action . In: Rivista di filologia e di istruzione classica 112, 1984, pp. 33–53, here: 51 and Ernst Gegenschatz: Platons Atlantis , Zurich 1943, pp. 9f. Clay, David and Gegenenschatz believe that Plato never intended to write a Hermocrates . The trilogy project Alfred Edward Taylor : Plato consider dubious . The Man and His Work , 5th edition, London 1948, p. 440 and Slobodan Dušanić: The Unity of the Timaeus-Critias and the Inter-Greek Wars of the Mid 350’s . In: Illinois Classical Studies 27–28, 2002–2003, pp. 63–75, here: 63.
  10. ↑ Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, p. 273.
  11. ^ Francis M. Cornford: Plato's Cosmology , New York / London 1937, p. 7. Cf. Albert Rivaud (ed.): Plato: Œuvres complètes , Volume 10, 3rd edition, Paris 1956, p. 15; Heinz-Günther Nesselrath: Plato: Kritias , Göttingen 2006, p. 53f.
  12. ↑ Heinz-Günther Nesselrath: Plato: Kritias , Göttingen 2006, pp. 51–54; Francis M. Cornford: Plato's Cosmology , New York / London 1937, pp. 6-8; William KC Guthrie: A History of Greek Philosophy , Vol. 5, Cambridge 1978, p. 246 Note 1. Cf. Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, pp. 263f., 273; Luc Brisson: Plato: Timée, Critias , 3rd, revised edition, Paris 1996, p. 9, note 2; Albert Rivaud (Ed.): Plato: Œuvres complètes , Volume 10, 3rd edition, Paris 1956, pp. 233f.
  13. ↑ Laurence Lampert, Christopher Planeaux: Who's Who in Plato's Timaeus-Critias and Why , in: The Review of Metaphysics Vol. 52 No. 1, 1998, pp. 87-125, here: 91, 105-107. See Egil A. Wyller: Der late Plato , Hamburg 1970, pp. 133f.