Tetralogy (Plato)

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Tetralogy ( ancient Greek τετραλογία tetralogía ) is the name already in use in antiquity for a group of four content-related works, especially plays. Probably as early as the 1st century BC From the 1st century AD at the latest, the works of the philosopher Plato were divided into nine tetralogies ("order of tetralogies"). The 36 works contained in the tetralogy order are 34 fictitious, literary dialogues , the speech “ Apology of Socrates ” and a collection of 13 letters attributed to Plato. Some of the works are not actually by Plato.

The tetralogy order

Tetralogy Dialogues
Tetralogy I Euthyphron , Apology , Crito , Phaedo
Tetralogy II Kratylos , Theaetetus , Sophistes , Politikus
Tetralogy III Parmenides , Philebos , Symposium , Phaedrus
Tetralogy IV Alkibiades I , Alkibiades II , Hipparchus , Anterastai
Tetralogy V Theages , Charmides , Laches , Lysis
Tetralogy VI Euthydemus , Protagoras , Gorgias , Menon
Tetralogy VII Hippias minor , Hippias maior , Ion , Menexenos
Tetralogy VIII Kleitophon , Politeia , Timaeus , Critias
Tetralogy IX Minos , Nomoi , Epinomis , 13 letters

The tetralogy order also contains works that, according to the current state of research, may or certainly not come from Plato. Other works handed down under his name, which are certainly not written by him, were not included in the tetralogy order, since they were already considered to be inauthentic in antiquity; they are summarized under the designation Appendix Platonica ("Appendix to Plato").

Origin and division principle of the tetralogy order

A forerunner of the tetralogy order was the division into trilogies (groups of three). This classification was mainly represented by the important grammarian Aristophanes of Byzantium , who worked in Alexandria and who lived in the 3rd and early 2nd centuries BC. Lived. For the trilogy order, Plato's references to groups of three could be asserted, but only part of the entire work - 15 dialogues - could be arranged according to this principle.

Two Middle Platonists are named in the sources as originators of the tetralogy order : Derkylides (or Derkyllides) and Thrasyllos († 36). The credibility of this information is controversial in research. Nothing is known about Derkylides' life, not even his approximate lifetime; therefore it is also unclear whether he or Thrasyllos has temporal priority.

According to the history of philosophy Diogenes Laertios , Thrasyllos “and others” represented the division of Plato's works into tetralogies. As Diogenes reports, Thrasyllos claimed that Plato himself published his dialogues according to the pattern of the "tragic tetralogy", that is, followed the example of the tragedy poets who competed against each other with a tetralogy of their plays in the theater competitions. This thought refers to the dramatic character of the dialogue. According to a tradition communicated by Diogenes, 56 real works by Plato were assumed, whereby the individual books of two very extensive dialogues -  Politeia (10 books) and Nomoi (12 books) - were counted as separate works. However, this does not correspond to the order of tetralogies handed down by Diogenes, which comprises only 36 works, whereby the Politeia and the Nomoi count as one work each, as does the collection of letters.

After the representation of the Middle Platonist Albinos , who lived around the middle of the 2nd century, Derkylides and Thrasyllos have made the division into tetralogies.

In research, the view dominates that the tetralogy order does not come from Thrasyllos. It is believed that he only contributed significantly to their dissemination and perhaps also made changes, which meant that the classification for posterity remained associated with his name. The advocates of this opinion point out that the famous scholar Varro in his between 47 and 45 BC. Chr. Created work De lingua Latina Plato's dialogue Phaedo , instead of calling him by name, called the "fourth". The Phaedo is the fourth dialogue of the first tetralogy. From this it is concluded that Varro was no later than 45 BC. I knew the tetralogy order. Accordingly, their introduction cannot be ascribed to Thrasyllos, who died in 36 AD.

Since, according to this widespread research opinion, Thrasyllos cannot be considered as the originator, some researchers assume that the tetralogical order goes back to Derkylides. If this is the case, the activity of Derkylides probably falls into the first half of the 1st century BC. BC, because from the time before 47/45 BC There is no evidence of the existence of the tetralogical order. However, this view is controversial. A counter hypothesis is that the originator of the tetralogy order is unknown and that Derkylides lived in the 1st century AD, after the time of Thrasyllos.

Another research opinion, according to which the tetralogy order is older than the trilogy order, as Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff believed, has not prevailed. Individual researchers have originated in the 3rd century BC. BC ( Ernst Bickel , Antonio Carlini) or even in the 4th century BC BC (James A. Philip) suspected.

The prevailing view in research, according to which Varro knew the tetralogy scheme, contradicts Harold Tarrant, who sees Thrasyllos as the originator of the scheme.

It is not known which criterion the author of the tetralogy order used when grouping the works. In any case, he did not classify them - as is customary in modern times - according to the presumed order of their creation, but according to a content-related aspect. At best, this is only partially recognizable. The first tetralogy includes, as Diogenes Laertios states, four works dealing with the philosophical way of life. Plato also deals with this topic in other dialogues, and no classification principle is clearly evident for the other tetralogies. The dialogues of the first tetralogy, in which the behavior of the exemplary philosopher Socrates in the time before his death is presented, were presumably regarded as protreptic and therefore placed at the beginning. The tetralogy order was probably intended as a recommendation for the order in which the works should be read. Harold Tarrant, Michael R. Dunn and Alfred Dunshirn discuss possible grouping criteria for the tetralogy scheme.

Diogenes Laertios also reports that Thrasyllos gave every dialogue two titles. The first - by far more common - title (main title) is usually the name of a participant in the dialogue, the second (subtitle) relates to the content (e.g. "Phaedo or About the Soul"). The main titles were already in the 4th century BC. Commonly used, a subtitle is already in the 3rd century BC. Attested, but presumably only the originator of the tetralogy order introduced the continuous use of double titles.

reception

During the Middle and Neoplatonist period, a didactic point of view was in the foreground for the Platonists who dealt with the order of Plato's works. You asked about the order in which you should read the dialogues. Under this aspect, albinos disapproved of the tetralogy classification in the 2nd century . He said that this order “according to people and circumstances”, that is, according to a literary-biographical aspect, was useless as a reading plan for the lesson, although perhaps useful in other ways. The anonymous late antique author of the “Prolegomena to the Philosophy of Plato”, who belongs to the school of Olympiodoros the Younger , rejected the tetralogy order; he tried to refute the claim of its proponents that it came from Plato himself.

Although the tetralogy scheme does not follow a consistently implemented principle of classification that is understandable without explanation, it has prevailed in the text tradition. Most of the medieval Plato manuscripts from the Byzantine Empire adhere to the scheme. Medieval Arab authors - Ibn an-Nadīm , al-Mubaššir (11th century), Ibn al-Qifṭī (1172–1248) and Ibn Abī Usaibiʿa - were aware of the existence of the tetralogies.

In 1593 the philosopher Francesco Patrizi published a treatise "On the order of dialogues" ( De dialogorum ordine ), in which he rejected the tetralogy classification. The Plato edition by Henricus Stephanus , published in 1578 and authoritative until the early 19th century, offers a different order of works.

As early as the 19th century, modern research gave the order of tetralogies only a significance for the history of reception. The well-known Plato translator Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) rejected it. The eminent historian of philosophy, Eduard Zeller , pronounced a damning judgment on all ancient classifications of Plato's works. But the critical complete edition of Plato's works in the Oxford Classical Texts (OCT) published by John Burnet in 1900–1907 and the new complete edition, which has appeared in this series since 1995, follow the order of the tetralogies.

literature

  • Jaap Mansfeld : Prolegomena. Questions to be settled before the study of an author, or a text. Brill, Leiden 1994, ISBN 90-04-10084-9 , pp. 58-107
  • Harold Tarrant: Thrasyllan Platonism. Cornell University Press, Ithaca / London 1993, ISBN 0-8014-2719-3

Remarks

  1. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 3.61 f.
  2. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 3.61.
  3. ↑ For possible starting points with Plato see Terence H. Irwin: The Platonic Corpus . In: Gail Fine (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Plato , Oxford 2008, pp. 63–87, here: 68 f.
  4. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 3: 56-61. For comparison with the theater, see Jaap Mansfeld: Prolegomena . Leiden 1994, p. 60 f .; Heinrich Dörrie , Matthias Baltes : Platonism in antiquity . Vol. 2. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1990, p. 338 f.
  5. ↑ Albinos, Eisagoge 4; Greek text of the passage with translation by Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: Platonism in antiquity . Vol. 2. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1990, p. 98 f. (and commentary on p. 357 f.).
  6. ↑ Varro, De lingua Latina 7.37.
  7. ^ Anton-Hermann Chroust : The Organization of the Corpus Platonicum in Antiquity . In: Hermes 93, 1965, pp. 34-46; Michael Erler : Platon (= Outline of the History of Philosophy . The Philosophy of Antiquity , Volume 2/2), Basel 2007, p. 13; Herwig Görgemanns : Plato . Heidelberg 1994, p. 37; Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: Platonism in antiquity . Vol. 2. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1990, p. 339; Jaap Mansfeld: Prolegomena . Leiden 1994, p. 66 and note 114.
  8. ^ Jaap Mansfeld: Prolegomena . Leiden 1994, pp. 64-66; Harold Tarrant: Thrasyllan Platonism . Ithaca 1993, pp. 11-13, 72-76, 78-81.
  9. ↑ Ernst Bickel: History and Recensio of the Platon text . In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie , Neue Series, Vol. 92, 1943/1944, pp. 97–159, here: 103, 105 f., 128–131; Antonio Carlini: Studi sulla tradizione antica e medievale del Fedone , Rome 1972, pp. 24-27.
  10. ↑ James A. Philip: The Platonic Corpus . In: Nicholas D. Smith (Ed.): Plato. Critical Assessments , Vol. 1, London 1998, pp. 17-28.
  11. ↑ See Friedrich Solmsen : The Academic and the Alexandrian Editions of Plato's Works . In: Illinois Classical Studies 6, 1981, pp. 102-111, here: 106; Michael Erler: Platon (= outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , volume 2/2), Basel 2007, p. 14; Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: Platonism in antiquity , Vol. 2, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1990, pp. 335–337; Harold Tarrant: Thrasyllan Platonism , Ithaca 1993, pp. 14-17; Jaap Mansfeld: Prolegomena , Leiden 1994, p. 62 f .; Carl Werner Müller : The short dialogues of the Appendix Platonica , Munich 1975, pp. 27–41, 328 f. and Carl Werner Müller: Appendix Platonica and Neue Akademie . In: Klaus Döring u. a. (Ed.): Pseudoplatonica , Stuttgart 2005, pp. 171-173.
  12. ↑ Harold Tarrant: Thrasyllan Platonism , Ithaca 1993, pp. 11-14, 73-76, 89-107.
  13. ^ Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: The Platonism in antiquity , vol. 2, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1990, p. 340 f.
  14. ↑ Harold Tarrant: Thrasyllan Platonism , Ithaca 1993, pp. 95-103; Michael R. Dunn: The Organization of the Platonic Corpus between the First Century BC and the Second Century AD , Dissertation Yale 1974, pp. 73-97; Michael R. Dunn: Iamblichus, Thrasyllus, and the Reading Order of the Platonic Dialogues . In: Ransom Baine Harris (Ed.): The Significance of Neoplatonism , Norfolk 1976, pp. 59-80; Alfred Dunshirn: On the performativity of reading Plato . In: Wiener Jahrbuch für Philosophie 39, 2007, pp. 7–23; Alfred Dunshirn: In what order do you read Plato's dialogues? In: Gymnasium 115, 2008, pp. 103–122; Alfred Dunshirn: Logos in Plato as a game and event , Würzburg 2010, pp. 143–270. See Jaap Mansfeld: Prolegomena , Leiden 1994, pp. 67-71.
  15. ↑ Michael Erler: Platon (= Outline of the History of Philosophy. The Philosophy of Antiquity , Volume 2/2), Basel 2007, p. 19; see. Robert G. Hoerber: Thrasylus' Platonic Canon and the Double Titles . In: Phronesis 2, 1957, pp. 10-20; Harold Tarrant: Thrasyllan Platonism , Ithaca 1993, pp. 91-94; Jaap Mansfeld: Prolegomena , Leiden 1994, pp. 71-74.
  16. ↑ Albinos, Eisagoge 4; Greek text of the passage with translation by Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: Der Platonismus in der Antike , Vol. 2, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1990, p. 98 f. (and commentary on p. 357 f.) and by Burkhard Reis: The Platonist Albinos and his so-called Prologos , Wiesbaden 1999, p. 314 f.
  17. ↑ "Prolegomena to the Philosophy of Plato" 24.25-25.36 Westerink (Leendert G. Westerink (Ed.): Prolégomènes à la philosophie de Platon , Paris 1990, p. 37 f.); see. Burkhard Reis: The Platonist Albinos and his so-called Prologos , Wiesbaden 1999, p. 140 f.
  18. ↑ Ernst Bickel: History and Recensio of the Platon text . In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie , New Series, Vol. 92, 1943/1944, pp. 97–159, here: 98 f .; for a deviation from the scheme see Burkhard Reis: The Platonist Albinos and his so-called Prologos , Wiesbaden 1999, pp. 259–262, 267.
  19. ^ Michael R. Dunn: The Organization of the Platonic Corpus between the First Century BC and the Second Century AD , Dissertation Yale 1974, pp. 73, 120-144; Carl Werner Müller: The short dialogues of the Appendix Platonica , Munich 1975, p. 27 f. Note 4.
  20. ^ Eduard Zeller: The philosophy of the Greeks in their historical development , Part 2, Division 1, 5th edition, Leipzig 1922, pp. 494–496.