Abstract
This chapter asks if and how the eighteenth-century German reception of late ancient Platonism had any impact upon German nineteenth-century Plato scholarship, in particular that of the classical philologist and theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), who is often seen as the first modern Plato interpreter. It is argued that he was less original than normally assumed, since he was decisively influenced by the denigration of the biographical tradition, which had been so conspicuous in German eighteenth-century scholarship. It is also argued that contemporary Plato scholarship, dedicated to the nineteenth-century reception of Plato, has failed to pay sufficient attention to the eighteenth-century background.
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Notes
- 1.
Schleiermacher 1804, 3: “Die griechischen Ausgabe der Werke des Platon pflegen denselben seine Lebensbeschreibung aus der bekannten Sammlung des Diogenes voranzuse[t]zen. Allein nur die unverständigste Anhänglichkeit an einen alten Gebrauch könnte ein so rohes, ohne alles Urtheil zusammengeschriebenes Produkt der Uebertragung würdigen.”
- 2.
Schleiermacher 1804, 3. On 26–27, praises Tennemann’s System der platonischen Philosophie, especially its chronological account of Plato’s works.
- 3.
Tennemann 1792–1795, I: iii-vi. On I: x, he admits that he has not been able to locate a single work in which Plato’s system of philosophy is exposed. On I: x-xii, he refers to Brucker’s Historia critica philosophiae for an unsatisfying reconstruction of Plato’s system of philosophy. Nevertheless, he lists Brucker’s work as one of the most significant on I: xxviii, and he clearly follows the drift of the methodology recommended by Brucker, to reconstruct the past philosopher’s system of philosophy. Compare with Lamm 2005, 93: “Both Tennemann and Schlegel were committed to approaching Plato via the new historicism.”
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Tennemann 1792–1795, I: viii.
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- 6.
For criticism of Diogenes, see Tennemann 1792–1795, I: xvi–xviii, at xviii. For Tennemann’s own biographical account of Plato, see I: 1–80.
- 7.
Tennemann 1792–1795, I: xx: “Das Urtheil, welches die Kritiker über den Werth dieses Schriftstellers gefällen haben, bestätiget sich vollkommen in Ansehung dieses Theiles. Er hat blos ansgeschrieben und zusammengetragen; die Fakta ohne Auswahl und Ordnung hingeworfen; die Quellen nicht allezeit angegeben, und den Leser über ihren Werth und Glaubwürdigkeit ganz in Ungewissheit gelassen. Wenn abweichenede Berichte vorkommen, so werden sie ohne alle Kritik vorgetragen. Auch als blosse Kompilation betrachtet, hat seine Arbeit nicht einmal einen Werth von Seiten der Vollständigkeit. Es ehlet auch nicht an zweckwidrigen Abkürzungen und Werstümmelungen der Berichte, und an Widersprüchen. Bei allen diesen Fehlern ist es doch ein ganz unetbehrliches Buch, wegen der vielen Materialien, die wir sonst gar nicht finden würden.” Compare with Heumann’s criticism of Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus, in chapter 2 above.
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Schleiermacher 1804, 3.
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Lamm 2005, 91, is sceptical about the characterization of Schleiermacher as a romantic interpreter of Plato and writes: “Finally, the modifier ‘romantic’ [when used about Schleiermacher’s Plato interpretation] eclipses the very important fact that Schleiermacher’s interpretation of Plato is thoroughly ‘modern’—if not exactly the first modern interpretation, surely the most authoritative. It is its modern quality, inseparable from its romantic elements, that marked it as a watershed in the history of Plato interpretation.” See also Lamm 2005, 92: “His [Schleiermacher’s] interpretation of Plato’s dialogues, as explicated in his ‘Introductions’, changed the entire course of Plato studies and continues to reverberate even now, two centuries later.” Lamm does not mention Heumann and Brucker in this article. Likewise, Forster 2012 does not mention Heumann as part of the background to German, nineteenth-century history of philosophy, although he was instrumental to the marginalization of the ancient biographical tradition, which is typical of histories of philosophy in the nineteenth century. Forster mentions Brucker twice (866, 868), pointing out that Brucker and Tiedemann “prepared” histories of philosophy in the nineteenth century, but without explaining which features from Brucker’s historiography entered nineteenth-century history of philosophy. Schleiermacher’s direct references to Tennemann in his ‘Einleitung’, and thereby his indirect references to Heumann and Brucker, are not dealt with (878–882). Laks 2019 and Szlezák 2019 similarly ignore the eighteenth-century German background to Schleiermacher’s Plato interpretation.
- 11.
One example is Böckh and his praise of Schleiermacher’s Plato translation immediately after its publication; see Lamm 2005, 92.
- 12.
Schleiermacher 1828, 291: “Bekanntlich haben ältere Commentatoren des Platon dieses Gespräch vorzüglich gerühmt als den besten Eingang in die Weisheit des Mannes, und den Anfängern empfohlen mit diesem am liebsten das Studium der Schriften des Platon zu beginnen. Auch ist nicht zu läugnen, dass darin vielerlei berührt wird und angeregt, worüber andere Schriften des Platon nähere Auskunft geben, und dass dennoch nichts darin zu schwer ist oder zu tief und dunkel auch für den am wenigsten vorbereiteten Neuling.”
- 13.
[Anonymous], Prolegomena, §26, recommends the Alcibiades as the first Plato dialogue to be studied as an introduction to Plato’s philosophy.
- 14.
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Catana, L. (2019). Afterword. Schleiermacher and Modern Plato Scholarship. In: Late Ancient Platonism in Eighteenth-Century German Thought. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 227. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20511-9_6
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