Stylometric Investigations

Abstract

Substantive issues of interpretation often rest rather less on the intricate details of analysis, than on the methodological principles and raw data that emerge from an author’s effort to establish those details. Not that details are unimportant-they are crucial-but methods may be even more so. We have already seen Vlastos’s content-based solution to the problem of chronology. In this chapter, I will assess and elaborate an important recent stylometric effort at establishing a reliable chronology of the dialogues. Gerard Ledger uses stylometric methods at the finest level yet, that of individual Greek letters, to analyze Plato’s unconscious style, using historical material with studied restraint. Holger Thesleff (Chapter 7) is equally sparing, but in the application of stylometric analysis; he chooses instead to focus on neglected aspects of biography and history and thereby to construct a new theoretical model².

FootNote

2 Although I discuss Thesleff’s iconoclastic views in the next chapter, I introduce him now because some of his arguments against the irresponsible use of stylometry are included here.