Thesleff’s Philological Undermining of Developmentalism

Abstract

It is not only by direct attack that Thesleff makes developmentalism seem so flimsy an interpretive tool; it is also by firmly establishing a theoretical alternative to developmentalism. In that process, Thesleff gives broad compass to human judgment in matters philological. His Studies in Platonic Chronology (1982)¹ is at the same time so rich in theory, and so encyclopedic in its treatment of chronological issues in the Platonic dialogues, ancient sources, and the modern literature that, whether or not one is eventually persuaded to accept Thesleff’s suggested sequence of dialogues (and I am not), any investigator of the chronological controversies will appreciate the results of such comprehensive research. One almost feels the poltroon to treat it critically.

FootNote

¹ The book is excerpted and elaborated in an article for Phronesis in 1989, but the unfortunate result is that several of the conclusions argued minutely in the book appear nude in the article, leading at least one otherwise judicious author, Jacob Howland (1991) to underestimate much of the power of Thesleff’s position.