Stephanus p. 217

217a1 Socrates: ... what the people around that place suppose and name these thing."

"That place" literally refers to Elea, but that is often the word used in Plato to refer to the "place" where the forms are. (I'm reading Charles Williams' Place of the Lions right now and was just explaining to my wife how Plato and Aristotle disagreed about the way in which the forms exist.)

217a4: Theodorus: "But what most of all and what kind of thing about them--having become thoroughly perplexed--did you have a mind to ask"?

This has to be one of the weirdest questions I've ever seen in a dialogue. Is Theodorus astonished that anyone could actually not know, could actually wonder what these three things are?

I used to like thinking about the word perplexed (aporia). A "poros" is a way of getting across a river--and if you're "aporos," you don't have any way to get across (from ignorance to understanding). Socrates is always trying to get the people he talks with to get to a point of aporia or perplexity--to come to know that they don't know--and have no idea of how to even start to get from not knowing to knowing. The word Theodorus uses means not just to be perplexed but thoroughly perplexed (diaporein).

"Having a mind to" (or intending to)--that verb has the idea of intelligence built into it (dianoiesthai)--dianoia being "intelligence." So the sequence that Theodorus uses in his question is actually a good one. First, you come to a place of perplexity. Second, you use your intellect to ask a question. I'm just not sure Theodorus understands all that he's saying here. There isn't even a hint of perplexity in Socrates's question.

Truly, you need to be puzzled by something in order to grow in learning. The lack of puzzlement is the mark of a sophist (or know-it-all). Why do graduate schools seem to think that their purpose is to crank out know-it-alls?

Socrates: "The following: whether they consider all these to be one or two, or exactly as the names three--dividing three genera did they assign a name to each one by one?"

If a sophist is just a counterfeit philosopher, there would be just two--or does the counterfeit count as a third thing--meaning is something that is just not something else a thing itself--in other words, does not being  have some kind of being?

Theodorus: "But there is no, as I think, begrudging on his part to go through them. Or how, Stranger, shall we speak?"

Stranger: "In this way, Theodorus. For, on the one hand, there is no begrudging nor is it difficult to say that they suppose that they are three. But to define clearly each by itself--what exactly it is--is neither a small nor easy work."

The Stranger seems like a man after Socrates' heart--he thinks it important to define things clearly and realizes how difficult it is to do that. We'll see if the Stranger lives up to this first impression.

217b4: Theodorus: "It is by chance, Socrates, that you took up arguments (logoi) nearly resembling ones that we hit upon when questioning him thoroughly before we came here, and he made the same excuses to us that he made to you just now; since he says that he listened thoroughly [and] adequately and is not forgetful."

Theodorus likes to put the preposition "dia" in front of his verbs--which (according to the lexicon) gives them the sense of being done utterly, to the end, thoroughly. So, you have Socrates being "utterly perplexed" (217b5), Theodorus and his friends questioning the Stranger thoroughly (217b6), and the Stranger "listening thoroughly" to "the ones around Parmenides and Zeno." I'm not sure what's going on here, but it almost has a comical effect--it's sounds exaggerated and is not a measured way of speaking.

In any case, it sounds like Theorodus thinks this is just a matter of repeating  back what the people back in Elea say on the subject. When the Stranger says it is not easy to define each clearly, Theodorus thinks he is making excuses for why he is  not willing to just tell them what the people back home think. In short, Theodorus is expecting the Stranger to speak like a Sophist, a know it all (or professor!) rather than a philosopher.  The last thing a professor wants to be is perplexed (perhaps this is why Theodorus seems all befuddled at the idea of Socrates being perplexed), but it is the first thing that a genuine philosopher wants to be.

Socrates: "Lest you, Stranger,  refuse us when we have asked our very first favor, tell us as much as follows...."

Socrates uses a strange periphrastic form here (gignomai plus a participle). Smyth (sec. 1964) says "in prose this periphrasis has the tone of tragedy." So, Socrates is being playfully mock-tragic here.

"Whether you are accustomed with greater pleasure to go through by means of a long speech--speaking yourself by yourself--the thing that you wish to explain, or through questionings as when I--being young--was present when Parmenides--who was extremely old--used [questionings] and went through all-beautiful speeches?"

Socrates is probably partial to the questioning approach; and giving a long speech is probably what a sophist (professor) would do. (Lecturing vs. a conversational approach in the classroom.) If the Stranger is like Odysseus, maybe he is returning to vanquish the sophists, just as Odysseus returned to vanquish the suitors.

Stranger: "If to one who answers questions in conversation painlessly and tamely (euneios), [speaking] to another is easier; if not, by oneself."

The adverb the Stranger uses--euneios--means to respond well to the bridle, like tame horses or oxen. The focus here is not the interlocutor learning or discovering anything during the conversation, just what would be easier as a way of getting the point across. But the the Stranger puts the alternatives makes it sound like Plato is pointing  to something else. The contrast is between "the in relation to another" (to pros allon) and "the by oneself" (to kath'auton). Perhaps something that has being would be "by itself" and something that is in relation to another would not be--would be different than--whatever it is in relation to.

Socrates: "It is possible, then, to pick out anyone you wish of those who are present, for all will submit to you gently; but  if you use me as an adviser, you will take one of the young people, Theaetetus here, or also one of the others if one is according to your intellect."

The word "gently" (praos) has to do with the virtue of gentleness-being able to restrain your anger. Which is also, by the way, the virtue Odysseus acquires in the Odyssey (think of the scene in which Antinoos throws the footstool at Odysseus restrains himself from responding in anger). It  also has to with being tame--which connects up with the idea of responding to the bridle in the Stranger's response. The word "submit" (upakouein) also has to do with  tameness--obedience, submission, yielding to, compliance.

These are positive qualities, necessary qualities in a thinker. I remember in the introduction to my dissertation talking about the need for aspiring thinkers (like young Socrates in the Statesman) to be tamed. Or like students in a seminar at Columbia or St. John's for that matter. I once mentioned to Al Geier that when I observed a conversation at St. John's the students seemed to have forgotten about the text. He told me that he didn't discover "the text" until after he graduated from St. John's. But at some point you need to become willing to be yoked to the text, yoked to the logos. If you're all over the place, following your own  fancy, insisting on going your own way, you'll never get anywhere.

As Edward Tayler once told us: "Rise up to Shakespeare's level, don't bring Shakespeare down to your level!"

I remember telling one of my classes that thinking is like a hops plant that you train around a string and then it wraps itself around the string, going upward (toward the sun!) all by itself after that. If you are intent on following the logic of a line of thought relentlessly, one thought follows another of necessity--it's like you're not even doing it yourself, the next thought in sequence just appears to your mind. I also told the students that my job as a teacher was to train them to a strong so that they could keep on going on their own after I was gone. One of the students in the class (who hated what I was teaching) found this idea absolutely disgusting. But thinking is definitely not about going one's own way.

"If one is for you according to intellect": What does it mean for a possible conversation partner to be "according to intellect"?

Stranger: "Socrates, a certain shame takes hold of me not to make the conversation (sunousia)--coming together with you [all] for the first time--in accordance with a brief word for word, but to stretch and draw out a long speech by myself, even if [I were speaking] with someone else--making a kind of exhibition....

The idea of shame (aidos) comes up again. Going back to Homer, Odysseus says to the Cyclops,

"But revere [aideio, have shame before] the gods, best [of creatures]; we come as suppliants, you know. Zeus is the avenger of suppliants and strangers, the god of strangers, who accompanies reverent [aidoioisin, or shame-faced] strangers (Odyssey 9.269ff.)."

To which the Cyclops replies,

"You are a silly man, Stranger, or you have come from afar--you who call upon me to either fear or flee from gods; for the cyclops do not respect aegis-holding Zeus or the blessed gods, since we are certainly far stronger than they are" (9:273-276).

So, I think first that this confirms the identification of the Stranger with Odysseus, who is addressed as Stranger throughout the Odyssey.

As for shame: just as it is appropriate for men and cyclopes to stand in awe of Zeus and the blessed gods, to feel shame before them (as being lacking in all the Zeus and the gods possess), it is appropriate for men to stand in in awe, feel shame in relationship to what they don't understand--the eternal beings that they do not understand (the divine, eternal, unchanging forms). That is what a philosopher is and does; to be otherwise is to be like the Cyclops--who, by the way is savage--not tame, unbridled, etc. So, one needs to have this kind of shame if one is ever going to learn anything.

"Zeus accompanies strangers who are filled with shame"--or, in Socrates' paraphrase, "the god of strangers becomes a companion to human beings--as many as partake of just shame." So, when shame takes hold of the Stranger, he is in good company.

"For in reality (to onti) what was said just now is not--having been asked in this way--of the extent that one might hope it to be (einai), but happens to be (on) of great length."

There's a lot of "being" in that sentence--it begins and ends with "to on"--the word Parmenides uses for "Being."

"But, on the other hand, not to be gracious to you and these people here, both otherwise and with you having spoken as you did, clearly appears to me to be something inhospitable [or, unfitting for a stranger (especially one who has been show hospitality)] and wild .  

"Inhospitable and wild" would be a good description of the Cyclops. Inhospitable is "axenon"--not showing the hospitality due to a stranger (xenos). But the word is ambiguous and, as Benardete points out in his translation, given the circumstances, it makes more sense to take it as unbefitting a stranger.

"Since I absolutely accept Theaetetus to be the one who answers in conversation on the basis of both the things that I myself have experienced in conversation [with him] earlier and the things that you said just now in your exhortation."

Keep your eyes on Theaetetus, because that is where the real action will be. (See the opening line of the Statesman, in which Socrates says (after the long conversation devoted to defining the sophist, "I owe you much gratitude for knowledge of Theaetus, Theodorus, and at one and the same time that of the Stranger" (St. II, 257a1-2). (Notice the word "knowledge" is only used for knowledge of Theaetetus and is not repeated for the Stranger.)