Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T10:43:09.341Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Rolling Sisyphus’ Stone Uphill? Plato’s Philosophy of History and Progress Reappraised

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2021

Christian Vassallo*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame and University of Calabria*

Abstract

This paper addresses the following questions about Plato’s concept of ‘history’: (a) is there a ‘philosophy of history’ in Plato’s thought?; (b) if this concept exists, do the dialogues lay out a single, cohesive understanding of ‘history’ or does it vary from text to text?; (c) how does Plato understand the word ‘history’? This inquiry also addresses the role of ‘progress’ in some of the main Platonic dialogues. An in-depth analysis of these texts can also help us find a solution to the problem of the end of ‘history’, when a civilization either physically collapses (due to a catastrophic event) or morally decays (because of the corruption of its citizens and politicians). I argue that Plato’s ‘philosophy of history’ is not necessarily Sisyphean, but that it attempts to work out how to avoid the entropic decay of civilization and to preserve cultural – almost ‘genetic’ – ‘memory’ in order to counter the danger of cyclical regression.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

[email protected]; [email protected]. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at The Notre Dame Workshop on Ancient Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, 21 March 2019, with the title: ‘Controversial issues on Plato’s ideals of history and progress’. I would like to thank warmly Gretchen Reydams-Schils for her kind invitation and extremely fruitful discussion on several points of this study, along with all the participants at the workshop for their stimulating questions. I am also grateful to John T. Fitzgerald, Vittorio Hölse, Harold Tarrant and the two anonymous referees for their useful suggestions and critical remarks. This research has been made possible through financing from the U.S.–Italy Fulbright Commission (Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program 2018–2019)

References

Baldry, H.C. (1952) ‘Who invented the Golden Age?’, CQ 46 (n.s. 2), 83–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brisson, L. (1982) Platon: les mots et les mythes (Paris)Google Scholar
Broadie, S. (2001) ‘Theodicy and pseudo-history in the Timaeus’, OSAPh 21, 1–28Google Scholar
Broadie, S. (2012) Nature and Divinity in Plato’s Timaeus (Cambridge)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bury, R.G. (1926) Plato: Laws (2 vols) (Cambridge MA and London)Google Scholar
Bury, R.G. (1929) Plato: Timaeus – Critias – Cleitophon – Menexenus – Epistles (Cambridge MA and London)Google Scholar
Bury, R.G. (1951) ‘Plato and history’, CQ 45 (n.s. 1), 86–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cambiano, G. (1991) Platone e le tecniche (2nd edition) (Rome and Bari)Google Scholar
Cambiano, G. (2016) Come nave in tempesta: il governo della città in Platone e Aristotele (Rome and Bari)Google Scholar
Chroust, A.-H. (1973) ‘The “Great Deluge” in Aristotle’s On Philosophy’, AC 42, 113–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodds, E.R. (1973) The Ancient Concept of Progress and Other Essays on Greek Literature and Belief (Oxford)Google Scholar
Dombrowski, D.A. (1981) Plato’s Philosophy of History (Washington)Google Scholar
Edelstein, L. (1967) The Idea of Progress in Classical Antiquity (Baltimore)Google Scholar
El Murr, D. (2010) ‘Hesiod, Plato, and the Golden Age: Hesiodic motifs in the myth of the Politicus’, in G.R. Boys-Stones and J.H. Haubold (eds), Plato and Hesiod (Oxford) 276–97Google Scholar
Erler, E. (1997) ‘Ideal und Geschichte: die Rahmengespräche des Timaios und Kritias und Aristoteles’ Poetik’, in T. Calvo and L. Brisson (eds), Interpreting the Timaeus-Critias: Proceedings of the IV Symposium Platonicum: Selected Papers (Sankt Augustin) 83–98Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, J.T. (2008) ‘The passions and moral progress: an introduction’, in J.T. Fitzgerald (ed.), Passions and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought (London and New York) 1–25Google Scholar
Fowler, H.N. (1914) Plato: Euthyphro – Apology – Crito – Phaedo – Phaedrus (Cambridge MA and London)Google Scholar
Fowler, H.N. (1925) Plato: The Statesman – Philebus (Cambridge MA and London)Google Scholar
Fowler, H.N. (1939) Plato: Cratylus – Parmenides – Greater Hippias – Lesser Hippias (2nd edition) (Cambridge MA and London)Google Scholar
Gaiser, K. (1991) Platons ungeschriebene Lehre: Studien zur systematischen und geschichtlichen Begrundung der Wissenschaften in der platonischen Schule (2nd edition) (Stuttgart)Google Scholar
Gill, C. (1977) ‘The genre of the Atlantis story’, CPh 72, 287304 Google Scholar
Gill, C. (1979) ‘Plato and politics: the Critias and the Politicus’, Phronesis 24, 148–67 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herrmann, F.-G. (2003) ‘Φθόνος in the world of Plato’s Timaeus’, in D. Konstan and N.K. Rutter (eds), Envy, Spite and Jealousy: The Rivalrous Emotions in Ancient Greece (Edinburgh) 53–83Google Scholar
Herter, H. (1958) ‘Gott und die Welt bei Platon: eine Studie zum Mythos des Politikos’, BJ 158, 106–17Google Scholar
Hösle, V. (1984) Wahrheit und Geschichte: Studien zur Struktur der Philosophiegeschichte unterparadigmatischer Analyse der Entwicklung von Parmenides bis Platon (Stuttgart and Bad Cannstatt)Google Scholar
Isnardi Parente, M. (1966) Techne: momenti del pensiero greco da Platone ad Epicuro (Florence)Google Scholar
Kerferd, G.B. (1981) The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Lamb, W.R.M. (1924) Plato: Laches – Protagoras – Meno – Euthydemus (Cambridge MA and London)Google Scholar
Momigliano, A. (1958) ‘The place of Herodotus in the history of historiography’, History 43, 113 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, K.A. (1998) ‘Designer history: Plato’s Atlantis story and fourth-century ideology’, JHS 118, 101–18 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Most, G.W. (2018) Hesiod: Theogony – Works and Days – Testimonia (2nd edition) (Cambridge MA and London)Google Scholar
Mugler, C. (1953) Deux thèmes de la cosmologie grecque: devenir cyclique et pluralité des mondes (Paris)Google Scholar
Naddaf, G. (1994) ‘The Atlantis myth: an introduction to Plato’s later philosophy of history’, Phoenix 48, 189209 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naddaf, G. (2012), ‘L’ ἱστορία (historia) comme genre littéraire dans la pensée grecque archaïque’, in L. Brisson, A. Macé and A.-L. Therme (eds), Lire les présocratiques (Paris) 61–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Natali, C. (1977) ‘La teoria aristotelica delle catastrofi: metodi di razionalizzazione di un mito’, RFIC 105, 403–24 Google Scholar
Nestle, W. (1942) Vom Mythos zum Logos: die Selbstenfaltung des griechischen Denkens von Homer bis auf Sophistik und Sokrates (2nd edition) (Stuttgart)Google Scholar
Popper, K.R. (1963) The Open Society and Its Enemies 1: The Spell of Plato (London)Google Scholar
Popper, K.R. (1964) The Poverty of Historicism (New York)Google Scholar
Pradeau, J.-F. (1997) Le Monde de la politique: sur le récit atlante de Platon, Timée (17–27) et Critias (Sankt Augustin)Google Scholar
Quaglia, R. (2005) ‘Studi su Ferecrate I: vita, opere, μῦθοι; II: gli Ἄγριοι: un commento ai frammenti’, AFLB 48, 99170 Google Scholar
Rashed, M. and Auffret, T. (2017) ‘On the inauthenticity of the Critias’, Phronesis 62, 237–54 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reydams-Schils, G. (2002) ‘La requête de Socrate dans le Timée (19b–20c) et les dieux’, Philologus 146, 265–76 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reydams-Schils, G. (2011) ‘Myth and poetry in the Timaeus’, in P. Destree and F.-G. Herrmann (eds), Plato and the Poets (Leiden and Boston) 349–60Google Scholar
Rohr, G. (1932) Platons Stellung zur Geschichte: eine methodologische Interpretationsstudie (Berlin)Google Scholar
Rosen, S. (2009) Plato’s Statesman: The Web of Politics (reprint) (South Bend)Google Scholar
Sassi, M.M. (1986) ‘Natura e storia in Platone’, SStor 9, 104–27 Google Scholar
Strauss Clay, J. (2003) Hesiod’s Cosmos (Cambridge)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarrant, H. (2019) ‘On hastily declaring Platonic dialogues spurious: the case of Critias’, Méthexis 31, 47–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turato, F. (1979) La crisi della città e l’ideologia del selvaggio nell’Atene del V sec. a.C. (Rome)Google Scholar
Vassallo, C. (2021) ‘Puzzling over so-called “rationalismus” and its forerunners: again on Xenophanes’ B 18 D.-K. (= Xen 204 & 220 Strobel-Wöhrle)’, in O. Hellmann and B. Strobel (eds), Rezeptionen der Vorsokratiker von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart (Berlin and Boston)Google Scholar
Vernant, J.-P. (1970) Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs: etudes de psychologie historique (2nd edition) (Paris)Google Scholar
Vidal-Naquet, P. (1964) ‘Athènes et l’Atlantide: structure et signification d’un mythe platonicien’, REG 77, 420–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vidal-Naquet, P. (1978) ‘Plato’s myth of the Statesman, the ambiguity of the Golden Age and of history’, JHS 98, 132–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voegelin, E. (1986) Order and History 3: Plato and Aristotle (Baton Rouge)Google Scholar
Walsh, W.H. (1962) ‘Plato and the philosophy of history: history and theory in the Republic’, H&T2, 3–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weil, R. (1959) L’archeologie de Platon (Paris)Google Scholar
Wilke, B. (1997) Vergangenheit als Norm in der platonischen Staatsphilosophie (Stuttgart)Google Scholar
Wright, M.R. (2000) ‘Myth, science and reason in the Timaeus’, in M.R. Wright (ed.), Reason and Necessity: Essays on Plato’s Timaeus (London) 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar