Have you ever seen a literary character eclipse an author?
Take Captain Kirk, for example: though he is only a fictional character, he's much more frequently remembered than his creator, Gene Roddenberry. Nearly everyone recognizes Kirk, but not everyone knows who Roddenberry was. And when's the last time you saw William Shatner on TV and didn't immediately think "There's Captain Kirk"? Shatner is a human being and thus is much more real than a character he used to play on TV. Plus, he has played other characters--so why do we think of him as Kirk?
Sometimes a character can wield such imaginative force that he overwhelms his author and his portrayer. Similarly, sometimes the character of Socrates is so prominent in Plato's writings that it's easy to forget that it was Plato who wrote them and not Socrates.
Plato is almost never a character in the dialogs he writes. Why isn't he a player in his own stories? I'm not sure. Perhaps he does not need to be a character because he is already the author--the reader already sees everything through his eyes. It might be unnecessary or even awkward for him to play two roles.
I am reminded of the disappointment I heard voiced by many when M. Night Shyamalan gave himself a major role in Lady in the Water; perhaps Plato was trying to avoid that sort of awkwardness.
It's one thing to absent yourself from your own stories, but quite another thing to write a realistic account of a real event that you did not experience. Plato's Phaedo is the story of Socrates' last day on earth and of his death--events for which, Plato says, he was not even present. The text puts it this way:
Echecrates: Who, Phaedo, were those present?
Phaedo: Among the local people there was Apollodorus whom I mentioned, Critobulus and his father, also Hermogenes, Epigenes, Aeschines and Antisthenes. Ctesippus of Paenia was there, Menexenus and some others. Plato, I believe, was ill. (Phaedo 59b4-8)
Why would an author write an eyewitness-type account of an event in which his own absence is so conspicuous, especially when he normally does not mention himself at all?
I don't know the answer to that question, but I do have a few ideas.
Perhaps this is Plato's way of telling us that the story he tells is not literally, historically true. So far as we know from history, Socrates really did die by the method Plato describes. Perhaps Plato wanted us to keep his account of the day's conversation and of Socrates' last words separate in our minds from the historical record--thus the admission that he was not there. Perhaps he is telling us the myth of Socrates' death.
Or, taken in the other direction, perhaps Plato just really wasn't present at the real event. The dialog is strangely and artificially framed by Phaedo's telling the story as he remembers it to Echecrates, a Pythagorean in Phlius. Phlius is far enough from Athens that Echecrates tells Phaedo,
"Hardly anyone from Phlius visits Athens nowadays, nor has any stranger come from Athens for some time who could give us a clear account of what happened, except that he drank the poison and died, but nothing more." (Phaedo 57a5-b3)
Plato had the freedom to write this dialog in any way he wished. Why did he frame it in this way? Why not just tell the story as an eyewitness? Why go to all the trouble to have Phaedo tell the story from memory to someone else? Perhaps he really wasn't present at Socrates' death and tells us the story in the same way he heard it - secondhand.
It's not clear why he framed the dialog so strangely or why he chose to emphasize his own absence. It's not even clear why he was absent: "Plato, I believe, was ill." Phaedo doesn't even say for certain that Plato was ill, he just says "I believe" he was ill. Why introduce yet another ambiguity?
I don't know why. But I can't wait to find out.
Great post. We can definitely see just how much the character of Kirk (and Spock for that matter) has eclipsed "his" creator in the fact that a new Trek movie is being made with the same characters, and long after Roddenberry's death!
I'm curious about one thing you said. What did you mean "I can't wait to find out"?
Great post. We can definitely see just how much the character of Kirk (and Spock for that matter) has eclipsed "his" creator in the fact that a new Trek movie is being made with the same characters, and long after Roddenberry's death!
I'm curious about one thing you said. What did you mean by "I can't wait to find out"?
Shatner is a human being and thus is much more real than a character he used to play on TV. Plus, he has played other characters--so why do we think of him as Kirk?
Are we really sure about this assertion? Really? Somehow Kirk seems more real than the "please gimme some more money Priceline.com!' guy.
Why would an author write an eyewitness-type account of an event in which his own absence is so conspicuous, especially when he normally does not mention himself at all?
Interestingly I recall some discussions here long ago that centered on whether the Gospels should be considered proven because they are supposedly eyewitness accounts. Your post would seem to indicate we shouldn't trust an ancient account that purports to be an eyewitness one, even if there seem to be several accounts confirming a particular event.
We think Socrates existed because not only does Plato talk about him but others do as well, notably Aristotle. Beyond that I'm not sure we can say anything. Are Plato's writings little more than a fictional creation based on someone who was real?
HBO had a great series called Rome a while back. One of the nifty things about it was how it added some tweaks to what we think we know as the history such as making it turn out that Ceasar's son with Cleopatra wasn't really killed by Octavian (and wasn't really his son either!) I suspect a lot of what we think we know about history is simply an accident of what manuscripts got put in the box that survived versus which ended up burned, flooded or used as toilet paper (plus, of course, all the stuff that never even got into a manuscript to begin with).
Boonton, the difference between the passage from the Phaedo and the Gospels is that in the Phaedo, Plato actually claims NOT to have been at Socrates' death, but proceeds to write the story anyway, putting it in a fictional characters' mouth. I think Rachel's questions are "Was he really there or not?" and "Why did he write it this way in the Phaedo?" The Gospels on the other hand actually claim to be based on eyewitness reports, if I'm not mistaken. It may be instructive to compare them, but right now it looks like apples and oranges to me.
The gospel writers do not claim to be eyewitnesses.
Tim,
Plato, though, is purporting to give us an eyewitness account. He is telling us he wasn't at Socrates' death AND that it happened. Yet we can't really trust this, can we? Perhaps Plato was at the scene and for some reason choose to 'write himself out'. Alternatively, maybe the scene never happened. Perhaps Socrates was never killed but simply exiled or simply left after angry protests. We are putting faith in the man (Plato) that he is writing what he wrote because he wants to depict what really happened but there's a lot of reasons to write something beyond simply providing a deadpan account of facts. For example, I doubt that Plato's dialogues are actuatal transcripts of conversations but are fictionalized versions of conversations designed to communicate and teach philosophy.....(and we also are placing faith that Plato actually wrote this and that we aren't getting stories put down on paper by 2nd, 3rd generation students who had previously communicated the stories of their school's founders orally).
The header of this post could also be, "Please somebody kill Shatner." Not that I wish any evil on the man, but he could bless us all by truly retiring from the tube.
Well you gotta admit he is kind of fun. He has no pretensions at all either about his acting or his commercials. He has no problem with people poking fun at him or poking fun at himself. He likes what he does, enjoys it and doesn't make it anything more than what it is.
You want to see some good stuff? Go to youtube and search for William Shatner Rocket Man. I don't think Elton John and Bernie taupin ever envisioned an interpretation like this.
"And when's the last time you saw William Shatner on TV and didn't immediately think "There's Captain Kirk"?"
The last Priceline commercial I saw.
"Not that I wish any evil on the man, but he could bless us all by truly retiring from the tube."
I must disagree here, Jon. I think he's great on Boston Legal. It's a role he was born to play.
Wow, my brain's been steeped in politics. I kept thinking this was going to take a turn towards, "and now, the real Barack Obama vs. the portrayed Barack Obama," and other dives into the inner lives of the liberal illuminati.
Guess maybe I should just go read some Plato!
David N.,
When I say "I can't wait to find out" I mean that I'm really hoping a continued close read of the text will answer my questions. I'm not sure that it will - in my experience close reads of that sort generally bring up more questions than they answer - but I'm sure going to keep working on it, with the help of some wonderful friends who are reading with me.
I always liked Billy Shatner :)
He cracks me up...
Your post would seem to indicate we shouldn't trust an ancient account that purports to be an eyewitness one, even if there seem to be several accounts confirming a particular event.
Um... no, I don't think that. Not sure where you got that.
I DO think it odd that Plato so intentionally writes himself out of the this particular story. He's NOT claiming to write an eyewitness account; in fact he seems to really be emphasizing just how NOT eyewitness his account is.
I still think he did this in order to separate his account from what really happened. I think he was writing a myth, not a history, and I think he wanted to be sure we knew that.