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Plato’s Euthyphro & Clitophon | ||||
2003 • 1-58510-059-5 • paper • 204 pages • 6 x 9 • $22.95 Text in Greek with extensive commentary in English, including a general introduction, and introductions to each of the two texts, appendices, glossary, and vocabulary. | About the Author | Contents | Preface | Review | | ||||
The Euthyphro’s contents make it attractive for those who are serious about philosophy at any level. The Greek of the Euthyphro is clear and easy to follow, but not overly simple. The Clitophon is an ideal next step, for its philosophy complements that of the Euthyphro, while its Greek is somewhat more complicated and stylized. Professor Bailly’s commentary has three parts: 1) Introductory Comments for each dialogue, 2) Comments about the contents following each section of Greek text, and 3) Word-by-word, line-by-line Commentary on the Greek of each section of text. Every Greek word in the Euthyphro and Clitophon which might need explaining has received attention in the line-by-line commentary and an entry in the vocabulary. The commentary never translates a difficult passage, but rather explains its grammar so that readers must engage the Greek in all its glory, but not without help. All readers with an interest in reading the Euthyphro and Clitophon in the original Greek will find this an indispensable guide.
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Jacques Bailly teaches all levels of Greek and Latin as well as courses using English translations in the Classics department at the University of Vermont. He has taught there and lived in Burlington since 1997. He holds a PhD form the joint program in Classics and Philosophy at Cornell University, and a B.A. from Brown University.
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Preface | ||||
The Euthyphro and the Clitophon provide an ideal, exciting introduction to Plato and Greek prose. Even a student fresh out of introductory ancient Greek can expect to finish these works within a semester, because the Greek of the Euthyphro is clear and easy to follow, but not overly simple. What is more, the vocabulary repeats and is not unmanageable. Those traits make it pedagogically attractive for an intermediate learning stage. The Clitophon is an ideal next step, for its philosophy complements that of the Euthyphro, while its Greek is somewhat more complicated and stylized. And yet, it too is accessibly interesting and easy to follow in Greek. The Euthyphro concerns a question, “What is piety?” The question itself is today perhaps less interesting than the issues raised or provoked during the course of the dialogue’s several failed attempts to answer it. Among those issues are: whether good things are good (or bad, just, etc.) because someone or something says they are or because of something about their nature; the nature of various types of response to any question of the form “What is F?” such as definitions or examples; the relation between the sorts of answers Socrates wants to his question “What is piety?” and the Platonic theory of forms found in other, later Platonic dialogues; the principle that principles should not be selectively applied; and the question of the nature and even existence of the “Socratic Method.” Part of the attractiveness of Socratic dialogues is that they engage us and provoke us to want to challenge Socrates. The arousal of our argumentative interest surely constitutes part of the protreptic intent and power of the dialogues. In the Clitophon, Clitophon explicitly discusses Socrates’ protreptic to philosophy, and poses a challenge for Socrates. That challenge will be welcome to many readers, even if it is not the one they would have posed. Clitophon, namely, challenges Socrates to take the next step: Socrates can make people care about the state of their souls and their virtue, but can he actually show them how to care for their souls and be virtuous? Both dialogues pose far-reaching questions. Neither offers any explicit answers. And yet both contain the seeds of possible answers. Some would even argue that specific answers are embedded in the dialogues in cryptic fashion. As readers, we must not only puzzle out the Greek, a finite task, but we must puzzle out what we think of the content, an infinite task which Plato has only made larger by not offering clear answers. Both tasks are rewarding in and of themselves. This commentary offers rather more help to those who wish to understand the Greek than those who wish to understand the philosophy, literature, and thought. That is because there is an extensive scholarly literature which deals with the philosophical and literary aspects of the dialogues, much of it accessible to the non-specialist. Rather than delve fully into the infinite task of interpretation, this commentary offers cursory section comments, and suggests further reading at appropriate points. For the Clitophon, the introductory comments are of greater length than for the Euthyphro. The reason is that it is far more difficult to enter a college library and readily find material about the Clitophon, and if one does find such material, it is pitched to a more specialized audience than this commentary. For the Euthyphro as well as more general Socratic and Platonic topics, however, there is already such an impressive array of secondary literature of high quality ranging from the introductory to the specialized that it is pedagogically better to be brief in my comments and refer to some of the best of the modern literature. There is, however, no replacement for a commentary when it comes to puzzling out the Greek, especially for students who do not read Greek easily (yet). Every Greek word is included in the vocabulary in the back of this book. Grammatical notes are contained in the line-by-line and word-by-word comments. Notes about the contents of a particular section are contained in the comments between the text and the commentary for each section. Broader issues, such as the historical figures, the dialogue form, and the relation between these dialogues and others, are treated briefly in the introductory materials and in the section comments as well. The following people should be acknowledged for their valuable help in preparing this book: Hanna Roisman for encouragement; Robert Rodgers for reading some early drafts; and Debra Nails for making available prosopographical information. All the mistakes are still mine. Burlington
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I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciate this book, which is clearly the work of a scholar who has integrated many aspects of classics, philosophy and philology into an exceptionally useful, engaging and accessible guide to two dialogues of Plato. Such work is not easy and Bailly has presented us with a very frank and useful introduction that shows his skill as a philosopher, commentator, and classicist. For the complete review, search on http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/
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Plato’s Euthyphro & Clitophon
