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 Samuel Scolnicov · Plato‘s Method of Hypothesis in the Middle Dialogues
The second decade of the twenty-first century has seen a revival
of interest in Plato’s investigative methods in those dialogues where he
appears to build substantially on foundations inherited from Socrates.
Such works as the Phaedo and Republic have always in modern times
been seen as ‘core Plato’, and the Meno has always had a claim to be
considered alongside them, principally because of some rather obvious
points in common with the Phaedo. The essential core of this ‘core Plato’, Plato‘s
its methods and its metaphysics, had for over three decades become less
fashionable, as new horizons opened up, than they were when Scolnicov
and Tarrant learned their craft, and when Plato was treated as a thinker
Method
with a ‘system’, even if it changed later in his creative life. Scolnicov’s
PhD thesis presents in a firm but lively way issues now being studied of Hypothesis
more intensely again. He remained committed to it, and built upon its
foundations in such a way that it became seminal for his understanding
of Plato. Many of its theses have found wider acceptance subsequently.
in the Middle
Plato is not tailored to fit more comfortably with modern philosophical
preconceptions, but is seen as one who made serious advances without
these being steps towards Aristotle or ourselves. And the core of Plato’s
Dialogues
philosophy, which some retreat from as if it were too ‘religious’, is linked
here with a method of investigation that owed much to mathematics.
Samuel Scolnicov taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1974,
rising to full Professor in 2005, and becoming Professor Emeritus in 2010.
He held visiting positions around the globe. He was a founding member of Samuel
the International Plato Society, of which he served as President (1998-2001).
He specialized in Plato, and his works on Platonic subjects include: Plato’s Scolnicov
Parmenides, Introduction, translation and commentary; Plato’s Philosophy
of Education; and Euthydemus: Ethics and Language. He also published
works on philosophy in several other languages, and edited, among other
collections, New Images of Plato and From Theory into Practice: Plato’s
Laws. He passed away in 2014, still planning further publications on
Platonic philosophy.
Harold Tarant taught at the University of Sydney from 1973 to 1993, after
which he was Professor of Classics at the University of Newcastle Australia
until 2011, but still has honorary positions at both universities. He was a
member of the Executive of the International Plato Society (1995-2001). He
has published and co-edited several books relating to Plato, most recently Edited by Harold Tarrant
Proclus: Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus vol. VI and Brill’s Companion to
the Reception of Plato in Antiquity.

www.academia-verlag.de Academia
 Samuel Scolnicov
Plato’s Method of Hypothesis in the Middle Dialogues
Plato’s Method of Hypothesis
in the Middle Dialogues
by

Samuel Scolnicov

Edited and with an Introduction

by

Harold Tarrant

Academia Verlag Baden-Baden

 Cover design: by Bracha El-Hassid Grumer, based on the design of the Golden
Section as principle of the harmonic rectangle.

This volume has been printed thanks to .

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Table of Contents 5

Table of Contents
Foreword (Hanna Scolnicov) .................................................... 7
Editor’s Introduction (Harold Tarrant) ...................................... 10
Acknowledgements ................................................................... 38

Introduction ............................................................................... 39
1 Greek Geometrical Analysis ............................................... 45
2 The Meno ............................................................................ 67
3 Disagreement and Agreement ............................................. 85
4 The Phaedo ......................................................................... 96
5 The Republic ....................................................................... 120
6 Knowledge and Opinion ..................................................... 150
7 The Divided Line ................................................................ 163
8 The Objects of Mathematics ............................................... 197
9 Plato’s Method of Hypothesis ............................................. 206
Appendix 1: Being and Truth .................................................... 213
Appendix 2: The Upward Path .................................................. 222
Bibliography .............................................................................. 224

List of the publications of Samuel Scolnicov ............................ 238

Index .......................................................................................... 250

Foreword 7

Foreword

Hanna Scolnicov

This volume presents the Cambridge doctoral dissertation by Sa-

muel Scolnicov, submitted as a graduate student of King’s College. The
original title page gives the submission date of September 1973, and the
degree was awarded the following year. It is presented here under the
same title and with light editing only, but with footnotes and index for
greater convenience, and with an additional Introduction by the Editor.
Samuel maintained that the doctoral thesis is a work in which the
young scholar develops his vision of the field he is exploring, expounds
his new ideas, and maps out the directions he will pursue in the future.
For the rest of his career, he will follow those venues he has adumbra-
ted, follow his own road map. In this sense, publishing Samuel's un-
published thesis offers a broad perspective into which one can fit his
numerous publications.
He received his Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Cam-
bridge (1974). In Cambridge, he had the best of supervisors: from Dr.
Peck and Prof. Keith Guthrie (not an official supervisor, but a generous
and meticulous reader), to Prof. Bernard Williams and Prof. Geoffrey
Lloyd. He held them all in high esteem and benefitted from each of them
in different ways.
His Cambridge experience was total: he absorbed the English cul-
ture with great love and respect: the architecture of King's College Cha-
pel (John Saltmarsh was his guide, as was Nikolaus Pevsner's book on
Cambridgeshire) and the different colleges (he loved to guide friends
who visited us in Cambridge around the old houses); punting on the ri-
ver, at which he was very good; concerts (especially in King's College
Chapel), theatre (we went to as many student performances as possible,
in addition to our frequent outings to London); children's education (he
was interested in this professionally, as well as personally, for our then
8 Hanna Scolnicov

toddler daughter). The two years in which he completed his doctorate

(this was the short term of his British Council Fellowship) were truly
formative years.
He arrived in Cambridge with only a basic knowledge of English.
But within those two years mastered the language, as can be witnessed
by reading this thesis. He was born and raised in Brazil, so that his
mother-tongue was Portuguese. There, he attended a Jewish school,
where he acquired Hebrew and some Yiddish. When he emigrated to
Israel at the age of seventeen, within a short time he was proficient e-
nough to teach Hebrew language and literature at a leading high-school
in Jerusalem. The foreign language he studied at school in Rio de Janei-
ro was French. English was hardly taught there, but he had taken part in
the World Scouts Jamboree in 1957, in the UK, and had already then, as
a teenager, fallen in love with the culture and landscape. His command
of English was due to his genius for languages. Later in life, he both pu-
blished and lectured in Hebrew, English, Portuguese, Spanish, French
and Italian. To these must be added his knowledge of ancient Greek and
Latin, and his passive knowledge of German and Dutch. His linguistic
skills were put to good use in his various translations of poetry and pro-
se, notably the pre-Socratic philosophers (into Hebrew), and culminated
in his translation of Plato's Parmenides into English (University of Cali-
fornia Press, Berkeley, 2003).
Samuel's professional interests ranged from Greek philosophy to
philosophy of education, philosophy of science, philosophy of language,
Jewish philosophy and ethics. He saw himself as a latter-day humanist
and philologist, devoted to the spreading of ideas and culture and, espe-
cially, to the teaching of children and young people. He was an enthu-
siastic and charismatic teacher, Socratic and ironic in his approach, and
the students loved his lectures.
He taught Greek philosophy and philosophy of Education at The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem. At different periods, he was a visiting
professor or fellow at Harvard, the Sorbonne, Dartmouth College, Cata-
nia, Cagliari (Sardinia), Sydney, Mexico City, Irvine, Toronto, and other
universities that I can no longer recall. He was a fellow at the National
Humanities Center in North Carolina and at the Bogliasco Foundation
Foreword 9

(Italy) and was an invited lecturer in countless universities around the

world.
He was a founding member of the International Plato Society, and
its President, from 1998 to 2001.
I wish to thank Samuel's long-time colleague and friend, Prof. Ha-
rold Tarrant, who undertook to edit this book, believing in what was a
young scholar's doctoral thesis. I am greatly indebted to another of Sa-
muel's friends, Dr. Jürgen Richarz, director of the Academia Verlag,
who, against all odds, decided to publish this volume. For both, this was
a labour of love.
Samuel would not have wished for a marble monument to com-
memorate him, but would have been immensely grateful for the posthu-
mous publication of the first fruits of his scholarly journey.
10 Samuel Scolnicov

Editor’s Introduction
Drama and Doctrine
When conversing about Plato Samuel Scolnicov (1941–2014) not
infrequently mentioned his doctoral thesis, and I suspect that I asked
him more than once what the topic was. From his earlier essays on he
had referred to it, and he published articles devoted to the hypothetical
method in Kant-Studien and Methexis.1 He still remained committed to
its principal claims in his treatment of Republic v-vii;2 and his book on
the Parmenides, which was a natural dialogue to tackle as a sequel to the
present work, reiterates many of its findings.3 However, he nowhere re-
turned to these issues with the same thoroughness and scholarly acumen
that is demonstrated in the present pages. When I finally read the thesis
in Cambridge University Library I felt that here was the key to much
else that he had published on Plato, a work that already showed his fun-
damental commitment to Plato – to a Plato that was importantly differ-
ent from Aristotle, not just Aristotle’s more problematic precursor. The
commitment to Plato led also to the commitment to allowing the dia-
logues, to the extent that they were willing and able, to speak on Plato’s
behalf. While some passages may indeed have been enigmatic, others
were conceived of as speaking much more directly to the reader, and
Plato did not require the reader to read between the lines at the expense
of reading the lines themselves.
Since the thesis was written there has been considerable debate,
sparked by an increasing awareness of the dramatic aspects of a Platonic
dialogue and by the need to take an integrated view of each one, over
the extent to which any character in a Platonic dialogue should be seen
as communicating Plato’s own contribution directly to the reader (the
--------------------------------------------
1
Scolnicov (1975) and (1992).
2
Scolnicov (1988), 88-97, where note 24 refers both to the thesis and to Scolnicov (1975).
3
Scolnicov (2003), 9-12; ‘hypotheses’ are central to Parmenides part II.
Editor’s Introduction 11

so-called ‘mouthpiece-theory’).4 Most scholars, however, would still ac-

cept that Plato allows his principal speakers to communicate at least
some of his recent advances (real or imagined) in at least some parts of
the corpus. While Scolnicov would naturally have assumed that the dia-
logues he deals with are such that the Platonic ‘Socrates’ often does
communicate Plato’s supposed discoveries, not only by his words but
also by his confirmatory conduct,5 his principal concerns are with
Plato’s methods of argument, and such metaphysical and epistemologi-
cal theory as accompany them. While Plato may perhaps have held
metaphysical theses to which no speaker in dialogues written at that pe-
riod gives voice, it is highly unlikely that he will not have allowed his
‘Socrates’ all the dialectical weapons that he himself most cherished.
Hence I believe that Scolnicov was entirely correct in treating the Pla-
tonic methods of any given period as something that could, with appro-
priate care, be deduced from the dialogues of that period, and usually
from the words of the principal speaker6 as he explains the methods be-
ing applied. And one thing is certain: for the ‘Socrates’ who takes the
protagonist’s role in each of the three dialogues tackled here methods
mattered very much. The dramatic situations in each case and a personal
involvement with the topics themselves endow the words of Socrates
with some authority.

Periods of Composition and Developmentalism

As will be observed, Scolnicov’s title implies a three-fold division
of Plato’s dialogues into early, middle and late. It is now generally rec-
ognized that the dialogues of the latest period can be identified from two
notable stylistic shifts: (1) the avoidance where possible of hiatus, i.e. of
placing words so that one ending with a vowel immediately precedes

--------------------------------------------
4
See in particular the collection of papers in Press (2000).
5
Note the following words from Scolnicov (2017), 17: ‘In Phaedo Socrates’ death gives si-
gnificance to all that is said. ... the proofs of immortality derive all their validity from Socrates’
behaviour …’.
6
Even so, note the words that begin the opening lecture of his book on Euthydemus (2013),
17: ‘Dialogue is drama. In every platonic dialogue, as in every drama, it is of maximal impor-
tance who speaks. … All that is said is said by someone to someone in a definite situation, and
great part of the significance of what is said depends on who says what, to whom and when.’
12 Samuel Scolnicov

one beginning with a vowel; (2) a shift away from certain kinds of
clausulae, i.e. of certain kinds of rhythmic patterns at the ends of sen-
tences involving the lengths of the final five syllables. The stylistic shift
is so obvious that it has to stem from a deliberate decision. There are
just six dialogues of largely undisputed authenticity that conform to
these requirements: Sophist, Statesman, Timaeus, Critias,7 Philebus and
Laws (in twelve books),8 but their total length accounts for a consider-
able part of the corpus. Two dialogues that do not conform to these sty-
listic features were then also presumed to be ‘late’, the Parmenides and
Theaetetus, principally because they seem to be rethinking the meta-
physical and epistemological theory of the Republic, theory that would
not reappear in an unproblematic way in the other six late dialogues.9
Scolnicov’s own treatment of Parmenides does not see that dialogue as
causing the abandonment of the theory of transcendent forms as some
have supposed, but sees it simultaneously solving the difficulties of pos-
tulating forms and preparing the way for the Sophist’s notion that one
must postulate both being ‘in itself’ and being ‘in relation to some-
thing’.10 Importantly, the method of hypothesis was seen as crucial
background to the hypotheses examined in Part II of the Parmenides,11
--------------------------------------------
7
Rashed and Auffret (2017) have recently argued that the extant Critias is spurious, but on
the basis of what they conceded to be only one substantial argument, involving an alleged a-
nomaly between the Timaeus and Critias. Yet there is a widespread consensus that the styles of
the Timaeus and Critias are virtually inseparable, whether ‘style’ is assessed on the basis of
conventional philological comparisons or on the basis of computer-harvested data and analysis.
Furthermore, Tulli (2013: 273), in dealing with the different accounts of the transmission of the
Atlantis-story in the two dialogues, shows that such anomalies are common enough in Plato.
The weakness of the case against authenticity when compared with the strength of the stylistic
case for it means that few will give credence to the dissenting voice of Rashed and Auffret.
8
The authenticity of the Epinomis, which is admittedly similar stylistically to Laws, is regu-
larly questioned on a variety of grounds and also on the strength of ancient reports that it is the
work of Philip of Opus, Plato’s ‘promulgator’ (epigrapheus), who was also responsible for the
final arrangement of Laws. Laws itself, however, was never treated as anything but Plato’s pro-
ject. A similar style is also detectable in the Seventh Epistle, whose authenticity also remains a
matter of debate. That, however, was not a dialogue.
9
I myself have very real doubts about whether the Republic was completed before these dia-
logues were begun, since I suspect that dialogues usually evolved, but as a convenient hypothe-
sis it makes sense to place them both at this time.
10
See Scolnicov (2003), especially 8-9, 25-29, and 39.
11
Scolnicov (2003), 9-12, where a summary of his earlier research on the theory of hypothe-
sis is presented; also 27, where we read: ‘Rather, Parmenides now [in part II of the Parmeni-
des] raises the inquiry to a higher stage of generality (a “higher hypothesis”, in the terminology
Editor’s Introduction 13

contributing to the solution of the Eleatic challenge and thereby prepar-

ing the path forward to the Sophist.
No reliable stylistic criterion has ever been advanced for the separa-
tion of a distinct group of early dialogues, but ‘early’ for many scholars,
particularly those influenced by Gregory Vlastos, has tended to mean
‘Socratic’, so that the principal criterion has been the rather awkward
criterion of Socraticity, especially in the employment of the Socratic el-
enchus.12 On Vlastos’ view (1991: 47) the Meno is ‘early’, but neverthe-
less ‘transitional’, so that already he feels there is movement away from
the earliest dialogues and towards the theories of a middle period that
owe more to mathematics,13 becoming more ‘Platonic’ and metaphysi-
cal, even while working to some extent in Socrates’ footsteps. So the
key thing is that while Vlastos may hold the Meno to be early, he still
sees it leading directly forward to what has been called the ‘middle pe-
riod’. And given that talk of hypotheses comes well after the abandon-
ment of the elenctic method at 80e and the introduction of geometrical
material, even Vlastos should allow the Meno to be treated as ‘middle’
for the purpose of examining hypothetical method. Furthermore he con-
fidently assigns both Phaedo and Republic ii-x to a middle period, and is
one of those who also allow that the Parmenides and Theaetetus are
middle. In fact Scolnicov’s assignment of Phaedo and Republic vi-vii to
a Platonic ‘middle period’ should only be controversial for those who
are sceptical about the possibility of any advances towards an approxi-
mate Platonic chronology.
While Scolnicov worked within a general chronological framework
that had become commonplace at that time, this should not be taken to
mean that he adhered to a strongly developmentalist view of Plato. Cer-
tainly he thought that Plato developed as a philosopher (what great phi-
losopher would not make advances?), but he did not want to postulate a
series of major turning points. At least as far as method was concerned

--------------------------------------------
of Phaedo 101d5 and Republic vi 511a6). On this level, forms and sensible things are alike
considered “ones”.’
12
See in particular Vlastos (1991): 47 for the assignment of all relevant dialogues to compo-
sitional periods.
13
See here Vlastos (1991), 115 n.41, on the Meno’s employment of both elenchus (up to
80e) and non-elenctic, not to mention mathematical, methods thereafter.
14 Samuel Scolnicov

he took a holistic view of the dialogues, taken as a coherent corpus,14

which allowed steady refinements rather than crises and major shifts. In
such circumstances the minutiae of chronological order lose some but
not all of their importance. Scolnicov’s subtlety comes out when he dis-
tinguishes, like many others, ‘Plato’s Socrates’ from ‘the platonic Socra-
tes’. ‘Plato’s Socrates’ is rather like Vlastos’ Socrates of the ‘early’ dia-
logues, Socrates as Plato wanted to remember him; ‘the Platonic Socra-
tes’ is more like Vlastos’ middle-period Socrates. But Scolnicov rightly
affirms that traces of the former may be found in the so-called ‘middle’
dialogues, and traces of the ‘latter’ in those usually thought early. And
‘Euthydemus gives us a mix of both Socrates.’15 The date of Euthydemus
is much disputed, but Scolnicov here differs from Vlastos in cautiously
assigning it to ‘around the time of the composition of the Republic’ on
the assumption that it is ‘parasitical’, taking for granted some familiarity
with dialogues that had preceded.16 So Scolnicov takes chronology seri-
ously, but adopts a rather cautious and nuanced attitude towards it; he
also takes development seriously, but finds the overall corpus much
more coherent than one might expect from a ‘developmentalist’.
With this attitude towards the corpus Scolnicov presents an inte-
grated account of hypothesis from the Meno through to the Republic. To
offer such a solution required determination, and I remember this as be-
ing precisely the kind of challenge that UK graduate students interested
in Platonic logic and metaphysics at that time would have relished. The
challenge, it seemed, was not simply to find a single Platonic theory, but
to argue the case for its having been important. The result needed to be
illuminating, and Platonic dialectic of the ‘middle period’ needed to
hold its own not just against Aristotelian science but also against Plato’s
own ‘late’ dialogues. It needed to hold the attention of philosophers, or
at least those of them who were prepared to give it a careful hearing.

--------------------------------------------
14
But individual dialogues always had for him a stronger right to be considered as coherent
wholes, Scolnicov (2013), 14.
15
See Scolnicov (2013), 19.
16
See Scolnicov (2013), 14; he specifically states that some parodies make no sense unless
written after the Meno. I have cited this because it seems to me to be particularly insightful.
Vlastos (1991), 47, had viewed the Euthydemus as ‘early’ but ‘transitional’.
Editor’s Introduction 15

Philosophic appeal, however, never entailed, in Scolnicov’s mind,

the abandonment of the dramatic and dialogical features of Platonic
compositions. This can be seen when, in chapter iv.5, he wrote as fol-
lows:
The hypothetical method is by its very nature dialectical, or should we say ‘situ-
ational’. It starts from a given concrete situation and follows its unique course
according to the actual responses of the persons involved. The level of the phi-
losophical discussion at each stage of the dialogue, the meanders of the analysis,
the scope of the ethical or metaphysical outlook are dictated by Socrates’ inter-
locutor.

Hypotheses in late antique Platonism

The topic of Platonic ‘hypothesis’ is by no means new. The word it-
self suggests something placed underneath, an ‘underpinning’ perhaps,
something set down so that it could be built upon.17 If Plato was to be
represented as a systematic philosopher then his system had to have
foundations underpinning it, and the foundations would need explana-
tion. In late antiquity it was the upper levels of reality were the Plato-
nists’ principal goal of inquiry, so that its foundations would indeed
have to be at a lower level. Their function and status of such hypotheses
would require articulation. Until the fifth century CE, however, the ex-
tant remains of Platonic interpretation are not sufficiently extensive for
us to expect to know much that is relevant. It is from commentaries that
we expect to learn most, but we do not know of any on the Meno, and
extant parts of the anonymous Theaetetus-commentary that makes good
use of that dialogue only employ the term in column LXIV (12-36)
where it refers to the Heraclitean hypothesis that all things are in flux, an
hypothesis that leads to the conclusion that every perception is peculiar
to the individual who perceives it. Surprisingly one of Plutarch’s Pla-
tonic Questions that interprets the Divided Line of the Republic fails to
talk of hypotheses at all. This means that the Didascalicus of Alcinous,

--------------------------------------------
17
Note Plato’s own suggestion at Rep. 511b4 (Slings = b5 Burnet) that true hypotheses will
be somehow below what they are used to discover.
16 Samuel Scolnicov

to which Scolnicov sometimes refers,18 is the only work from the early
Roman Imperial period to say much about Plato’s hypotheses (5.157.36-
43, 7.162.10-12).
Later commentators use the term a great deal, usually as an ordinary
part of a philosopher’s vocabulary rather than in any special Platonist
sense. Sometimes it is also used like prothesis indicating the undertaking
of a particular dialogue or part of it: what it proposed to achieve or inves-
tigate. In the works of Proclus the term hypothesis occurs over seven hun-
dred times. It occurs in a variety of senses even in the Commentary on the
Republic, where it naturally features in Proclus’ treatment of the Divided
Line and of the types of cognition that it postulates.19 Proclus did not leave
us a commentary on the Phaedo though Damascius preserves the key
piece of information that he interpreted the key phrase ‘something suffi-
cient’ (in Phd. II 74) as the Good itself. Damascius himself takes a much
more general view, identifying it with any agreed or self-evident premises
and principles; he then goes on to analyse the relevant argument in terms
of these hypotheses qua premises. It is fairly obvious that Proclus’ discov-
ery of the Good at this point stemmed from his reading the treatment of
hypothesis in the Phaedo in close relation to the Divided Line passage,
taking a more rigorously Platonic view; whereas Damascius seems to be
understanding the term in closer relation to its ordinary philosophical
sense. Hence he can speak of the argument from these hypotheses as a
demonstration in syllogistic form.
Olympiodorus finds much more need to discuss hypotheses in his
Aristotelian commentaries than in his Platonic ones. However, at in Alc.
40.18-41.1 he clearly associates true philosophical argument with argu-
ment from an unhypothetical starting point, seeing the common notions
as such a starting point. Other technai including medicine, he surmises,
start from hypothetical assumptions. In general it seems that the promi-
nence given to the Aristotelian curriculum at Alexandria since Ammo-
nius had made it more difficult to understand Plato’s more distinctive
notion. Occurrences of the term ‘unhypothetical’ (ἀνυπόθετος), how-
ever, do suggest a more Platonic framework. Such language is found
--------------------------------------------
18
Though in accordance with many at that time he took it to be the work of Albinus.
19
See in particular in Remp. I 282.25-283.12, 292.1-15.
Editor’s Introduction 17

four times in the in Alcibiadem but never in Aristotelian commentaries.

In the Athenian school Damascius had made use of that term three times
in section 225 of the in Philebum, where he appears to be correlating the
classification of technai with the Divided Line. But Proclus had used it
eight times in his in Rempublicam (283.11-284.20, 292.5), eleven times
in his in Parmenidem and occasionally in other Platonic works. Syrianus
also uses the term in an interesting passage relating to hypotheses (in
Met. 65.10-20).20
What emerges is that in late antiquity Plato’s theory of hypothesis
was indeed important, but nowhere in extant material well explained or
well debated. It may be the case that the collection of ancient commen-
taries and treatises that has come down to us has been so randomly se-
lected that all important discussions of Plato’s theory of hypothesis have
been loss. A significant alternative is that the ancients, who did not shy
away from trying to explain difficulties, simply did not regard the theory
as especially difficult. They assumed that the meaning of the term had
not changed so very much since Plato’s time, and that Plato did not ac-
tually mean by that term anything other than what he appeared to be
saying. Plato’s methodological passages did not try to obfuscate, and
consequently there was no need for the kind of deep interpretation that
might be applied to the ‘Nuptial Number’ passage at the start of book
VIII of the Republic or to the ‘Myth of Er’ at the end of book X. The
purpose of the key passages was actually to explain what Plato was do-
ing, and where Plato wanted to explain things openly he would have
seen no need to make his language hard to understand. So perhaps the
ancient commentators would have agreed with Scolnicov that these pas-
sages did not require us to seek for any understanding of the text other
than the natural one.

--------------------------------------------
20
A little earlier Iamblichus spoke of things that are ‘unhypothetical’ in both his Protrepti-
cus (22.7) and his De Communi Mathematicae Scientia (37.13, 39.24); in this last work the
earlier case is from a Pythagorean (Pseudo-Archytas) imitation of the Divided Line passage,
and the latter case in his own comment upon Pseudo-Archytas.
18 Samuel Scolnicov

Methodological passages and passages employing methods

One of the most significant features of Scolnicov’s thesis is that it
does not confine itself to these methodological passages in isolation. In
seeing the Meno as a dialogue that introduces a method that can avoid
some of the limitations of the aporetic dialogues, he sees a transforma-
tion in the way that Plato argues. Just as he later saw part II of the Par-
menides as offering the insights necessary to avoid the aporiai of part I,
so the Meno is now seen as able to make progress beyond the aporiai
that characterised earlier dialogues. It is as if a critical stage, reminiscent
of aporetic dialogues, had been reached at 79e where the need for a new
beginning is acknowledged. The traditional problems are emphasised
both by the comparison between Socrates and the stinging sea-creature
(which are particularly relevant to how the interlocutor feels when apo-
ria has been reached, but allegedly disguise the fact that Socrates suffers
the same numbness, 80c), and by the difficulties in searching that are
introduced informally by Meno and then in the form of a sophistic para-
dox by Socrates himself. The paradox seems to make all philosophic
search pointless, whether or not the searcher knows what is sought.
It is now, at this critical moment, that Scolnicov, in chapter ii, sees
the use of hypothesis coming to be employed. The myth-like framework
of the so-called theory of recollection is introduced as a possibility that
would lead to the observation that there is nothing that the soul was un-
familiar with, then through its consequence that the process of searching
and learning as a whole is just like a process of recollection, and on to
the eventual conclusion that human beings can and should search for
knowledge which currently escapes them. But Plato’s confidence in that
conclusion is greater than his belief in the myth-like framework in
which it had been grounded. That had supplied only a hypothesis, but as
long as the hypothesis had some credibility it was enough to avoid the
vicious dichotomy between knowledge and ignorance in which the so-
phistic paradox had been grounded. Plato was thus employing hypothe-
sis already, six Stephanus pages before its explicit introduction.
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