Abstract

This little book, which ostensibly concerns "the conflict between Isocrates and Plato on the subject of Athenian culture, as seen through the Symposium," ought not to escape the attention of Plato scholars or philosophers. The antithesis between a rhetorical ideal of open conversation and a philosophical ideal of objective accord is the main issue here, and the lessons of the book are as important to the twentieth century as they are to the time of Plato. Wohlman sees the Symposium as staging a battle between Plato and Isocrates over the conception of a common logos. For Isocrates the common logos is rooted in the humanism of Athenian culture, founded on the shared values of liberty and autonomy, and expressed in a diversity of intellectual endeavors. Thus, the rhetor, the aristocrat, the doctor, the poet, and the philosopher all share a cultural commitment to logos, which allows them to disagree about the contents and merits of their respective views, but which also requires them to acquiesce in irresolution: their "open" conversation cannot be closed. Plato is squarely opposed to irresolution, but he does not reject the whole of Athenian culture. Instead he proposes to supplant its humanist foundations with a conception of the common logos that "is capable of accepting, surpassing, and finally saving that same culture". For Plato "only the intelligible determination of the eidos can contribute to the mobile multiplicity of the common logos the principle of the authentically common character that it lacks".