Spring 2007 - Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy

1 1 0 I nterpretation
possibilities and limits of philosophical activity, and in particular to the
relationship of philosophers and non-philosophers in the city. The juxtaposition
of philosophical activity and the city in or near which it takes place in
the dialogues also perpetually calls to attention the potentially fertile but also
precarious relationship that exists between philosophy and the city. The
dialogues as a whole, then, show Plato to be particularly attuned to the
problems and the possibilities inherent in the relationships between man and
city, philosophy and politics.
One cannot, of course, simply assume the “political thesis” to
be true; such a claim would require a good deal of justification. But since a
complete justification of this thesis would require a thorough investigation of
the dialogues as a whole, such a task is well beyond the scope of this
paper. Instead, I mean to provide a partial and negative justification for the
political thesis by considering and then dismissing an apparently powerful
counterexample to it: namely, the Philebus, which is notable for its lack of both
dramatic context and political content. It is not so unusual that this dialogue
does not explicitly address political themes, as there are many dialogues that do
not; but the absence of the explicitly political from the Philebus is reinforced by
the near-absence of the explicitly dramatic, with the result that the broad sense
in which every dialogue is political becomes severely weakened and seriously
questionable in the case of this dialogue.
In the following section (II), I will review the apparently
non-dramatic and apolitical features of the Philebus, then contrast it with other
“late” dialogues, by way of showing the peculiar nature of this dialogue. Next
(III), I will attend more closely to the one explicitly dramatic feature of the
Philebus – its characters—and explore each of the characters, their positions,
and their interaction in order to elicit their significance both individually
and collectively for the dialogue. Finally (IV), I will argue on the basis of
this investigation that, far from indicating a decline or even disappearance
of Plato’s concern with political philosophy in a broad sense, the Philebus
rather reaffirms this concern and indicates its most important expression and
application.
To state the matter in advance, the political significance of
the Philebus can be seen in its use of dialogical interaction to overcome
obstacles to philosophical discussion and secure and further the possibility
of philosophy within the city. Looked at in this way, the Philebus shows Plato
coming full circle to the Socratic political mission as articulated in the Apology:
the transformation of the city through the individual transformation of its