“PREFACE” in “PLATO’S LETTERS”
PREFACE
Consensus eludes scholars on virtually every aspect of Plato’s Letters. Prominent figures in every branch of Platonic studies have pronounced drastically differing opinions on these epistles, individually and as a collection, with regard to their authenticity, significance, and interpretation. This confusion, which has surrounded the Letters for so long, has had the unfortunate effect of creating a barrier between the student and the text. To open any existing edition of the Letters is to find oneself thrown at once upon an academic battlefield, caught in the dizzying cross fire of arguments over arcane matters of historiography and philology. Before long one is bound to become unsure not only of how to approach and to read Plato’s Letters, but even whether the text is worth reading.
This volume seeks in a number of ways to make it easier for the student, whether amateur or expert, to see the value and importance of reading the Letters. Most crucially, it provides a new translation of the Letters, of which the purpose is to allow the English-speaking reader without knowledge of ancient Greek to come as close to the literal meaning of the original text as possible, with footnotes to supply insight into historical context and linguistic subtleties where necessary or helpful. My hope is that this will enable generations of readers to judge for themselves, in a way not hitherto possible, as to the character and worth of this fascinating text.
There is a further and more ambitious goal at which this volume also aims: to rehabilitate what I call the “literary unity thesis,” according to which the Letters is a single, authentic, unified work of Platonic political philosophy. While my defense of this argument in the introduction necessarily threatens to involve the reader in the forbidding fray of scholarly debate to which I referred above, I have done my best to remain above that fray, first by explaining the origins of the various disputes over the Letters, and then by showing how the literary unity thesis resolves, with admirable parsimony, many of the historical puzzles and interpretive paradoxes that have emerged from these fraught disputes. But since the proof of this pudding, as I insist in the introduction, is in the eating, I have also provided a long, three-part interpretive essay treating the whole Letters, so as to give some idea of what it would be to study Plato’s Letters as a coherent Platonic work.
I have placed the interpretive essay after the translation in order to convey my intention that the reader should take up a careful, independent study of the Letters before turning to my interpretation. Aside from the fact that the essay is written for readers who have the details of the Letters fresh in their minds, I believe that the study of Plato is more fruitful when one can first form one’s own ideas about the text’s major themes and puzzles with minimal prejudice for or against any particular line of interpretation. In any case, since the literary unity thesis has been so widely overlooked for so long, the interpretive essay in this volume constitutes what I believe to be the first attempt at such a complete and detailed interpretation of the whole Letters, and I have no doubt that I have missed numerous important points in my exploration of this remarkably uncharted territory. My hope is that students of Platonic philosophy more capable and more talented than I, spurred on by my insights and by my mistakes, will produce still more penetrating and persuasive interpretations of the Letters in the years to come.
As a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, I participated in a reading group on Plato’s Seventh Letter in the spring of 2012. The discussions I had with my professors and fellow students during that time planted the seed that at length grew into this book. Along the way, friends, colleagues, and students continued to indulge me by agreeing to form reading groups with me on the Letters in whole or in part. For this, I owe thanks in particular to Tom and Lorraine Pangle, Loren Rotner, Zachary Bennett, and Derek Foret, as well as to the lively group of Wayne State University graduate students in political science who attended regular, virtual meetings on the Seventh Letter in the fall 2020 semester. I am grateful moreover to many friends and colleagues whose discussions with me about the Letters provided valuable insights over the years. Devin Stauffer on several occasions made time to help me think through various substantive and strategic issues in my work on the Letters. More than once while I was at Michigan State University, a conversation with Dustin Sebell helped me to see the Letters in a new and insightful way.
I received some significant financial support for the production of this manuscript. A full year of research was funded by a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Further summer research funding was provided in the form of a University Research Grant from Wayne State University. In addition, my thanks are due to Chantel Raymond, to whom Wayne State awarded a special Graduate Research Assistantship to aid in the preparation of my manuscript during the 2019–2020 academic year.
There are a few people whose generosity in agreeing to review and discuss my manuscript saved me from many embarrassing mistakes. Keith Whitaker did me an enormous kindness, which I did nothing in particular to deserve, by reading a draft of my translation and returning it thoroughly annotated with his suggestions and feedback. Tom Pangle, to whom my debt grows ever greater, provided invaluable editorial guidance on every part of this book, dramatically improving the readability of the translation and helping me to refine and to clarify my thought throughout the interpretive essay. Erik Dempsey and Gregory McBrayer also helped me to improve early drafts of my translation. Without the help of these friends, I would not have been able to raise the quality of this book to the level it has reached; I alone bear responsibility for the deficiencies that remain.
I owe a special thanks to my brother, Joseph Helfer, who shared his brilliance with me in two totally different ways. He helped me translate Franz Dornseiff’s article on the Letters from the original German and wrote a computer program to help me compile the index to the translation.
I am also grateful to Bethany Wasik at Cornell University Press, who helped guide me smoothly through the publication process, and to the anonymous peer reviewers, who made a number of helpful suggestions.
During my years of working on this project, various people under various auspices kindly invited me to present aspects of my research, which invariably helped me to work out my own thoughts and allowed me to receive helpful feedback from intelligent audiences. My thanks to Debra Nails, Emily Katz, and the Michigan State University’s History of Philosophy Circle, Yumin Sheng and Wayne State University’s Political Science Colloquium Series, David Ramsey and the Reubin O’D.Askew Department of Government at the University of West Florida, and Dustin and Lauren Sebell with the LeFrak Forum on Science, Reason, and Modern Democracy at Michigan State for these opportunities. In addition, I presented working drafts of parts of my interpretive essay at academic conferences for almost seven years, receiving valuable feedback from my discussants who took the time to read and respond to my work. Lorraine Pangle, Peter Ahresndorf, Laura Rabinowitz, Eric Buzzetti, Gregory McBrayer, and Michael Hawley all helped my work on the Letters in this way. My thanks are also due to Sean Stidd and Josh Wilburn, who allowed me to co-coordinate the Wayne State Plato Symposium with them in 2021, where I was able to share my work on the Letters with, and receive feedback from, an impressive interdisciplinary group of Plato scholars.
Through it all, my wife, Cassie, was by my side. Over and again, she performed the miraculous feat of making time for me to work when there was no time to spare, taking care of our home and our two beautiful boys (as well as her own career) so that I could achieve this goal of mine, which seemed so distant for so long. I cannot say what would have become of this project, or of me, without her endless encouragement and support; I only know that I owe her more than I can repay.
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