Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 3 — Plato — John Shaqi
Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 3
Plato · en
From the pen of Isokrates also, we find various passages
apparently directed against the viri Socratici including Plato
(though without his name): depreciating,[91] as idle and
worthless, new political theories, analytical discussions on the
principles of ethics, and dialectic subtleties; maintaining that
the word philosophy was erroneously interpreted and defined by
many contemporaries, in a sense too much withdrawn from practical
results: and affirming that his own teaching was calculated to
impart genuine philosophy. During the last half of Plato's life,
his school and that of Isokrates were the most celebrated among
all that existed at Athens. There was competition between them,
gradually kindling into rivalry. Such rivalry became vehement
during the last ten years of Plato's life, when his scholar
Aristotle, then an aspiring young man of twenty-five, proclaimed a
very contemptuous opinion of Isokrates, and commenced a new school
of rhetoric in opposition to him.[92] Kephisodôrus, a pupil of
Isokrates, retaliated; publishing against Aristotle, as well as
against Plato, an acrimonious work which was still read some
centuries afterwards. Theopompus, another eminent pupil of
Isokrates, commented unfavourably upon Plato in his writings: and
other writers who did the same may probably have belonged to the
Isokratean school.[93]
[Footnote 91: Isokrates, Orat. x. 1 (Hel. Enc.); Orat. v.
(Philipp.) 12; Or. xiii. (Sophist.) 9-24; Orat. xv. (Permut.)
sect. 285-290. [Greek: philosophi/an me\n ou)=n ou)k oi)=mai dei=n
prosagoreu/ein tê\n mêde\n e)n tô=| paro/nti mê/te pro\s to\
le/gein mê/te pro\s to\ pra/ttein ô(/phelou=san--tê\n kaloume/nên
u(po/ tinôn philosophi/an ou)k ei)=nai phêmi/], &c.]
[Footnote 92: Cicero, De Oratore, iii. 35, 141; Orator. 19, 62;
Numenius, ap. Euseb. Præp. Evang. xiv. 6, 9. See Stahr,
Aristotelia, i. p. 63 seq., ii. p. 44 seq.