xxviii
INTRODUCTION
oneness, a unity that includes plurality. The more the dialogue makes
things many—distinctions, classifi cations, repetitions—the more in the
end it makes things one. Woodruff concludes that just as the best life
belongs to the mixed category of thought with pleasure, pleasure in
thought, the method of the Philebus itself belongs to the mixed category
of reconciliation. The initial stark oppositions between hedonism and
intellectualism, the non-limited and the limited, must be tested and
refi ned by the method of classifi cation and reconciliation. Further-
more, the essay contrasts the method of the Philebus with that of the Par-
menides, in which the dramatically different language of addressing the
one and the many leads to (apparently) insurmountable paradoxes.
In chapter 8, entitled “Is There Method in This Madness?” Chris-
topher Long argues that for modern philosophy, method is designed
to set forth objective rules of procedure so as to establish philosophy
as a rigorous science. For Plato, however, method cannot be divorced
from the contingent contexts in which philosophy is always practiced.
While modern method permits no madness, there is madness in Pla-
to’s method. Long traces three strategies that constitute the method
of madness that operates in the Symposium and Republic. The fi rst is a
distancing strategy in which Plato systematically distances himself from
the content of the ideas expressed in the dialogues in order to provoke
the sort of critical self-refl ection required for philosophy. The second
is a grounding strategy whereby Plato embeds philosophical debate in
determinate social and political contexts so as to anchor philosophy in
the concrete world of human community. The third is a demonstrative
strategy in which Plato models philosophy as an activity intent on weav-
ing a vision of the good, the beautiful, and the just into the contingent
world of human politics. Together these three strategies function meth-
odologically to show the powerful conception of philosophy embodied
in the dialogues.
In chapter 9, “Traveling with Socrates: Dialectic in the Phaedo and
Protagoras,” Gerard Kuperus explores Plato’s method by following out
two different metaphors: navigation and the labyrinth. In the Protago-
ras, the interlocutors use the metaphor of sailing or navigation in their
discussion about which method to use. Kuperus analyzes this metaphor
by examining some other appearances of navigation and sailing in the
Socratic dialogues. He argues that with the image of navigation, Plato
depicts the dialectician as a philosophical navigator who is in search of
the right course in the dialogue. Similarly, in the Phaedo, the labyrinth
is (implicitly) used as a metaphor for the way in which the dialectician
must follow the thread of the argument, and so the dialogues can be
understood as labyrinths of argument, of possible ways and non-ways.