1515“To Say What Is Most Necessary”:
Expositional and Philosophical
Practice in Thucydides and Plato
Phil Hopkins
He who would explain to us when men like Plato spoke in
earnest, when in jest or half-jest, what they wrote from convic-
tion and what merely for the sake of argument, would certainly
render to us an extraordinary service and contribute greatly
to our education.
GoetheComparative Readings,
Complementary Methods
Recent scholarship has explored the purposes of the aporetic dimen-
sions of Plato’s dialogues, and this focus on “method” has opened the
dialogues to subtle and productive readings. Much of it also recalls a set
of careworn and intransigent hermeneutic questions. Should readers as-
sume that Socrates’ practices—the “techniques” of inquiry he employs
in the dialogues—are historically accurate, or rather that they repre-
sent the development of Plato’s philosophical practice? Are they a model
for others to follow, in the manner of deictic oratory? Is Plato trying to
communicate some truth about things and to direct judgment? Is he in-
viting his readers to become involved in the complexity of the issues en-
gaged, offering conversations designed primarily to awaken the reader’s
own philosophical and critical faculties? Are readers to fi nd these con-
versations compelling, or confusing, or protreptic, or something else?