PHIL HOPKINSotima and the Symposium as a whole commend, and that Thucydides de-
sires for his readers, a certain oppositional tension must be fostered.^37 In
the Sophist, the Eleatic Stranger prompts Theaetetus to see that though
they began their inquiry into Being deeply confused about not-Being,
they have come to the point where they fi nally recognize that they are
equally confused about Being. At this point, and not before, the Eleatic
Stranger claims that there is hope “precisely because both that which is
and that which is not are involved in equal confusion” (250e). Now they
can push through their inquiry as far as possible toward deeper under-
standing. This tension, both Thucydides and Plato teach, is the basis for
good deliberation and good judgment, judgment which aims to accom-
plish a real understanding of the complexities of the world.
Thucydides makes it clear in the “Archaeology” that he is adept at
constructing straightforwardly propositional accounts of events.^38 Since
he is able, when he wishes, to give an argued, discursive interpretation
from evidence in terms that historians still fi nd compelling and sophis-
ticated, regardless of their points of contention with this or that element
of the account, the fact that he does not do so in the vast majority of his
work should prompt his readers to ponder why. Plato makes it clear that
should he have desired to render a more direct and didactic account
of his positions, he certainly could have done so. Both authors choose
instead to offer their readers the opportunity to participate in a kind of
vivid antilogical drama, where the text requires their effort to complete
its work.
Thucydides, like Plato, offers many alternative, even diametrically
opposed, accounts to prompt his readers to enter along with him into
the hard work of coming to understanding that he describes at 1.22, a
work that could not be accomplished if one of the two or several accounts
was simply selected as the “correct” explanation, the “truest reason” for
the events and their outcomes. In crafting his antilogy, Thucydides, like
Plato, demonstrates that even the ability to assess and judge the equality
and the appropriateness of the considerations to each circumstance, as
is required for eijkov~ reasoning to be productive, is never provided once
and for all, and certainly not as propositions, but is instead a matter of
the ability to remain engaged within balancing and balanced antilogy,
carefully selected to assist one in seeing the matter from as many sides
as possible, such that one is thereby able to develop a deeper sense of the
structure of the world, of its particular circumstances, and of the beliefs
and motivations of the people engaged in living their lives within it.
As Socrates says in the Republic (537c), the one who is sunoptikov~
is a dialectician, and the one who is not, is not. Both Thucydides and
Plato suggest that synoptic ability will be found and gained, if at all, in