Plato and Platonism — Text and Context

(0 User reviews) 881

In Category - Metaphysics

Authors: Pater, Walter, 1839-1894 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2003 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Plato; Philosophy, Ancient Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 77,471

Reading time 337 min

Text sections 7

The source record for Plato and Platonism — Text and Context measures this digital text at 77,471 words, 5 hr 37 min estimated reading time, and 7 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 30.6 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Plato,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #4095

Walter Pater's study of Plato and Platonism examines the philosopher's ideas as a convergence of tendencies rather than a fixed doctrine, tracing the evolution of thought from Heraclitus to the theory of ideas with a focus on language, voice, and intellectual pace.

Editorial Edition Score 4.7/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg4095

Read the Text

That were in policy so great, And framed the laws of old, How small a place they hold, How poor their art of noble living Shews by thy delicate contriving, Where what October spun November sees outrun! Think in the time thou canst recall, Laws, coinage, customs, places all, How thou hast rearranged, How oft thy members changed! Couldst thou but see thyself aright, And turn thy vision to the light, Thy likeness thou would'st find In some sick man reclined; On couch of down though he be pressed, He seeks and finds not any rest, But turns and turns again, To ease him of his pain. Purgatory: Canto VI: Shadwell's Translation.

Now what Dante says to Florence, contrasting it with Athens and Sparta as he conceives them, Plato might have said to Athens, in contrast with Sparta, with Lacedaemon, at least as he conceived it.

6. +Transliteration: Panta rhei. Translation: "All things give way [or flow]." Plato, Cratylus 402 A, cites Heraclitus' fragment more fully-- Legei pou Hêrakleitos hoti panta chôrei kai ouden menei, or "Heracleitus says somewhere that all things give way, and nothing remains." Pater cites the same fragment in The Renaissance, Conclusion. The verb rheô means "flow," while the verb choreô means "give way."

14. +Transliteration: Panta chôrei kai ouden menei. Pater's translation: "All things give way: nothing remaineth." Plato, Cratylus 402A.

14. +Transliteration: neotês. Liddell and Scott definition: "youth: also ... youthful spirit, rashness."

15. +Transliteration: Legei pou Hêrakleitos hoti panta chôrei kai ouden menei. Pater's translation in The Renaissance, Conclusion: "[Herakleitos says somewhere that] All things give way; nothing remains." Plato, Cratylus 402a.

16. +Transliteration: eimen te kai ouk eimen. E-text editor's translation: "We are and are not." Heraclitus, Fragments. Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, Vol. 1, 326. Ed. F.W.A. Mullach. Darmstadt: Scientia Verlag Aalen, 1967 (reprint of the Paris, 1860 edition). In the same fragment, Heraclitus is described as having said, Potamois tois autois embainomen te kai ouk embainomen, which translates as "we go into the same river, and [yet] we do not go into the same river." Plato cites that thought in the passage alluded to above, Cratylus 402a.

16. +Transliteration: ta onta. Definition: "the things that are."

17. +Rather than retain the original's very small print for such quotations, I have indented them throughout Plato and Platonism. As Pater indicates, the source of his quotation is the Cratylus, 439.

19. +Transliteration: Panta chôrei, panta rhei. See above, notes for pages 6, 14, 15, and 16. The verb rheô means "flow," while the verb choreô means "give way."

24. +Transliteration: aleipha . . . oxos. Liddell and Scott definition: "unguent, oil . . . sour wine, vinegar."

CHAPTER 2: PLATO AND THE DOCTRINE OF REST

[27] OVER against that world of flux,

Where nothing is, but all things seem,

it is the vocation of Plato to set up a standard of unchangeable reality, which in its highest theoretic development becomes the world of "eternal and immutable ideas," indefectible outlines of thought, yet also the veritable things of experience: the perfect Justice, for instance, which if even the gods mistake it for perfect Injustice is not moved out of its place; the Beauty which is the same, yesterday, to-day and for ever. In such ideas or ideals, "eternal" as participating in the essential character of the facts they represent to us, we come in contact, as he supposes, with the insoluble, immovable granite beneath and amid the wasting torrent of mere phenomena. And in thus ruling the deliberate aim of his philosophy to be a survey of things sub specie eternitatis, the reception of a kind of absolute and independent knowledge [28] (independent, that is, of time and position, the accidents and peculiar point of view of the receiver) Plato is consciously under the influence of another great master of the Pre- Socratic thought, Parmenides, the centre of the School of Elea.

Continue Reading →

Walter Pater opens Plato and Platonism with a striking claim: "Nature makes no sudden starts." This principle governs his entire approach, as he treats Plato not as a solitary genius but as a thinker shaped by earlier currents—Heraclitus, the Eleatics, the Sophists. Pater’s own prose mirrors this gradual unfolding; he builds arguments through accumulation, often pausing to gloss Greek terms or to note the emotional weight of a phrase. The reader quickly senses that this is less a systematic exposition than a portrait of a mind in dialogue with its predecessors.

The Rhythm of Intellectual History

Pater insists that philosophy has "no absolute beginnings." He illustrates this by tracing Plato’s debts: the doctrine of flux from Heraclitus, the Eleatic reduction of "the Many to the One," the Socratic method. But his method is not merely historical; it is rhythmic. He alternates between broad claims and close readings of single words—panta rhei, theōria, ta erōtika—as if each term were a node where centuries of thought converge. The pace quickens when he confronts Plato’s own contradictions, then slows again for a patient gloss. This ebb and flow mirrors his thesis that Platonism is a "tendency" rather than a doctrine, something felt as much as reasoned.

Voice and the Texture of Argument

Pater’s own voice is distinctive: formal yet intimate, given to parenthetical asides and sudden shifts in register. He describes Plato’s world as "already almost weary of philosophical debate," its air "sickly with off-cast speculative atoms." Such metaphors are not decorative; they carry argumentative weight, suggesting that ideas have a physical presence. When he discusses the theory of ideas, he refuses to treat it as a fixed system, calling it instead "a way of regarding and speaking of general terms." The emphasis on speaking is crucial: for Pater, philosophy is a verbal art, and its truth lies partly in the texture of its utterance. He notes how Plato’s dialogues reflect "the marked peculiarities of himself and his own mental complexion," a remark that applies equally to Pater’s own prose.

Pace and the Reader’s Attention

Pater’s sentences are long, often periodic, but they rarely lose direction. He manages pace by varying the density of reference: a page dense with Greek transliterations and allusions to the Timaeus or Parmenides will suddenly yield to a plain statement. The effect is cumulative, demanding patience but rewarding it with moments of clarity. Consider his handling of realism: he defines it, then immediately qualifies it, then offers a hypothetical "we might say" that repositions the reader. This is not confusion but a deliberate slowing of thought, forcing the reader to dwell on each step. The book’s seven chapters, each with a distinct focus, create a larger rhythm—from motion to rest to number to the theory of ideas—that mirrors the intellectual journey it describes.

The Role of Translation and Gloss

Pater frequently inserts Greek phrases and his own translations, often with a note on their nuance. For instance, he renders ta erōtika as "the discipline of sensuous love," then adds a literal gloss. These moments serve a dual purpose: they anchor the argument in primary texts and they slow the reading pace, inviting scrutiny. The reader is not allowed to glide over Plato’s words; Pater insists on their strangeness. This technique aligns with his broader claim that philosophy is a matter of language as much as logic. The glosses also reveal Pater’s own interpretive choices, making visible the act of reading that his book enacts.

Pater’s Plato and Platonism rewards a reader willing to move at its own pace—attentive to the weight of a single word, the shift from a Greek term to its English shadow. The book is best approached not as a guide to Plato’s doctrines but as a performance of how one mind engages another across time. Let the rhythm of Pater’s sentences guide you; pause where he pauses, and note where he quickens. The effort yields not a summary of Platonism but a sense of its living texture.

I found myself thinking about how Plato’s voice lingered, not as fixed answers but as a living pace—his ideas folding like quiet afternoons. That same unhurried rhythm surfaced again in How to Live on 24 Hours a Day — A Reader’s Guide, where time feels less like a schedule and more like a companion. It reminded me of Pater’s gentle tracing—nothing forced, just presence.