Gregory Vlastos - The Presocratics

STUDIES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY

VOLUME I: THE PRESOCRATICS

Gregory Vlastos

STUDIES IN GREEK
PHILOSOPHY

GREGORY VLASTOS

VOLUME I: THE PRESOCRATICS

Edited by Daniel W. Graham

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

Copyright 1993 by Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,

Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex

All Rights Reserved

Vlastos, Gregory.

Studies in Greek philosophy /Gregory Vlastos.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents: v. 1. The Presocratics v.2. Socrates, Plato, and their tradition.

ISBN 0-691-03310-2

ISBN 0-691-01937-1 (pbk.)

1. Philosophy, Ancient. I. Graham, Daniel W. II. Title.

B17I.V538 1994 180-dc20 94-3112

eISBN: 978-0-69124-188-3

To the memory of Gregory Vlastos

PREFACE

T HIS PROJECT BEGAN with a note I wrote to Gregory Vlastos in the summer of 1991. Having just finished reading his Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher, I was impressed that it was time to collect his many important articles for posterity. It was a task that should have been carried out years ago; but his constant involvement in new projects, together with his compulsion to revise earlier work to bring his reflections up-to-date had made it impossible for him to undertake the project. I offered to do the editorial work for him. A few days later I received a telephone call from Professor Vlastos. He asked if I were serious about my offer; I replied I was. With characteristic modesty he questioned whether anyone would be inter ested in his previous work; I assured him that there would be great interest. He then authorized me to undertake the project, stipulating that it should contain only works in ancient philosophy. In a note of authorization, he chose the modest title the work bears.

The format of this work is that of a kleine Schriften collectiona format not popular in the English-speaking world, as the rubric indicates. Early in the project we received an offer to publish selected essays of Professor Vlastos. I urged rejecting the offer, and Professor Vlastos concurred. The choice of Princeton University Press was dictated in part by the Presss commitment to keep in print Platonic Studies, which of course constituted the only previous collection of a systematic body of Vlastos essays. A number of Vlastos essays were collected in Studies in Plato's Metaphysics, edited by R. E. Allen (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), and in the two volumes of Studies in Presocratic Philosophy, edited by David Furley and R. E. Allen (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970, 1975), and also in other anthologies. (Professor Furley has told me that one of his purposes in bringing out his anthology was to make Gregorys essays more available.) But the works mentioned are now out of print, and some important essays appear in works which are difficult to get access to, and in any case the essays are scattered abroad in many journals and collections. The justification for the present collection is simply the quality of the work and its prodigious impact on scholars of ancient philosophy. In that I trust these volumes will speak for themselves.

One of the major tasks preliminary to editing the present collection was identifying the essays to be collected. Professor Vlastos kept no comprehensive bibliography of his own numerous and multifaceted publications. In later years he kept a list of works published in recent years (incomplete, as it turned out) and for earlier publications referred to the bibliography published in his festschrift, Exegesis and Argument (E. N. Lee, A.P.D. Mourelatos, and R. Rorty, eds., Assen: Van Gorcum, 1973). To remedy gaps in available biblio graphics, a new bibliography that aims at being comprehensive is included at the end of Volume II of this collection. It has been eked out by computerized data bases, bibliographical journals, searches of journal indexes, tips from individuals, and references in footnotes. In it I have tried to include all publications, including nonphilosophical ones. I would like to be able to guarantee that it is complete, but I cannot. It will, however, provide a guide to most of Professor Vlastoss publications, with some notes on interrelations between the works that I hope will facilitate research.

Professor Vlastos passed away a few months after the beginning of this project. I received a note written only a few days before his death, providing instructions on certain details. I would wish that he had lived to provide a final say in the content and shape of these volumes. He did, however, approve the general format and aim. I have continued the project under the auspices of the children of Gregory Vlastos, Mari Vlastos and Stephen Vlastos, whose cooperation and good wishes have greatly aided my work. In particular Stephen, an academician himself, was able to give me advice on aspects of the project and negotiations with publishers, as well as helpful personal information. Professor Vlastos assigned Professor Myles Burnyeat as literary executor and editor of his projected sequel to Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher, entitled Socratic Studies, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. Essays intended for that volume are of course excluded from the present collection. I appreciate advice and information Professor Burnyeat has given me, including bibliographical information. It is appropriate that the current Laurence Professor should preside over the last publication of work inspired by the first Laurence Professor fifty-five years ago. I am also indebted to the staff of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, which has acquired the Vlastos papers, and in particular to Professor Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, who has overseen work on the Vlastos collection. On two occasions I have been able to go through relevant papers, including annotated copies of Platonic Studies.

I owe major debts to assistants and organizations here at Brigham Young University. The essays were scanned into computer-readable form on a scanner, then cleaned up by assistants, and only then given a final proofing and editing by me. My thanks go to assistants John Armstrong, Chen Minhua, Tim Hiatt, and Mark Olsen. Linda Hunter Adams assigned her editing class (English 410R) in Winter Semester 1993 to edit manuscripts for this project, with Mark Olsen as taskmaster. To the class and their teacher I owe a great debt. The Department of Philosophy has supported the work of research assistants and has made available its computer resources and copying facilities.

For biographical information I am grateful to Alexander Mourelatos, to Stephen Vlastos, and to Professor Robert Meister, as well as to the Department of Philosophy of Princeton University. I have benefited from conversations with Professor David Furley and many other friends and associates of Professor Vlastos.

I wish to express gratitude to the many publishers of Professor Vlastoss essays for their generosity in granting permission to reprint his works. What I anticipated would be a major headache turned out to be a pleasant experience with very few problems. Full credits are given in the Acknowledgments page of the respective volumes.

A brief word on the contents of these volumes: Although this work is intended as a complete collection of uncollected essays in ancient philosophy, the decision on what to include and what not to include was by no means simple. Some essays were revised in later versions; some were replaced by others; some were repudiated by their author; there were reference articles and reviews. In general I have attempted to include contributions that have not been superseded by later essays. But one notable exception is The Third Man Argument in the