Letters (Epistles, excluding VII)

Author: Plato (mixed authenticity) · Year: c. 4th c. BCE (trans. Glenn R. Morrow, Hackett 1997) · Type: letters (catalogued as source_type: fragment)

The Letters are a Thrasyllan collection of thirteen epistles "alleging to have been written by" Plato — a mixed-authenticity corpus document, not a single authored work. Authenticity runs across a spectrum: Letters III and VIII are (with VII) the least unlikely to be genuine; I, IX, X, XII, and XIII are widely judged spurious (the manuscripts themselves record a doubt about XII at XII 359e); II, IV, and VI are disputed. This page covers all letters except VII, whose argument and authenticity are handled at plato-letter-7. The in-scope letters orbit one project: Plato's entanglement in the politics of Syracuse — the attempt, with Dion, to convert the tyranny of Dionysius II into the "magnanimous rule of a philosopher-king," its collapse, and the apologetics and political counsel that follow. Two strands give the collection philosophical weight beyond biography: Letter II's extreme writing-critique ("there is no writing of Plato's") and its enigmatic "king of all" metaphysics, and Letter VIII's retreat from philosopher-kingship to a law-bound, accountable "responsible kingship" — the Republic's thesis tried and found unworkable, with sovereignty transferred to law. Because the most philosophically loaded letters (II, VIII) are also of contested authorship, every use here is held at low confidence.

Core Arguments

  1. Claim: Wisdom and great power are by nature drawn to unite, and their conjunction is the precondition of philosophy's flourishing and good name. Because: "It is a law of nature that wisdom and great power go together; they exert a mutual attraction" — exhibited in the canonical pairings men "love to converse" about (Simonides/Hiero, Thales/Periander, Anaxagoras/Pericles). Against: the pairings are literary topoi, and the Syracuse experiment the Letters themselves narrate refutes the natural-attraction thesis — power expelled wisdom within four months. This is the biographical hinge: the argued form of the union-thesis lives in plato-republic and statesmanship; the Letters invoke it only to record its practical failure. Location: II 310e–311b; VI 322d–323b.

  2. Claim (Letter II's double enigma): the highest truths cannot be written — "there is no writing of Plato's, nor will there ever be," the dialogues being the work of "a Socrates become beautiful and new" — and all reality turns on "the king of all," with a second and third principle that no sensible thing is adequate to grasp. Because: writing inevitably "become[s] known to others" and may fall "into the hands of uninstructed men," so the doctrines must be committed to memory and the letter itself burned; and the soul "looks toward the things that are akin to itself, though none of them is adequate" — the question of the first principles is what "produces in the soul the pains of childbirth." Against: the writing-claim is performatively paradoxical (asserted in a letter, and disauthorizing the very corpus that transmits it), and the "king of all" passage is avowedly enigmatic ("I must speak of this matter to you in enigmas") — ancient and modern readers dispute whether it encodes a real doctrine or is pseudo-esoteric mystification. Both are prime forger's-amplification candidates. Location: II 312d–313a (the three principles); II 314a–c (the writing-critique).

  3. Claim (the Syracuse apologia): Plato's withdrawal from Syracusan affairs was forced by circumstance, and it was Plato who urged reform on Dionysius, not the reverse. Because: once Dion (the "wise colleague") was banished, only the "foolish one" remained "ruled by the crowd of unscrupulous men around him"; a decent man would think it knavish "to desert an old comrade and guest-friend" for a tyrant's money. Plato reconstructs the garden conversation in which Dionysius mockingly recalled being told to "get an education... in geometry," to prove the reform-advice flowed from Plato. Against: Dionysius's rival narrative fits the same facts; the sole evidence is Plato's own recollected dialogue, unverifiable — III and IV read as partisan apologia for a defeated faction. Location: III 316c–319c; IV 320a–321b.

  4. Claim (Letter VIII's "responsible kingship"): when no single ruler can be made a philosopher, Syracuse should adopt a law-bound, accountable kingship — three kings whose powers are checked by thirty-five guardians of the laws, assembly, council, and courts — because "the god of wise men is the law." Because: a compromise is "just and expedient" when "neither you nor your adversaries are clearly superior in force"; giving each faction part of what it wants under "laws punishing kings and citizens alike if they disobey" is the only stable settlement; Lycurgus's Sparta endured precisely "since law became the lord and king of men, not men tyrants over the laws." The king is even barred from capital judgment — "like a priest he is to remain undefiled by bloodshed." Against: this dilutes the Republic's philosopher-king into a constitutional bargain among factions (the three named kings rewarding the very tyrant-family at issue), and it stands in tension with plato-statesman, where rule of law is only second-best to the wise ruler's discretion. Location: VIII 354c–356e.

  5. Claim (the political mean): a city is destroyed equally by excess subjection (tyranny) and excess liberty (anarchy); salvation is "due measure," which means making law — not any man — sovereign. Because: "Both servitude in excess and liberty in excess are very great evils, but in due measure both are great goods"; the pre-Dionysian Sicilians "ruled their rulers" and stoned ten generals "in order not to be subject to any master, not even justice and the law" — "This is why tyranny came upon them." Against: an opponent asks what guarantees the law itself is just, and whether "due measure" is a determinate rule or a counsel of moderation any faction can claim. Location: VIII 354e–355a.

Key Findings

  • The collection's weight is unevenly distributed. Almost all of the philosophical payload sits in II (writing-critique + "king of all") and VIII (law-sovereignty + the political mean), with III/IV supplying the Syracuse apologia and VI relocating the philosopher-king nexus into an alliance (Hermias's power + the Academicians' "knowledge of the Ideas" fused into friendship). I, IX, X, XI, XIII are short occasional letters; X even redefines "true philosophy" as being "steadfast, loyal, and dependable" — a collapse of philosophy into loyal character that is itself a reason it is judged spurious.
  • Letter V (To Perdiccas, 321c–322b) belongs to the collection though its header dropped from the OCR. Its one notable datum: "Constitutions, like species of animals, have each their own language — democracy one, oligarchy another, and monarchy still another" (V 321d), paired with Plato's self-defense for never having addressed the Athenian assembly — he advises only a city "able to take it" (V 322a). With V folded in, this page covers Letters I–VI and VIII–XIII.
  • The Syracuse arc re-enacts the Republic→Statesman→Laws movement biographically. The single wise ruler is sought (II, the Dion project), found wanting (III/IV), and finally replaced by law-bound monarchy under guardians of the laws (VIII) — the same descent from discretionary wisdom to sovereign nomos that the late political dialogues trace in theory.

Concepts Developed

  • "responsible kingship" / law as "lord and king of men" (VIII 354c–356e) — the Letters' chief original political contribution: a triple kingship checked by thirty-five guardians of the laws (nomophylakes), with law made sovereign and penal over kings and citizens alike. See rule-of-law, statesmanship.
  • Letter II's extreme writing-critique (II 314c) — not merely "I will not write the highest things" but "there is no writing of Plato's... nor will there ever be," reassigning the dialogues to "a Socrates become beautiful and new." The strongest, strangest form of the corpus's writing-critique. See pharmakon (the writing-critique's home) and plato-letter-7; cf. writing-and-living (the later Merleau-Ponty concept that inverts this Platonic critique). Mark contested — anchoring the concept on II carries an authenticity risk (see Critique).
  • due measure between liberty and subjection (VIII 354e–355a) — the political mean: both excess servitude and excess liberty are "very great evils," both "in due measure great goods."
  • the "king of all" / first–second–third principles (II 312e–313a) — the enigmatic metaphysical hierarchy on which "all things turn," the locus classicus of the "unwritten doctrines" debate. Mark contested; high speculation risk — the letter speaks avowedly "in enigmas" and refuses to specify the principles, so it must not be asserted as Plato's settled doctrine.

Concepts Referenced

  • statesmanship / plato-republic — the philosopher-king / union of philosophy and power, invoked biographically (II, VI, the Dion narrative); its argued form lives in the Republic.
  • plato-laws — the "preambles to the laws" (prooimia) Plato claims to have drafted for Syracuse (III ~316a, approx.); the law-sovereignty of VIII converges with the Laws' programme.
  • nomos-phusis — Letter VIII makes nomos (law) sovereign over men; Letter V's "constitutions... have each their own language" (V 321d) sorts regimes by their characteristic nomoi.
  • collection-and-division / plato-sophist / plato-statesman — XIII 360b refers to "some Divisions," a glance at the division-works.
  • pharmakon / plato-phaedrus — the canonical writing-critique; false-friend caution (see What's Not Obvious): Letter II's rationale is secrecy, not the Phaedrus drug-ambivalence.
  • the Ideas / Forms (VI 322d, "knowledge of the Ideas — that noble doctrine") — named, not argued; guest-friendship (xenia) and post-mortem judgment — invoked, not defended.

Positions

The Letters take a side in an intra-Platonic dispute over whether law or discretionary wisdom should be sovereign — worth marking because the corpus does not speak with one voice:

  • plato-statesman ranks rule of law as second-best: the true statesman's living epistēmē should override fixed statutes, which are a crude approximation that cannot track the particular case.
  • Letter VIII (with plato-laws) makes law sovereign as the realistic remedy — "the god of wise men is the law" (VIII 355a), "law... the lord and king of men, not men tyrants over the laws" (VIII 354c) — precisely because the single wise ruler proved unavailable in Syracuse.
  • Unresolved tension: whether this is a change of doctrine or a change of register (ideal vs. salvageable-under-failure). The biographical reading — that Syracuse forced the retreat to law — favors register over doctrine, but the Letters cannot settle it alone, and their contested authenticity blocks leaning on them too hard.

Key Passages

"It is a law of nature that wisdom and great power go together" (II 310e) — the union-thesis. "if I honor you, it will bring us both disgrace" (II 312b) — Plato on honor-precedence with Dionysius. "Upon the king of all do all things turn; he is the end of all things" (II 312e) — the first principle. "this it is that produces in the soul the pains of childbirth" (II 313a) — the labor of grasping the principles. "There is no writing of Plato's, nor will there ever be" (II 314c) — the extreme writing-critique. "those that are now called so come from an idealized and youthful Socrates" (II 314c) — the dialogues re-attributed. "read this letter again and again, then burn it" (II 314c) — the secrecy / "burn it" rationale. "I did considerable work on the preambles to the laws" (III ~316a, approx.) — the prooimia. "the estrangement and wolf-friendship between us" (III 318e) — lykophilia, soured guest-friendship. "capacity to protect themselves against wicked and unjust men" (VI 322d) — power wedded to the Ideas. "Constitutions, like species of animals, have each their own language" (V 321d) — regimes individuated by their nomoi. "since law became the lord and king of men, not men tyrants over the laws" (VIII 354c) — law-sovereignty. "the god of wise men is the law; of foolish men, pleasure" (VIII 355a) — the law-sovereignty maxim. "Both servitude in excess and liberty in excess are very great evils" (VIII 354e) — the political mean. "let it be a responsible kingship, the laws punishing kings and citizens alike" (VIII 356a) — accountable kingship. "matters of war and peace... under the control of five-and-thirty guardians of the laws" (VIII 356c) — the nomophylakes. "none of us is born for himself alone" (IX 358a) — the duty to serve one's city. "to be steadfast, loyal, and dependable — this... is true philosophy" (X 358c) — philosophy collapsed into fidelity. "(Some have contended that this letter is not Plato's.)" (XII 359e) — the manuscripts' own doubt.

What's Not Obvious

  • The Syracuse story is the biographical test of the Republic's philosopher-king thesis — and Letter VIII registers its failure. The Republic argues that evils cease only when philosophy and political power coincide in one soul; the Letters narrate the one time Plato tried to make that happen in a living ruler (Dionysius II). When the single ruler could not be made a philosopher, the response is not to abandon the goal but to transfer sovereignty to the law — "the god of wise men is the law" (VIII 355a). The retreat to rule-of-law is thus not a separate theory but the Republic's thesis under the pressure of its own empirical failure.
  • Letter II states the corpus's writing-critique in its strongest form — and that very strength is a reason to distrust it. "There is no writing of Plato's, nor will there ever be" (II 314c) goes further than the Phaedrus (writing as orphaned, forgetful discourse) and further than Letter VII's "five things" epistemology: it disauthorizes the whole corpus, reassigning it to "a Socrates become beautiful and new." But overstatement is exactly what a forger amplifying the Phaedrus/VII theme would produce, so anchoring writing-and-living on II is risky. Note too the false friend: II's rationale is secrecy ("burn it," lest the doctrine "fall into the hands of uninstructed men"), not the writing-as-drug ambivalence of the Phaedrus — the two must not be assimilated.
  • The "king of all" passage is the locus classicus of the "unwritten doctrines" debate, but the letter sabotages any confident reading of it. "Upon the king of all do all things turn" (II 312e) is tempting to map onto the Republic's Form of the Good (the sun analogy) — yet here it is three ranked principles, the letter declares it must "speak... in enigmas," and it pointedly refuses to specify them. Treating it as Plato's settled metaphysics imports a doctrine the text deliberately withholds; this page flags it as contested and high-speculation, and asserts nothing about its content.

Critique / Limitations

  • The authenticity spread is the governing limitation. I, IX, X, XII, XIII are widely judged spurious (XII doubted by the manuscripts at XII 359e; X's redefinition of philosophy as loyalty is un-Platonic); II, IV, VI are disputed; III and VIII (with VII) are the least unlikely to be genuine. Confidence is therefore low throughout and epistemic_status: contested — every philosophical use is held provisionally, and nothing on this page should bear weight in a synthetic claim without independent corroboration.
  • Letter II's overstatement is a forger's-amplification risk for the writing-critique. Its "no writing of Plato's" is the most quotable statement of writing-and-living's theme in the corpus, but precisely because it is the strongest, it is the most plausibly inflated by a later hand. The wiki should corroborate any writing-critique thesis from the Phaedrus and Letter VII rather than rest it on II alone.
  • The political letters are partisan documents. III and IV are self-defense for a defeated faction; IX (duty to serve) and XI (license to withdraw when a city will not listen) pull in opposite directions, conveniently making Plato both dutiful and exonerated for never serving Athens. Their "evidence" is frequently Plato's own recollected conversation, unverifiable.
  • The "king of all" enigma resists use entirely. Its avowed enigmatic mode makes it a poor anchor for any metaphysical claim; it is recorded here as a historical locus of debate, not as doctrine.

Connections

  • applies ... to ... plato-republic — applies the Republic's union-of-philosophy-and-power thesis to the concrete case of Dionysius II's Syracuse, and records its practical defeat.
  • contrasts with plato-statesman regarding the sovereignty of law — Letter VIII makes law sovereign as the realistic remedy, where the Statesman ranks rule of law only second-best to the wise ruler's discretion (see Positions).
  • shares mechanism with plato-laws — both install nomos as sovereign, policed by guardians of the laws (nomophylakes), as the workable settlement when a philosopher-ruler is unavailable.
  • extends plato-letter-7 — III and VIII continue VII's address to "the relatives and friends of Dion" and repeat "the same doctrine I have given twice before," extending VII's Syracuse narrative and political counsel.
  • extends the writing-critique — Letter II pushes the corpus's writing-critique to its strongest form ("no writing of Plato's", 314c), beyond the Phaedrus myth and Letter VII's epistemology; but its rationale is secrecy ("burn it"), not the Phaedrus' drug-ambivalence (false-friend caution), and its authenticity is contested.
  • contrasts with writing-and-living — Merleau-Ponty's écrire-et-vivre later inverts exactly this Platonic living-speech/dead-writing valuation; the Letters' critique is the ancestral pole, not an offspring of the MP concept.

Sources

  • Letters (Epistles) I–VI and VIII–XIII, trans. Glenn R. Morrow, in Plato: Complete Works (Hackett, 1997). Cited Stephanus by letter (e.g., II 314c, VIII 355a). Scope excludes Letter VII (Stephanus 323d–352a), which has its own page at plato-letter-7.
  • Raw file lines 43538–43913, minus Letter VII at 43663–43790.
  • Depth layer: wiki/sources/.extraction-plato-letters.md.