Cleinias has reconvened with Megillus and the Athenian and poses the question, “What are the studies which will lead a mortal man to wisdom (σοφια)?” (973b).
In answer, the Athenian begins by saying that “bliss and felicity” are impossible for most people because life for both young and old is too full of pain and discomfort, and so they have little time to devote to learning.
“None of their devices can bestow reputation for the truest wisdom; they are at sea on an ocean of fanciful conjecture, without reduction to rule” (975a).
Referring back to the discussion of religion in Laws, he recalled his assertions there that the gods exist, that they care about all things great or small, and that no entreaties can deflect them from the path of justice.
In between the sky and the earth is a mid region, populated by other sorts of beings: daemons and the like, composed primarily of aether or air, transparent and undiscerned, but who can read our thoughts.
That these daemons, demigods and the like sometimes appear in dreams or come to us in oracular or prophetic voices heard by the sick or dying has led to a raft of religious practices that do not focus on the true gods – and isn’t it craven that those who know the truth do not speak up?
Here the Athenian reviewed his earlier points about the celestial bodies and the gods that inhabit/animate them, going on to celebrate the fact that Greeks enjoy a geographical setting that is “exceptionally favorable to the attainment of excellence”.
We need to discover–the form of education or science such that defective acquaintance with it leaves us ignorant of our just rights, so long as the deficiency subsits… I have sought the vision of it in the heights and in the depths and will now do my best to set it clearly before you.
The name we give to the study is one which will surprise a person unfamiliar with the subject – astronomy (ἀστρονομία) (990a).And astronomy involves preliminary teaching in mathematics (μαθημάτων), geometry (γεωμετρίαν), solid geometry (stereometry, στερεομετρία), and the relationships found in music (harmony, ἁρμονία).To the man who pursues his studies in the proper way, all geometric construction, all systems of numbers, all duly constituted melodic progressions, the single ordered scheme of all celestial revolutions, should disclose themselves, and disclose themselves they will, if, as I say, a man pursues his studies aright with his mind’s eye fixed on their single end.
We may rest assured that without these qualifications the happy will not make their appearance in any society; this is the method, this the pabulum, these the studies demanded; hard or easy, this is the road we must tread.
[2]This attribution was repeated by the author of the 10th century CE Souda:[Unnamed] Philosopher who divided the Laws of Plato into 12 books; for he himself is said to have added the 13th.
[3]The identity of the Souda’s unnamed Philosopher was discovered by Ludolph Küster, who published an edition and translation of the work in 1705, clearly establishing that it was Philip.
A. E. Taylor and the German H. Raeder opted for Platonic authorship, in the words of Werner Jaeger, “because they wanted to credit him with the mathematical knowledge it contains”.
[5] Stylometric analysis linking Epinomis with Laws, such as that performed by Gerhard Ledger, would seem to support Platonic authorship, but as Debra Nails and Holger Thesleff point out, such analysis can lead to the opposite conclusion: that Laws itself was not written by Plato – that both works represent:an accretion of material onto a Platonic stem, given its final appearance by someone whose heavily mannered style partly corresponds to a practice adopted in the so-called late dialogues, but who lacked a coherent view of the themes treated.
The Academy must have entrusted him with this task because he knew the manuscripts Plato had left and the plans he had had in mind, so that we cannot call the Epinomis a forgery.
He was not, however, convinced that Philip had a firm grasp on the state of Plato’s thought at the time, maintaining (in the words of one reviewer) that it represented a:misunderstanding or contradiction of Platonic doctrines, such as the placing of astronomy above dialectic as the supreme object of study, the rejection of the Ideas.
As for adding “aether” to the standard list of four elements, Aristotle had already written about this in On Philosophy before he left the Academy,[9] though the author of Epinomis put the five in a different order.
Finally, the concept of “daemon” had been an integral part of the Socratic dialogs written decades earlier, so the most that can be said of it here is that our author did not invent the entity, merely gave it a specific place in his cosmology.