Philosophein as ergon: Plato's Socrates in Herodotus' Solon

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show how Plato did not have, at a glance, the poet as his main opponent: as Havelock wishes to prove, Plato's problem is not only a quarrel about orality in poetry against the lettered intellectual. Thus, it is important to notice that in Apology of Socrates, Plato proposes to illustrate the difference between Socrates' philosophein and the activity of the nominated sophistai, as seen that in The Clouds by Aristophanes the Socratic character is presented as a sophistes. However, we cannot forget that in the Fifth Century the words philosopher and sophist had a similar meaning. The aim of this study is, though, to discuss that in Herodotus, when Croesus and Solon meet, it is possible to differentiate the philosophical from certain sophistical activity and Plato probably used this distinction in certain passages in his work to highlight Solon as a singular wise man apart from the others. Hence, there would be a possible diversity of erga in the investigation in order to gain a knowledge. It would be, thus, less of a distinction between the poet of oral culture and the intellectual philosopher what Plato would aim to do immediately, but above all, through the theoretical knowledge, to justify rationally the most beautiful human actions.