Perhaps.....
Terry Penner, my teacher, used to say that issues in Plato interpretation came down, often and at bottom, to philosophical disagreements between the interpreters.
I think there are several things involved in unpacking that saying. The texts themselves do not suffice to determine a specific, fine-grained view, so that reasonable readers and interpreters can come up with different readings--incompatible, but defensible, readings.
(I cannot say if Penner himself would say the texts are indeterminate....)
But what Penner did not say is that there is a kind of interpretation which does not rise to that level. There is a kind of interpretation which does not go so far as to actually address the philosophical issues raised by a text.
Unfortunately, I just came across an example of that via a link at Professor Leiter's blog.
Commenting on the recent disturbances of business as usual in London and other UK cities, a philosopher in the UK ( whose job is to popularize philosophy for a wider public) used Plato's famous "parts of the soul" theory from the "Republic" to make a comment on the disturbances in the UK.
I shall provide a link below.
My overall reaction (in addition to the comment I've already posted) is something like this:
An intelligent reader of this entry might well come away saying: "Well! Why bother to read Plato at all? He just thinks like we all do!"
I am sympathetic toward the attempt to make a historical philosophical figure appear non-insane. However, this comment (by Angie Hobbs) seems to me to go too far in that direction. Plato seems reasonable, but not especially interesting.
By contrast, the sort of thing Terry Penner is talking about involves finding surprising views in philosophers---views that require some imagination to defend.
I don't know what this shows about the project of popularizing philosophy. I guess that so far as this one attempt by AH goes, I would say that it fails. But, of course, I am not against the project of spreading knowledge and insight....
LINK:
August 15, 2011
Plato and the England Riots
AFTER-THOUGHT
Incidentally, who was disrupting business-as-usual in London and elsewhere?
There's now an article in the Guardian which answers the question:
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