Note 46 — Chapter VI · PLATONIC CANON, AS RECOGNISED BY THRASYLLUS.

The statement in Diogenes Laertius, in his life of Plato, is somewhat obscure and equivocal; but I think it certain that the classification which he gives in iii. 49, 50, 51, of the Platonic dialogues, was made by Thrasyllus. It is a portion of the same systematic arrangement as that given somewhat farther on (iii. 56-61), which is ascribed by name to Thrasyllus, enumerating the Tetralogies. Diogenes expressly states that Thrasyllus was the person who annexed to each dialogue its double denomination, which it has since borne in the published editions — Εὐθύφρων — περὶ ὁσίου — πειραστικός. In the Dialogues of examination or Search, one of these names is derived from the subject, the other from the method, as in the instance of Euthyphron just cited: in the Dialogues of Exposition both names are derived from the subject, first the special, next the general. Φαίδων, ἢ περὶ ψυχῆς, ἠθικός. Παρμενίδης, ἢ περὶ ἰδεῶν, λογικός.

Schleiermacher (in the Einleitung prefixed to his translation of Plato, p. 24) speaks somewhat loosely about “the well-known dialectical distributions of the Platonic dialogues, which Diogenes has preserved without giving the name of the author”. Diogenes gives only one such dialectical (or logical) distribution; and though he does not mention the name of Thrasyllus in direct or immediate connection with it, we may clearly see that he is copying Thrasyllus. This is well pointed out in an acute commentary on Schleiermacher, by Yxem, Logos Protreptikos, Berlin, 1841, p. 12-13.

Diogenes remarks (iii. 50) that the distribution of the dialogues into narrative, dramatic, and mixed, is made τραγικῶς μᾶλλον ἢ φιλοσόφως. This remark would seem to apply more precisely to the arrangement of the dialogues into trilogies and tetralogies. His word φιλοσόφως belongs very justly to the logical distribution of Thrasyllus, apart from the tetralogies.

Porphyry tells us that Plotinus did not bestow any titles upon his own discourses. The titles were bestowed by his disciples; who did not always agree, but gave different titles to the same discourse (Porphyry, Vit. Plotin. 4).