Note 55 — Chapter VII · PLATONIC CANON AS APPRECIATED AND MODIFIED BY MODERN CRITICS.

It may seem singular that Schleiermacher is among those who adopt this opinion. He maintains that the Sophistes does not follow immediately upon the Theætêtus; that Plato, though intending when he finished the Theætêtus to proceed onward to the Sophistês, altered his intention, and took up other views instead: that the Menon (and the Euthydêmus) come in between them, in immediate sequel to the Theætêtus (Einleitung zum Menon, vol. iii. p. 326).

Here Schleiermacher introduces a new element of uncertainty, which invalidates yet more seriously the grounds for his hypothesis of a preconceived sequence throughout all the dialogues. In a case where Plato directly intimates an intentional sequence, we are called upon to believe, on “internal grounds” alone, that he altered his intention, and introduced other dialogues. He may have done this: but how are we to prove it? How much does it attenuate the value of his intentions, as proofs of an internal philosophical sequence? We become involved more and more in unsupported hypothesis. I think that K. F. Hermann’s objections against Schleiermacher, on the above ground, have much force; and that Ueberweg’s reply to them is unsatisfactory. (Hermann, Gesch. und Syst. der Platon. Phil. p. 350. Ueberweg, Untersuchungen, p. 82, seq.)