Note 43 — Chapter VIII · PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.

This is forcibly put by Plato, Epistol. vii. 344 B. Compare Plato, Republic, vi. 499 A. Phædrus, 276 A-E. τὸν τοῦ εἰδότος λόγον ζῶντα καὶ ἔμψυχον, &c.

Though Plato, in the Phædrus, declares oral teaching to be the only effectual way of producing a permanent and deep-seated effect — as contrasted with the more superficial effect produced by reading a written exposition: yet even oral teaching, when addressed in the form of continuous lecture or sermon (ἄνευ ἀνακρίσεως καὶ διδαχῆς, Phædrus, 277 E; τὸ νουθετητικὸν εἶδος, Sophistês, p. 230), is represented elsewhere as of little effect. To produce any permanent result, you must diversify the point of view — you must test by circumlocutory interrogation — you must begin by dispelling established errors, &c. See the careful explanation of the passage in the Phædrus (277 E), given by Ueberweg, Aechtheit der Platon. Schrift. pp. 16-22. Direct teaching, in many of the Platonic dialogues, is not counted as capable of producing serious improvement.

When we come to the Menon and the Phædon, we shall hear more of the Platonic doctrine — that knowledge was to be evolved out of the mind, not poured into it from without.