Note 17 — Chapter XXXIV · KLEITOPHON.
Reading edition
M. Boeckh observes (ad Platonis Minoem, p. 11):— “Nec minus falsum est, quod spurium Clitophontem plerique omnes mutilatum putant; quem ex auctoris manibus truncum excidisse inde intelligitur, quod ne vetusti quidem Platonici philosophi, quibus antiquissima exemplaria ad manum erant, habuerunt integriorem. Proclus in Timæ, i. p. 7. Πτολεμαῖος δὲ ὁ Πλατωνικὸς Κλειτοφῶντα αὐτὸν οἴεται εἶναι. τοῦτον γὰρ ἐν τῷ ὁμωνύμῳ διαλόγῳ μηδ’ ἀποκρίσεως ἠξιῶσθαι παρὰ Σωκράτους. Plané ut in Critiâ, quem ab ipso Platone non absolutum docet Plutarchus in Solone.”
M. Boeckh here characterises the Kleitophon as spurious, in which opinion I do not concur.
Yxem, in his Dissertation, Ueber Platon’s Kleitophon, Berlin, 1846, has vindicated the genuineness of this dialogue, though many of his arguments are such as I cannot subscribe to.
He shows farther, that the first idea of distrusting the genuineness of the Kleitophon arose from the fact that the dialogue was printed in the Aldine edition of 1513, along with the spurious dialogues; although in that very Aldine edition the editors expressly announce that this was a mistake, and that the dialogue ought to have been printed as first of the eighth tetralogy. See Yxem, pp. 32-33. Subsequent editors followed the Aldine in printing the dialogue among the spurious, though still declaring that they did not consider it spurious.