16 February 1983

Abstract

[…] * THE FIRST QUESTION IN this set of texts I am analyzing for you was that of listening: philosophy will be a discourse, will be real, only if it is listened to. Second, philosophical discourse will be real only if it is accompanied, sustained, and exercised as a practice and through a set of practices. This was the second thing. Now, the third set of texts comprises those which refer to the test to which Plato actually put Dionysius, or rather to how Dionysius failed to respond positively to this test. The text I distributed earlier, you recall, showed that what was involved was a systematic test which Plato presented as a sure and certain means. And, in the lines and pages that follow, Plato shows how Dionysius failed the test. In fact, this long exposition can be broken up in the following way. First, the failure of Dionysius: how and why, through what defect regarding philosophy did Dionysius fail? And second, the positive side of this critique, of the failure of Dionysius, namely: a particular theory of knowledge.

The failure of Dionysiu∽ The Platonic rejection of writing.∽Mathēmata versus sunousia.∽Philosophy as practice of the soul.∽The philosophical digression of Letter VII: the five elements of knowledge.∽The third circle: the circle of knowledge.∽The philosopher and the legislator.∽Final remarks on contemporary interpretations of Plato.