The Long Lost Last Dialogues of Socrates
by Plato
Responsible for their translation and publication--Paul A. Lee, Director
The Platonic Academy
Santa Cruz, California
September l981
The Academy has located two important sites:
* from Professor Brumbaugh of Yale University we have
been given the address of the original Academy. It is now our intention
to reconstitute the original Acaemy on its original site in Athens
* some years ago, a former student studying and travelling
in Greece--Rick Baker--sent this small photograph of the prison where Socrates
was incarcerated and executed or so it was thought for thousands of years.
It is now possible to correct this historical confusion about the execution
and death of Socrates, and, at the same time, confirm his place in history
of great men, participating in divinity, in so far as he was a source of
veneration, and a check against the fall into radical evil. History has
recourse to figures like Socrates who represent the unreflective striving
toward what is noble in the course of reflecting upon it--Socrates and his
confession of ignorance--the docta ignorantia--is the doorway to this reflection.
Socrates did not die in this prison as has been thought. He was squirreled
away and kept in secret, the most carefully guarded secret in Athens at
the time. Perhaps for all time. Socrates alive! Back from the dead!
Seven more years of teaching! The secret message! All of this is revealed
in the long lost last dialogues of Socrates to his students, foremost among
them, Plato.
This remarkable find, the first archaeological attempt of the Platonic Academy
of Santa Cruz, redefines Plato Studies. Beginning with Socrates, in these
last dialogues, Plato reads like the Gospel of John. It is clear from the
recovery of these 'lost' dialogues that the 'divinity' of Socrates was a
thiing to be kept secret, to be transmitted to the initiated, those for
whom the spark had ignited after association with a teacher, and the love
of philosophy is born.
The Socrates-In-Seclusion, where retreat from this world is complete, is
the Socrates of the Desert Fathers, the Hermits, the self-exiles from a
civilization falling apart. Thomas Merton would have appreciated the Socrates
of the long last dialogues.
The Platonic Academy thanks all of those who have supported this work.
Special thanks goes to Jack Stauffacher of the Greenwood Press, San Francisco,
whose fine-press, hand-set, edition of the PHAEDRUS, prompted the formation
of the Platonic Academy of Santa Cruz. We dedicate this effort to him in
grateful recognition of his inspiration and guiding light.
Platonic Academy of Santa Cruz Announces A Rare Find of Platonic Dialogues
On the site of the original Platonic Academy a brief dig was conducted which
turned kup two ancient manuscripts, still perfectly preserved, containing
the long lost last dialogues of Socrates, given in the last years of his
life, after he survived his so-called execution.
These secret teachings form the heart of the Socratic Theology and reveal,
for the first time, the intimate relation between Plato and Socrates.
They are the basis for Socrates' reputation as a Saviour and Messiah, thanks
to his overcoming the anxiety of having-to-die, through the Scoratic confession
of self-delusion.
Now translated and published for the first time, they are a revolutionary
contribution to Plato studies and the history of the humanities.
Lost Dialogues of Plato Found
In an unprecedented find, the Platonic Academy, of Santa Cruz, California,
announces the discovery of the long lost dialogues of Plato, two Socratic
dialogues, delivered by Socrates after his recovery from his presumed execution
by hemlock.
It is now known that Socrates, in fact, did not die, but revived from a
deep trance state, induced by an herbal concoction, capable of simulating
death.
Spiritied away by his friends who were thought to have conducted his funeral
and burial rites, Socrates was kept in seclution and absolute secrecy until
his eventual death, some eight years later.
During this time, Socrates revealed to his disciples, foremost among them,
Plato, the true meaning of his life, to be known as the Socratic Theology,
at the heart of which is the Thymos Doctrine.
The Thymos Doctrine is the Socratic reflection on the vital root of existence
and the basis for human self-affirmation, understood as "justification-in-spite-of"...
The thymos doctrine contains Socrates'
meditation on the history of Greek thought from Homer to himself and his
self-interpretation in terms of the breakthrough to rational self-consciousness.
Socrates knew that this was achieved at the cost of vitality. Thought would
sap the vital forces of the root of existence. Disastrous consequences
would follow for our relatio to the natural order. A whole new appreciation
of Homer is expressed in these last dialogues, completely reversing the
negative appraisal of Homer and the Oral Culture, as set forth in the Republic.
A fully developed awareness of the Perfect Tense, the tense of epic, of
accomplished action, re-enacted, comes into view, in the self-awareness
of Socrates, as though returned from death, to see life again and this time
whole. The Socratic comprehension of the meaning of existence takes on
new clarity in these last dialogues, where, Socrates, in seclusion, speaks
his views on the meaning of life.
These Perfect Tense dialogues reveal the meaning of the myth in Plato, at
the center of which is Socrates. The principles of the Socratic Myth constitute
the Socratic Theology, the key ter of which is thymos. This unreflective
striving for what is noble is reaffirmed by Socrates as the urging of life-itself,
prompting us to our lines. Departing from the notions of puppets, sleepwalkers,
the deluded, Socrates reaffirms the meaning of existence and its vital root.
The vital root of existence, the ground of vital self-affirmation, the garden
of existence, a theme that preoccupies the secret teachings of Socrates
in these last late dialogues finds expression in the Academy of Plato where
the Socratic garden was planted, the basis for the identification of Plato
with the tradition of medicinal herbs and the meaning of pharmakon--medicines
to charm; itwas in the Academy garden that plants appropriate to philosophy
were grown--from sage to thyme.
Medicinal plants were sacred to Asclepias, for whom the milkweeds are named,
the Greek god of healing. The first to impart herbal lore, the teacher
of Asclepias and of Achilles--Chiron the Centaur--is held up, by Socrates,
as an example of thymos. The figure of the horse-man, as well as the horse-woman,
is an archetype of the unreflective striving for what is noble, as only
a noble horse can represent. the vitality of the horse, the courage of
the horse, the spiritedness of the horse, all specify the meaning of thymos,
as the vital drive of existence.
Thymos is just this biologically endowed spirit at the origin of the effort
we call existence.
THE LAST DIALOGUES OF SOCRATES
The Long Lost Dialogues of Plato Now Revealed
In a sample dig at the original site of the Platonic Academy, a spectacular
find was made, in the form of two hithertofore unknown and lost dialogues
of Plato concerning the death and fate of Socrates and containing in its
clearest form--the Socratic Theology.
Until these dialogues were found, it was thought that the Socratic Theology
was largely imbedded in the myths told by Socrates in the preceding dialogues.
In these long lost dialogues, Socrates makes clear the central teaching
of the Socratic theolgoy. It is an elaboration and interpretation of the
two key myths as told in the Phaedrus and the Republic with references to
other myths in other dialogues.
Central to the Socratic Theology is the thymos doctrine, the Socratic meditation
on the vital root of existence, critical to an understanding of philosophy
as therapy, as defined by Socrates.
The thymos doctrine is the emergence of Homeric views, as expressed in the
Achilles Theology, into full rational exposition. It is an argument for
the existence of God from the point of view of the Perfect Tense. In other
words, it is a linguistic argument for the existence of God, as though God
were Self-disclosing in the Perfect Tense of language. That there should
be such a tense is an argument for the existence of God. It is not based
on the self-transcendence of the human mind. This is made possible by
the Perfect Tense. Therefore, it is a mistake to argue from human self-transcendence
to a highest being called God, as though logical moves could carry it through,
as though self-transcendence necessarily implied a highest being called
God. This is not the case.
The dynamics of human self- transcendence occur within the structure of
the perfect tense of human language. The perfect tense is the tense of
myth. It is the myth that reveals the existence of God.
Therefore, the Achilles Theology and the Socratic Theology are imbedded
in the myths of Homer and Plato.
Now, for the first time, they are laid bare in thses last dialogues of Socrates.
Heigegger on Self-delusion
s on where else. of their shining splendour, taking that glimpse into the
Iliad and Odyssey where they can be glimpsed again albeit it in retrospect,
a memory trace, a light that was.
The Archaic Smile
Heidegger associates hiddeness, with mislead, deception, as the opposite
of uncealedness or what is manifestly revealed and disclosed--opened. He
pursues the meaning of mislead: H'apate (is there an association to the
French epater, as in le bourgeois?) is detour, by-way, and off-way, making
available another prospect exchanging the right way for the wrong way--the
off-way deceives as off-way, promising what it can't deliver, leading to
a concealment, a dissembling and distorting...So much is clear. After
all, the biblical word for sin, hamartia, borrowed from the Greek means
missing the mark, along with losing the right way, two major symbols for
the meaning of evil, untruth, and delusion. (cf. Ricoeur).
As Heidegger calls Aletheia a goddess, from the Proem of Parmenides, so
Ate is her counterpart, from the Myth of Ate in the Iliad. Self-delusion
is juxtaposed to truth. "The myth expresses what is to be said before
all else." p.60.
Heid