1 Socrates' Autobiography: An Epitome of Platonism DRAFT [Delivered at the XI Symposium Platonicum, Brasilia, Brazil, July, 2016] Lloyd P. Gerson University of Toronto 1. In Phaedo 95A4-102A9, we find the famous account by Socrates of his own intellectual history. Our best evidence, including Aristotle's testimony, should lead us to suppose that this is in fact Plato's own autobiographical sketch on display. 1 It contains the most concise and complete statement of the nature of Platonism from Plato himself, both its distinction and separation from the philosophies of Plato's predecessors and the outline of its positive construct. In this autobiography, Socrates rejects the explanations of the natural philosophers given for problematic scientific phenomena. Instead, he posits separate Forms as the source of true explanation. The naturalism of Plato's predecessors—explicitly here, that of Anaxagoras— presumes materialism and mechanism as the matrix for scientific explanation. Thus, Anaxagoras is reported as explaining natural phenomena by, broadly speaking, the elements (98C1-2). Socrates conjectures that Anaxagoras, if he were asked to explain why Socrates is sitting in prison, would give an explanation in terms of anatomical and physiological features of Socrates’ body (98C2-E1). By contrast, Socrates hoped for an explanation that would invoke intellect or νοῦς, for with such an explanation it would be possible to say why it was best for Socrates to remain in prison (98E2-99A4). 1 Aristotle, Meta. Α 6, 987a32-b10, says that (a) Socrates was not interested in natural philosophy, that (b) Plato, not he, separated the Forms, and that (c) Plato’s philosophy was Pythagorean in shape. The autobiography has “Socrates” interested in both (a) and (b) and (c) friends with Pythagoreans, Cebes and Simmias . We should compare Parmenides 129Eff, where the “young Socrates” is represented as having a “theory of separate Forms.” This is patently a self reference by Plato. It is implausible that in one dialogue Plato is representing the real historical Socrates in his youth but that in another he is using Socrates to represent his own youth. See David Sedley, “The Dramatis Personae of Plato’s Phaedo,” Proceedings of the British Academy 85 (1995), 3-26, for a considerable amount of detailed evidence from the dialogue indicating that the autobiography is really that of Plato himself.