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Fritz-Gregor Herrmann, Words & Ideas: The Roots of Plato's Philosophy. Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2007. Pp. xv + 368. ISBN 978-1-905125- 20-3. GBP50.
Herrmann offers a stimulating and detailed study of those terms that seem key to the 'Theory of Forms' presented in Plato's Phaedo. The book is divided into three parts. In the first two, Herrmann traces the development of each of his chosen terms in (philosophical and non-philosophical) literature both predating and contemporaneous with Plato as well as in Plato's own early dialogues. Part 1 deals with the verbs ... In the third and final part, drawing on the conclusions of this history, Herrmann attempts a reconsideration of the meaning and use of each word as it occurs in Phd. 95e-107b. This third part also includes a discussion of oÙsa as meaning 'the being of something', a sense which Herrmann argues is not found prior to Plato, but which may be informed by Philolaus' use of ... Herrmann's endeavour is to trace the philosophical and literary background of his key terms, and then to offer a reading of their occurrence in Phaedo that is sympathetic both to Plato's awareness of this background and to his status as philosophical innovator. Towards the end of his discussion, Herrmann asserts that 'Phaedo is . . . from the start a dialogue in which Socrates does unusual things' (p. 247). Herrmann's argument is that Plato's Socrates is using his terminology in a way that is at once unusual, in trying to describe a 'radically different view of "what is"' (p. 278), and familiar, in building on the philosophy and vocabulary of his predecessors. This is a thorough and thoughtprovoking monograph of interest to anyone curious about the possible origins of Plato's metaphysical thought, particularly within Phaedo.
Philological spadework is not particularly glamorous, but, as here, it can serve to unearth a more nuanced understanding of Greek philosophical terminology. Thus Herrmann, in his introduction to his discussion of ... proclaims that its 'aim is both to establish what ... mean and also what ... did not mean and, to the best of our knowledge, could not have meant' (p. 93). The breadth and variety of sources discussed by Herrmann...