Footnotes and Heresies?

by John Holbo on July 1, 2008

“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” You’ve all heard that. It’s A.N. Whitehead. At some point I read something which suggested that the thought continues: ‘because he had the foresight to write out all the heresies in advance.’ Or words to that effect. I thought that was rather witty. Now I bother to look at the original source, Whitehead’s Process and Reality (Amazon has an edition you can search inside.) And apparently the witty, heretical sting in the tail isn’t there. Curious. Does anyone know what’s going on? I’d sort of like to go one quoting the thing. I’ve done so informally on a few occasions. I didn’t think of it. Did someone else famous say it?

I have also discovered that if you Google Whitehead you get sponsored ads that promise: “No More Whiteheads! Whitehead Removal for under $25 Satisfaction Guaranteed.” Ha! You could never do that to Plato.

{ 10 comments }

1

Matt 07.01.08 at 4:05 am

I’d gladly pay $25 if I didn’t have to hear that obnoxious “footnotes to Plato” line again!

2

Righteous Bubba 07.01.08 at 4:36 am

You could never do that to Plato.

Living as a mouse’s pet is humiliating enough.

3

Dan Butt 07.01.08 at 5:16 am

This page – http://www.alfred.north.whitehead.com/witwiz/witwiz2.htm – suggests that two different quotations are being conflated:

“When any eminent scholar has converted Plato into a respectable professor, by providing him with a coherent system, we quickly find that Plato in a series of Dialogues has written up most of the heresies from his own doctrines.” (Adventures of Ideas, p. 134)

and

“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.” (Process and Reality, p. 63).

4

Vish Subramanian 07.01.08 at 5:51 am

According to books.google.com, ‘The Yale Book of Quotations’ has this and cites “Process and Reality”, pt2, ch 1. The book itself has only snippet view, it seems, the appropriate snippet may be here:

http://books.google.com/books?ei=KcVpSLOgD4z-tAOS08i6Bg&client=firefox-a&id=qh0cAAAAMAAJ&dq=whitehead&q=%22safest+general+characterization%22&pgis=1#search

5

Vish Subramanian 07.01.08 at 5:53 am

To follow up my own post, you can find it with the search [inauthor:”Alfred North Whitehead” “safest general characterization”] on books.google.com

6

John Holbo 07.01.08 at 6:12 am

Thanks dan! (Sorry matt.)

7

John Quiggin 07.01.08 at 6:13 am

Also this and of course this.

8

Delicious Pundit 07.01.08 at 7:02 am

“No More Whiteheads! Whitehead Removal for under $25 Satisfaction Guaranteed.” Ha! You could never do that to Plato.

True, but on the other hand I do believe that Socrates was Oxycuted.

9

john c. halasz 07.01.08 at 8:53 am

“Kant … was … led to balance the world upon thought – oblivious to the scanty supply of thinking.” (P.R. p. 229) Eh, worthy of Nietzsche.

10

PHB 07.02.08 at 1:43 am

But were the ideas original to Plato? When Socrates appears in Plato is he merely a mouthpiece for Plato or is Plato attempting to represent at least the character of the type of arguments that Socrates used to make?

The idea of originality as being a virtue is a very modern concept. There really was no reason for Plato to pass his ideas off as belonging to others or vice-versa.

When you get down to such fundamental issues as philosophy it is not so much the ideas themselves as the presentation that becomes critical. Plato’s theory of ideals is no so far from Russell’s typed set theory. the difference is that one is a workable basis for mathematics and the other is not.

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