The ''Sisyphus'' (; ) is purported to be one of the

dialogues of Plato Plato ( ; Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. H ...

. The dialogue is extant and was included in the Stephanus edition published in Geneva in 1578. It is now generally acknowledged to be spurious. The work probably dates from the fourth century BCE, and the author was presumably a pupil of

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

.D.S. Hutchinson, introduction to "Sisyphus," in John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson (eds.), ''Plato, Complete works'', Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997, pp. 1707-8.

Synopsis

It is a dialogue between

Socrates Socrates (; ; – 399 BC) was a Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the Ethics, ethical tradition ...

and Sisyphus of Pharsalus. Sisyphus believes that deliberation allows one to find the best course of action, but Socrates is puzzled by what deliberation is, and why it is supposed to be different from guesswork. By the end of the dialogue, it becomes clear that Sisyphus does not know what deliberation is. The dialogue seems to engage with an idea of good deliberation (''euboulia'') for which

Isocrates Isocrates (; ; 436–338 BC) was an ancient Greek rhetorician, one of the ten Attic orators. Among the most influential Greek rhetoricians of his time, Isocrates made many contributions to rhetoric and education through his teaching and writte ...

was a noted exponent. The author uses the term ''dialegesthai'' in an un-Platonic fashion to refer, not to

dialectic Dialectic (; ), also known as the dialectical method, refers originally to dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argument. Dialectic resembles debate, but the ...

, but to what Plato considered eristic.

Dating

argues that the ''Sisyphus'' can be dated securely to the middle third of the fourth century BC, and, assuming that the reference to "Callistratus" is to Callistratus of Aphidnae, to the period between Callistratus' death sentence in 361 and his execution (by 350), when no one needed to ask "Who is Callistratus?" but Callistratus' constantly changing location in exile made "Where is Callistratus?" a real question. Francesco Aronadio also dates the work to Plato's lifetime and places it within the circle of the

Academy An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

. Schleiermacher had opined that the ''Sisyphus'' could perhaps have been produced in the Megarian school. The dialogue is freely paraphrased in Dio Chrysostom'
''On Deliberation'' (oration 26)
the earliest instance of a famous author making reference to a work of the '' Appendix Platonica'' (''notheuomenoi'').C.W. Müller, "''Appendix Platonica'' und Neue Akademie: Die pseudoplatonischen Dialoge ''Über die Tugend'' und ''Alkyon''," in Döring, Erler, and Schorn (eds.), ''Pseudoplatonica'' (Stuttgart, 2005), p. 155.

Notes

External links

''Sisyphus''
translated by George Burges
Free public domain audiobook version of ''Sisyphus
translated by George Burges * . Collection includes Sisyphus.

George Burges George Burges (; 1786 – 11 January 1864) was an English classical scholar who published translations of the works of Euripides, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Plato. Biography Burges was born in Bengal, India, and was probably the son of Thomas Bu ...

, translator (1855). Dialogues of Plato Appendix Platonica {{philo-book-stub