The Clitophon is a dialogue generally ascribed to Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

, though there is some disagreement regarding its authenticity

Authentication

Authentication is the act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a datum or entity...

. It is the shortest of the dialogues

Socratic dialogue

Socratic dialogue is a genre of prose literary works developed in Greece at the turn of the fourth century BC, preserved today in the dialogues of Plato and the Socratic works of Xenophon - either dramatic or narrative - in which characters discuss moral and philosophical problems, illustrating a...

, and is significant for focusing on Socrates

Socrates

Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...

' role as an exhorter of other people to engage in philosophic inquiry.

The dialogue features two participants, Clitophon and Socrates, and the central feature of the discussion is Clitophon's lengthy complaint about Socrates. The crux of this complaint is that, while no one excels Socrates in protreptic

Protreptic

Protreptic is a mode of classical rhetoric associated originally with the Sophists who used this style in speeches for recruiting students. The philosopher would achieve this end by discussing the fallacies and deficiencies of rival schools while extolling the virtues of his own...

 or exhortation to the virtues and the life of philosophy, no one is more useless to one already persuaded of their importance. Socrates does not respond, or the dialogue does not contain his response.

Reception

Some scholars doubt the authenticity of the Clitophon because (as we have it today) Socrates does not emerge victorious in the verbal battle. One school of thought in favor of its authenticity thinks that Plato wrote it, but then decided to have the argument in the Republic

Republic

A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...

. This interpretation holds that the dialogue is the rare piece of esoterica or not meant for publication. The dialogue has also been interpreted as a finished piece of the Platonic corpus, intended to be read in the version which we currently possess.

In fact the ancient tradition never questioned the dialogue's authenticity, and it is referred to as Plato's work by Olympiodorus

Olympiodorus the Younger

Olympiodorus the Younger was a Neoplatonist philosopher, astrologer and teacher who lived in the early years of the Byzantine Empire, after Justinian's Decree of 529 A.D. which closed Plato's Academy in Athens and other pagan schools...

, Apuleius

Apuleius

Apuleius was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus . He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the...

, Hippolytus and Alcinous

Alcinous (philosopher)

__FORCETOC__Alcinous , or Alcinoos, or Alkinoos, was a Middle Platonist philosopher. He probably lived in the 2nd century AD, although nothing is known about his life. He is the author of The Handbook of Platonism, an epitome of Middle Platonism intended as a manual for teachers...

. Suspicion about the Clitophon seems to have arisen in the Renaissance, when Marsilio Ficino

Marsilio Ficino

Marsilio Ficino was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance, an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin...

 wrote "hic liber non est Platonis" at the head of his translation of the dialogue. The Clitophon was published (mistakenly) among the Platonic spuria in the Aldine editions of Plato, a mistake that was retracted and apologized for by the editors, but never corrected.

Much recent scholarship has regarded the dialogue as authentic, including articles by Mark Kremer, David Roochnik, Clifford Orwin

Clifford Orwin

Clifford Orwin is a Canadian professor of ancient, modern, contemporary and Jewish political thought. He is also a prominent controversial writer on contemporary politics and culture.-Academic career:...

and Jan Blits. The most comprehensive study of the of Clitophon, that of S.R. Slings, (Plato: Clitophon, (Cambridge, 1999)) claims that the Clitophon is authentic; Slings changed his mind regarding the dialogue's authenticity twenty years after his Doctoral dissertation spoke against its authenticity. The most recent study of the Clitophon, (G.S. Bowe, "In Defense of Clitophon," Classical Philology 102:3, 2007 pp. 245-264) also argues for the Clitophons authenticity and contains a review of the relevant literature, as well as remarks on its significance for Plato's Republic.