Preface

I can only say: I was ready at any moment to change my hypotheses. But every time that my own research results or those of others seemed to contain a call for a change, the initial assumption proved to be better founded upon closer examination, and not infrequently was confirmed in an unexpected way from a new side. The complete proof of the correctness of the sequence of writings used here as a basis could, of course, not be provided by the book itself once the decision had been made to exclude everything merely philological. However, as far as the proof rests on the comparison of content alone, it can be largely inferred from the book, either directly or indirectly. It may also not be without value for chronological research itself that here, for once, the factual criteria alone have been used and everything else, especially insofar as it is subject to dispute, has been almost entirely disregarded. Furthermore, the earlier works mentioned at the beginning of the index offer much for supplementation; other matters were reserved for future discussion.

Ultimately, however, the factual interpretation of the content of the writings is not dependent upon their temporal dating in such a way that someone who holds different views on the latter would be hindered from adopting the former. Regarding this interpretation, I endeavored to derive it as strictly as possible from the Platonic texts alone, whereas the prevailing presentation of the fundamental Platonic doctrine is heavily and, as I believe, disastrously influenced by the conception and judgment of Aristotle. This made the last two chapters, devoted to the comparison of Aristotle and Plato, necessary. Although older researchers had already come close to the fundamental view that ideas signify laws, not things—foremost among them Zeller in some passages of his Platonic Studies (pp. 259, 261)—this influential researcher himself allowed himself to be more and more captured by the contrary opinion of Aristotle later on. It seemed too unbelievable that a philosopher of this rank, who had sat at the feet of Plato for twenty years, should have completely misunderstood his core teaching. Only the rebirth of Kantian idealism has at the same time yielded full understanding for the idealism of Plato.