ABSTRACT
There is only one passage where Plato speaks about philosophical subjects in his own name: a few pages of the Seventh Letter (Ep VII 341 B-4D), and those pages are of course especially interesting. But one should not expect Plato to express himself here without reservation and directly. The occasion of the passage is the superficial venture by Dionysius II into philosophy, and its purpose is precisely to explain that the ‘matter itself cannot be communicated directly (341 C ff.)—neither in written nor oral form. Only he who is ‘akin to the matter’ will be able to understand it. After lengthy dialectical investigation and philosophical debates ‘it may come about that insight and understanding of every single thing shines forth, if one bends one’s effort as much as humanly possible’ (344 B).
