ABSTRACT
Since the dialogues are ‘images’ of the live speech of the man with knowledge (see Phaedrus 276a), they can also give an image of the characteristic oral procedure of the dialectician, namely the ‘support’ he gives to his logos. It might at first sight appear a contradiction that oral support is represented in written works. But there would only be a contradiction if a written dialogue claimed to contain the ‘support’ which it stands in need of itself. But, as is well known, the opposite is the case: in the ‘gaps’ the dialogues refer to theories which are not imparted on the spot but which would be necessary for their own substantiation, or ‘support’ them. The fact that in Platonic dialogues one written logos supports another which is likewise written is in itself free of contradiction and totally unproblematical, provided that the reader knows unambiguously that the dialogue bringing support, as a written dialogue, naturally also needs support which it cannot give itself. To put it another way, it is only the higher stages of support leading to the recognition of the fundamental principle (the archê) which Plato could not have entrusted to writing without self-contradiction. But the Platonic dialogues quite obviously do not contravene this condition.
