Platons Darlegung des Sokratischen ‚Umsonst‘ in den Dialogen der ersten Tetralogie (Euthyphron, Apologie, Kriton und Phaidon)

Abstract

The author interprets the dialogues belonging to Plato’s first Tetralogy, i. e. Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo, as a coherent whole, in which the concept of ‘gratuitousness’ plays the leading role. The expression ‘gratuitous’ does not mean here, however, ‘arbitrary’ or ‘as someone likes’ but rather ‘free’, ‘gratis’, ‘for nothing’. Based on such an interpretation the author discusses then the important similarities existing between – on the one hand – Plato’s metaphysics of ‘gratuitousness’ and – on the other hand – Meister Eckhart’s ‘mystics’ (in which the concept of ‘why-less’ being [wesen sunder warumbe] is crucial) and Schelling’s Philosophy of Identity (in which the concept of ‘absolute’ being plays the fundamental role). These three thinkers are all interested in the world as it is not merely for us or for something else – that is not in the world as it merely appears to someone under particular given conditions –, but in the world as it is in itself. However, this distinction between ‘appearances’ and ‘things-in-themselves’ is not to be thought as an epistemological but rather as an ethical or existential one, which is not related to the way how we ‘can know’ the world but rather to the way how we ‘should live’ in it.