In the old catalogues of the writings of Plato, the Clitophon stands, not among those condemned as spurious, but in the middle of the genuine list, and has been in like manner adopted into all the editions up to that of Stephanus, who, like other later editors, has followed Serranus. And thus it finds a place here, with the same right as all the other dialogues of that collection.
The defence of its legitimacy, however, is a task which we could not pledge ourselves to undertake with success. The very commencement, where Socrates addresses Clitophon, who is moreover represented as the only person present, in the third person, and laments his depreciation in such a manner that Clitophon can say to him that he is manifestly sensitive—this, to go no further, is completely unplatonic. Then it cannot in any way be conceived that Plato should allow his Socrates to be put down in such a manner. But even if we would assume that the dialogue is only a fragment, and that the refutation would have followed immediately, still it is far from easy to see for what purpose Plato should have introduced generally such an attack upon Socrates—an attack which, in all his writings, is fully repelled, both immediately and by the ironical matter contained in them.
If then we are once agreed that this little piece is not from the hand of Plato, there is yet room for great variety of opinion as to its tendency and object. There is, indeed, no question that in the works of several of the lesser Socraticians the wisdom of Socrates especially presented itself in its negative character only, as a confutation of the errors and exposure of the insufficiencies of other methods. Now, if this method is itself intended to be here censured as insufficient, the piece might be regarded as complete. This Socrates is then to be represented as actually reduced to silence, and this method might thus be intended to convey a justification against the objection made against Plato from various sides, of far exceeding the real Socrates. And perhaps it was under this supposition that the ancients assigned the Clitophon its place before the Republic, to stand, as it were, in the place of an exculpatory introduction, because this dialogue appeared to them to be the first place in which much that extended far beyond Socrates was particularly and manifestly taught. But then, in the first place, the insufficiency ought to have been represented more fundamentally on the side of doctrine and knowledge, than on that only of admonition and excitement, for which wisdom can only furnish a mean. And then again, it would be strange that the dissatisfied person applies directly to a sophist like Thrasymachus. It is certainly, therefore, more probable that the dialogue comes down from one of the best oratorical schools, and is directed against Socrates and the Socraticians in general, Plato not excepted. And we must be much confirmed in this view when we see how the whole is actually a running parody and caricature of the Platonic manner, especially of all that appears against the sophists as teachers of the art of politics, and which must have so naturally found an application to the teachers of the art of speaking, who were Plato’s contemporaries. We are most vividly reminded of what occurs to this purpose in the Protagoras, the Gorgias, the Euthydemus, and even the first Alcibiades; and the elegant negligence of certain Platonic periods is here imitated with a richness which cannot well fail to make a lively impression. If, on the other hand, this dialogue is to be ascribed to the Platonic school, and to be looked upon as conceived in Plato’s spirit, then we need certainly consider what we have here to be only an introduction, and must suppose that Clitophon’s triumph was to be converted to a serious defeat, and that a satisfactory and brilliant justification of Socrates was yet to follow. But still this can hardly have been the original design, as, in the first place, the return of the conclusion to the commencement is too decided, and, in the second, Socrates would certainly have begun his attack at an earlier period in the dialogue.