Rolling Sisyphus’ Stone Uphill? Plato’s Philosophy of History (and Progress) Reconsidered

The paper addresses the following questions about Plato’s concept of ‘history’: first, a) is there a ‘philosophy of history’ in Plato’s thought?; second, b) if this concept exists, do the dialogues lay out a single, cohesive understanding of ‘history,’ or does it vary from text to text?; finally, c) how does Plato understand the word ‘history’? This inquiry also addresses the role of ‘progress’ in some of the main Platonic dialogues. An in-depth analysis of these texts can also help us find a solution to the problem of the end of ‘history,’ when a civilization either physically collapses (due to a catastrophic event) or morally decays (because of the corruption of its citizens and politicians). I argue that Plato’s ‘philosophy of history’ is not necessarily Sisyphean, but that it attempts to work out how to avoid the entropic decay of civilization and to preserve cultural—almost ‘genetic’—‘memory’ in order to counter the danger of cyclical regression.