This volume contains outstanding studies by some of the best scholars in ancient Greek Philosophy on key topics in Socratic, Platonic, and Aristotelian thought. These studies provide rigorous analyses of arguments and texts and often advance original interpretations. The essays in the volume range over a number of central themes in ancient philosophy, such as Socratic and Platonic conceptions of philosophical method; the Socratic paradoxes; Plato's view on justice; the nature of Platonic Forms, (...) especially the Form of the Good; Aristotle's views on the faculties of the soul; Aristotle's functionalist account of the human good; Socratic, Platonic, and Aristotelian views on the nature of desire and its object. The volume will be of interest to students and scholars of ancient philosophy and classics. (shrink)

A complete system of classical Aristotelian logic intended for honors high school and college.

This new and revised edition of Peter Kreeft's Socratic Logic is updated, adding new exercises and more complete examples, all with Kreeft's characteristic clarity and wit. Since its introduction in the spring of 2004, Socratic Logic has proven to be a different type of logic text: This is the only complete system of classical Aristotelian logic in print. The "old logic" is still the natural logic of the four language arts. Symbolic, or "mathematical," logic is not for the (...) humanities. This book is simple and user-friendly. It is highly interactive, with a plethora of exercises and a light, engaging style. It is practical. It is designed for do-it-yourselfers as well as classrooms. It emphasizes topics in proportion to probable student use: e.g., interpreting ordinary language, not only analyzing but also constructing effective arguments, smoking out hidden assumptions, making "argument maps," and using Socratic method in various circumstances. It is philosophical. Its exercises expose students to many classical quotations, and additional chapters introduce philosophical issues in a Socratic manner and from a commonsense, realistic point of view. It prepares students for reading Great Books rather than Dick and Jane, and models Socrates as the beginner's ideal teacher and philosopher. (shrink)

Although "the Socratic method" is commonly understood as a style of pedagogy involving cross-questioning between teacher and student, there has long been debate among scholars of ancient philosophy about how this method as attributed to Socrates should be defined or, indeed, whether Socrates can be said to have used any single, uniform method at all distinctive to his way of philosophizing. This volume brings together essays by classicists and philosophers examining this controversy anew. The point of (...) departure for many of those engaged in the debate has been the identification of Socratic method with "the elenchus" as a technique of logical argumentation aimed at refuting an interlocutor, which Gregory Vlastos highlighted in an influential article in 1983. The essays in this volume look again at many of the issues to which Vlastos drew attention but also seek to broaden the discussion well beyond the limits of his formulation. Some contributors question the suitability of the elenchus as a general description of how Socrates engages his interlocutors; others trace the historical origins of the kinds of argumentation Socrates employs; others explore methods in addition to the elenchus that Socrates uses; several propose new ways of thinking about Socratic practices. Eight essays focus on specific dialogues, each examining why Plato has Socrates use the particular methods he does in the context defined by the dialogue. Overall, representing a wide range of approaches in Platonic scholarship, the volume aims to enliven and reorient the debate over Socratic method so as to set a new agenda for future research. Contributors are Hayden W. Ausland, Hugh H. Benson, Thomas C. Brickhouse, Michelle Carpenter, John M. Carvalho, Lloyd P. Gerson, Francisco J. Gonzalez, James H. Lesher, Mark McPherran, Ronald M. Polansky, Gerald A. Press, François Renaud, and W. Thomas Schmid, Nicholas D. Smith, P. Christopher Smith, Harold Tarrant, Joanne B. Waugh, and Charles M. Young. (shrink)

This dissertation concerns Plato's theory of education and the problem of how one can actually acquire knowledge of the Forms. Plato's theory of education aims to make one a good person, which requires knowledge of the Form of the Good. Yet, how exactly one would acquire such knowledge has remained a mystery. Various models of learning are presented by Plato: elenctic refutation ; hypothesis; recollection; the mathematical, dialectical, and political studies of the Republic's curriculum; and diairesis to name just those (...) that are explicit. I have argued here that as rich as these learning strategies are we need to augment our examination of Socratic pedagogy with a full exegesis of Platonic epistemology. ;In order finally to appreciate how they, Socratic education and Platonic epistemology, are meaningfully inseparable, I have explored the following questions: what kind of teacher Socrates is and the way in which he struggles against the sophistic methods of teaching; why Plato has Socrates include ten years of mathematical study in the ideal philosophical curriculum and how we can take the Republic's paradoxical curriculum seriously; how the philosopher utilizes the mathematical training in coming to know a Platonic Form; what role opposites play in Plato's metaphysical imagination; and what kind of person would one be if one actually knew the Form of the Good. I have shown that if one were to partake of a Socratic education, to pursue the requisite mathematical training, and to arrive finally at knowledge of the Platonic Forms, then one would be the sort of person that Socrates has in mind when he articulates the principles of Socratic intellectualism. ;What has been novel about this approach is its demonstration of how, despite the fact that Socratic learning and Platonic epistemology have separately been the object of perennial scholarly attention, the two taken genuinely together have been in need of fresh critical engagement. This inquiry reveals the metaphysical constraints on knowledge and in so doing reconciles Plato's theory of knowledge with Socrates' style of educating potential philosophers. (shrink)

This exciting new textbook provides a sophisticated examination of the Socratic method for teaching political science students in higher education. It shows how the Socratic method is employed in the Platonic dialogs, compares its transformative approach to other student-centered teaching philosophies, and addresses the challenges of adopting the Socratic method in the contemporary classroom. The book is divided into three sections that integrate these practical aspects on the Socratic method with the (...) theoretical considerations of Socratic philosophy while also addressing contemporary concerns about teaching and learning in higher education. Section One explores how the Socratic method is portrayed by Socrates in Plato's dialogs. Section Two compares the Socratic method with modern and contemporary accounts of teaching and learning. Section Three examines some of the contemporary challenges of practicing the Socratic method in the university classroom today and how teachers can overcome them. Written in a clear and engaging style, this timely intervention is essential reading for upper undergraduate students enrolled in courses that specialize in pedagogical techniques, political theory, Socratic philosophy, and law. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The “Socratic method” seems to be well understood in general to mean some sort of “question and answer” procedure as distinguished from “lecturing.” Law schools are familiar sites for its so-called practice, and the Platonic dialogues are believed to provide models of it. However, Socrates himself never speaks of having a method except in one place in the Phaedo – where it has nothing to do with “question and answer.” The Greeks had a clear word (...) for method, “methodos,” and Socrates applies it once and once only. He calls his method “eike phuro,” random mixing. In this paper, I shall attempt to bring this method together with the myths, jokes, and very long discourses with which the dialogues are replete. (shrink)

Recent studies indicate that adapting common components of universal healing practices increases the effectiveness of multicultural therapies, especially incorporating initial and reformulated myths. The Socratic method, part of an original philosophical process directed toward therapeutic goals, has long been instrumental to many psychotherapies, but limited in application to dialectical discourse. Through a rediscovery and clarification of the original integrated Socratic-Platonic method inclusive of mythmaking as well as systematic questioning, the authors argue that this new, more (...) comprehensive model provides a foundation for increasing the effectiveness of multicultural psychotherapies. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

In this paper I offer a reading of one of Plato's later works, the Sophist, that reveals it to be informed by principles comparable on the face of it with those that have emerged recently in the field of critical thinking. As a development of the famous Socratic method of his teacher, I argue, Plato deployed his own pedagogical method, a ‘mid‐wifely’ or ‘maieutic’ method, in the Sophist. In contrast to the Socratic method, the (...) sole aim of this method is not to disabuse the reader or learner of her false opinions. Rather, its purpose is to supply her with the skills and dispositions as well as the claims and counter‐claims she needs to critically evaluate a view, and so facilitate knowledge acquisition, for herself. But the text does not merely teach critical thinking in this indirect manner. One of the strategies its author employed was to encourage the reader/learner to consider under what conditions a claim or idea would be false. To the extent that it achieves this, the Sophist provides both a model and an application of that particular kind of critical thinking in the learning environment that Jonathan Baron has described as ‘active open‐mindedness’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.2 (2003) 266-267 [Access article in PDF] Gary Alan Scott, editor. Does Socrates Have a Method? Rethinking the Elenchus in Plato's Dialogues and Beyond. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002. Pp. xiii + 327. Cloth, $45.00. This is an anthology of sixteen essays concerning the topic of Socratic method and closely related issues that influence the interpretation of (...) Plato's dialogues. Three of the essays, in part, have been previously published with new material added by the authors for this volume. These are by Lesher, McPherran, and Schmid. Nine essays are versions of papers given at a conference of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy in October 1997. The four remaining essays are original contributions written by authors who respond critically to the essays in their respective sections. The book is divided into four parts, each with three essays followed by a critical response.The editor, Gary Alan Scott, does a fine job of introducing the various problems associated with the use of the phrase "the Socratic elenchus" as a convenient label. This phrase seems almost unavoidable when talking about Socrates' dialectical method due to the influence of Vlastos's 1983 paper entitled "The Socratic Elenchus." Vlastos furthered an unfortunately narrow tradition that cast Plato's Socrates' versatile and psychologically sensitive practice of philosophy into a mold, restricting it to a single identifiable logical procedure, in which Socrates refuted his interlocutors by using their agreement to premises to overturn their original theses.Vlastos conceived of the Socratic method as mainly a truth-seeking method. His central focus was to explain how Socrates used "the elenchus" to seek the truth given that the logic of the procedure could only detect inconsistency in the interlocutor's beliefs. Vlastos was preoccupied with the question of how Socrates acquired and confirmed his true moral beliefs. Vlastos was far less concerned with understanding the full scope and depth of Socrates' philosophical method than with how to justify what Vlastos perceived to be the positive results of the truth-seeking method, understood as "constructive" moral doctrine. The concern with truth led Vlastos to deal directly with the thorny problems connected with Socrates' use of fallacious argumentation, irony, and the possibility of deception in Socratic method. Such issues, in my view, are the interesting issues which Vlastos confronted. However, very few scholars (including those in this volume) have given these issues the attention they deserve, whether or not they have accepted Vlastos's model of the elenchos.Scott's anthology recognizes both the critical attention that Vlastos's interpretation received and his powerful impact on how certain issues of Socratic method have been discussed, and continue to be discussed, by Plato scholars. Particular attention to this topic is [End Page 266] given, in the essays of Part Two, by Carpenter and Polansky; Benson; McPherran; and Brickhouse and Smith. As Scott notes (6-7), there is a deliberate effort by most contributors to break with the tradition, and re-think old assumptions about the Socratic method associated with Vlastos's model. The current lack of consensus between scholars seems to be a desirable effect because it expands and stimulates discussion, especially about what terms one ought to use in talking about Socratic method.The essays in Part One, by Lesher, Ausland, and Tarrant, with critical commentary by Young, help familiarize the reader with the historical and linguistic contexts associated with the term elenchos and its cognates, as examined by Lesher, and with the contrast between elenchos and exetasis, as examined by Tarrant. In his article, Ausland shows how "many features of Socratic dialectic" are similar to courtroom practices (40), while also noting the differences in Socrates' approach and aim which set his method apart from such practices (42-3).The last two sections illustrate the work being done on specific dialogues by authors who are breaking new hermeneutical ground in Platonic scholarship. These essays turn the reader's attention both toward the innovative features of Socratic method, which most readers would welcome... (shrink)

My main aim in my thesis is to show that, contrary to the commonly held belief according to which Aristotle was the first to conceive and develop intellectual virtues, there are strong indications that Plato had already conceived and had begun developing the concept of intellectual virtues. Nevertheless, one should not underestimate the importance of Aristotle’s work on intellectual virtues. Aristotle developed a much fuller (in detail and argument) account of both, the concept of ‘virtue’ and the concept of ‘intellect’, (...) metaphysically, epistemologically and psychologically. Still, the first conception of intellectual virtues is to be found in the Platonic corpus. Such a realization is not only of historic interest, but most importantly, as I am going to show, the Platonic conception of intellectual virtues could prove promising in contemporary debates on virtue epistemology theories and in virtue-based approaches to education. Plato’s discussion of rational desires is the strongest indication of the presence of the concept of intellectual virtues in Platonic dialogues. Rational desires are constitutive of intellectual virtues: desires are dispositional; rational desires are dispositions to pursue rational goods. Intellectual virtues are such dispositions. Additionally, there is further evidence that Plato had conceived of intellectual virtues. His rigorous educational program in the Republic aims at the development of rational desires, while in the Symposium he discusses the intense rational desire to know the Good. Nevertheless, in order to be intellectually virtuous, one must not only have a desire for knowledge; one must also be systematically and reliably successful in achieving the end of their rational desires. I will show that the success component of Plato’s intellectual virtues can be found in his dialectic method. Plato’s dialectic is both a virtue developer and a reliable method used by philosophers in order to reach the objects of their rational desires. I will argue that episteme is one of Plato’s primary intellectual virtues. Towards this end, I will invoke Pritchard’s recent argument according to which understanding, which is distinct from knowledge, is a form of cognitive achievement and therefore what is finally valuable. I will argue, based on textual evidence from the middle Platonic dialogues and recent discussions in the exegetical literature, that Plato’s episteme, although commonly translated as knowledge, is closer to Pritchard’s conception of understanding. I will also show that Plato’s episteme, similarly to Pritchard’s conception of understanding, is a cognitive achievement that cannot be attained by luck or testimony. The Platonic conception of intellectual virtues has something unique to offer to contemporary virtue epistemology. Plato, unlike Aristotle, does not differentiate between theoretical and practical wisdom. A wise agent, according to Plato, is wise in both practical and theoretical matters. Moreover, Plato, unlike Aristotle does not make a sharp distinction between moral and intellectual virtues. Therefore, the Platonic conception of intellectual virtues, in comparison to the Aristotelian, offers a more suitable starting point for scholars who want to argue that intellectual virtues are but a subpart of moral. Furthermore, I will argue that the Platonic conception of intellectual virtues is also of significant merit for virtue-based approaches to education. Plato questioned whether we can attain knowledge but nevertheless went on to develop his Socratically inspired theory of education according to which we can teach learning without knowing. Socrates proclaimed his ignorance numerous times; nevertheless, he went on to educate the youth of Athens. This is what I will suggest that Plato’s notion of intellectual virtues can contribute to theories of education: we should teach children not by transferring knowledge to them directly but by building dispositions into them to seek and acquire the truth. I will argue that although somewhat ignored by contemporary scholars, Plato’s theory of education has much to teach us about epistemic character education today. The Platonic educational program does not advocate the direct transmission of knowledge from the teacher to the student but rather focuses on building the learners’ epistemic dispositions. Building upon the Socratic method, Plato’s educational program does not “spoon-feed” knowledge to the learners but rather fosters the growth of intellectual virtues through problem-solving. The Platonic decades long educational regime aims at training Philosopher-Kings in three types of virtue: (i) Moral Virtue; (ii) the Cognitive Virtue of Abstraction; (iii) the Cognitive Virtue of Debate. I will explain ways in which fostering intellectual virtues through problem-solving could be applied in classrooms today and I will argue that Plato’s rigorous education program is of definite merit for contemporary theories of education, especially given the fact that scholars in the field are looking for alternatives to the traditional methods of teaching. I will also dedicate a section to showing that Socrates was not a moral philosopher but rather an epistemic character builder. Socrates trained his students/interlocutors in desiring the truth without offering them any knowledge-education. I will also briefly highlight some of the most significant differences between the Platonic educational program, as described in the Republic, and the Socratic educational method. I will also discuss, before concluding my thesis, two different accounts of educational failure as presented by Plato in the Republic. The first one is the individuals employing the eristic method (as a result of failure in dialectic education) and the second is the individuals who correspond to the four imperfect societies (brought about again by the lack of proper education). I will argue that these two accounts can inform our understanding of what should be avoided when educating for epistemic (and moral) virtue nowadays. (shrink)

L’étude de la notion de nous est un cas très intéressant pour saisir la différence entre l’épistémologie de Socrate et celle de Platon. En effet, le mot nous, au coeur de l’épistémologie du Phédon et de la République malgré des différences évidentes, n’apparaît que rarement dans les dialogues de jeunesse et dans les témoignages de la première génération de socratiques. Il est donc nécessaire de comprendre pourquoi le nous n’est pas central dans la méthode socratique, et une des raisons de (...) la différence entre les méthodes socratique et platonicienne se trouve dans la distinction entre noein et phronein. Si pour Platon la connaissance est d’ordre intellectuel, elle est pour Socrate d'ordre pratique; si la méthode dialectique conduit à la vision des idées, la méthode de définition socratique conduit à l’aporie; si la vision est au coeur du nous, la phronesis tient du sentir et de l’écoute. Malgré ces différences, qui doivent être soulignées pour saisir la spécificité des deux méthodes, le rôle de l'eros dans la connaissance met au jour une forme de continuité entre les deux épistémologies et, ainsi, entre la phronesis et le nous. (shrink)

Plato’s character Socrates is clearly a sophisticated logician. Why then does he fall, at times, into the most elementary fallacies? It is, I propose, because the end goal for Plato is not the mere acquisition of superior understanding but instead a well-lived life, a life lived in harmony with oneself. For such an end, accurate opinions are necessary but not sufficient: what we crucially need is a method, a procedure for ridding ourselves of those opinions that are false. Now (...) learning a method is a very different business from learning a set of ideas. It requires not just study but practice, and practice is precisely what Plato’s dialogues, thanks to the layer of irony between author and protagonist, make possible. If we have a predisposition for detecting and are interested in resolving conflicts within a set of beliefs—if, that is, we instinctively posit logical consistency as a desideratum in life—then we stand to learn, when we read the dialogues, not only what to think but also, and far more importantly, how to think. (shrink)

This article argues that Aristophanes'Cloudstreats Socrates as distinctly interested in promoting self-knowledge of the sort related to self-improvement. Section I shows that Aristophanes links the precept γνῶθι σαυτόν with Socrates. Section II outlines the meaning of that precept for Socrates. Section III describes Socrates' conversational method in theCloudsas aimed at therapeutic self-revelation. Section IV identifies the patron Cloud deities of Socrates' school as also concerned to bring people to a therapeutic self-understanding, albeit in a different register from that of (...) Socrates. Section V discusses a sequence of jokes connected to ‘stripping’ that give a concrete image to the search for self-knowledge. Both the action of the Clouds and the tales of cloak-stripping provide models for understanding self-knowledge in a Socratic key. Section VI argues that Socrates' other interest in thephrontistērion, myth-rationalization, is consistent with the promotion of self-knowledge. Section VII supports the claim that Plato'sPhaedrusalludes constantly to theClouds, and because thePhaedruspays careful attention to self-knowledge, Plato must think that theCloudsdoes too. It notes in particular that we can explain the Platonic Socrates' famous self-knowledge-related curiosity about his similarity to Typhon as Plato's allusion to Aristophanes, an allusion made apt by Aristophanes' coordination of Socrates with self-knowledge. Section VIII concludes the paper. (shrink)

The book is divided into four sections, each featuring three essays followed by a response that serves as a sort of antistrophe. The first section addresses the historical origins of Socratic method, the second reexamines Vlastos’s analysis of “the Elenchus”; the third section challenges the assumptions of those who read the dialogues dogmatically by focusing on specific dialogues and highlighting the protreptic and deconstructive dimensions of Socrates’ philosophizing; finally, the fourth section offers a set of interpretations of the (...) elenchus at work in the Charmides. According to Scott, the intention behind this structure is to “offer something of interest to all readers of Plato and students of Socrates”. While the volume certainly does this, its structure, as Scott himself recognizes, precludes genuine dialogue by granting the last word to the critics. Taken as a whole, however, the volume points to and helps flesh out the tension that has come to underlie Platonic scholarship in the English-speaking world over the past thirty years. (shrink)

The Socratic method of questioning and refutation (elenchus) predominates the early Platonic dialogues. But things change in the middle dialogues, as Socrates goes beyond merely asking questions and begins to provide answers to his questions. And the method virtually disappears in the late dialogues. The standard explanation of this phenomenon is that the early dialogues were intended to commemorate Socrates and the elenchus, while in the middle and late dialogues Plato went beyond Socrates to present his (...) own mature philosophical thought. In this book, Matthews revises this explanation by uncovering the shortcomings that Plato came to find in the Socratic method and the reasons why Plato lost interest in it. (shrink)

The Platonic tradition in Western philosophy is not just one of many equally central traditions. It is so much THE central one that the very existence and survival of Western civilization depends on it. It is like the Confucian tradition in Chinese culture, or the monotheistic tradition in religion, or the human rights tradition in politics. In the first of his eight lectures, Peter Kreeft defines Platonism and its "Big Idea," the idea of a transcendent reality that the history (...) of philosophy has labeled "Platonic Ideas" or Platonic Forms. In the second lecture, he briefly explores Plato's two basic predecessors or sources, myth and Socrates; and then looks at 12 applications of the Forms in Plato's own dialogues. The third lecture covers the three most important modifications or additions to Plato himself in the Platonic tradition: Aristotle, Plotinus, and Augustine, each of whom gave the Forms a new metaphysical address. The fourth lecture explores six Christian Platonists, three in the New Testament and three philosophers, Justin Martyr, Bonaventure, and Aquinas. The next three lectures explore the consequences of the modern abandoning of Platonism, beginning with William of Ockham's Nominalism, as the source of nearly all modern philosophical errors, and its results in the Empiricism of Locke and Hume, the so-called Copernican Revolution in philosophy in Kant, the so-called "analytic philosophy," which still dominates English and American philosophy departments. In the sixth essays, Kreeft looks at 13 influential kinds of positivism or reductionism in modern thought: in method, history, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, sociology, politics, logics, linguistics, sex, psychology, and theology, exemplified by Descartes, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Marx, Kant, Comte, Rousseau, Rawls, Ayer, Derrida, Freud, Skimmer, Nietzsche, and Sartre. Lecture 7 looks at the results of abandoning the Platonic tradition in ethics, the values vacuum, or nihilism, in Ecclesiastes, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoi, Marcel, and Buber. In the last lecture, Kreeft looks at some experiential evidence for Platonism, doors out of the cave that are still open, signals of transcendence. (shrink)

What makes a good leader? This paper takes Socrates in Plato’s early dialogues as the starting point for developing three leadership skills that are still relevant today: being on a mission, thinking in questions, and thinking like a beginner. I arrive at these Socratic leadership skills through an interdisciplinary approach to Plato’s early dialogues that puts Socrates in conversation with a diversity of thinkers: modern-day business leaders and leadership coaches, educators, Zen Buddhists, and art historians. I show that (...) class='Hi'>Socratic leadership skills are valued in today’s business world, and I propose concrete exercises that can help anyone acquire these skills. In contrast to Platonic leadership—the leadership skills of the philosopher king—Socratic leadership skills have not been the focus of much investigation. This paper aims to advance a scholarly conversation about Socrates as a leadership model. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Socrates' Place in a Critical History of Philosophy Plato's Genetic Development Socrates Logico‐Philosophicus A Later, Self‐Critical Plato The Unity of the Platonic Socrates' Thought Socrates Oxoniensis Socrates' “Failure in Love” Socrates Politicus Redivivus.

While the early Platonic dialogues have often been explored and appreciated for their ethical content, this is the first book devoted solely to the epistemology of Plato's early dialogues. Author Hugh H. Benson argues that the characteristic features of these dialogues- -Socrates' method of questions and answers, his fascination with definition, his professions of ignorance, and his thesis that virtue is knowledge- -are decidedly epistemological. In this thoughtful study, Benson uncovers the model of knowledge that underlies these distinctively (...) Socratic views. What emerges is unfamiliar, yet closer to a contemporary conception of scientific understanding than ordinary knowledge. (shrink)

The dialogue format in Plato’s works is often described as a method conducive to eliciting interlocutors’ inherent knowledge, or as a tool by which elenchus, valued for its own sake, can be achieved. But to understand Plato in either of these ways is to miss the significance of the dialogue format predominant in his corpus, as well as the metaphysical underpinnings of the dialectic relation. In this essay I interpret the limitations of knowledge in Plato’s corpus as a correlate (...) of one’s claims to independent possession of knowledge. Explicitly, I argue for a Platonic analysis of the individual that bolsters the impetus to use dialogue, rather than instruction, as a primary tool for philosophical inquiry and for education in general. Plato’s criterion for doing philosophy well involves not only a subjective willingness to question one’s beliefs and to live by one’s vision, but also an objective demand to coordinate one’s beliefs with those of others –and ultimately– to acknowledge the interdependence of one’s own reality with that of others. (shrink)

In Luce Irigaray's thought, Socrates is a marginal figure compared to Plato or Hegel. However, she does identify the Socratic dialectical position as that of a ‘phallocrat’ and she does conflate Socratic and Platonic philosophy in her psychoanalytic reading of Plato in Speculum of the Other Woman. In this essay, I critically interpret both Irigaray's own texts and the Platonic dialogues in order to argue that: the Socratic dialectical position is not ‘phallocratic’ by Irigaray's own (...) understanding of the term; that Socratic philosophy should not be conflated with the mature Platonic metaphysics Irigaray criticizes; and that Socratic dialectical method is similar in some respects with the dialectical method of Diotima, Socrates’ instructress in love and the subject of Irigaray's “Sorcerer Love” essay in An Ethics of Sexual Difference. (shrink)

Dans leLachèsde Platon, Socrate attribue à son interlocuteur la connaissance du courage et tente de reconstruire cette connaissance sous forme discursive. Son attribution de connaissance à Lachès détermine son comportement discursif dans le dialogue, nécessitant qu’il s’abstienne de juger erronés les propos son interlocuteur, qu’il interprète l’erreur apparente comme une erreur de discours plutôt que de connaissance, et qu’il cherche la vérité sous-jacente au contenu manifeste des paroles de Lachès. La méthode de Socrate dans cet elenchos peut être décrite comme (...) une sorte d’«exégèse épistémique», qui cherche à extraire et à donner une forme discursive à la connaissance de la vertu dont elle suppose que l’interlocuteur est déjà possesseur. (shrink)

"La méthode proposée ici pour lire le Protagoras part d'une idée simple. Celle que le Socrate de Platon met en pratique et qui entre dans la définition de l'éros philosophique : voir l'aporie comme une ressource, voir l'impasse avant le passage. Suivant cette idée, Platon pose des questions à son lecteur, ou il les lui laisse à poser, face à des apories ; ce qui revient à tenir de telles questions pour de premiers pas - vers une issue. Il s'ensuit (...) par méthode que le questionnement doit progresser là où des indices sont déposés à cet effet. L'expliquent les contraintes propres à un enseignement de la philosophie (Lettre VII) et les critiques que cela fait porter sur l'écrit (Phèdre). Platon invente la philosophie comme une discipline intellectuelle vouée à l'examen des problèmes, à l'épreuve des apories ; il invente (ou réinvente) à cet effet le dialogue, au sens où Schleiermacher et Koyré le font entendre, une écriture destinée à imposer la lecture comme exercice philosophique : le dialogue ne dispense pas d'enseignement sans d'abord donner une épreuve. Au lecteur de s'instruire de son travail sur le texte. Cette méthode part donc du souci de refaire le compte des multiples apories qu'un écrit de Platon peut présenter, et elle veut se donner les moyens de les traverser intégralement, dans l'idée que l'écriture ne laisse rien au hasard ou la fantaisie. Ni Schleiermacher ni Koyré n'accordent d'importance ou même d'intérêt au mythe dans le Protagoras ; au moins aura-t-on aidé à en voir la centralité. Le renversement final n'est pas la seule chose à expliquer entre Prométhée et Épiméthée, l'évolution toute entière du jeu entre Socrate et Protagoras y est impliquée et s'en trouve éclairée."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Plato inaugurated the Western tradition of political philosophy in his effort to vindicate the memory of Socrates and prevent future persecutions of philosophy. To attain this double objective, Plato embedded teachings and distributed themes with a view to appropriately revealing and withholding insights. The ultimate crucible for heuristically testing this Platonic method is Plato's distribution of themes of eros and force. Eros and force parallel the two cardinal features of the erotic Socrates who was suspected of guiding ambitious (...) youths to demagogic careers. Plato's metaphysics, dominated by his theory of Forms or Ideas, similarly originated in indignation at Socrates' legal murder and anguish about the future of philosophy. By positing fixed, eternal, and immutable standards, Plato seeks to preempt the litigious excesses, oratorical shenanigans and legalistic leeway that once made it possible to charge and convict Socrates. The reference of what is actual to a transcendent standard of truth served also to usher in the western tradition of textual embeddedness of meanings. This means that original political philosophy, understood as Platonic philosophy, is a relationship between form and content---between "how" something is articulated in writing and "what" is written. After the onslaught of the diagnostic critique of western thought, unleashed mainly by Nietzsche and Heidegger, the revival of esotericism in our century has been useful in unlocking Platonic interpretation and in showing Plato's text to be dependent on an inextricable interweaving between form and content. (shrink)

The greatest rhetorical display (έπιδείξις) of Plato's Protagoras is apparently not Protagoras's famous myth cum démonstration1 about the teachability of excellence (αρετή),2 but rather the dia logue as a whole. The Protagoras exposes key différences between the methods and presuppositions of Socrates and those of the Sophists - thus defending Socrates against the charge of being a Sophist himself - and in so doing clarifies the conditions and princi ples of ethical argumentation.3 The display of the Protagoras oc curs on (...) two levels. In the drama, Socrates puts the Sophists on exhibit for the benefit of Hippocrates, an Athenian boy who as pires to a sophistic éducation. In reading the dialogue, however, we become spectators to Plato's display. The pervading irony is that Piato uses the Protagoras to critieize the techniques of display and debate - and to contrast them with dialogue. But the Socratic/ Platonic display in the Protagoras is literally a showing forth, a manifestation of what a Sophist is and does, whereas a sophistical display is a showing off, that is not intrinsically related to his beliefs and aims. In order to see thèse thèmes at work in the Protagoras , however, it must first be examined from a rhetorical point of view. (shrink)

This paper explores Socratic irony as reflected in the famous passages of Alcibiades’ speech in Plato’s Symposium, focusing on the relationship between ironic utterance and the philosophic guidance process. Reviewing the diverse meanings of the term eirôneia in Greek comedy and philosophy, it examines the way in which Plato employs irony in fashioning Socrates’ figure and depicting the ideal of philosophic guidance as the “art of midwifery.” It then analyzes Kierkegaard’s most positive perception of Socratic irony as a (...) necessary methodical element in the Socratic maieutic process of “deceiving into the truth.” Contrasting Kierkegaard with Alcibiades’ scathing critique, it reads the latter in a combined dramatic-philosophical perspective, as presenting irony as an anti-philosophic phenomenon, leading to cognitive puzzlement and Dionysian irrationality. Alcibiades’ negative stance will be manifested via analyzing his use of four literary rhetorical devices: comparing Socrates with the Silenoi, drawing an analogy between ironic speech and Marysas’ satyric flute playing, symbolizing philosophy as snake venom, and presenting the scene of Socrates’ seduction as dramatic irony. The discussion shows, then, that there are two distinct manifestations of Socratic irony drawn from Plato’s writings, destructive and constructive, derived from the character of his philosophical pupils. (shrink)

The article discusses the sceptical New Academy's interpretation of Plato as a sceptic. The first part discusses Arcesilaus' reintroduction of Socratic method, and the reading of the Socratic dialogues and the Theaetetus implied by this. The second part discusses arguments probably used by the later, more moderate Academy for a reading of Plato's more dogmatic dialogues in a way consistent with scepticism.

Lire les Dialogues de Platon avec en tete les questions soulevees par Nietzsche m'a fait saisir en eux une force et une etrangete usees par des myriades d'interpretations. Verifier combien Nietzsche platonise- m'a permis de percevoir une pensee qui, par-dela Oui et Non, accumule hypotheses et points d'interrogation. Ce livre tente d'expliciter une evidence jusque-la souterraine: la parente existant entre leurs manieres de philosopher. Qui reduit leurs philosophies a un ensemble de doctrines peut seulement voir ce qui les oppose: pensee (...) du devenir contre metaphysique de l'etre, interpretation contre recherche dialectique de la verite, corps pensant contre corps tombeau, la liste n'est pas close. Pour mettre en question ces oppositions, il fallait rappeler que penser est pour eux une aventure, une pluralite d'experiences joyeuses ou penibles ouvrant sur des chemins a explorer. La methode du contrepoint rigoureux, superposition de deux lignes melodiques qui n'exclut pas les dissonances, etait donc la plus indiquee. La mise en regard de leurs textes fait certes apparaitre des renversements, mais surtout des echos ou des chiasmes.Le Socrate musicien- qu'etait Platon et le Dionysos philosophos- dont Nietzsche se disait le disciple sont les figures croisees d'un philosophe que l'un invente et l'autre reinvente - d'un philosophe qui, ni metaphysicien ni anti-metaphysicien, est capable d'interroger impitoyablement comme de chanter au-dessus de la vie. Cette autre maniere de philosopher est, peut etre, ce dont la philosophie a aujourd'hui besoin. M. D. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.3 (2002) 521-524 [Access article in PDF] Andrea Capra. Il "Protagora" di Platone tra eristica e commedia. Il Filarete: Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell'Università degli Studi di Milano, 197. Milan: LED, Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto, 2001. 237 pp. Paper, 22.72. This is a book of two halves and Two Parts, perhaps, respectively, "literary" and "philosophical": one primarily concerned with the (...) form of the Protagoras, the other more concerned with the dialogue's argumentative content and context. More helpful, however, is the author's own subtitles for the Two Parts: "Plato 'persuades' his audience" and "Socrates 'persuades' the sophists." Capra is admirably conscious throughout of the need to distinguish between what Socrates is saying and what Plato is trying to achieve through what Socrates is saying; between the audience for whom the written artifact is composed, on the one hand, and the fictional audience that the character, Socrates, is addressing, on the other. Plato—so Capra claims—has constructed a dialogue for hearers or readers who would have been thoroughly familiar with the dramatic theater and its conventions and who would immediately have recognized the allusions to comedy in setting, action, even characterization. Why construct a dialogue in this extraordinary fashion? No other dialogue is so constructed, even if there are comic touches in many. Here is one of the most interestingly worked parts of Capra's overall thesis: It isn't just any comedy that the Protagoras resembles—it's the Clouds, which figures so centrally in Plato's account of Socrates' accusers in the Apology. Only everything is turned upside down, so that it's Socrates who's outside (the right side?), the sophists inside (the house of Callias), whereas in Clouds, it was Socrates inside (the phrontisterion/pensatoio), and Socrates was a sophist. So here is Plato, as it were, talking over the heads of his characters and replying to Socrates' critics by turning the tables on them.But that is only half of the picture, half of Capra's book (or a pretty inadequate description of half of the book), and, of course, rather less than half of the Protagoras itself. What about the conversation between Socrates and Protagoras that occupies by far the largest proportion of the pages? To say that it resembles a comic agon is of course only a beginning; if it is to be an effective riposte to Aristophanes and to those jurors he so fatally influenced, then Socrates has to win. And that, of course, he does hands down. But then we have the problem, or rather Capra has the problem, that he seems to win by taking over [End Page 521] the very method that his sophistic opponents use, i.e., eristic; and this is bizarre, given the way that the opening dialogue between Socrates (or Strepsiades) and Hippocrates (or Pheidippides) in Socrates' house emphasizes the distance, and difference, between what Socrates has to offer and what his opponents offer. What is afoot here? Capra's answer is that crossing the threshold of Callias' house, into the company of Protagoras and the rest, is like the philosopher's descent into the Cave in the Republic. Being with the prisoners, Socrates takes up their methods, their ways of doing things. But he has no option but to do that with an opponent like Protagoras in the other corner, for Protagoras denies the very basis of Socratic dialectic. There is, for him, no such thing as science, no such thing as objective knowledge; Socrates is therefore forced to fight by Protagoras' rules to get a grip on him at all. What emerges, paradoxically, near the end of the dialogue is the requirement—even on popular (the prisoners' own) premises—for a measuring art, which makes measuring not the prerogative of each and every Protagorean individual but rather a matter of technical expertise. And so (according to Capra's argument) we arrive back at that very realm of knowledge, which in the Republic is the means by which we shall raise... (shrink)

Teaching is often framed in terms of performance: an orator stands before a crowd, attempting to capture attention and to deliver material prepared in advance. This analogy falls apart, however, when one considers the extent to which teaching is a dialogical endeavor. Looking to the Meno, the Symposium, and the Republic, this paper offers an interpretation of these texts which deepens our understanding of Plato’s theory of education. First, a Platonic view of education recommends a view of educators not (...) as imparters of wisdom upon passive recipients, but as mediators of student growth. Second, the tragic and comic nature of the above Platonic dialogues suggests that the content of a lesson will always be inflected by the personal characters of the students and teacher. This has direct implications for how philosophers approach their task as teachers, the most notable being that the personal characters and classroom dynamics are factors which must be taken into account in the formulation and development of effective pedagogical methods. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.1 (2001) 166-169 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Cross-Examining Socrates: A Defense of the Interlocutors in Plato's Early Dialogues Cross-Examining Socrates: A Defense of the Interlocutors in Plato's Early Dialogues, by John Beversluis; xii & 416 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, $69.95. This book is more than a cross-examination of Socrates: it is a carefully wrought indictment. Beversluis, unlike Socrates' historical adversaries Anytus and (...) Meletus, brings philosophically serious charges against Socrates by offering a rigorous defense of the interlocutors in Plato's early dialogues, the so-called Socratic dialogues. In so doing, he charts new territory in the vast area of recent analytic scholarship on Plato.According to traditional readings, Socrates deploys his elenchus to defeat his interlocutors, leaving them "either to retreat in anger or to submit to his power." Allegedly, Plato, guided by his Socratic intellectualism, draws them as distinctive, complex characters, though intellectually and thus ethically flawed. Beversluis argues against this standard view, providing sympathetic reassessment of Socrates' interlocutors. Although some previous scholars have defended some of the interlocutors, Beversluis widens the scope of the argument, leveling a scathing attack on Socratic intellectualism and its correlative method of moral education.He deals not only with Socrates' interlocutors and their logical defeats, but also with the idea of an interlocutor, and in so doing casts light on the philosophical dialogue as a genre. This emerges in the first and perhaps most original chapter, entitled "The Socratic Interlocutor," which may be of value to readers interested in philosophical writing or the philosophy of literature more generally. Here he illuminates Plato's use of the interlocutor, in part, by contrasting it with that of other philosophers who wrote in dialogue form, such as Augustine, Anselm, Hume, and Berkeley. The Socratic interlocutors are not, he says, "embodiments of error." Socrates, unlike the protagonists drawn by these other authors, does not subject them to his scrutiny in order to make them accept his beliefs, but rather to reject theirs. Beversluis claims that Plato's portrayal expresses his Socratic belief in the good life as one of bewilderment and uncertainty, a view, Beversluis rightly says, Plato will come to repudiate in his middle dialogues. Beversluis is clearly aware of the disparity between the [End Page 166] discomfort Socrates visits on his interlocutors and that which he is willing to endure himself.While many interpreters forgive Socrates' lapses of logic, Beversluis is unsparing. There is no reason, he thinks, to judge Socrates' arguments by any other criterion than their logical merits, and he therefore rejects the idea that Socrates' most fallacious arguments are valuable for psychological illumination. He also rejects Vlastos's view that only those of Socrates' arguments that are offered "seriously" should be criticized seriously. If they appear to be logical arguments, Beversluis contends, they must be assessed on their logical merits, not their rhetorical or therapeutic virtues. Some might find this approach rather arid until they see that Beversluis is warning the reader not to be dazzled by Socrates as the interlocutors are.It is widely believed that the aim of Socratic elenchus is to uncover the structure of a person's beliefs and to show that it is either internally inconsistent or at best unreflectively constructed. Beversluis's account, however, portrays Socrates as a Svengali who makes people assent to claims they would not otherwise accept. If this is right, Socrates is not actually elucidating the interlocutor's real beliefs. Beversluis challenges the notion of sincere assent, both as an interpretative guide to the early dialogues and as an epistemic concept. He points out that sincere belief is not simply an occurrent interior state accompanying, and indicated by, a verbal act of assent; rather, it emerges from the totality of a person's lived character, from the relation between word and act.Some readers will object to his axiom that a character in a literary work, and thus in a Platonic dialogue, has a life subject to scrutiny outside of the literary work. In his brief... (shrink)

The Parmenides poses the question for what entities there are Forms, and the criticism of Forms it contains is commonly supposed to document an ontological reorientation in Plato. According to this reading, Forms no longer express the excellence of a given entity and a Socratic, ethical perspective on life, but come to resemble concepts, or what concepts designate, and are meant to explain nature as a whole. Plato’s conception of dialectic, it is further suggested, consequently changes into a value-neutral (...) method directed at tracing the interrelation of such Forms, an outlook supposedly documented in certain passages on method from the Sophist and the Statesman as well. -/- The article urges that this reading is untenable. For in the Parmenides the question for what entities one should posit Forms is left open, and the passages on method from the Sophist and Statesman neither encourage a non-normative ontology nor a value-neutral method of inquiry. What the three dialogues encourage us to do is rather to set common opinions about the relative worth and value of things aside when conducting ontological inquiries; and this attitude, the article concludes, demonstrates a close kinship, rather than a significant difference, between Plato’s Socrates and his Eleatic philosophers. (shrink)

It is a commonplace of modern criticism that every text is to be located within a complex network of cultural practices and material. Students of the ancient world may sometimes feel at a disadvantage; we simply do not have as much information as we would like in order to contextualize thoroughly. This has been especially true in the study of Platonic dialogues. The meagre remains of the writings of the sophists against whom Plato measured himself and of the art (...) to which he refers entail that analysis of Plato is often confined to the structure of his philosophy. Of course, the requirements of Plato's arguments must always be assigned primary importance; the relative lack of information about Plato's cultural context has not prevented detailed exposition of his method and achievements. Occasionally, however, a kindly fate allows us to set a dialogue, or part of it, in its appropriate material and ideological context and to create an interface between literary, philosophical, and archaeological evidence. Such evidence may not alter our evaluation of Plato's arguments on the analytic level, but it can enrich our appreciation of his literary artistry and recapture for us some of the resonance that his work would have had for a contemporary audience. (shrink)

Although Socrates’ use of induction and epagogic argumentation in Plato’s dialogues is well studied, scholarship on Platonic methodology lacks a clear account of Plato’s own view of epagōgē. In this paper, I refute Richard Robinson’s claim that Plato had no awareness of epagōgē, arguing that the “method of collection” serves as Plato’s theory of dialectical induction. Using the evidence of both the Statesman and the Sophist, I maintain that the abstraction characteristic of collection may be ‘purified’ of its (...) empirical origins in its dialectical application to the inquiry into forms. In addition to providing a unifying thread from Socratic to Platonic and, finally, Aristotelian epagōgē, this view also offers evidence for the consistency of dialectical methodology within the dialogues. (shrink)

Readers who are introduced to philosophical analysis by reading the early Platonic dialogues may be puzzled to find that Plato, in his middle and late periods, largely abandons the style of analysis characteristic of early Plato, namely, the 'Socratic elenchus'. This paper undertakes to solve the puzzle. In contrast to what is popularly called 'the Socratic method', the elenchus requires that Socrates, the lead investigator, not have a satisfactory answer to his 'What is F-ness?' question. Here (...) is the bind. Part of what motivates the elenctic inquiry is the natural assumption that one cannot identify F-things unless one has a satisfactory analysis of what it is to be F. But to test the adequacy of suggested analyses of F-ness one needs to be able to identify counterexamples. Together these two points present us with a 'catch-22', which is something the 'paradox of inquiry' in the Meno brings out. In the Theaetetus Plato makes clear that, although the elenchus, including Socratic ignorance, can refute philosophical theses arrived at by other means, it cannot, by itself, give birth to viable philosophical theses. Its legitimate role is therefore only propaedeutic. (shrink)

For Plato, philosophy depends on, or is perhaps even identical with, dialectic. Few will dispute this claim, but there is little agreement as to what Platonic dialectic is. According to a now prevailing view it is a method for inquiry the conception of which changed so radically for Plato that it "had a strong tendency ... to mean ‘the ideal method’, whatever that may be" (Richard Robinson). Most studies of Platonic dialectic accordingly focus on only one (...) aspect of this method that allegedly characterizes one specific period in Plato’s development. -/- This volume offers fresh perspectives on Platonic dialectic. Its 13 chapters present a comprehensive picture of this crucial aspect of Plato’s philosophy and seek to clarify what Plato takes to be proper dialectical procedures. They examine the ways in which these procedures are related to each other and other aspects of his philosophy, such as ethics, psychology, and metaphysics. Collectively, the chapters challenge the now prevailing understanding of Plato’s ideal of method. -/- New Perspectives on Platonic Dialectic will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in Plato, ancient philosophy, philosophical method, and the history of logic. (shrink)

It is a commonplace to sum up Plato's dialectical method under the formula logon didonai, which means to account for one's belief. The expression along with its genuine meaning seems to have originated at Greek courts of law, and Plato's Socrates, having adopted this formula to describe his philosophical method, seems to be the best advocate of the idea that to know means to be able to render an account. This paper aims to give a critical discussion of (...) these traditional views. First, there is no hint of any offspring of the expression logon didonai at Greek courts of law. Second, in pre-Socratic contexts the expression had not one but several meanings. And third, Plato, through the voice of Socrates, criticizes the unclear meaning of this expression in epistemological contexts. (shrink)

Rhetoric is at present the object of a rehabilitation on a grand scale, all the more as it overlaps the fields of literature, linguistics, and philosophy. Actually, if philosophy rejects and removes rhetoric, it is nevertheless, as a method of word, wholly impregnated with it. To investigate the complex relationship of mutual implication in which rhetoric and philosophy are involved is part and parcel of this plan of re-evaluation of rhetoric as “discourse art” with a view to a re-definition (...) of its field and functions. In this perspective, rhetoric articulates itself within, in relation to, and with Plato's dialogues in a much more subtle and complex manner than warranted by the process of “anti-rhetoricalness” initiated by philosophy against rhetoric after Plato. Going back to the origins of this conflict and recalling the system of oppositions supporting the official Platonic vulgate, this study begins to pave the way for a micr-reading of the Platonic text regarded as a paradigm of philosophic textuality. It is certainly true that the Phaedrus, the Gorgias, and the Symposium set up a system of oppositions between between rhetoric and dialectrics which are in contrast with each other in the word practices, in the rules and methods of discourse, and which are antinomic in their ends. This system of oppositions always seems to be referable to the opposition between “speaking fair” and “speaking the truth”. But the strategies and procedures set going in the Symposium, in particular in “Agathon's speech” and in “Diotima and Socrates' speech” betray a much closer connection between the supposed “bad rhetoric” revealed by Phaedrus and the “good rhetoric” which is dialectrics.The search for this connection is conducted through two types of reading of the Symposium. In actual fact, between the paronomasia on the agathoi and that on “Gorgias' head” (this Gorgon of rhetoric) there takes place a speech, Agathon's, whose parodied, exacerbated, and counterfeit rhetoric allows us to gauge Plato's own rhetoric in this artefact which distances itself, more or less openly, from Gorgian rhetoric. This “hyper-rhetoricalness” and “over-grammaticalness” cannot be there with the sole aim of serving as evidence against rhetoric. It is in fact possible to perceive through the web of the text the ends, quite rhetorical themselves, which preside over the structure of Agathon's speech, seen from the viewpoint of the figure of the antithesis.Thus, it is in the play of a “neo-rhetoricalness” where we must, in the last analysis, look for the spring allowing the philosophical discourse to overturn the rhetorical one. And while in Giorgias what clothes the discourse is actually the truth, in Plato it is the antinomy between “speaking fair” and “speaking the truth”, conveniently set up, which forms the basis of the function of diversion by which Socrates points out — in the complex network of the continuity and discontinuity existing between rhetoric and philosophy — the structures of reversal and the original upheavals which Plato imposes on the relation between rhetorical and dialectric discourse. Actually, dialectrics is found in “Socrates and Diotima's speech”, not as “anti-rhetoric”, but rather as a “transposition” of the rhetorical discourse, thus acquiring the traits of a “neo-rhetoric”. The analysis of this discourse, which constitutes the second reading exercise of the Symposium, allows us to pick out the aversion and inversion strategies that turn dialectrics in an overtuned rhetoric. The founding deed of this “inversion” (rather than “separation”) is recognizable in the alteration it introduces in the first plase in the type of discourse, which from a rhetorical, explicitly addressed, macrological, monological, and continuous discourse turns into a dialectical, brachylogous, dialogic discourse with partners and interlocutors, i.e. into a dialogue; in the second place, the subject of the discourse shifts from the locuteur, author and signer of the discourse to ever-present interlocutors who end up by making room for a talking and knowing speaker in a regime of anonymous subjectivity: this is an extreme alteration of the anthropological and epistemic subject, culminating in the scientific discourse of Euclidean geometry. Finally, the inversion is recognizable in the object of the discourse, whose prâgma slips from being the predicate of a qualified grammatical subject into a process of objectivation and substantivation, thereby moving from the rhetorical question “What is beautiful?” to the philosophical question “What is the beautiful?”.The hypothesis of a “neo-rhetoricalness” of dialectics, underlying this research, is therefore more Platonic than it appears, insofar as between rhetoric and dialectics there has been a tradition which has tried to wipe out the traces of its transmission, but where the neo-rhetoricalness of dialectics shows through quite clearly, taking advantage, without admitting it, from a more ancient rhetoric than it is itself. (A.T.). (shrink)

Limits of the Conversation about Forms. Types of Knowledge and Necessity of Forms in Plato's "Parmenides". - Forms (ideas) are among the things that Plato is serious about. But about these things he says in his "Seventh Letter": "There neither is nor ever will be a treatise of mine on the subject." (341c, transl. J. Harward). Plato's statement suggests the question, why one does not and never can do justice to the Platonic forms by means of a written text (...) about the forms. Another big question of Plato research is whether the conversations documented in the Platonic dialogues are also affected by this verdict. This paper aims to provide, as far as possible, newly substantiated answers to these two questions. To this end, the systematic limits of the discussion about forms, which are particularly evident in Plato's dialogue "Parmenides", are examined in eight steps: First, two types of knowledge are presented that play an important systematic role in Plato's philosophy with regard to the limits of conversation: knowledge-how (practical knowledge) and knowledge-that (propositional knowledge) (I). Then the Socratic model of these two types of knowledge is interpreted, which is drafted in the tenth book of the "Republic". This model uses the example of bridle, bridlemaker and rider to explain the primacy of practical knowledge and the limits of propositional knowledge (II). Subsequently, it will be shown how the dialogues "Republic" and "Parmenides" are connected with each other in content and form (III). The gradation of the two types of knowledge, which is indicated by the motifs of the bridle and the horse on the image level of the "Parmenides", proves to be the structure that systematically underlies the structure of the entire dialogue (IV). It also makes clear why the conversation about the forms in the first part of the "Parmenides" has to fail (V). The assumption that the two parts of the "Parmenides" express two different types of knowledge in dealing with forms is supported by the results of a logical analysis of the last defence of the acceptance of forms (135b-c). This analysis shows why, for reasons of principle, it is impossible to speak adequately about forms (VI). Forms have the function of being presuppositions of 'talking about something'. Thus forms are always presupposed in conversation when one talks about them, and thus elude appropriate discussion in conversation (VII). That this is not only a methodical insight of the Platonic Parmenides, but can also be attributed to Plato himself, is demonstrated by the concluding reinterpretation of the central sentence of the critique of writing in Plato's "Seventh Letter". It will become apparent that, contrary to the now widespread view of the representatives of the Tübingen school, philosophical and also good philological reasons speak for the fact that Plato related his criticism only to the communicability of forms through treatises, i.e. tract-like writings (VIII). (shrink)

“Witty and profound” musings on questions of art and religion from a celebrated novelist known for her philosophical explorations (Library Journal). For centuries, the works of Plato, featuring his mentor and teacher Socrates, have illuminated philosophical discussions. In Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues, acclaimed philosopher, poet, and writer Iris Murdoch turns her keen eye to the value of art, knowledge, and faith, with two dramatic conversations featuring Plato and Socrates. “Art and Eros”: After witnessing a theatrical performance, Socrates and his (...) pupils—Callistos, Acastos, Mantias, Deximenes, and Plato—undertake a quest to uncover the meaning and worth of artistic endeavors. “Above the Gods”: The celebration of a religious festival leads to a lively discussion of the gods and their place in society, as Socrates, along with several of his followers, talk about the morality of religion, wisdom, and righteousness. Told through vivid characterizations and lively discourse, Acastos is at once a “profound and satisfying” exploration of the Socratic method and an enjoyable example of theatrical writing from a Man Booker Prize–winning novelist known for her studies with Ludwig Wittgenstein and her philosophy lectures at Oxford University, as well as for such works of fiction as The Sea, The Sea and The Black Prince (Kirkus Reviews). (shrink)

Knowledge and Ignorance of Self in Platonic Philosophy is the first volume of essays dedicated to the whole question of self-knowledge and its role in Platonic philosophy. It brings together established and rising scholars from every interpretative school of Plato studies, and a variety of texts from across Plato's corpus - including the classic discussions of self-knowledge in the Charmides and Alcibiades I, and dialogues such as the Republic, Theaetetus, and Theages, which are not often enough mined for (...) insights about this crucial philosophical topic. The rich variety of readings and hermeneutical methods allows for an encompassing view of the relevant scholarly debates. The volume is intended to serve as a standard resource for further research on Plato's treatment of self-knowledge, and will highlight the relevance of Plato's thought to contemporary debates on selfhood, self-reflection and subjectivity. (shrink)

Il s'agit, dans cet ouvrage, de faire deux choses en meme temps. D'un cote, determiner les differents sens donnes par Platon au terme philosophia : denommant, dans les premiers dialogues, l'activite propre et la force qui anime un personnage, Socrate, la philosophia recoit du Phedon jusqu'au Phedre ses dimensions interieures et est pensee comme nature; ensuite, sa modalite dialectique se precise tandis que s'opere sa deduction politique et cosmologique. De l'autre, lire chaque dialogue comme l'exercice d'une philosophia, ce qui signifie (...) ne pas s'encombrer de theses, de theories et de methodes et lire avec scrupule et liberte les textes les plus subtilement ironiques, les plus volontairement fragmentes, les plus multiplement mediatises qui soient. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore three autobiographical narratives that Plato’s Socrates tells: his report of his conversations with Diotima, his account of his testing of the Delphic oracle, and his description of his turn from naturalistic philosophy to his own method of inquiry.1 This Platonic Socrates shows his auditors how to philosophize for the future through a narrative recollection of his own past. In these stories, Plato presents us with an image of a Socrates who prepares others to (...) do philosophy without him. In doing so, Plato’s Socrates exhibits philosophical care for his students. In the first part of the paper, I briefly discuss Socrates’ overall narrative style as Plato depicts it in the five dialogues that Socrates narrates. I then analyze each of these autobiographical accounts with an eye toward uncovering what they reveal about Plato’s presentation of Socrates’ philosophical practice.2 Finally, I offer a brief description of what it might mean to practice philosophy as care for self and care for others in a Socratic fashion. (shrink)

Stern uses a very thorough analysis of Plato's Phaedo as a means of attacking the traditional understanding of the Platonic-Socratic view of both the method and the results of philosophy that is found in the middle dialogues. Stern means by "political philosophy" the study of human affairs in general, and he sees Socrates' study of human affairs as described in the Phaedo as involving a type of rationalism that does not rest on a dogmatic assertion about the (...) existence of a transcendent realm of Ideas supplying a clear and unambiguous explanation of things. On the contrary, Socratic rationalism is grounded in an awareness of the limits of human understanding and consists in the critical examination of human discourse as our means of discovering what can be known about the world we live in and the irreducible heterogeneity and irreconcilable conflicts that characterize it. Neither the soul nor the Ideas can be understood apart from their involvement in this world, and both are connected with logos and with heterogeneity in a critical way. (shrink)

Amor, éros, é o tópico que domina toda a primeira parte do Fedro. Os três discursos proferidos – o discurso de autoria de Lísias/Fedro (259e-262c) e os dois subsequentes proferidos por Sócrates (237a-241d; 257b-259d) – são variações desse mesmo tema. Esses três discursos – que ocupam, aliás, a maior parte do texto – não representam mera ilustração propedêutica acerca da retórica e de seu poder sobre os personagens, em vez disso, os dois discursos finais de Sócrates concretizam o próprio movimento (...) dialético, segundo aquela definição que seria oferecida na segunda parte do próprio diálogo: o exercício de divisão (διαίρεσις) e reunião (συναγωηή), o método que ajuda a “falar e a pensar” (266b). Nesse artigo, pretendemos mostrar como os dois discursos de Sócrates são peças-chave para a compreensão global da dialética no Fedro, em suas relações com a retórica, com a psicagogía e com o tema de éros. Palavras-chave: Fedro; dialética; divisão; reunião; discursos. The dialectical contrapositions of Socrates' speeches in Plato's Phaedrus Abstract: Love, éros, is the topic that dominates the entire first part of the Phaedrus. The three speeches given – the speech by Lysias/Phaedrus (259e-262c) and the two subsequent ones given by Socrates (237a-241d; 257b-259d) – are variations on the same theme. These three speeches – which, in fact, occupy most of the text – do not represent a mere propaedeutic illustration of rhetoric and its power over characters. Actually, Socrates’ final two speeches concretize the dialectical movement itself, according to that definition that would be offered in the second part of the dialogue himself: the exercise of division (διαίρεσις) and reunion (συναγωηή), the method that helps to “speak and think” (266b). In this article, we intend to show how Socrates' two discourses are key pieces for the global understanding of dialectics in the Phaedrus, in its relations with rhetoric, with psychagogy and with the theme of éros. Keywords: Phaedrus; dialectics; division; reunion; speeches. Les contrapositions dialectiques des discours de Socrate dans le Phèdre de Platon Résumé: L'amour, eros, est le sujet qui domine toute la première partie du Phèdre. Les trois discours prononcés – le discours de Lysias/Phèdre (259e-262c) et les deux suivants de Socrate (237a-241d ; 257b-259d) – sont des variations sur le même sujet. Ces trois discours – qui, en fait, occupent la plus grande partie du texte – ne représentent pas qu’une simple illustration propédeutique de la rhétorique et de son pouvoir sur les personnages, en effet les deux derniers discours de Socrate concrétisent le mouvement dialectique lui-même, selon cette définition qui serait proposée dans la deuxième partie du dialogue : l'exercice de la division (διαίρεσις) et de la réunion (συναγωηή), la méthode qui aide à « parler et penser » (266b). Dans cet article, nous voulons montrer comment les deux discours de Socrate sont des pièces maîtresses pour la compréhension globale de la dialectique dans le Phèdre, dans ses rapports avec la rhétorique, avec la psychagogie et avec le sujet de l'éros. Mots-clés: Phèdre; dialectique; division; reunion; discours. [1] Este trabalho é um recorte da pesquisa de Doutorado, realizada na Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, que culminou com a tese defendida em 2019, intitulada: A dialética e as letras: imagens e paradigmas do pensar no Fedro de Platão, depositada e disponível no repositório institucional da UFMG. Data de registro: 01/08/2023 Data de aceite: 24/04/2024. (shrink)

Que reste-il a dire sur le Menon? Quel dialogue de Platon semble mieux connu? Une methode renouvelee permet seule de montrer que les passages les plus celebres ne nous ont pas livre tous leurs secrets, et que ceux sur lesquels le regard glisse doivent au contraire retenir l'attention. L'interpretation ici proposee refuse de separer forme et contenu: si Platon a ecrit des dialogues, et non des traites, il devait avoir ses raisons. Le sens d'un dialogue ne se limite pas a (...) celui des repliques d'un seul personnage. Socrate n'est pas le porte-parole de Platon. Platon ne parle jamais en son propre nom. C'est le dialogue tout entier qui est l'enseignement, dans son plan, dans ses personnages, dans sa mise en scene. Elle refuse de supposer le sujet du dialogue: personne ne sait ce qu'est la vertu. C'est le dialogue qui doit appprendre ce qu'elle est. Elle refuse de se laisser imposer des passages classiques - la torpille, la reminiscence - entre lesquels il n'y aurait que du remplissage. Elle refuse d'expliquer les choix de Platon pour tel personnage, telle date, telle situation, par le renvoi positiviste a des faits exterieurs a la pensee reflechie du philosophe. Elle refuse d'ignorer les recentes decouvertes sur l'enseignement oral de Platon et en retrouve les principales doctrines dans le contenu, mais aussi la forme du texte. Elle demontre ainsi sur l'exemple d'un dialogue la fecondite d'une methode applicable a l'ensemble de l'oeuvre ecrite de Platon. (shrink)