Plato: Philosophical Method, Misc

This is a study of sophía from the passage 20d-21a in Plato’s Apology. There, Socrates tries to understand what kind of wisdom he would have, since the Oracle of Delphi stated that no one would be wiser than him. An investigation of historical aspects was made to understand the trial of Socrates and conviction, also a mapping of sophía’s main uses through the corpus platonicum was built, as well an overview of the usage of this concept by others greek authors. (...) In addition, a side of the figure of Socrates that has been given little attention was perceived, becoming important to explain the influence of magical thinking on his philosophy and his relationship with shamanism. Este é um estudo sobre sophía que parte da passagem 20d-21a na Apologia de Platão. Ali, Sócrates tenta compreender que tipo de sabedoria ele teria, uma vez que o Oráculo de Delfos afirmou que ninguém seria mais sábio que ele. Para discutir isso, foi feito um estudo sobre os aspectos históricos que se relacionam com o julgamento e a condenação de Sócrates, um mapeamento dos principais usos de sophía por todo o corpus platonicum, bem como uma análise do panorama relacionado ao uso desse conceito por outros autores do mundo grego. Além disso, foi percebido um lado pouco comentado da figura de Sócrates, tornando-se importante explanar sobre a influência do pensamento mágico em sua filosofia e a7 relação dele com o xamanismo. (shrink)

A teleological explanation is an explanation in terms of an end or a purpose. So saying that ‘X came about for the sake of Y’ is a teleological account of X. It is a striking feature of ancient Greek philosophy that many thinkers accepted that the world should be explained in this way. However, before Aristotle, teleological explanations of the cosmos were generally based on the idea that it had been created by a divine intelligence. If an intelligent power made (...) the world, then it makes sense that it did so with a purpose in mind, so grasping this purpose will help us understand the world. This is the pattern of teleological explanation that we find in the Presocratics and in Plato. However, with Aristotle teleology underwent a change: instead of thinking that the ends were explanatory because a mind had sought to bring them about, Aristotle took the ends to operate in natural beings independently of the efforts of any creative intelligence. Indeed, he thought that his predecessors had failed to understand what was distinctive of nature, namely, that its ends work from the inside of natural beings themselves. (shrink)

This paper concerns the role of examples (paradeigmata) as propaedeutic to philosophical inquiry, in light of the methodological digression of Plato’s Statesman. Consistent with scholarship on Aristotle’s view of example, scholars of Plato’s work have privileged the logic of example over their rhetorical appeal to the soul of the learner. Following a small but significant trend in recent rhetorical scholarship that emphasizes the affective nature of examples, this essay assesses the psychagogic potential of paradeigmata, following the discussion of example in (...) Plato’s Statesman. I argue that, by creating an expectation for finding similarities, the use of examples in philosophical pedagogy cultivates in the soul of the learner a desire to discern the intelligible principles the ground experiential knowledge. Thus, examples not only serve as practice at the dialectician’s method of abstraction, but also cultivate a dialectical ethos, characterized by the desire to know the logoi of all things. (shrink)

The review argues that Plato makes a valid distinction between inferior hypothetical and superior unhypothetical methods. Given the distinction, the book confuses the hypothetical for unhypothetical dialectic.

A review of John Beversluis' "Cross-Examining Socrates: A Defense of the Interlocutors in Plato's Early Dialogues".

Are the long, wildly inventive etymologies in Plato’s Cratylus just some kind of joke, or does Plato himself accept them? This standard question misses the most important feature of the etymologies: they are a competitive performance, an agôn by Socrates in which he shows that he can play the game of etymologists like Cratylus better than they can themselves. Such show-off performances are a recurrent feature of Platonic dialogue: they include Socrates’ speeches on eros in the Phaedrus, his rhetorical discourse (...) in the Menexenus, and his literary interpretation in the Protagoras. The paper compares these cases to work out the ground rules, purposes and implications of the Platonic agôn, and the Cratylus etymologies in particular. (shrink)

This reading of Plato's Ion shows that the philosophic action mimed and engendered by the dialogue thoroughly reverses its (and Plato's) often supposed philosophical point, revealing that poetry is just as defensible as philosophy, and only in the same way. It is by Plato's indirections we find true directions out: the war between philosophy and poetry is a hoax on Plato's part, and a mistake on the part of his literalist readers. The dilemma around which the dialogue moves is false, (...) and would have been recognized as such by Plato's contemporaries. Further, it is intrinsically related to a false, but popular, view of language. So the way out of the false dilemma of the dialogue is the way out of the war between philosophy and poetry, and also makes one see what is false about the view of language which makes such war plausible. (shrink)

What does it take to settle an argument or debate, for the classical Greek philosophers, and how does this compare with our modern ideas about resolving disputes? Plato and Aristotle are not quite what they been reputed to be.

Plato is mistaken on both sides of his distinction between Socrates and the Sophists. He imagines the Sophists to have a formless power that cannot be resisted. This exaltation of the power of persuasion needs to be seen as motivating excessive fears in various modern debates. Pragmatic approaches can lessen our fear.