This book is a quest for the real Plato, forever hiding behind the veil of drama. The quest, as the subtitle indicates, is Cartesian in that it looks for Plato independently of the prevailing paradigms on where we are supposed to find him. The result of the quest is a complete pedagogical platform on Plato. This does not mean that the book leaves nothing out, covering all the dialogues and all the themes, but that it provides the full intellectual apparatus (...) for doing just that. It consists of two parts. The first is a general orientation in three chapters, one each pertaining to the life, thought, and works of Plato. The second is a dialogic companion covering the four dialogues built around the last days of Socrates, with a separate chapter devoted to each: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. (shrink)

In the so-called ‘dialogues of definition,’ Socrates appears to endorse the ‘priority of definition.’ This principle states that an agent cannot know anything about F-ness (its instances, examples, properties, etc.) without knowing what F-ness is (the definition of F-ness). Not only is this principle implausible, it is also difficult to square with Socrates’ method. In employing his method, Socrates appeals to truths about the instances and properties of F-ness, even while pursuing definitional knowledge; meanwhile, he holds that one cannot know (...) those truths without already knowing the definition. Thus, there is a tension between Socrates’ principle and his method. Commentators have tried to resolve this problem in various ways, though typically without a careful examination of his ‘What is F-ness?’ question. I argue that Socrates employs the ‘What is F-ness?’ question as a way of introducing two distinct types of investigation into F-ness (conceptual and causal). With this established, the relationship between Socrates’ principle and his method comes to light, and the tension is resolved. (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)

In the present paper I analyze some relevant textual keys of Plato's Apology to show the many strands underlying Socrates' claims of ignorance. I advocate a position that seeks to reevaluate the use of epistemic lexica by considering other evidence, such as cultural and dramatic context, the use of hypothetical clauses, the comparative and the rhetoric of the pair real/apparent. From this approach, I hope to show that there are good reasons to interpret Socrates' claims of ignorance in the light (...) of amiable irony, whereby the use of language and other literary devices create layers of meaning to express the full sense of Socratic wisdom for the audience without resorting to the charge of contradiction or insincerity. Against a position that reduces Socrates' message to the use of epistemic lexica to interpret it either by synonymy, equivocity or low/high cognitive grading, I propose to read Socrates' claims of ignorance, always in comparison to others' claim of wisdom, as a sort of cultural appropriation and revaluation of the traditional title σοφία/σοφός. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe Socratic fallacy is the supposed mistake of inferring that somebody does not know any instances or attributes of a universal because of their inability to give a satisfactory definition...

The paper examines Socrates' avowals and disavowals of knowledge in the standardly accepted early Platonic dialogues. All of the pertinent passages are assembled and discussed. It is shown that, in particular, alleged avowals of knowledge have been variously misinterpreted. The evidence either does not concern ethical knowledge or its interpretation has been distorted by abstraction of the passage from context or through failure adequately to appreciate the rhetorical dimensions of the context or the author's dramaturgical interests. Still, six sincere Socratic (...) avowals or assumptions of ethical knowledge occur among the early dialogues. Moreover, it is maintained that in a number of these texts Socrates is committed to the epistemological priority of definitional knowledge of excellence for pertinent non-definitional knowledge (for example, that knowledge of the definition of justice is necessary for knowledge of instances of justice). Thus, there are inconsistencies among Socrates' avowals and disavowals of ethical knowledge. It is argued that the most important recent attempts to resolve Socrates' avowals and disavowals of knowledge (for example, Vlastos's) fail. A novel interpretation is then offered that depends upon a fundamental adjustment in the interpretation of Socrates' utterances in the texts. The practice of assembling all of Socrates' topic-relevant utterances, divorced from context, and attempting to distill from these consistent philosophical principles is rejected as naïve. In contrast, it is argued that Plato uses Socrates in various ways in various texts in order to achieve certain pedagogical objectives. Accordingly, Socrates' utterances do not all have the same hermeneutic status. On this depends the correct interpretation of Socrates' occasional avowals of ethical knowledge as well as the general epistemological, specifically ethical epistemological commitments that Plato intended to advance in the early dialogues. The paper concludes with an explanation of the function of Socrates' occasional avowals of ethical knowledge as well as an account of the ethical epistemological commitments that Plato intended to advance among the early dialogues. (shrink)