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)

Unlike certain commentary traditions of philosophy in which deference to an authoritative author was a central feature, there are within the analytical tradition no recognised authorities to whom the reader is required to defer. This paper takes up the question of whether this anti-authoritarian position in philosophy can be sustained. Three lines of argument are considered. According to the first, there are no credible authorities in philosophy, or, even if there were, these authorities could not be identified by the non-expert (...) reader. According to the second, since no philosopher is infallible, many readers have on many occasions epistemic grounds for non-deference to the author. According to the third, even if some readers have epistemic reason for deference to some authors, an anti-authoritarian stance can be justified in terms of distinctively philosophical values such as conceptual understanding or intellectual autonomy. Although each of these lines of argument contains an element of truth, a sufficient justification for philosophical anti-authoritarianism remains surprisingly elusive. (shrink)

From a detailed overview of Socrates’ exchange with Ion, light is shed on why Socrates’ method of elenchusrequires explicit accounts of concepts at issue. Moreover, Ion’s character is shown to provide an object lesson in the tempting vice of intellectual sycophancy.