Plato: Definition

Plato’s invention of the metaphor of carving the world by the joints (Phaedrus 265d-66c) gives him a privileged place in the history of natural kind theory in philosophy and science; he is often understood to present a paradigmatic but antiquated view of natural kinds as possessing eternal, immutable, necessary essences. Yet, I highlight that, as a point of distinction from contemporary views about natural kinds, Plato subscribes to an intelligent-design, teleological framework, in which the natural world is the product of (...) craft and, as a result, is structured such that it is good for it to be that way. In Plato’s Philebus, the character Socrates introduces a method of inquiry whose articulation of natural kinds enables it to confer expert knowledge, such as literacy. My paper contributes to an understanding of Plato’s view of natural kinds by interpreting this method in light of Plato’s teleological conception of nature. I argue that a human inquirer who uses the method identifies kinds with relational essences within a system causally related to the production of some unique craft-object, such as writing. As a result, I recast Plato’s place in the history of philosophy, including Plato’s view of the relation between the kinds according to the natural and social sciences. Whereas some are inclined to separate natural from social kinds, Plato holds the unique view that all naturalness is a social feature of kinds reflecting the role of intelligent agency. (shrink)

Through detailed analysis of Plato’s Meno, I identify and set general argumentative rules (useful both to scientists and philosophers) concerning how to use definitions. I show how the character Socrates establishes strong requirements for knowledge in general, i.e., that the knowledge of the definition of a thing must be prior to the knowledge of properties or instances of that thing. Socrate’s requirements and the way he characterizes a definition (as coextensive to the definiendum, not circular, true and explanatorily relevant) lead (...) Meno to aporia and to enunciate the famous Meno’s Paradox concerning the impossibility of inquiry for knowledge. That only occurs because Meno is unable to identify Socrate’s dialectical move: strong requirements for knowing a definition, the priority of the knowledge of the definition and the taking of all knowledge to be like the knowledge by acquaintance. After the paradox, Socrate’s proceeds the discussion using hypotheses to map the truth conditions of some theses Meno is inquiring about. I explain what are Meno’s paradox, the socratic definition and the Method of Hypotheses, in a way só as to find in this classical text in the history of philosophy general principles of argumentation that are still usefull today. (shrink)

Plato’s Sophist and Statesman stand out from many other Platonic dialogues by at least two features. First, they do not raise a ti esti question about a single virtue or feature of something, but raise the questions what sophist, statesman, and philosopher are, how they differ from each other, and what worth each should be accorded. Second, a visitor from Elea, rather than Socrates, seeks to addressed these questions and does so by employing what is commonly referred to as the (...) method of collection and division. Some scholars have argued that this so-called method is value neutral and therefore unable to address the question how philosophy differs from sophistry and statesmanship according to worth. This article contends that the procedures of collection and division does not preclude the visitor from taking considerations of worth into account, but rather helps establish an objective basis for settling the main questions of the dialogue. (shrink)

This chapter [of the edited volume, A Companion to Ancient Philosophy] examines the shift in Plato’s account of the eidē or ‘forms’ from the Republic to the Parmenides. Forms in the Republic are characterized in terms of perfection, purity, and changelessness, with the form being an ultimate explanatory principle for being-X. Participants, while being-X, are also capable of not-being-X, either through qualitative change and coming-to-be, or through external changes in perspective or opinion, by which they “appear [φανήσεται]” not-X (R. V.479a7). (...) The form is treated as prior to participant and as prior to mixture with what would deny what it is. It is intrinsically changeless and not subject to changes in appearance. -/- In the Parmenides, the account of form shifts to accommodate the types of admixture demanded for combination with and division from other forms. In the Fifth Hypothesis, forms are subject to determinate “bonds of being and not-being,” which permits the form to present itself as an object of discursive knowing, being-X, -Y, and -Z, and not-being not-X, not-Y, and not-Z. Forms are still treated as pure and perfect, but now with the power of gathering together intelligible bonds of being and not-being. Thus, in the Parmenides, forms are the gathering source and the gathered terms subject to the admixture; they are that by which true speech is explained. In this chapter, I argue that the “turning of the soul from becoming to truth and being” (R. VII.525c) announced in the Republic is partially fulfilled through the account of veridical speech in the Parmenides. (shrink)

This paper examines whether Socrates provides his interlocutors with good reasons to seek knowledge of what virtue is, reasons that they are in a position to appreciate. I argue that in the Laches he does provide such reasons, but they are not the reasons that are most commonly identified as Socratic. Socrates thinks his interlocutors should be motivated not by the idea that virtue is knowledge nor by the idea that knowledge is good for its own sake, but rather by (...) the idea that knowledge is needed to recognize what to aim at. His argument reaches the potentially life-altering conclusion that we should all seek knowledge of what virtue is. It is powerful precisely because it relies on uncontroversial premises that his interlocutors could be expected to accept. In laying out this argument, I distinguish different ways in which someone could count as a teacher of virtue. At the end of the article, I situate the argument within the debate about whether virtue is teachable. (shrink)

I argue that Meno’s Paradox targets the type of knowledge that Socrates has been looking for earlier in the dialogue: knowledge grounded in explanatory definitions. Socrates places strict requirements on definitions and thinks we need these definitions to acquire knowledge. Meno’s challenge uses Socrates’ constraints to argue that we can neither propose definitions nor recognize them. To understand Socrates’ response to the challenge, we need to view Meno’s challenge and Socrates’ response as part of a larger disagreement about the value (...) of inquiry. (shrink)

It is argued that the analysis by which the gene are differentiated in the dialogue is an exercise in studied ambiguities informed by an Eleatic logic of strict dichotomy that was the underpinning of the Sophist's method of division. By this dialectical drill, Plato shows that the metaphysics underlying the Visitor's method fails to adequately distinguish what it means to have a character from what it means to be a character, and therefore remains inadequate to track down the sophist or (...) to distinguish him from the philosopher: Eleaticism, as critically examined by Plato, proves to be means to disguise, not to discover the sophist. (shrink)

This work articulates two thesis: one Socratic and one Platonic; and displays how the first one is heir of the second. The Socratic one is called the principle of priority of definition; the Platonic one is the Recollection theory. The articulation between both theses is possible due to the Meno’s paradox, which makes a criticism on the first thesis, but it is solved with the second one. The consequence of this articulation is a new interpretation of the Recollection theory, as (...) a theory of knowledge acquisition that depends, mainly, on a distinction between knowledge and true opinion. To conclude, a new interpretation of the knowledge/true opinion distinction is displayed –not in the traditional fashion, evaluating the propositions one by one, and in an atomic way–, but as big blocks or chains of propositions shaping knowledge through explanatory reasoning (aitías logismós). (shrink)

This work articulates two thesis: one Socratic and one Platonic; and displays how the first one is heir of the second. The Socratic one is called the principle of priority of definition; the Platonic one is the Recollection theory. The articulation between both theses is possible due to the Meno’s paradox, which makes a criticism on the first thesis, but it is solved with the second one. The consequence of this articulation is a new interpretation of the Recollection theory, as (...) a theory of knowledge acquisition that depends, mainly, on a distinction between knowledge and true opinion. To conclude, a new interpretation of the knowledge/true opinion distinction is displayed –not in the traditional fashion, evaluating the propositions one by one, and in an atomic way–, but as big blocks or chains of propositions shaping knowledge through explanatory reasoning (aitías logismós). (shrink)

In this paper I argue, controversially, that Plato's Meno anticipates Wittgenstein's critique of essentialism. Plato is usually read as an essentialist of the very kind that Wittgenstein was challenging, and the Meno in particular is usually taken as evidence that Plato thought that to know something you must be able to define it, and that if you can't define it you can't investigate any other questions on the topic. I suggest instead that Plato shows Socrates proposing such a position (much (...) as Wittgenstein's imaginary interlocutor might do), only to have it knocked down by what happens in the dialogue. Plato shows that one knows a concept when one can apply it in practice, or, for virtue, when one typically chooses to act in certain ways, passes certain judgements and so on. It turns out, then, that one who claims to "know what virtue is" need not give necessary and sufficient conditions for it. (shrink)

Abstract The main thesis of the paper is that, in the coda to the Protagoras (360e-end), Plato tells us why and with what justification he demands a definition of virtue: namely, in order to resolve a particular aporia . According to Plato's assessment of the outcome of the arguments of the dialogue, the principal question, whether or not virtue can be taught , has, by the end of the dialogue, emerged as articulating an aporia , in that both protagonists, Socrates (...) and Protagoras, have argued equally on both its sides. The first part of the paper provides an extensive analysis of the coda, with the aim of establishing the main thesis. The second part provides a comprehensive review of the arguments in the dialogue, with the aim of determining whether their outcome is what Plato says in the coda that it is. I undertake this review in three steps: on Plato's conception of reasons (logoi); Socrates' arguing on both sides; and Protagoras' arguing on both sides. (shrink)

There are grounds for taking Plato's agenda of searching for definitions to be ironic, and he points toward good arguments for being wary of trust in definitions.

According to David Charles, in the Meno Socrates fleetingly distinguishes the signification from the essence question, but, in the end, he conflates them. Doing so, Charles thinks, both leads to Meno's paradox and prevents Socrates from answering it satisfactorily. I argue that Socrates doesn't conflate the two questions, and that his reply to Meno's paradox is more satisfactory than Charles allows.

This paper argues that Socrates’ second definition of figure in Plato’s Meno (76a5–7) is deliberately insufficient: It states only a necessary condition for something’s being a figure, not a condition that is necessary as well as sufficient. For although it is true that every figure (in plane geometry) is (or corresponds to) a limit of a solid, not every limit of solid is a figure, i.e. not if the solid has a curved surface. It is argued that this mistake is (...) one Meno was meant to detect, since one of the three concepts he has been asked to agree to beforehand (75e1–76a3), namely the concept ‘plane’, has not been used in the definition. If this concept is put to work, we get a proper definition of figure, i. e. figure is the plane limit of a solid. Meno’s failure shows that he did not grasp the import of Socrates’ first definition of figure (at 75b9–1), and hence not what this example was meant to show him on a definition generally. Socrates’ first account of figure did indeed state a proper definition of figure, taking the definiens to be a necessary as well as a sufficient condition for the definiendum, as shown by the two words standing in for quantifiers, ‘only’ and ‘always’. Some general lessons about the importance of the dramatic elements in a Platonic dialogue are drawn from this interpretation. (shrink)

Different reasons give rise to the question, what philosophy really is, and by tradition we know many answers. Plato’s answer can be found by examining his explicit statements about philosophy in his dialogues, or by analyzing his representation of Socrates – philosophy become fl esh. But an other way to fi nd an answer to the question lies in examining the things which – according to Plato – we cannot do without. There are three of them, namely the idea, logos (...) and aporia. These three taken together – the insight that we orient ourselves according to some unity in our different fi elds of life; that we cannot dismiss dialogue and debate; and questions outlive answers – paint a picture of philosophy as «unbehauptendes Denken»1 [undogmatic thought]. Such «unbehauptendes Denken» does not aim to insist on new claims against old ones, but instead seeks to analyze and to refl ect upon old views. (shrink)

In this paper, I make a case for interpreting the Lysis as a dialogue of definition, designed to answer the question of “What is a friend?” The main innovation of my interpretation is the contention – and this is argued for in the paper – that Socrates hints towards a definition of being a friend that applies equally to mutual friendship and one-way attraction – the two kinds of friend relation very clearly identified by Socrates in the dialogue. The key (...) to understanding how the two different kinds of friendship can have a common definition is to appreciate that the property of being a friend has a relational character. (shrink)

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

Since Peter Geach coined the phrase in 1966 there has been much discussion among scholars of the "Socratic fallacy." No consensus presently exists on whether Socrates commits the "Socratic fallacy"; almost all scholars agree, however, that the "Socratic fallacy" is a bad thing and that Socrates has good reason to avoid it. I think that this consensus of scholars is mistaken. I think that what Geach has labeled a fallacy is no fallacy at all, but a perfectly innocent consequence of (...) Platonic epistemology. The "Socratic fallacy" arises from the "Priority of Definition" principle (PD). Plato is committed to (PD) in the "Meno." The "Meno" also contains a famous discussion of the difference between episteme and doxa (97a ff.). If we understand what Plato meant by episteme we can see that he must be committed to (PD); but we can also see that (PD) has none of the harmful consequences Geach attributes to it. Geach's view is indebted to Wittgenstein's philosophy of language. (PD) is implausible on this reading of the verb "to know," but not on Plato's. Plato claims that a demand for an explanation is appropriate wherever a claim to knowledge is made. Plato links the concept of episteme explicitly with the concept of logos; the connection between the terms may have been analytic. It does not follow from the Platonic conception of knowledge, as Geach argues, that it is "no use" using examples to establish general definitions. All that follows is that one cannot know that an alleged example of a term T is a genuine example until one has a general account of what it is to be T. Without the stronger conclusion, Geach cannot establish that the "Socratic fallacy" is a fallacy. (shrink)

In Plato’s early dialogues, Socrates frequently asks questions of the form “What is X?” seeking definitions of the substitution instances of X (e.g., Justice, Piety, and Courage). In attempting to elucidate Socratic definition, a number of interpreters have invoked a distinction between real and nominal definition (the distinction between the definition of a thing and the definition of a word. In using that distinction, several interpreters have pointed out that, when Socrates asked his “What is X” question (e.g., “What is (...) Justice?”), he was not seeking a nominal definition (a definition of the word ‘διχαιοσύνή’), but rather a real definition (a definition of the thing, Justice). My purpose in this paper is to argue that the preceding interpretation of Socratic thought is mistaken, i.e., I shall argue that there is no real/nominal distinction to be found in the Socratic dialogues. (shrink)