Recent research on “psychotherapy” in Greek philosophy has not been fully integrated into thinking about philosophy as a way of life molded by personal relationships. This article focuses on how the enigma of Socratic eros sustains a network of thought experiments in the fourth century BCE about interpersonal dynamics and psychical transformation. It supplements existing work on Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus with comparative material from Aeschines of Sphettus, Xenophon, and the dubiously Platonic Alcibiades I and Theages. In order to select (...) and illuminate commonalities among all of these, it also draws critically upon Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic technique and his numerous comparisons between Socrates and psychoanalysts. What emerges is a more complex and qualified but no less sincere appreciation for the ideal of reflective, cooperative aspiration toward Beauty portrayed in Plato's dialogues. (shrink)

The following article provides an interpretation of the structure of courage in Plato’s Laches, Meno and Protagoras. I argue that these dialogues present courage (ἀνδρεία) in the soul according to the same scheme: that there is a normatively neutral psychic state which is informed by the knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge (ἐπιστήμη) which informs this normatively neutral psychic state is called practical wisdom (which Plato refers to as φρόνησις or sometimes σοφία). This interpretation seems to negate the claim (...) that virtue is knowledge. I will show, however, that this is not a contradiction and that virtue is in fact knowledge, despite the complex moral psychology of courage. Finally, I will argue that the conception of courage in the Republic addresses some of the problems posed by the discussion of courage in the above-mentioned dialogues. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on the problem of accounting for apparent inconsistencies between Plato’s early and middle works. Developmentalism seeks to account for these variances by differentiating a Socratic philosophy in the early dialogues from a Platonic philosophy in the middle. In opposition to this position, I propose an alternative explanation: differences between these two groups are due to Plato’s depiction and use of middle period epistemology. I argue that, in the early dialogues, Plato depicts Socrates’ use of the (...) “summoners” described in Book 7 of the Republic, and that Plato uses Socrates’ failed attempts to summon interlocutors for the purpose of summoning readers. In conclusion, I suggest that the hypothesis that Plato uses summoners provides a framework for addressing the wider problem of inconsistencies within the Platonic corpus. (shrink)

Plato’s nephew Speusippus has been widely accepted as the historical person behind the mask of the anti-hedonists in Phlb. 42b–44c. This hypothesis is supported by, inter alia, the link between Socrates’ char- acterization of them as δυσχερεῖς and the frequent references of δυσχέρεια as ἀπορία to Speusippus in Aristotle’s Metaphysics MN. This study argues against assigning any privileged status to Speusippus in the assimilation of δυσχέρεια with ἀπορία. Instead, based on a comprehensive survey of how δυσχερ- words were used in (...) classical antiquity, the semantic shift of δυσχέρεια can be explained in an alternative way. (shrink)

As traditionally interpreted, Socrates in Plato's early dialogues believes virtue is practical wisdom, valuable primarily as a means to happiness, but he has little or nothing to say about what constitutes happiness. I defend a novel interpretation on which Socrates believes happiness consists in being virtuous and virtue is philosophical knowledge. My interpretation makes better sense of all of Socrates' claims. ;Chapter I introduces the exegetic problem and summarizes my solution. Chapter II shows that virtue in Plato's Euthydemus is knowledge (...) of good and bad. It also shows that the value Socrates attributes to it there is instrumental. However, though Socrates does argue that virtue is necessary for happiness, he does not consider it instrumentally sufficient for happiness. ;In the Apology and Crito, however, Socrates claims that virtue is sufficient for happiness and that it cannot be taken away, as Chapter III shows. I argue that the sufficiency-claim comes from Socrates' belief that virtue's intrinsic value makes its possessor happy, supporting this with other evidence from the Apology and Crito. Based on this evidence, I conclude that virtue is for Socrates the sole intrinsic good. ;Chapter IV shows that Socrates thinks he possesses knowledge of good and bad. Socrates expresses a paramount desire to philosophize, even after death if possible; he must therefore expect that philosophizing will yield further results. Given that virtue is Socrates' sole ultimate end, I conclude that virtue in Plato's early dialogues consists in philosophical knowledge, including but not limited to knowledge of good and bad. ;Chapter V shows that Socrates' belief in the invulnerability of the virtuous cannot be fully explained unless he believes that death cannot take away one's knowledge. I show that Socrates' claims about death in the Apology and Crito uphold this interpretation. I also show how my interpretation of Socrates' views about death can be used to corroborate Chapter III's main conclusion. ;Tying together Socrates' views on virtue, death, and philosophy, Chapter VI explains Socrates' belief that injuring others injures the agent: By diminishing one's pool of potential interlocutors, injuring others fails to maximize one's philosophical knowledge. (shrink)

Early educators are in a bind. Teacher education programs are calling on them more and more to help students practice critical thinking and develop intellectual character ; yet school funding depends on meeting Common Core standards, which do not explicitly assess critical thinking until the high-school level. Add to that an over-engineered content curriculum, and thinking becomes a luxury that is quickly lost amid more immediate concerns. As a result, we are raising a generation of “excellent sheep” who flourish amid (...) standardized tests but are increasingly unable to think for themselves. The problem, we suggest, is that today’s teachers are in such a rush to give students the answers that they are not allowing them time to ask the questions. As a result, students cannot find the “deep structure” of issues. Bodies of knowledge thus strike them as disconnected facts, quickly forgotten. The solution, as suggested by recent work in cognitive science, is to teach critical thinking through teaching content. In what follows, we propose a way of organically integrating content and thinking through games, story books and art. With this, we put children into the driver’s seat, encouraging them to ask their own questions, to propose their own answers and to join their peers in joint inquiry through dialogue. In a word, we propose teaching children philosophy as early as possible. Tom Wartenberg has made considerable progress with his picture-book philosophy curriculum designed for elementary schools. But what of younger children? Combining the resources of Rollins College’s Philosophy Department and Child Development and Student Research Center, we set out to find “how low can we go?” Over four terms’ of trial and error, we have adapted and distilled Wartenberg’s methods into a model that works for the Center’s 4-year-olds, and we have tested this model on a larger scale through a one-term collaboration with the Winter Park Day Nursery. (shrink)