RésuméEn expliquant la relation entre hypothèses et images dans l'analogie de la ligne du livre Vl de laRépubliquede Platon, je m'attarde d'abordsur l'élucidation platonicienne de la nature des mathématiques telle que la conçoit le mathématicien lui-même. Je poursuis avec une critique des interprétations traditionnelles de cette relation, qui partent de l'assomption douteuse que les mathématiques s'occupent des Formes platoniciennes. Pour formuler mon point de vue sur cette relation, j'exploite la notion de «structure». Je montre comment les «hypothèses» comme principes de (...) preuve peuvent déterminer les structures des «images» par lesquelles les structures intelligibles correspondantes des objets mathématiques en viennent à être connues. (shrink)

This paper demonstrates the central role of the Socratic elenchus in the Sophist. In the first part, I defend the position that the Stranger describes the Socratic elenchus in the sixth division of the Sophist. In the second part, I show that the Socratic elenchus is actually used when the Stranger scrutinizes the accounts of being put forward by his predecessors. In the final part, I explain the function of the Socratic elenchus in the argument of the dialogue. By contrast (...) with standard scholarly interpretations, this way of reading the text provides all the puzzles about being (241c4–251a4) with a definite function in the dialogue. It also reveals that Plato’s methodology includes a plurality of method and is more continuous than what is often believed. (shrink)

‘The similes of the Sun, Line, and Cave in the Republic remain a reproach to Platonic scholarship because there is no agreement about them, though they are meant to illustrate.’ So wrote A.S. Ferguson in 1934, and so he could write to-day. Four decades have produced at least twenty more substantial contributions to the debate, but no agreement. I shall not attempt to arbitrate between existing interpretations, nor shall I offer an account of the ‘simile of light’ as a whole. (...) I shall confine my attention to a single point: the significance of the shadows in the cave, and of the objects which cast them. The suggestion I shall make seems an obvious one, but I have not found it in the literature. I hope to show at least that it deserves serious consideration. (shrink)

Dialogue theory, although it has ancient roots, was put forward in the 1970s in logic as astructure that can be useful for helping to evaluate argumentation and informal fallacies.Recently, however, it has been taken up as a broader subject of investigation in computerscience. This paper surveys both the historical and philosophical background of dialoguetheory and the latest research initiatives on dialogue theory in computer science. The main components of dialogue theory are briefly explained. Included is a classification of the main (...) types of dialogue that, it is argued, should provide the central focus for studying many important dialogue contexts in specific cases. Following these three surveys, a concluding prediction is made about the direction dialogue theory is likely to take in the next century, especially in relation to the growing field of communication studies. (shrink)

This paper has three dimensions, historical, theoretical and social. The historical dimension is to show how the Ciceronian system of dialectical argumentation served as a precursor to computational models of argumentation schemes such as Araucaria and Carneades. The theoretical dimension is to show concretely how these argumentation schemes reveal the interdependency of rhetoric and logic, and so the interdependency of the normative with the empirical. It does this by identifying points of disagreement in a dialectical format through using argumentation schemes (...) and critical questions. The social dimension is to show how the Ciceronian dialectical viewpoint integrates with the use of computational tools that can be used to support the principle of reason-based deliberation and facilitate deliberative democracy. (shrink)

This paper provides a new interpretation of Plato’s account of justice as psychic health in Republic IV. It argues that what has traditionally been considered to be one single analogy is actually a more complex line of reasoning that contains various medical analogies. These medical analogies are not only different in number but also in kind. I discuss each of them separately, while providing a response to various objections.

In what follows I propose to consider the relevance of Plato's early claim that his Forms are explanatory to the structure of, and several of the main arguments of, the Parmenides. The first section of the paper looks into some implications of separate existence, exploring connections between the criticism of separation and the conception of Forms as explanatory principles. I focus attention on what the Forms do not explain, and suggest that the burden of much of Parmenides’ criticism centers on (...) that question. Part two deals with Plato's evidently changing stance on the issue of explaining the Forms themselves. The third section takes up passages from the Parmenides in support of the view that Plato came to believe that his Forms stood in need of the same sort of explanation as he had originally thought was required for sensory particulars. The discussion is largely exploratory, and the connections adumbrated are intended as guidelines for further investigation. (shrink)

This paper takes a detailed look at the Republic’s Divided Line analogy and considers how we should respond to its most contentious implication: that pistis and dianoia have the same degree of ‘clarity’ (σαφήνεια). It argues that we must take this implication at face value and that doing so allows us to better understand both the analogy and the nature of dianoia.

Recent studies suggest that the form and style of Plato's dialogues have significant associations with their philosophical contents. Few scholars, however, have focused on the role of disagreements in epistemic improvement within the context of Plato's Phaedo. This paper seeks to unearth a ‘theory of disagreement’ underpinning the Phaedo by examining the conversation between Socrates and his interlocutors. In doing so, I will highlight the epistemic importance of recognizing disagreements. It is shown that there is a positive relationship between the (...) correct method of philosophical argument and epistemic modesty, which plays a crucial role in solving disagreements and facilitating epistemic improvement. (shrink)

In his critique of Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, David MacGregor argues that my book trivializes dialectical method. He fails to notice the many nondialectical assumptions that pervade contemporary social theory and practice. Dialectics, as a context‐sensitive methodological orientation, can provide tools for a better grasp of systems and processes in the real world—the goal, as I understand it, of the “post‐libertarian” approach Jeffrey Friedman advocates.

Once upon a time, there were no academic disciplines. There were no definitions, either, at least as we understand them. Plato and Aristotle changed both of those situations in ways that continue to influence Western thought. If Plato's and Xenophon's accounts are to be trusted, Socrates and Prodicus also deserve credit for early efforts to define words, thereby helping to formulate the classic Socratic/Platonic question "What is X?" And here we are, twenty-four hundred years later, still occasionally wrestling with how (...) to describe rhetoric, philosophy, and the relationship between the two.Drawing on my thirty-five years of thinking and writing about the classical and contemporary mediation of philosophy and... (shrink)

This article investigates why Hegel contrasts doubt and ancient scepticism in his 1802 essay, and shows how original this view is. The article shows that this separation rests on ascribing a certainty in the act of negating to the sceptic; this can be seen, first, in Hegel’s interpretation of the relationship between Pyrrhonism and the New Academy and, second, in his reading of Plato’s Parmenides.

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)

In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates offers two speeches, the first portraying madness as mere disease, the second celebrating madness as divine inspiration. Each speech is correct, says Socrates, though neither is complete. The two kinds of madness are like the left and right sides of a living body: no account that focuses on just one half can be adequate. In a recent paper, Hugh Benson gives a left-handed speech about a psychic condition endemic among mathematicians: dianoia. Benson acknowledges that his account (...) is one-sided, but only hints at the virtues of right-handed dianoia. This note sketches a somewhat fuller picture. (shrink)

Dialogue is the basis of philosophy in the Western tradition and has taken many different forms.1 From dialogue based on the dialogus, on dialectics and elenchus (Socrates and Plato), through relig...

There is a problem about belief and knowledge in Plato's epistemology that has exercised serious students of Plato only to settle into a recent orthodoxy. Guthrie characterizes the problem and its current resolution this way: ‘In the Meno doxa appeared to be a dim apprehension of the same objects of which knowledge is a clear and complete understanding … in the Republic each is directed to different objects, knowledge to the Forms and doxa to the sensible world alone … at (...) least the opinion seems now to prevail that on the relationship between doxa and knowledge Meno and Republic are irreconcilable, and exhibit a complete change of mind on Plato's part.'. (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 this paper I wish to examine the meaning of the doctrine of anamnesis, with particular regard to the role assigned in it to sense-experience. I shall argue that an empirical interpretation of the doctrine as it is presented in the Meno is false, and that Plato is not concerned at all in the Meno with the question of the role of sense-experience in recollection; that the doctrine of the Phaedo shows an inadequate appreciation of the problems involved in assigning (...) a role to sense-experience, and is seriously inconsistent with what Plato says elsewhere, in the Phaedo and in other dialogues, about the senses and sensible images; that the revised and more responsible presentation of this doctrine in the Phaedrus is self-contradictory; that misinterpretations of the theory of anamnesis are due principally to either misinterpretation or neglect of what is said about it in the Meno, the custom of taking Phaedo 73 c ff. as specially representative of Plato's doctrine. (shrink)

This paper claims that Socrates’ refutation of Gorgias in the eponymous dialogue is designed not to find out the truth about the nature of the art of rhetoric itself but to refute the master of rhetoric himself. I try to justify this claim by displaying some major contradictions between the conclusions reached at with Gorgias and those reached at with Polus. When these contradictions are taken into account, the discussion with Polus is to be seen as reflecting the genuine Socratic (...) position about rhetoric, whereas the discussion with Gorgias seems only to be devised as a dexterity in refutation. (shrink)

This article considers the function and value of the mythos in Plato's Statesman. As first, I recall the context of the story and its function within the framework of diairetic inquiry about the definition of the real politician. Secondly, I point out that the formulation of the myth is based on a series of traditional stories to which a historical-reconstructive method is applied. I then highlight the ways of reasoning used by the characters in order to reconstruct a rational and (...) plausible account from the mythical tradition. Finally, I try to show that the story, even though it cannot reach the truth of the most stable objects of knowledge, displays a certain degree of plausibility, based on the internal coherence, on the respect of a series of principles admitted as true and, eventually, on its correspondence with the mythical tradition. (shrink)

In Philolaus’ cosmology, the earth revolves around a central fire along with the other heavenly bodies, including a planet called the counter-earth which orbits below the earth. His theory can account for most astronomical phenomena. A common criticism of his theory since ancient times is that his counter-earth does no work in the system. Yet ancient sources say the planet was supposed to account for some lunar eclipses. A reconstruction of Philolaus’ cosmology shows how lunar eclipses occurring at certain times (...) of day cannot be explained by earth blocking the sun’s light. The counter-earth could explain these eclipses. (shrink)

John Mackie famously dismissed the rational tenability of moral objectivism with two quick arguments. The second, the so-called “argument from queerness,” proceeds as follows. A commitment to moral objectivism brings with it a commitment to the existence of moral properties as “queer” as Platonic Forms that are apprehended only through occult faculties like so-called “moral intuition” (Mackie 1977, 38). Since we have no reason to believe that there is any faculty such as moral intuition that serves as a reliable Form (...) detector, we equally have no reason to accept moral objectivism (1977, 23–24, 38–41). Recently, Julia Annas has observed that Mackie has offered us “a coarse and imperceptive interpretation of Plato,” in addition to a mistaken account of the epistemic requirements of moral objectivism (2001, 238). But one might worry that the case Annas makes for the homely nature of Platonic moral knowledge—it’s just like plumbing, only non-optional (2001, 246)—rests, as she admits, on her focus on dialogues like the Laches, in which the analogy between the moral virtues and crafts like flute-playing, shoe-making, and navigating is emphasized (2001, 244). Annas explicitly leaves open the question whether Mackie’s interpretation might capture Plato’s conception of moral knowledge in dialogues like the Republic, in which the analogy between moral and mathematical knowledge is emphasized (2001, 243). Yet it is clear from Mackie’s brief remarks about Plato that he has the Republic primarily in mind (Mackie 1977, 23–24). (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es discutir la interpretación tradicional según la cual los razonamientos de Zenón de Elea en contra de la multiplicidad constituyen una defensa de la tesis monista. Intentaré demostrar que las objeciones zenonianas a la multiplicidad suponen una critica previa a la existencia de "lo uno". Por este motivo, Zenón no es monista ni pluralista, sino, más bien, un crítico de las perspectivas metafísicas que consideran al ser en términos numéricos, i. e. como uno o como (...) múltiple. Para ello me concentraré en el análisis de la interpretación que Aristóteles desarrolla sobre la filosofía de Zenón, considerando algunos pasajes de Física, Refutaciones sofísticas y, fundamentalmente, Metafísica, III. 4. 1001b7-13. También incluiré algunos testimonios del comentario a la Física de Simplicio, en los que se discuten las interpretaciones de Eudemo de Rodas y Alejandro de Afrodisia, que ratifican el punto de vista aristotélico sobre la filosofía de Zenón. The aim of this paper is to discuss the traditional interpretation according to which the arguments of Zeno of Elea against multiplicity constitute a defense of monism. I will try to prove that Zeno's objections on plurality suppose a previous critique to the existence of the one. Therefore Zeno is neither a monist nor a pluralist but a philosopher who criticizes metaphysical theories that consider being in numerical terms, i. e. as many or as one. I will focus on the analysis of the interpretation of Zeno's philosophy developed by Aristotle. I will consider some passages from Physics, Sophistical Refutations and mainly Metaphysics III. 4. 1001b7-13. I will also include some testimonies from Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics, where he discusses the interpretations of Eudemus of Rhodes and Alexander of Aphrodisias that support the Aristotelian point of view on Zeno's philosophy. (shrink)

En este trabajo se discute el método de las hipótesis que Platón emplea en la segunda parte del Parménides, el cual, según se dice en el propio diálogo, es una réplica del empleado por Zenón de Elea. La discusión es especialmente relevante porque la interpretación de la relación entre las hipótesis sobre lo Uno y el método zenoniano determina el modo en que se entiende el diálogo en su conjunto y las pretensiones del autor al redactarlo. Se pretende aquí demostrar (...) la semejanza entre los métodos de ambos filósofos y su utilidad en el filosofar platónico. (shrink)

The opening discussion of the Meno features a halting conversation in which Meno struggles at length to answer Socrates’ question, “What is Virtue?” Whereas Socrates demands a unitary account, presenting Virtue as one, Meno repeatedly speaks of Virtue in plurality. Through the opposing sides of this conflict, Plato highlights impediments that appear to prevent ordinary speakers from inquiring into nature. These include the fallibility of ordinary beliefs and statements, and the inability of ordinary speakers to countenance properties as entities in (...) their own right. In an argument often overlooked by interpreters, Plato reveals commitments implicit in ordinary discourse by which these impediments are overcome. As this argument shows, ordinary speakers such as Meno take their own terms to speak univocally and truly about a plurality of items. This is sufficient basis to proceed in dialectic, and to inquire into nature, through language. (shrink)

I argue that the technique Socrates describes in the Meno at 86e-87c allows him to make progress without definitions, even while accepting that definitions are necessary for knowledge. Some contend that the technique involves provisionally accepting a claim. I argue, instead, that it provides a secure biconditional that one can use to reduce the question one cares care about to a new question that one thinks will be easier to answer.

In contrast to the abundance of discussion of Plato’s portrayal of the Socratic elenchos, relatively little work has been done on the elenchos as it appears in Xenophon. The reason is obvious: Xenophon makes much less use of the elenchus than Plato and what he does offer is not as interesting philosophically. Nevertheless, there are good reasons to look more closely at Xenophon’s portrait. It provides a corrective to the excessively intellectualizing portrait of the elenchus found in Plato’s writings, and (...) exhibits an educational quality that is characteristic of ancient Greek attitudes but not always stressed in treatments of Socrates. In the introduction to Bandini and Dorion 2000-2010, cxviii-clxxxii, Louis-André Dorion offers a probing analysis of the term elenchos as used by Xenophon and a broad survey of the elenchoi in Xenophon’s Socratic writings. Although Xenophon’s Socrates sometimes uses argumentation reminiscent of his Platonic cousin, this is only a minor part of his over-all conversational repertoire. Education is accomplished not by interrogation but by the direct and open communication of doctrine and by the practice of virtue (askēsis: see Mem. i 2.23, ii 1.1). Rather than employing the elenchos, Xenophon’s Socrates generally spends his time offering abundant useful advice to his friends. According to Dorion, Xenophon’s scant use of the elenchos is a result of his deep skepticism about its educational value. As a result of this skepticism, Xenophon creates an alternative portrait of Socrates in which interrogation plays a much smaller role. Dorion is certainly right to note that the elenchos is far less important for Xenophon than for Plato, but his conclusion is somewhat extreme. Although Xenophon does not focus on the Socratic elenchos, he does offer some portraits of it and he does not contest Plato’s fuller portrait of it either. This is because the elenchos does have some value for Xenophon, even if this value differs from what we may assume is its value in the Platonic portrait. As Morrison 1994 has shown, the elenchos serves a valuable role in selecting or preparing students for more substantive lessons. It can also play a valuable role in training for and acting in political affairs. And the elenchos can serve an educational role in another way, by contributing directly to the acquisition of virtue (sophrosune) by the interlocutor. I shall trace these significant roles of the elenchos for Xenophon. (shrink)

For Socrates, the virtues are a kind of knowledge, and the virtues form a unity. Sometimes, Socrates suggests that the virtues are all ‘one and the same’ thing. Other times, he suggests they are ‘parts of a single whole.’ I argue that the ‘what is x?’ question is sophisticated, it gives rise to two distinct kinds of investigations into virtue, a conceptual investigation into the ousia and a psychological investigation into the dunamis, Plato recognized the difference between definitional accounts of (...) the ousia and a psychological accounts of the dunamis, and the distinction between these two investigations can effectively resolve various interpretive puzzles regarding the unity of the virtues. It is argued that the virtues are ‘one and the same’ psychologically, while they are ‘parts of a single whole’ conceptually. (shrink)

This paper considers the use that Plato makes of the Principle of Non-Contradiction in his engagements with eristic refutations. By examining Plato’s use of the principle in his most detailed engagements with eristic—in the Sophist, the discussion of “agonistic” argumentation in the Theaetetus, and especially the Euthydemus—I aim to show that the pressure exerted on Plato by eristic refutations played a crucial role in his development of the PNC, and that the principle provided him with a much more sophisticated means (...) of demarcating philosophical argumentation from eristic than he is generally thought to have. In particular, I argue that Plato’s qualified formulation of the PNC restricts the class of genuine contradictions in such a way that reveals the contradictions that eristics produce through their refutations to be merely apparent and that Plato consistently appeals to his qualified conception of genuine contradiction in his encounters with eristics in order to demonstrate that their refutations are merely apparent. The paper concludes by suggesting that the conception of genuine contradiction afforded by the PNC did not just provide Plato with a way of demarcating genuine from eristic refutations, but also with an answer to substantive philosophical challenges that eristics raised through their refutations. (shrink)

This paper presents a new interpretation of the objects of dianoia in Plato’s divided line, contending that they are mental images of the Forms hypothesized by the dianoetic reasoner. The paper is divided into two parts. A survey of the contemporary debate over the identity of the objects of dianoia yields three criteria a successful interpretation should meet. Then, it is argued that the mental images interpretation, in addition to proving consistent with key passages in the middle books of the (...) Republic, better meets those criteria than do any of the three main positions. (shrink)

I argue against a formidable interpretation of Plato’s Divided Line image according to which dianoetic correctly applies the same method as dialectic. The difference between the dianoetic and dialectic sections of the Line is not methodological, but ontological. I maintain that while this interpretation correctly identifies the mathematical method with dialectic, ( i.e. , the method of philosophy), it incorrectly identifies the mathematical method with dianoetic. Rather, Plato takes dianoetic to be a misapplication of the mathematical method by a subset (...) of practicing mathematicians. Thus, Plato’s critique of dianoetic is a not a critique of mathematics, as such, but of mathematicians. (shrink)

Este trabajo presenta lo que para la mayoría de los intérpretes de Aristóteles, que se ocupan del asunto del método en su obra, constituye el principal problema a resolver. Se trata del problema de determinar la relación existente entre la concepción aristotélica de ciencia demostrativa, consignada en los Analíticos Segundos, y la praxis investigativa de Aristóteles en sus diferentes tratados científicos, una praxis que los intérpretes dan frecuentemente en describir como dialéctica.

John Cook Wilson (1849–1915) was Wykeham Professor of Logic at New College, Oxford and the founder of ‘Oxford Realism’, a philosophical movement that flourished at Oxford during the first decades of the 20th century. Although trained as a classicist and a mathematician, his most important contribution was to the theory of knowledge, where he argued that knowledge is factive and not definable in terms of belief, and he criticized ‘hybrid’ and ‘externalist’ accounts. He also argued for direct realism in perception, (...) criticizing both empiricism and idealism, and argued for a moderate nominalist view of universals as being in rebus and only ‘apprehended’ by their particulars. His influence helped swaying Oxford away from idealism and, through figures such as H. A. Prichard, Gilbert Ryle, or J. L. Austin, his ideas were also to some extent at the origin of ‘moral intuitionism’ and ‘ordinary language philosophy’ which defined much of Oxford philosophy until the second half of the twentieth-century. Nevertheless, his name and legacy were all but forgotten for generations after World War II. Still, his views on knowledge are with us today, being in part at work in the writings of philosophers as diverse as John McDowell, Charles Travis, and Timothy Williamson. (shrink)

This paper deals with the deuteros plous, literally ‘the second voyage’, proverbially ‘the next best way’, discussed in Plato’s Phaedo, the key passage being Phd. 99e4-100a3. I argue that (a) the ‘flight into the logoi’ can have two different interpretations, a standard one and a non-standard one. The issue is whether at 99e-100a Socrates means that both the student of erga and the student of logoi consider images (‘the standard interpretation’), or the student of logoi does not consider images but (...) that “consistency should suffice for truth” (‘the non-standard interpretation’); (b) the non-standard one implies the problem of the hypothesis, a problem analogous to the problem of the elenchus; (c) there is a structural analogy between Descartes’ ontological argument for the existence of God in his 5th Meditation and the final proof for the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo. (shrink)

The Parmenides poses the question for what entities there are Forms, and the criticism of Forms it contains is commonly supposed to document an ontological reorientation in Plato. According to this reading, Forms no longer express the excellence of a given entity and a Socratic, ethical perspective on life, but come to resemble concepts, or what concepts designate, and are meant to explain nature as a whole. Plato’s conception of dialectic, it is further suggested, consequently changes into a value-neutral method (...) directed at tracing the interrelation of such Forms, an outlook supposedly documented in certain passages on method from the Sophist and the Statesman as well. -/- The article urges that this reading is untenable. For in the Parmenides the question for what entities one should posit Forms is left open, and the passages on method from the Sophist and Statesman neither encourage a non-normative ontology nor a value-neutral method of inquiry. What the three dialogues encourage us to do is rather to set common opinions about the relative worth and value of things aside when conducting ontological inquiries; and this attitude, the article concludes, demonstrates a close kinship, rather than a significant difference, between Plato’s Socrates and his Eleatic philosophers. (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)

What is the role of philosophy in education? This timeless question may best be answered by examining Plato's earliest dialogues in which he makes a case for philosophy as the centerpiece of education. I call this effort Plato's project for education and interpret the Apology, Crito, Charmides, Laches, Ion, Hippias Minor, Euthyphro, and Lysis as an integrated attempt to promote philosophy as education in ancient Athens. Plato accepted arete as the proper goal of education, but his interpretation of arete as (...) a distinctly moral quality required a new approach to education. Plato recognized that the quality in a doctor that makes her aim at what is good for her patient is distinct from the skill that enables her to choose the most effective treatment. Against traditional education, which emphasized social standing, professional skill, and the accumulation of information, Plato focused on the moral dimension of human beings and prescribed philosophy as a means for developing it. Memorization of information and tuition in practical skills may help us in our particular crafts, but it does little to improve us morally. This task must be undertaken separately through examination and reflection. Success will be judged not by one's peers, or even by one's government, but by the gods themselves who adhere to a universal idea of goodness. Plato's conception of arete as the health of the soul precipitates a new approach to education that focuses on philosophy and presents Socrates as its hero and martyr. Health of the soul, like health of the body, is something that requires constant labor and attention, and yet may never be perfected. In Plato's project, the ignorant Socrates and the dialogues themselves become indirect teachers by exhorting students to care for their souls and to appreciate the task. The promise that arete can be achieved through the pursuit of moral wisdom is given in the words and actions of Socrates. Like his ancient friends, the reader struggles to understand Socrates and from this struggle emerges philosophy: the love and pursuit of wisdom; the proper education for arete. (shrink)

My dissertation is devoted to an examination of the resolution of fallacy in Plato's Euthydemus. It is a familiar claim that the Euthydemus champions Socratic argumentation over sophistical or eristic reasoning. No consensus however exists regarding either the nature or philosophical significance of Socrates’ treatment of the fallacies he confronts. I argue that a careful reading of the dialogue reveals that the Socratic response to fallacious reasoning is conducted at two different levels of philosophical sophistication. Socrates relies upon the resources (...) of Socratic dialectic in responding to sophisms due to ignorance of refutation. Insofar as Socratic dialectic is grounded in a grasp of the nature of genuine refutation, the objections it raises to false refutation are fully explanatory. On the other hand, Socrates employs various self-refutation arguments against theses which depend on false assumptions regarding the nature of predication---for example, the thesis that false speaking is impossible. It is however characteristic of Socratic dialectic that this method of examination cannot explain why the sophists’ theses are false. The Socratic response to fallacy in these cases is non-explanatory in this sense. On the other hand, these limitations on Socratic expertise are overcome in other passages in the dialogue which are replete with clues to the reader that point to a genuine explanation and resolution of the sophists’ arguments for their various theses. In particular, the reader is invited at every turn to modify, clarify, or reject various assumptions made by the brothers regarding the nature of predication. Here Plato implicitly relies on the results of what I call higher dialectic. This theory, which receives explicit formulation in the Sophist, is conceptually rich enough to expose and dispose of the various false assumptions upon which the sophists’ theses rest. I conclude that the Euthydemus is concerned to identify Socratic dialectic as only a part of philosophy, and to locate and strictly delimit its epistemological status as lying above eristic and the rhetorical arts, but below that of dialectic as that is conceived in the Republic and even later dialogues---thus anticipating the Sophist’s conception of Socrates as the practitioner of a ‘noble sophistry’, and the elenchus as a propaedeutic to philosophy, which purges the soul of false beliefs. (shrink)