More than a Reductio: Plato's Method in the Parmenides and Lysis

Études Platoniciennes 15 (2019)
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Abstract

Plato’s Parmenides and Lysis have a surprising amount in common from a methodological standpoint. Both systematically employ a method that I call ‘exploring both sides’, a philosophical method for encouraging further inquiry and comprehensively understanding the truth. Both have also been held in suspicion by interpreters for containing what looks uncomfortably similar to sophistic methodology. I argue that the methodological connections across these and other dialogues relieve those suspicions and push back against a standard developmentalist story about Plato’s method. This allows for a better understanding of why exploring both sides is explicitly recommended in the Parmenides and its role within Plato’s broader methodological repertoire.

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Evan Rodriguez
Idaho State University

Citations of this work

Seeing Double.Jens Kristian Larsen - 2021 - Plato Journal 22.

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