From the Old Academy to Later Neo-Platonism: Studies in the History of Platonic Thought (original) (raw)

2012

Plato is a unique character among the dramatis personae in the history of philosophy. No other thinker arouses so much emotion and dissent among readers and interpreters. Passions are inevitably stirred when one tries to answer a simple question: What does Plato want to say, and what does he actually say? Plato wrote dialogues, which are fine pieces of literature and reasoning but which may always be read and interpreted differently, especially since the speakers often do not commit themselves to any particular philosophical position and the question discussed frequently remains unanswered and sometimes not even explicitly asked. Moreover, it is neither easy to discern Plato’s own position at any given moment in the discussion, nor who is speaking behind his characters. When Socrates is engaged in a dialectical debate of a subject (such as wisdom, courage, love, friendship, temperance, etc.) does he really mean what he says, if one takes into account his undeniably ironic stance? An...

Plato’s Protagoras the Hedonist

Classical Philology, 2016

PlATo's ProTAgorAs The hedonisT josh wilburn i n the final section of Plato's Protagoras, socrates famously invokes a version of hedonism that renders the terms "pleasant" and "good" (along with "painful" and "bad") interchangeable (353c-357e). on the basis of this hedonistic identification of pleasure and the good, socrates confronts, first, the Many's view that knowledge is often "dragged around" by pleasure and other emotional states, and second, Protagoras' claim that courage is "entirely different" from knowledge and the rest of the virtues. socrates' use of hedonism is noteworthy and puzzling: in this critical scene from the Protagoras, he invokes it to defend two philosophical commitments that are evidently important to him, and that Plato takes very seriously-the supremacy of knowledge and the unity of the virtues. Yet socrates relies on hedonism in no other Platonic dialogue, and it seems even to conflict both with the views his character expresses elsewhere, as well as with Plato's own settled philosophical positions. Consequently, the issue of hedonism's precise role in the dialogue has been much discussed by commentators, with the controversy often focused on the question: To whom does the hedonism of the dialogue rightly belong? some interpreters have argued that socrates' endorsement of the view is sincere, and that Plato, at least in the Protagoras, deems it a position worth considering. 1 others have argued that socrates' appeal to hedonism is entirely ad hominem: he invokes it only for the sake of argument, and only because he takes it to be the (perhaps implicit) view of his interlocutors-of the Many (the interpretation most explored and emphasized by commentators), or of Protagoras, or of both. 2

Socrates Autobiography An Epitome of Platonism

In Phaedo 95A4-102A9, we find the famous account by Socrates of his own intellectual history. Our best evidence, including Aristotle's testimony, leads us to suppose that this is Plato's own autobiography on display. It contains, as I shall argue, the most concise and complete statement of the nature of Platonism, both its distinction and separation from the philosophies of Plato's predecessors and the outline of its positive construct. In this autobiography, Socrates rejects the explanations of the natural philosophers given for scientific problems. Instead, he posits separate Forms as the source of true explanation. The naturalism of Plato's predecessors, explicitly here that of Anaxagoras, presumes materialism and mechanism as the matrix for scientific explanation. The positing of the explanatory role of Forms entails the rejection of those presumptions. In addition, these Forms as participatable οὐσίαι can only fulfill their explanatory roles if nominalism is false, that is, if it is false that the only things that exist are unique individuals. So, Plato announces in this passage his rejection of materialism, mechanism, and nominalism. In addition, the focus on Forms as explanatory entities is preceded by the argument that we already know these Forms prior to embodiment. So, the claim of Pre-Socratic skeptics that knowledge of the ultimate explanation of things is not available to us, particularly if these explanations are non-sensible, is rejected, too. Finally, insofar as the Forms fulfill an explanatory role, both the epistemological and ethical relativism of Sophists like Protagoras is rejected. This is owing to the objectivity of Forms as well as their universality. The rejection of materialism, mechanism, nominalism, skepticism, and relativism is the matrix for Plato's positive metaphysical construct. The autobiography 'hypothesizes' Forms as explanations, adding that any hypothesis is provisional until one comes to 'something adequate' (τι ἱκανόν). I argue here, on the basis of an analysis of the meaning of 'hypothesis' in Republic and elsewhere, that what would be 'adequate' cannot be another hypothetical entity, but rather the unhypothetical entity that the Idea of the Good is explicitly said to be and that, as Aristotle tells us, is identical with the One. That which is 'adequate' cannot be anything that is complex, that is, anything that exists and has an οὐσία. That is why the unhypothetical first principle of all must be ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας. Further, the claim that there must be a unique first principle of all reveals a great deal about the entire explanatory framework of Platonism. First, it tells us that no explanation can be ultimate or adequate if it does not end in the adduction of the first principle. Thus, Socrates’ ‘simple hypothesis’ to the effect that something has a property f owing to the causal operation of Fness is, indeed, too simple; it is only provisional. The ‘clever hypothesis’ that adduces relations among Forms to explain the original phenomena must also be provisional. The reason why this is so, I argue, is every Form, regardless of its relations to other Forms, is essentially complex. It is ‘composed’ of its existence and its nature or essence. To claim that x is g because x is g and G always accompanies F may be true, but it leaves entirely unexplained how an eternal and immutable and apparently simple entity can implicate the nature of another entity. For example, participation in a Form of Hot may be provisionally explained by participation in a Form of Fire and an assertion that a Form of Fire and a Form of Hot are necessarily connected. But the putative necessary connectedness of Fire and Hot is problematic, particularly if we insist that Fire itself is not really hot. Without the explanation for this necessary connectedness, there is no adequate explanation for the initial phenomenon. Or, to put it in a slightly different way, without such an explanation, both the simple and the cleverer hypothesis do not really explain anything at all. They are equivalent to maintaining that x is f because just because it is f. Every adequate must conclude with a principle that is self-explanatory, that in which existence and essence are identical. The 'adequate' explanation for all natural phenomena unifies the elements of the matrix of Plato's negative assessment of the natural philosophy of his predecessors. Thus, the unhypothetical first principle of all shows why anti-materialism, anti-mechanism, anti-nominalism, anti-skepticism, and anti-relativism are all necessarily connected. Accordingly, 'Platonism' does not name a smorgasbord of philosophical theories or positions from which one can pick and choose, variously making qualified accommodations for the polar opposite of Platonism, namely, naturalism. The intellectual autobiography in Phaedo is, in short, an epitome of Platonism. All of the dialogues written after this likely early work are attempts to apply the principles of Platonism to the full range of philosophical problems left to Plato by his predecessors and still current in the 4th century. Finally, this dialogue provides good philosophical evidence that Plato thinking is at least well along the trajectory which ends in the doctrine to which Aristotle’s testimony testifies, namely, the identification of the Idea of the Good with the One.

Gail Fine, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Plato . Reviewed by

Philosophy in Review, 2010

Professor Fine's book (hereafter: OHP) is an intelligent contribution to the scores of team-written philosophy handbooks, guides and companions that have appeared in the last two decades. Like many of its closest counterparts-The Cambridge Companion to Plato (1992), The Blackwell Guide to Ancient Philosophy (2003), A Companion to Socrates (2006), The Blackwell Guide to Plato's Republic (2006)-OHP features newlycommissioned work by leading specialists. It comprises 21 essays examining Plato's contributions to each of ethics, metaphysics and epistemology, as well as to topics of more special concern (love, language, politics, art, education). Some essays focus upon particular dialogues (all, appropriately, from the Plato's 'middle' and 'late' periods, as opposed to his 'Socratic' period), while others are concerned with cultural and historical matters, e.g., Malcolm Schofield's, 'Plato in His Time and Place,' and Charles Brittain's account of Platonism as it emerged and developed from the period c. 100-600 AD. Fine includes a comprehensive introduction, an extensive bibliography arranged according to topics and dialogues, indexes locorum and nominum, and a subject index. In addition, each essay includes its proper bibliography.

Introduction to the Study of Plato

Cambridge Companion to Plato, 2022

This chapter offers a guide to reading Plato’s dialogues, including an overview of his corpus. We recommend first considering each dialogue as its own unified work, before considering how it relates to the others. In general, the dialogues explore ideas and arguments, rather than presenting parts of a comprehensive philosophical system that settles on final answers. The arc of a dialogue frequently depends on who the individual interlocutors are. We argue that the traditional division of the corpus (into Socratic, middle, late stages) is useful, regardless of whether it is a chronological division. Our overview of the corpus gives special attention to the Republic, since it interweaves so many of his key ideas, even if nearly all of them receive longer treatments in other dialogues. Although Plato recognized the limits inherent in written (as opposed to spoken) philosophy, he devoted his life to producing these works, which are clearly meant to help us seek the deepest truths. Little can be learned from reports of Plato’s oral teaching or the letters attributed to him. Understanding the dialogues on their own terms is what offers the greatest reward.

Socrates and Hedonism:" Protagoras" 351b-358d

Phronesis, 1980

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From the Old Academy to Later Neo-Platonism: Studies in the History of Platonic Thought (original) (raw)

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