The Reciprocity Argument and the Structure of Plato's Phaedo (original) (raw)
1977, Journal of the History of Philosophy
THERE IS A CURIOUS AMBIGUITY in the attitude generally taken toward the Phaedo. While it remains one of Plato's most popular dialogues, its ostensible theme-the arguments for the immortality of the soul-is given relatively little serious attention. It is often held that they are not only invalid if taken at face value, but were recognized as such by Plato, ~ for he makes Socrates call attention to the inconclusiveness, or need for more thorough examination, of all of them? No doubt it is largely as a result of this belief that we are often urged to turn our attention from the logic of the arguments to the example of Socrates and his unshakable courage in the face of death. When serious attention is paid to the reasonings of the dialogue, it is generally with reference not to the doctrine of immortality but to the epistemological discussions that support it. The question naturally arises why Plato would bother knowingly to propound inconclusive or invalid arguments, and in answer it is usually suggested that he is aiming to produce "a series of 'aggressions' to the solution" of thc problem? demonstrating a certain probability or clarifying the issues involved. Yet it is left vague how this is accomplished in particular cases 4 or, more importantly, how Plato can have hoped to accomplish such goals by means of invalid arguments. If Plato recognized the first three arguments to be invalid, or at least inconclusive, it is worth asking whether their value is merely to serve as stepping stones to the final argument, or whether they contain intrinsic merit as well. And if one believes that Plato regarded even the final proof as fallacious or inconclusive, the discovery of intrinsic merit in such arguments becomes the only alternative to seeing them as pointless. In what follows, I shall try to show that the first argument, which is most widely regarded as fallacious or inadequate in Plato's own eyes, not only serves as an
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Self-refutation arguments in Plato’s Sophist
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This paper offers a detailed reconstruction of the so-called Self-Refutation Argument against Protagoras' "Measure Doctrine" (MD) for which "every appearance is true" (Theaet. 169e8-171c7): the relevant textual and theoretical issues are critically considered such as: whether the argument is meant to refute an "infallibilist" MD (every appearance is true simpliciter) or a relativist MD (every appearance is true for the subject who has it); whether the argument is meant to refute a "qualified" relativism (MD is true) or a global relativism (MD itself is true for those who believe it); whether the argument is generally successful or not, and how its logical, dialectical, rhetorical and phenomenological dimensions are deeply interwoven; which relations connect MD with the epistemological doctrine that knowledge is perception and with the ontological doctrine that "everything is becoming"; how the "broadening" of MD into the thesis that "all beliefs are true" is crucial for the success of the argument; how the many steps of the argument are inferentially related. Theaetetus's first 'baby' is the idea that knowledge is perception (= KP). 1 Socrates congratulates him and suggests that Protagoras said the very same thing but in a different way, as he literally wrote that «man is the measure of all things (of those which are, that they are, of those which are not, that they are not)» 2 , by which he meant roughly that «any given thing is for me the way it appears to me, and for you the way it appears to you» (151e8-152a8) (Measure Doctrine = MD); 3 for example, the same gust of wind will appear (and so be) cold to me and appear (and so be) hot to you (b2-7). Such an assimilation between KP and MD is not an identity, but a strong theoretical connection: it is grounded first on the equivalence between a subject S perceiving something a certain way and something appearing to S a certain way (S's αἴσθησις of F = F's φαίνεσθαι to S); 4 through this equivalence, MD becomes "X is to S the way S perceives it", so perception is always «of what is» and is never false/mistaken, 5 just as knowledge is supposed to be, and indeed as KP makes explicit. Then the Secret Doctrine (= SD) comes into the picture: whilst MD was what the letter of Protagoras's homo-mensura sentence in his Truth purportedly meant in spirit, SD was "secret", so-net of irony or dramatic purpose-it is a doctrine that Socrates suggests Protagoras could have shared or assumed but which he did not share apertis verbis or even "mean", as in a climax from a literal to a more 1 151e1-3: though cautiously proposed (δοκεῖ οὖν μοι… ὥς γε νυνὶ φαίνεται), KP is meant to be a proper definition (οὐκ ἄλλο τί ἐστιν ἐπιστήμη ἢ αἴσθησις)-the smart Theaetetus has been methodologically "trained" by Socrates beforehand about the inadequateness of providing examples or incomplete characterizations-so definiens and definiendum are supposed to be co-extensive: if KP is true, any case of knowledge is a case of perception and the other way round. 2 152a2-4. 3 I take λέγει at 152a6 as meaning "means" rather than "says", as it is an explicitly Socratic interpretation of what Protagoras wrote. 4 Just below (152c1-3) the equivalence between αἴσθησις and φαντασία is explicitly stated, but it is also limited to cases of stricto sensu sensory perception (i.e. of properties like [cold], [warm] and the like). 5 One comes to be perceiving, you come to be perceiving something (160a9-10), perception cannot be objectless.
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The article proposes a new interpretation of the course of the argument in Plato, Phaedr. 259e-274a and suggests that this interpretation can be supported by the realisation that in 273d-274a Plato critically engages with contemporary rhetorical lore on proof as preserved in Rhet. ad Alex. 1428a25-b9.
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